A Christian Viewpoint

Misnomers… the bane of the debater.

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Where faith ends, speculation begins and its child is called presumption.
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Are there really that many in the body of Christ? Are all Roman Catholics part of the body of Christ? Are all Protestants? When a truth comes forward does labeling it make a new body part? In both there is a remnant (large? small?) who belong to God and the rest are ???? Labels are interesting but they do not define the body of Christ. They do, however, define the clubs.
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Many, many years ago I went to church with my wife. We sat in the middle of the sanctuary. I was tired but determined to partake of the meeting. The singing came and went. The announcements came and went. Then the pastor arose and began his sermon. After about ten minutes I heard the sound of someone lightly snoring. Ha, someone is tired I thought. In time the snoring became louder and louder still. I thought someone should give the guy a shake. Still the snoring got louder. I could see the pastor was getting annoyed. People were beginning to grumble. I thought someone should give this person a sharp elbow. Just then my wife elbowed me in the ribs. Suddenly there was a deep silence. The pastor continued and a good time was had by all.
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Billions of years or thousands of years? Doesn’t matter for me, I can take either date and my faith remains the same. Whether there was a process of evolution or not before 6,000 years ago… does not matter. What does matter is that Adam was the first man and Eve was his wife, taken from his side. That Adam fell and that the Second Adam came to redeem those sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. All life currently on this planet is from that time. All life before that time, if there was life, is nonsequitur to our own genesis timeline. I certainly enjoy the discoveries but I do not necessarily accept their conclusions. When you get down to it, that man (or life)evolved over a long period of time and that timeline is our own, is a faith statement. This is not a contradiction of science but a different view of the “facts”.
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From my understanding…

When you receive the seal of the Spirit you are baptized into the body of Christ. As happened when Jesus breathed on the disciples in the upper room the Sunday evening after his resurrection. Being filled is the Pentecost anointing and can also be called the baptism of fire or being baptized with the Spirit. The first example is for salvation. The second is for power to walk and minister in the truth.

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After her period of cleansing I believe Mary did perform all the duties of a wife. That she also had other children by Joseph. Others believe the opposite. Both rest on scripture. Thankfully our salvation is not dependant on the status of Mary’s virginity after the birth of Jesus. Of course there may be some who would argue that point as well.

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1 Corinthians 14:22-25

Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers. So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his hear will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”

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Go to 1 Cor 14:21 In the context of it being a sign to the unbelieving Jew.

See Isaiah 28.11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. 12To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. 13But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

The unbelieving Jew will never understand the rest, the refreshing. They will only hear the law.

Yet go beyond the sign and what follows in 1 Cor 14:23 onward talks of the church service. In another place he said tongues are ok if their is interpretation of the tongue. Add to this a praise language in tongues for the individual and you can see that there are many aspects to the question of tongues and usage.
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Saviour: many will accept the free gift and not the responsibility to obey.
Lord: many will accept the responsibility to obey but have a hard time accepting the gift.

Yet he is Saviour. He is Lord.

All that is required is that we walk (in, with, by) the Spirit. However imperfectly the walk… the walking alone is beneficial and will bring life and in time life abundantly. Now if we can just get it through our heads and into our spirits that it is really good to do it. Things would improve very quickly.

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The church is being challenged with …ism’s. The teachings of the bible do not need to be updated for today’s world. We should teach and preach the word as it is and let the Spirit of God bring about the kingdom of God in the heart of the believer. Our minds should be conformed to the word by renewing… not changing one’s mind because of …19th, 20th and 21st century enlightenment. Use a better translation of the bible by all means but not a politically correct bible. There is a sharp difference between the world and the kingdom. When we confuse, mixed, brew the two together we will become like the children of Israel who made an idol and got up to play.

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