Israel
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I seriously love that question. I hope you do, too.
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Bart Ehrman article
- Thread starter bullethead
- Start date
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
Try answering it
Israel
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Hey, I see you edited to include another question...and it is another lovely one...O! the riches of the wisdom of God!
Spotlite
Resident Homesteader
Oh sorry, I thought I edited in time before you quoted it.
gemcgrew
Senior Member
John 20 is a great example. Where do you see freedom of choice there?
Spotlite
Resident Homesteader
Verses 29 - 31 in particular. Thomas believed because he saw..... blessed are those will believe by faith.
But it goes on to say things are written that you “might believe”
I know the “we are chosen”......and I know the “I stand at the door and knock”
I don’t see a contradiction, although I see the I may be a chosen people, I also see the “Gentleman” nature of it not being forced on you.
“Might believe” tells me you have a choice?
What’s the purpose of faith if there’s no choice?
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
What is the point of telling people to go out and preach to others about Jesus if it is already in stone those others were designed to never believe? Why command to convert the unconvertable? For those that do switch, they were already programmed to be on the team anyway so did they really switch?
Aren't the non believers doing exactly what they have been programmed to do?
Cherry picking verses makes it all so clear while entirety is full of contradictions.
Aren't the non believers doing exactly what they have been programmed to do?
Cherry picking verses makes it all so clear while entirety is full of contradictions.
Spotlite
Resident Homesteader
BINGO.....
That and what’s the point of “forsake not the assembling of yourselves together” (church service) Why “continue”, why strive?
Why not just go fishing?
Israel
BANNED
Nevertheless, at thy word...
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
I think this is what happens when one story written by one author is compared to many stories written by many authors over many decades at the shortest and thousands of years as a whole.
And why none of it is god-like to me.
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
Thy word is contradictory so one must pick and choose whichever word they want to follow and disregard thy word they don't.
Which words supersede the other when each are saying something different about the same thing?
Spotlite
Resident Homesteader
I can certainly understand that view.
Israel
BANNED
I've yet to find any (even seeming) contradiction of:
New International Version
He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
New Living Translation
And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.
English Standard Version
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
Berean Study Bible
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Berean Literal Bible
And He said to them, "Having gone into all the world, proclaim the gospel to all the creation.
King James Bible
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
New King James Version
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
New American Standard Bible
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
NASB 1995
And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
NASB 1977
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
Amplified Bible
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
Christian Standard Bible
Then he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Then He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
American Standard Version
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And he said to them, “Go to the entire world and preach my Good News in all creation.”
Contemporary English Version
Then he told them: Go and preach the good news to everyone in the world.
Douay-Rheims Bible
And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
English Revised Version
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
Good News Translation
He said to them, "Go throughout the whole world and preach the gospel to all people.
GOD'S WORD® Translation
Then Jesus said to them, "So wherever you go in the world, tell everyone the Good News.
International Standard Version
Then he told them, "As you go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to everyone.
Literal Standard Version
and He said to them, “Having gone into all the world, proclaim the good news to all the creation;
NET Bible
He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
New Heart English Bible
And he said to them, "Go into all the world, and proclaim the Good News to the whole creation.
Weymouth New Testament
Then He said to them, "Go the whole world over, and proclaim the Good News to all mankind.
World English Bible
He said to them, "Go into all the world, and preach the Good News to the whole creation.
Young's Literal Translation
and he said to them, 'Having gone to all the world, proclaim the good news to all the creation;
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
Like I said Izzy, when someone chooses to zoom in on one verse (cherry pick) that person can make it seem like the Bible says thy one word only. Step back and include Thy ALL words and you have contradictions.
Predeterminism vs Free Will
Check out those verses
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bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
100 verses for Free Will:
https://www.openbible.info/topics/free_will
100 verses for Predestination:
https://www.openbible.info/topics/predestination
https://www.openbible.info/topics/free_will
100 verses for Predestination:
https://www.openbible.info/topics/predestination
Spotlite
Resident Homesteader
Somewhere in the middle of that is where I’m landing with my thoughts - with the caveat I can accept being wrong.
You have enough scriptures to support both Free Will and Predestination. There’s also enough to support walking away. But where I’m at is open to the reality that we as mankind, a generation, and even as individuals were predestined to serve God, but we have the choice to turn it down because “whosever will”. And, if that’s what @gemcgrew meant he said we don’t get to choose what we believe because of the pressure on our minds....
That’s what I was wanting to know. Because to me that’s not removing my choice, it’s my allowing an influence to weigh heavily on my choice.
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
I understand that but for every middle of road person like yourself you have a hard core Predestination and a hard core Free Will person plus a "religious politician" who avoids answering questions directly while supporting both sides equally contradicting themselves in doing so.
Israel
BANNED
Where it is only at best inferred by man that man is free in anything (which would certainly include his will most of all) Jesus is not unclear at all that souls in bondage are completely so, and that He Himself (through continuance in His word from which He is not separate) is the only way to freedom.
And so it is not without noting that this truth is as offensive to some believers today....even as in the day He first spoke it to some "believing Jews" that He is, and remains to the exclusion of all else, the only way to be free. Suddenly they were offended, taking a stand upon their lineage, their history, and matters they thought they shared in common with Abraham. But this winnowing out of histories, kinships of the flesh, all natural matters to which a man might hold for the establishing of himself...mean nothing. And yet not merely nothing...but real hindrances to any knowing of God.
Yet, they will be discarded as nothing, as mere rubbish, d*ng...when they are recognized as the obstacles they are.
But my stand is not upon predestination nor election nor any of those things, nor is my call to it though it is plainly stated, but to the Christ of God in whom, and by whom, God has chosen to make Himself known to man. That very Christ who has said both "you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you..." and "have I not chosen you, the 12, and yet one of you is a Devil?" Being ordained and predestined is along His way revealed, but the call is never away to the mere knowing of things...but He, Himself.
He is the elect One of God to that. Make no mistake that I am as common as all men, seeking to find some delight in my choices, and such choices that I have framed then as superior, seeking to take to myself such superiority. How common a man I am. But when the matter of choice is too pressed upon me, in matter of life and death (and beyond) and the dread of making the "wrong one" becomes all too plain in its terrors, it is only there my previous delights found in "my choosing" are revealed as the trap I have laid for my own soul. I suckered and merely succored...my own self's soul.
Only there can relief be found in Christ as the One not of my choosing nor deciding as who He is. Yes, only there am I made very glad such has been entirely decided well before I knew of hands into which I might take anything...and now made plain all is, and has been already quite "out of my hands" as ever it was. The preeminence of Christ in all matters may remain questionable to me in some matters (as I am allowed question...even encouraged to it...ask, seek, knock) but this is not to indulge me...but that all asking might lead to what already is, and is established.
And such right of being encouraged, comforted, allowed...which so thoroughly eclipses fears and torments was secured, is secured only by One, not myself. Do not think that to myself this question is strange as though never entertained, "But when do I get mine...when do I get "my own"? The answer has been so plainly and consistently the same through these few decades of seeking Him as to have become undeniable that "If it is not enough that this man Jesus is made both Lord and Christ to you, then nothing of all else in all creation will suffice".
"What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
and
And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
It is enough Christ be my life. Yet so much more.
Who forsook His own choosing to be the Choicest (where choice finally fails and is laid to rest in comparisons).
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
What is the substance of that man that forsakes what is His by right so that it could not even be called escape by any? What little I may know of His taking on there makes it quite plain...even as I get to know Him...that I am not Him.
For what He took on there is all that separated me from God and even all others...that the only man I could ever know was myself. With no knowing, at all. (And if any man doubt that any and all he may know of himself is only through feeding and feedback, may such a man find grace in the time it is to him, silenced...and only voices are to him, other)
And God in wisdom says "It is not good for the man to be alone".
What He took away, put away, put to death in Himself in His dying for me, that work is all and only what allows a man, even a man as me...to be...without shame.
This gift is proffered to as many as can receive it.
I will appear more foolish, still.
And so it is not without noting that this truth is as offensive to some believers today....even as in the day He first spoke it to some "believing Jews" that He is, and remains to the exclusion of all else, the only way to be free. Suddenly they were offended, taking a stand upon their lineage, their history, and matters they thought they shared in common with Abraham. But this winnowing out of histories, kinships of the flesh, all natural matters to which a man might hold for the establishing of himself...mean nothing. And yet not merely nothing...but real hindrances to any knowing of God.
Yet, they will be discarded as nothing, as mere rubbish, d*ng...when they are recognized as the obstacles they are.
But my stand is not upon predestination nor election nor any of those things, nor is my call to it though it is plainly stated, but to the Christ of God in whom, and by whom, God has chosen to make Himself known to man. That very Christ who has said both "you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you..." and "have I not chosen you, the 12, and yet one of you is a Devil?" Being ordained and predestined is along His way revealed, but the call is never away to the mere knowing of things...but He, Himself.
He is the elect One of God to that. Make no mistake that I am as common as all men, seeking to find some delight in my choices, and such choices that I have framed then as superior, seeking to take to myself such superiority. How common a man I am. But when the matter of choice is too pressed upon me, in matter of life and death (and beyond) and the dread of making the "wrong one" becomes all too plain in its terrors, it is only there my previous delights found in "my choosing" are revealed as the trap I have laid for my own soul. I suckered and merely succored...my own self's soul.
Only there can relief be found in Christ as the One not of my choosing nor deciding as who He is. Yes, only there am I made very glad such has been entirely decided well before I knew of hands into which I might take anything...and now made plain all is, and has been already quite "out of my hands" as ever it was. The preeminence of Christ in all matters may remain questionable to me in some matters (as I am allowed question...even encouraged to it...ask, seek, knock) but this is not to indulge me...but that all asking might lead to what already is, and is established.
And such right of being encouraged, comforted, allowed...which so thoroughly eclipses fears and torments was secured, is secured only by One, not myself. Do not think that to myself this question is strange as though never entertained, "But when do I get mine...when do I get "my own"? The answer has been so plainly and consistently the same through these few decades of seeking Him as to have become undeniable that "If it is not enough that this man Jesus is made both Lord and Christ to you, then nothing of all else in all creation will suffice".
"What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
and
And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
It is enough Christ be my life. Yet so much more.
Who forsook His own choosing to be the Choicest (where choice finally fails and is laid to rest in comparisons).
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
What is the substance of that man that forsakes what is His by right so that it could not even be called escape by any? What little I may know of His taking on there makes it quite plain...even as I get to know Him...that I am not Him.
For what He took on there is all that separated me from God and even all others...that the only man I could ever know was myself. With no knowing, at all. (And if any man doubt that any and all he may know of himself is only through feeding and feedback, may such a man find grace in the time it is to him, silenced...and only voices are to him, other)
And God in wisdom says "It is not good for the man to be alone".
What He took away, put away, put to death in Himself in His dying for me, that work is all and only what allows a man, even a man as me...to be...without shame.
This gift is proffered to as many as can receive it.
I will appear more foolish, still.
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bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
Uhhh ohhhh Here we go ^^^
Equivalent of a religious filibuster.
Equivalent of a religious filibuster.
Spotlite
Resident Homesteader
Below is a quote from from the Career of Ehrman and, from himself. Was he chosen to be a believer or a nonbeliever? In a spiritual sense, what’s the difference with him and serpent / Eve scene in the garden? Both were deceived? Did either have a choice in being deceived, did either have a choice in their fate after being deceived? Why was the hedge removed from Job? What’s the point of allowing the devil to take his best shot at him if it’s written in stone that he’ll pass / fail?
From the Career of Ehrman:
- “His desire to understand the original words of the Bible led him to the study of ancient languages” (his desire to study / we are instructed to study)
“I did my very best to hold on to my faith that the Bible was the inspired word of God with no mistakes and that lasted for about two years … I realized that at the time we had over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, and no two of them are exactly alike. The scribes were changing them, sometimes in big ways, but lots of times in little ways. And it finally occurred to me that if I really thought that God had inspired this text … If he went to the trouble of inspiring the text, why didn’t he go to the trouble of preserving the text? Why did he allow scribes to change it?”
From the Career of Ehrman:
- “His desire to understand the original words of the Bible led him to the study of ancient languages” (his desire to study / we are instructed to study)
“I did my very best to hold on to my faith that the Bible was the inspired word of God with no mistakes and that lasted for about two years … I realized that at the time we had over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, and no two of them are exactly alike. The scribes were changing them, sometimes in big ways, but lots of times in little ways. And it finally occurred to me that if I really thought that God had inspired this text … If he went to the trouble of inspiring the text, why didn’t he go to the trouble of preserving the text? Why did he allow scribes to change it?”
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