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What We Believe
About the Scriptures: We believe the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God and that men were moved by the Spirit of God to write the very words of Scripture. Therefore, we believe the Bible is without error.
About God: We believe in one God who exists in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe that Jesus Christ is the second member of the Trinity (the Son of God) who became flesh to reveal God to humanity and to become the Savior of the lost world.
About Humanity: We believe that all people were created in the image of God to have fellowship with him but became alienated in that relationship through sinful disobedience. As a result, people are incapable of regaining a right relationship with God through their own efforts.
About Salvation: We believe that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross, provides the sole basis for the forgiveness of sin. Therefore, God freely offers salvation to those who place their faith in the death and resurrection of Christ as sufficient payment for their sin.
About the Christian Life: We believe all Christians should live for Christ and not for themselves. By obedience to the Word of God and daily yielding to the Spirit of God, every believer should mature and be conformed to the image of Christ.
About the Church: We believe that the church is the body of Christ, of which Jesus Christ is the head. The members of the church are those who have trusted by faith the finished work of Christ. The purpose of the church is to glorify God by loving him and by making him known to the lost world.
I just knew your rigid personality would move you to post something. Nothing this article says contradicts what you have written. But go ahead and discourage people from seeking God by questioning, then tell me again how superior you are.
The bloom is off the pompous Maverick rose. Matthew 7:6.
The questions Christ asked, by an large, were to show people their sinful way, the Pharisees and Saducees, their hypocrisy.
Look at the Book of Job. Job is questioning God, demanding answers for his plight. God responds but not in the manner Job expects.
Job 38:1-3
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me."
And God proceeds to ask Job over 80 questions, none of which Job cab answer. We can't claim we have faith then say "Yes God, but....."
Difficult to answer questions one has not soberly considered and sought an answer personally. A subtext of the article is that many doubters conflate the actions of the church with the righteousness of God and that presents a primary, albeit superficial, obstacle to the Faith. I agree; we live in a superficially oriented society and any opportunity to tear down that misconception is welcomed imo.
I'm grateful for my own questions because questioning has drawn me much, much closer to God. In the search for answers I discovered not only Scripture and a renewed way of reading Scripture but was introduced to the apologetics of men like Turek, Zacharias, Lennox, Metaxas and C.S. Lewis. Life altering and Faith affirming.
Any way we can encourage others to have a relationship is in line with what we have been instructed. We have more to worry about than just ourselves.
"When the hunter is in a treestand with high moral values and with the proper hunting ethics and richer for the experience, that hunter is 20 ft closer to God."
Religion and politics are very hard subjects for adults to discuss objectively. Example...
I have always looked at the bible as a “rule and guide of our faith and practice”, not an infallible book.
I had a long discussion with a friend who views it the same as HA/KS posted. I believe it is inspired by God but written by fallible people who wrote it for the time, context, and it has been mistranslated throughout time.
My friends best feedback came the next day related from his children (older teenagers, is that awesome or what, he taught them to critically think from a young age) but didn’t really convince me.
My interest was really peaked by our conversation and as you can see from my Trump posts my faith is not blind.
I am sincerely interested though and will discuss again with my friend as well the thoughts here. If people are willing to objectively have a conversation I would love to hear.
I can take it to another thread HFW if you like, discussion with my friend just popped into my head when I read HA/KSs post and inquiring minds want to know.
Jeff, a rational look at the natural will lead one to God. Inevitably. You mentioned objectivity. In my life, I have seen in my doubt and others a hostility to objectivity and rational thought. There is no explanation of being without "a God" that is rational.
-“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” -Werner Heisenberg
Normally I would agree with you. My post reflect my human weaknesses.
I have grown tired of the self-righteous attitude by some here, especially when its presence is in a field I care deeply about. And I have grown tired of the pretend experts here incapable of seeing their own biases but not missing an opportunity to point out others. Henry is good at throwing his veiled insults, my direct replies are intentional so that he clearly knows his approach is probably judged no better than mine. Our hearts tell all.
gflight,
No need to start another thread. Please, that was the intent here, to have a reasoned discussion. In the past some very bright voices spoke on threads like these. It was very educational, or at least to me.
I have struggled myself with realizing God's Word is the Bible, yet fallible humans wrote, translated, and decided what books to leave out. It is an interesting discussion, because evil does exist.
In the end it does not matter really, as long as we believe Jesus is our Lord and Savior.
Reasonable people should be able to discuss this respectfully.
You brought up Lewis.
'Mere Christianity' is a good rational approach for those struggling, I believe. Stroebbel's 'The Case for Christ' another. What do you recommend?
HfW, I merely copied and pasted the faith statement from the organization of your OP. Is your objection to their statement of faith, or to me posting it?
As for my veiled insults, I have never intended to do that. I post scripture and how it impacts you is between you and God.
.
"You mentioned objectivity. In my life, I have seen in my doubt and others a hostility to objectivity and rational thought. There is no explanation of being with "a God" that is rational." I agree, and so have I. Defending or espousing irrational(if I may) beliefs makes it difficult for their holders to have objective conversations about it without eventually getting angry. There's a lot of passion in there and I get that. But I tend now to avoid even courteous conversations of any depth about it with friends, family, coworkers, etc as it tends to ultimately upset them. This has been good and respectful though. I appreciate that.
Horsecrap, Frank. Henry posted no editorial comment. You chose to treat a benign posting as a veiled insult and/or as an example of self righteousness. Don't blame this on anyone but yourself.
Not to trivialize it, but in a way God is like a Hollywood celebrity in that ANY coverage is good coverage...it's when nobody talks about you in any manner that you're in trouble. Praise the Lord!
Bonhoeffer by Metaxas -wonderful biography but has much more value as a treatise on discipleship.
Miracles by Metaxas - a reasonable defense of miracles with case studies.
I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist by Geisler and Turek - fantastically digestible deconstruction of anti-God theology using science, logic and philosophy.
Forgotten God by Francis Chan - Plain examination of the Holy Spirit and its relevance in our lives.
Cold Case Christianity by J Warner Wallace - An interesting perspective on the martyrdom and divinity of Christ from a formerly atheist homicide detective.
As a primer, I'd start newbies with IDHEFTBAA and Cold Case Christianity. The others are a little more "inside baseball." You'd like Chan and the Bonhoeffer book if you have not already read them.
There are others but they jump out at me. Lewis is a given. Lennox and Zacharias are brilliant to hear but they straight up intimidate me so I have deferred reading them. I'll have to get over that eventually.
South Farm, exactly why I started the thread.
bk, that is just your opinion. My reaction is not solely born of this thread and I have clear conscious. Comments without explanation if taken incorrectly are the fault of the sender if feedback was provided, which I did.
Again Henry, please try to be honest. I knew where your post originated from, and again have no disagreement with it. I said as much when I stated it did not contradict what is in the article. Maybe you ought to respond to the article, unless of course you have nothing to add except to show your ability to quote Scripture?
About 120 years ago, we would have said it is supernatural that humans can fly and would have died laughing at the thought of holding all the world's libraries in one hand. Yet, we can so much more now. I suspect we're too stupid to even conceive of what 'supernatural' really is. But it's there and we keep "discovering" the truths that always existed well beyond our means to grasp.
I never am a victim, and do not play one. I give back as good as others give, that's evidently the rules here. Please see the energy discussion for an example. Hopefully you can spot the bias I addressed, and recognize we all have biases.
Excellent post! Especially your last two sentences.
I cannot make this any more clear.
Faith is a knowledge within the heart and soul, beyond the reach of proof.
The Rock
I agree, nothing wrong with mixing it up. We don't have to agree, and we will still all benefit!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3 And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:14 Just a couple of my favorites.
Being involved in a Thursday night men's bible study for a good while now, it amazes me how different bible commentators can never agree on what the Bible is saying. You never know what answer your going to get from the bible commentators to a biblical question. Reading through the comments at the link makes me a little gun shy of using Aussie Dave as a source for answers to my biblical questions. I have no problem with the statement of faith from North Point Ministries.
Take the verses I posted above or the verses posted by others - any questions or do you understand them?
And it's easy enough to say get yourself into a Bible believing church, but all church's claim they are.
Yes, it depends on what frame work you are starting from. Some examples ... are you starting from a Theology of the Cross, or Theology of Glory view? What is your understanding of original sin?
I belong to a church that belongs to one of the conservative Lutheran denominations. We rarely use terms like the "sovereignty of God", "accepting Christ", and our definitions of these are different than most american evangelical understandings. If I make reference to the "sacraments" and "Means of Grace", which are terms Lutherans use, these are most certainly different than what american evangelicals use.
Then you have the King James only groups, as if the Bible collection of books were never written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and the limitations of English language to translate some of those terms used in the Bible.
It's no wonder these discussions turn out like this one has.
We need to remember that Jesus was hardest on the established religion of the time. He emphasized a more personal from of faith - not reliance on any human form of religion.
