PAUL

PAUL

The Internet makes it possible to share your faith with the whole world. “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” Matthew 24:14

Wow, so that means they must have had the Internet in the days of St. Paul:

Romans 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

Romans 1:20

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Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse

This is Paul teaching that the nature of God can be discerned even by unbelievers simply by examining the universe. Let’s see if that’s true.

Some Christians, such as Seventh Day Adventists, claim that the universe is only 6,000 years old, with fossils of dinosaurs planted in the ground and the light from galaxies which are more distant than 6,000 light-years pre-positioned enroute. That means, going by Romans 1:20, that we can conclude God is a trickster, like the Norse Loki.

They’re saying the world’s true age was faked, possibly as a test to weed out the true believers who rely on faith in the sacred scriptures from those who will be tempted to follow the evil human doctrines of science. What they never do is put the two claims together and conclude that God is phony.

A fake past joined seamlessly with a real present can never be falsified. The line could be set at last Thursday just as validly as at 4004 BC. With no way to tell, it’s a waste of time to assert any date.

What is the motivation for holding to a six thousand year old universe? Because these Christians have taken an isolated passage from the Bible that says “a thousand years is as a day to the Lord” and they have constructed a narrative that depicts human history as a “week” of these super-long “days”. If the Earth is 6,000 years old, hence six symbolic “days”, then we’re on the cusp of the seventh day Sabbath rest, which is the Millennium to be ushered in by the Messiah.

Unfortunately, they can no longer use Archbishop Ussher’s date of 4,004 BCE for creation, because the year 1996 has come and gone with no messianic age in sight. Frank Klassen, in The Reese Chronological Bible, gives the date of creation at 3976, hence the Millennium will begin in 2024. That gives you three years to repent.

The Scriptures teach that salvation is not earned but is a gift (Romans 5:17, Ephesians 2:8-9, and Titus 3:4-7).

Romans 2:6-7 Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. (Romans 3:28 KJV)

Jesus (Matthew 19:17):“If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”

Cont from yesterday. Adam and Eve were put out of eden lest they eat of the tree of life and b as gods. They weren’t immortal. But would have been had they eaten of the tree of life.

On the contrary, it is written (Rm. 5:12): “By sin death came into the world.” Therefore man was immortal before sin.

I never thought of it, but the best argument against predestination is that God shows no partiality.

On the contrary, it is written (Romans 9:13): “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”

What are we to do as a Christian when we are ordered to obey man’s law when it is directly opposite of God’s law? Acts 5:29 says “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

It is written (Rom 13:1-2): Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God & they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation

1 Corinthians 6 attractor

Homosexuality (and also left-handedness) could simply be the less-frequently visited strange attractor in the embryonic brain development hit-space. Wouldn’t that make Moses and St. Paul go, “Nevermind!”

1 Corinthians 6:

[9] Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

[10] Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

There are many gays and lesbians who want to be straight, because of the less-than-accepting atmosphere in many cultures. So you get the ex-gay movement. But of course 99.99% of spokespersons in the ex-gay movement eventually resume their lives as gays, which gives you the ex-ex-gay movement.

They say they haven’t found a Gay Gene yet. Well, a Gay Gene wouldn’t make sense, because gays and lesbians don’t, as a general rule, breed. There’s no handedness gene either. But roughly 12% of human beings have their motor skills focused in the left hand and arm rather than the right. It could be a cocktail of different genes that decides which way the baby will go.

Or perhaps sexual (and hand) preference is just a pair of stable emergent properties described by chaos theory, as illustrated above, since there isn’t enough bandwidth in human DNA to encode the hookup of every neuron in an embryo’s brain. Either way the whole kerfuffle is much ado about nothing, like when the Code of Moses made people go around as hermits with leprosy when all they really had was a little psoriasis.

All I can tell you from my experience is that from the gitgo I crushed on Caroline “Joy” Ellis from the Bugaloos, not David “Keith” Cassidy from the Partridge Family. So in my experience sexual preference is innate, exactly like my preference to use the right hand, and every bit as boring as that.

There are just as many left-handers, per capita, in the World of Islam as there are out here in the World of Infidels, but due to the bad rap the Qu’ran gives the left hand in general (like reserving it to fill in as toilet paper), you would be hard pressed to find a southpaw who is out of the closet in Syria. So whether the Qu’ran promotes lesbianism or not, it has nothing to do with the incidence of actual lesbians, only with the incidence of out lesbians.

As for the Qu’ran being misogynistic, who’da thunk it?

If you read the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth the Manuel for life it tells you don’t be unequally yoked

On the contrary, it is written (1 Corinthians 7:14): For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.

Friendly reminder: the Bible says you shouldn’t work out. “The wicked run when no one is chasing them”- Proverbs 28:1 Therefore running is the devil.

For every Bible verse, there is an equal and opposite Bible verse:

1 Cor. 9:24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

Galatians 1:10 (NASB95) For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.

Also Paul (1 Corinthians 10:33): “Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.”

1 Corinthians 13

This chapter is Paul’s hot take on love. He uses the word agape throughout. The King James Version renders this word as charity, and that is perhaps close to the mark. Agape is unconditional love, freely given, which is of a sacrificial nature.

Agape is the kind of love Jesus commanded his followers to give to their enemies. It is the kind of love that exists between a parent and a child, and in a marriage when two people bury their egos in service to one another. It’s not about feelings, it’s about choosing the good for another.

The NIV translation is often quoted at weddings:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

If God is love, and love keeps no record of wrongs, then he needs to explain why he keeps the Book of Life and plans to whip it out on Judgment Day.

In the First Century Church, when the Apostles were still alive, they purportedly did many miracles including healing the sick and even raising people from the dead. These powers seemed to end with the close of the Apostolic Age and this loss was predicted by Paul in this chapter:

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

Although the context of the whole chapter is agape love, some believe that the complete New Testament was “that which is perfect” which was to come and do away with the special powers of the Apostolic Age, especially tongues, which were a stop-gap measure to evangelize until the written word could go out.

Will you preach one God, Jesus name Baptism and speaking in other tongues as the spirit gives the utterance to Mr. Brunson? Good people with good intentions that do not follow the biblical plan for salvation will not make heaven their eternal home.

1 Corinthians 14:19 Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue. There is no salvation except through Jesus. There is no salvation without repentance, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ and the infilling of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues.

1 Corinthians 15

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:26 “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”. Yet without death, wealth and power would continue to accumulate in fewer and fewer immortal hands, and old ideas would never give way to new ones. Without death, people would not feel the vitality of living that the very brevity of our life stimulates, and the Earth would continue to fill up with people until everyone was eating those funny green graham crackers Charlton Heston found out about in Soylent Green.

Whether death is destroyed now or at the end of time, it is not really our enemy, no more than pain is our enemy. Pain is a defense mechanism, just as the fear of death is. People who cannot feel pain rarely live to be twenty years old, and those who feel we should wage a war against Demon Pain are as ignorant as those who mistake, as the slings and arrows of an enemy, the natural fear of death which is ingrained in all living things to cause them to avoid risky behaviors.

People pay good money and go on diets to keep themselves from extending to infinity in all directions in space, yet they lament that human life is finite, and seek the holy grail of making themselves unlimited in the direction of time. But look around you. Nothing in this world is meant to endure forever. Even the redwoods last for only 2,000 years, an eyeblink in the life of the Earth. In time the very sun will die.

Sometimes individual cells in your body decide they want to be immortal (like three years ago when I had Stage Three Inflammatory Breast Cancer) and they reproduce like crazy. They end up killing the whole body, and that squashes their little plan in the bud.

Any species that became immortal would fill the Earth, driving out all others (just like a cancer), when it is the very diversity of life on this planet that makes life for any one species possible. Evolution ensures that the average life span of any critter on Earth is optimum for that critter. So take your 70-80 years and enjoy them.

Jesus said, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” We cannot eliminate our fear of death and it is not really desirable to do so. But Jesus teaches us not to worry about death. And for those who believe in the resurrection (which included myself before the Catholic Church’s boy butt sex scandal), after teaching us not to worry about death in words, he died and rose again to teach us in a way that resonates directly in our soul.

I think the text is indicating that the Son humbled himself to humanity, for humanity, by becoming human. Verses 1-4 are critical to our understanding of 5-11. There is no mention of submission to the Father according to his divinity.

1 Cor. 15:28 teaches that even a glorified Christ will put himself in submission to the Father at the end of time:

“And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”