Predestination is misunderstood...

When you're so focused on judging people, you can't love them.

It's OK, I'm not demanding that you qualify your comment. I'm happy to exchange views and opinions, I won't hold it against if I disagree with your view. But iron sharpens iron, so we can both benefit from each others experience.

That makes perfect sense, God promised to keep His children from falling away. I know many who fell away and died in their sin.

1 John 2:19 confirms election and predestination.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

Judging them is a part of loving them. you might remember I gave an example of loving judgement with the Doctor and patient analogy.

Yes I know people get angry when you point that they are on the road that leads to hell and they must repent and turn from their sin and surrender their lives to Jesus.

It's the same with a Doctor lovingly telling his patient that they need life saving medical treatment.

The doctor-patient analogy has nothing to do with judgment... or love. It's a legal obligation.

What do you do with people who are already saved? In line with the posts you've made, you keep judging and correcting them until they meet your (unbiblical) standard for perfection. There is far more to relationship than judgment....

perfect sense 😊

Nice to have you here

The problem with that is, only God and the individual know if they are saved. Others never really know if one is saved or not, the only way we could know for sure, is if we witness the professing Christian blaspheme the Holy Spirit with their last breath on their death bed.

Apart from that, we don't know who will eventually repent and be saved and who may fall away and expose themselves as unbelievers.

Some Church members, like Judas Iscariot fool everyone except for God. Because He has every saved persons name in His book of life.

evidently this also depraves people

So again... do you spend all your time judging or do you have genuine relationships with other real live human beings?

That's a good question, I'm finding it difficult to distinguish real life humans from the bots.

No seriously, I don't enjoy correcting people or "judging" them as you like to call it. But it is necessary, to show them how much I love them and care for them.

My father used to chastise me regularly and I mean he never used a feather duster. He used his big leather belt, and I love him for it now but I hated him for it back then. Now I know that it was for my own good and I hope that those I correct now will thank me for it one day.

My father told me that wisdom and experience are the greatest treasures in the world. We pay a lot of money to buy an education and then we can sell our intellectual property to make us very wealthy.

Proverbs 15:5 says: A fool despises his father's instruction, But he who receives correction is prudent.

I love being corrected when I'm wrong, I don't want to go around with a false world view while my brethren keep me in the dark. Only a fool is offended when someone corrects them.

Doctors cause harm with misdiagnosis.
You are assuming yourself more qualified than you have been showing here.

Its easy to be judgmental when there is much more to learn......
And, you think you already know enough.


You are not being a good doctor here. So far, that is.
Sounds like you are learning from a very judgmental pulpit,
and you do not know any better....

grace and peace .............

I'm very thankful to have a God appointed Shepherd to correct me, guide me, instruct me, chastise me and make Himself available if I ever need to ask Him anything. He is a full time Minister on a salary so he doesn't have the distraction of a career or job outside of His Ministry.

He is a highly qualified Theologian, so He has a thorough knowledge of Gods Word. Nobody has asked Him a question He wasn't able to provide a biblically solid answer for. So I am blessed to be under His leadership. I've found too many here have taken the law into their own unqualified hands, I thank God I'm not one of them.

I have been attending Bible study classes with our Minister leading us, for the past six years so I have learned a lot but there's always more to learn. My Minister has 17 years experience so, He is a Master of theology and I reap the benefits of His knowledge.

I find comments like "Jesus is my Shepherd" very disturbing, because we know that's impossible as Jesus ascended to Heaven 2000 years age and hasn't spoken a word to anyone since that time. My Minister warned us about people who claim to hear His voice or talk to Him. He said those people hear Demonic voices posing as angels of light.

Your minister may in fact be so qualified...

But you are assuming too much about yourself at present.
Your heart may be in the right place, and will grow and mature.

But right now? No one asked you to pull out the whip you seem to enjoy using lately.

I'm not sure if I have understood "you're assuming too much about yourself" correctly. If you're saying I claim to know more than I do, then I don't accept that unless you qualify it with some evidence of overreach or making unqualified statements.

I don't enjoy using the whip, but Jesus also resorted to corporal punishment in the Temple when He saw what was taking place in it.

Matthew 21: 12-13

12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”

1 Corinthians 2:16
For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Don't blow your own trumpet, rather boast in the name of our Lord.

I read this and got the impression that Abraham was euphemising his expectation that Isaac (a lamb) was to be sacrificed. The Hebrew will provide is qal imperfect/incomplete, which could be either will provide, is providing or was providing. Context eliminates the past imperfect tense.

I lean towards Abraham expecting to offer up Issac and God expecting to resurrect the boy afterwards in order to fulfil his promises re Isaac. Hebrews 11:19 seems to indicate this was the case. God however provided a ram, not a lamb.

I am unconvinced that this is how the present perfect works.

"I have lived in Delhi," describes a past reality which is still true in that I am still living, and I did live in Delhi; but now it is not the case that i am still living in Delhi.

By high test scores I have been granted scholarship funding through applying for a scholarship to Yale University. It is still true now that I have that scholarship, but it is not conveyed here that I will always have that scholarship and it will never expire.

Our faith must be directed toward the correct object, namely Christ, to be saved. But I think both are ingredients of our salvation. Jesus told people "Your faith has saved you." But we are also told that Christ saves us from this or that. We are saved by grace through faith [in God/Christ]. I would say that all ingredients mentioned are necessary. Who saves us? Di I save myself by grace through faith in Christ/God"? Or does Christ save me by grace through faith in Christ/God? Paul goes on to say, and that is not out of yourself, but it is the gift of God. So the causal agent who saves, by whom I am saved, is God, not me.

Here is a challenge, HeIsHere. Can you create a sentence with the same structure as Eph. 2:8, using a different perfect participle from "having been saved", which conveys the same sense you are seeing in this biblical passage from Eph. 2:8, where the result of the passive participle is expected to continue in reality beyond the textual present and in perpetuity? I'll try to imagine one too.

That verse applies to the Apostles, who all died 2000 years ago. And nobody else, was ever given the mind of Christ since the Apostles received it directly from the Lord.

We have never had any Apostles in the world since the 12 died 2000 years ago, so be aware of false Apostles. It sounds like someone has lied to you