How do you read the Bible without ET mindset?

[Transponder]

:cloud9: Trans, I have been healed of;1) terminal cancer that had spread to my other organs (within one week of diagnosis after hemorrhaging brought me to the hospital

2) a spinal injury that ruptured 2 discs in my lower back, and 2 in other parts of my spine that paralyzed my left leg sufficient that I could not even bring my firstborn home from the hospital for 11 days, because I couldn't yet walk from the compression of the discs on my sciatic nerve, and

3) a crushed elbow joint from an industrial accident that also would paralyze my hand frequently as the fragments of the joint would rub on the nerve until it swelled and could not function.

ALL of these were documented before and after by stunned, best in their field's, physicians, who themselves, said they had no explanation for what I was telling them, other than the one I offered which was, GOD HEALED ME. In the words of the neurosurgeon who looked at the results of my myllogram, which shows soft tissue damage said, "We couldn't even find any scar tissue where the injury WAS, and that's just not possible!"

And going to a pharmacy had nothing to do with anything. I had miracle healings, yet the Lord has chosen at other times to use doctor's and medicines, and just common sense cures. HE is Lord and He can do whatever He wants anyway He chooses to do it. Remember healing is the children's bread, and most of the time it is not even for the person receiving it, it is for the "little ones" in the faith or lack of it, to see and be converted, as we are living sacrifices. Blessings to you; and the water on your desk may never turn to wine, but I am still convinced the water I'm talking about WILL........ :HeartThrob:

Look, Cardinal, I don't want to get personal but there is a sort of sameiness about these miracle cure accounts. The doctors were astounded. There was no explanation other than Goddunnit. The injury, cancer, tumour or whatever disappeared without trace.

And going to a Pharmacy is taken quite out of context by you. I am just saying that it was the catalyst of seeing a faithhealer using regular medicine that cause the floodgates of doubt of this believer to open. He realized that he'd been ignoring and closing his mind to real doubts and real disbelief.

By the way, should this be a new thread? It isn't really about how to read the Bible selectively...Ah, without an ET mindset. 

[jabcat]

I also believe the water in your bottle won't turn into wine, since for it to do that requires faith on YOUR part, no one here can do that for you.  :2c:

I also believe the water in your bottle won't turn into wine, since for it to do that requires faith on YOUR part, no one here can do that for you.  :2c:

As good a get  - out as could be needed. Can I assume then that no-one will be praying anymore to God to open Transponder's heart since, without my faith to begin with, it couldn't work. I mean, if God can't turn my water into wine without my believing it first, he certainly can't change my brain.
Or can he?  Is it, in fact, a lot easier to change someone's brain by the sort of preaching and illogic we get here than to accomplish something practical? 

God has a will, and anything He does, and it's all miraculous, is according to that will.  "You shall not put the LORD your God to the test"...

[Transponder]

I also believe the water in your bottle won't turn into wine, since for it to do that requires faith on YOUR part, no one here can do that for you.  :2c:

I also believe the water in your bottle won't turn into wine, since for it to do that requires faith on YOUR part, no one here can do that for you.  :2c:

As good a get  - out as could be needed. Can I assume then that no-one will be praying anymore to God to open Transponder's heart since, without my faith to begin with, it couldn't work. I mean, if God can't turn my water into wine without my believing it first, he certainly can't change my brain.
Or can he?  Is it, in fact, a lot easier to change someone's brain by the sort of preaching and illogic we get here than to accomplish something practical? 

God has a will, and anything He does, and it's all miraculous, is according to that will.  "You shall not put the LORD your God to the test"...

That would certainly damage limit the embarrassment should He fail to deliver...

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Yes, there is a sameness about these accounts, Trans. Doctors who go to school for 6 -10 years of post graduate work to try to learn a way how to do what God can and does do in an instant, DO tend to be shocked and throw in the towel quite quickly. I just love that about them.... :winkgrin:

Trans, did you realize that the OT Israelites, the ones in the desert for 40 years, were the only people in history on the face of the earth, that didn't have doctors? God Himself was their doctor. Since we are supposed to have a better covenant, and if better, then we should have everything the original had, plus some, then it should not be difficult to understand why this would be a factor for new covenant believer's lives. Blessings to you bro......

[jabcat]

Thomas is dazed, hurt, bitter -- and lashing out.

"I don't believe it," barks Thomas. "I don't believe a word of it. You're seeing what you want to see. Jesus is dead."

Thomas is cold, with an edge in his voice that cuts like ice. "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

Suddenly, Jesus stands among them once again and speaks -- "Shalom, peace be with you."

Jesus turns to him and speaks plainly, without any hint of rancor or sarcasm, "Put your finger here, see my hands." Jesus holds out his scarred hands for him to examine. Thomas recoils.

Jesus begins to open his outer garment and says, "Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

Jesus reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. Then Thomas slips to his knees and says in awe, "My Lord and my God!"

Thomas, "Doubting Thomas," as he is sometimes called, is the first disciple to put into words the truth that Jesus is both Lord and God. "Doubting Thomas" utters the greatest confession of faith recorded anywhere in the Bible.

Jesus replies, "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."  Dr. Ralph Wilson

Someday we will all see Him face to face...then all will believe.

[jabcat]

It's the peace, joy, fulfillment, and "blessed are those" that we miss by not believing now...we will all believe, but I'd prefer to profit from the Spirit led stripping of the foolishness of my carnal mind in this lifetime, than to endure the chastening and rebuke that will lead to repentance and belief in the next age...

[Cardinal]

It's the peace, joy, fulfillment, and "blessed are those" that we miss by not believing now...we will all believe, but I'd prefer to profit from the Spirit led stripping of the foolishness of my carnal mind in this lifetime, than to endure the chastening and rebuke that will lead to repentance and belief in the next age...

:cloud9: Amen to that.....I have seen the fruit of that chastening and it is UGLY.........

[jabcat]

:cloud9: Amen to that.....I have seen the fruit of that chastening and it is UGLY.........

I wanted to let you know Cardinal how much your posts have meant to me...God obviously is working through you...Thanks, God's blessing, James.

[Cardinal]

 :girlheart:

[Molly]

:cloud9: Yes, there is a sameness about these accounts, Trans. Doctors who go to school for 6 -10 years of post graduate work to try to learn a way how to do what God can and does do in an instant, DO tend to be shocked and throw in the towel quite quickly. I just love that about them.... :winkgrin:

Trans, did you realize that the OT Israelites, the ones in the desert for 40 years, were the only people in history on the face of the earth, that didn't have doctors? God Himself was their doctor. Since we are supposed to have a better covenant, and if better, then we should have everything the original had, plus some, then it should not be difficult to understand why this would be a factor for new covenant believer's lives. Blessings to you bro......

Look how God kept them going in the wilderness:


4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.--Deut 8


And we see the vigor of Caleb, even at 85--



Now the men of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, "You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. 7 I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, 8 but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. 9 So on that day Moses swore to me, 'The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.' 
10 "Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12 Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said."

13 Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance.

Joshua 14


There was also something about Moses not aging, but I can't find it right now...

[Kratos]

Deu 34:7  And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

John

[Transponder]

Thomas is dazed, hurt, bitter -- and lashing out.

"I don't believe it," barks Thomas. "I don't believe a word of it. You're seeing what you want to see. Jesus is dead."

Thomas is cold, with an edge in his voice that cuts like ice. "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

Suddenly, Jesus stands among them once again and speaks -- "Shalom, peace be with you."

Jesus turns to him and speaks plainly, without any hint of rancor or sarcasm, "Put your finger here, see my hands." Jesus holds out his scarred hands for him to examine. Thomas recoils.

Jesus begins to open his outer garment and says, "Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

Jesus reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. Then Thomas slips to his knees and says in awe, "My Lord and my God!"

Thomas, "Doubting Thomas," as he is sometimes called, is the first disciple to put into words the truth that Jesus is both Lord and God. "Doubting Thomas" utters the greatest confession of faith recorded anywhere in the Bible.

Jesus replies, "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."  Dr. Ralph Wilson

Someday we will all see Him face to face...then all will believe.

Wonderful! C.S Lewis himself couldn't have done better. However, instead of dressing up John's Thomas episode to make it more dramatic, you might have been better employed reading  it and asking why none of the other gospel writers mention this remarkable eposode. In fact, Matthew would have thomas coming back to find everyone - including Jesus  - were up in Galilee. And, have you thought about the implications of a risen Jesus in a new, incorruptible, body with new, incorruptible wounds? Don't you see that that this episode, so dramatically rubbed in the Doubting Transponder's face, is pretty strong evidence that the whole episode is an invention of John's.

[Transponder]

And Cardinal, Molly and Kratos, if you seriously believe the absurd longevity claims of the Bible, I doubt that reason is going to be of any avail.

[jabcat]

Hey Transponder...thanks for your reply.  I believe we all "got'ta serve somebody".  There's a God who cares and will rescue us from ourselves and from the "hater of the brethren", and there's a god of this world who is a liar, deceiver, and destroyer.  The Word states we don't battle against each other, but against "principalities and powers"..we all only respond to the God/god we serve. You say you are "not here to rob but to help"...well, with God's help, though respectfully and lovingly, I'm not here to rob you either, but to share God's truth that He impresses me to share with you...He does love you, and I believe you have felt Him before, and that if you'll allow yourself, you will remember when...it's that still, small voice that perhaps you heard but dismissed.  I don't know when or under what circumstances, but He'll be back, because He didn't die on that cross in vain...He had a purpose, and that purpose was you. 

[Transponder]

Hey Transponder...thanks for your reply.  I believe we all "got'ta serve somebody".  There's a God who cares and will rescue us from ourselves and from the "hater of the brethren", and there's a god of this world who is a liar, deceiver, and destroyer.  The Word states we don't battle against each other, but against "principalities and powers"..we all only respond to the God/god we serve. You say you are "not here to rob but to help"...well, with God's help, though respectfully and lovingly, I'm not here to rob you either, but to share God's truth that He impresses me to share with you...He does love you, and I believe you have felt Him before, and that if you'll allow yourself, you will remember when...it's that still, small voice that perhaps you heard but dismissed.  I don't know when or under what circumstances, but He'll be back, because He didn't die on that cross in vain...He had a purpose, and that purpose was you. 

If I 'serve' anything it is logic and reason, not myth.

Look, I am on a theist board so, irritating though it might be, I can't stop people love-gunging me. All I can do is to show that the rationale put forward as valid reasons for belief don't add up to a tickbite and it is all down to faith in myth.

To those that are interested in truth rather than "The truth" (which is something quite different) I might put a few misconceptions right. It is disappointing though to have (if I might dramatize on my own account) laid out my stall and have it deluged with pink whitewash

"There; doesn't that look better?"

[Reverend G]

Why would 4 individuals have to all report exactly the same thing?  Were they all professional journalists?  Or rather, just persons, revealing the things that were most remarkable to them personally?  I mean, I can imagine that it would be possible that one may be disgusted by Thomas' doubt in light of such a miracle, and not want to rehash it.
Of course, it is easier to dismiss it as myth.

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: It's not a question of what I believe, it's a matter of what the Spirit of God spoke out of my mouth at my bible study about 1 year after I came to him, that completely bypassed my carnal mind. See, He is a Spirit, and He can do whatever He wants with a completely surrendered vessel. Actually, He can with a completely UN-surrendered vessel also, but tries to be gentlemanly about it and not give the unbelieving heart attacks. :laughing7:

And; What's WRONG with  :cloud9: PINK whitewash? I happen to like pink whitewash, personally. What's neat about your color choice there, Trans, is pink is the color of His love. If you mix white (righteousness) with the red (the blood), you get pink, the love. Gosh, if I didn't know better  :winkgrin: I'd think He was starting to speak thru YOU........  :mshock: :winkgrin: Blessings to you.......

[jenna]

:cloud9: It's not a question of what I believe, it's a matter of what the Spirit of God spoke out of my mouth at my bible study about 1 year after I came to him, that completely bypassed my carnal mind. See, He is a Spirit, and He can do whatever He wants with a completely surrendered vessel. Actually, He can with a completely UN-surrendered vessel also, but tries to be gentlemanly about it and not give the unbelieving heart attacks. :laughing7:

And; What's WRONG with  :cloud9: PINK whitewash? I happen to like pink whitewash, personally. What's neat about your color choice there, Trans, is pink is the color of His love. If you mix white (righteousness) with the red (the blood), you get pink, the love. Gosh, if I didn't know better  :winkgrin: I'd think He was starting to speak thru YOU........  :mshock: :winkgrin: Blessings to you.......

:laughing7: :thumbsup:

[Reverend G]

Very cool Cardinal!!

[Transponder]

Why would 4 individuals have to all report exactly the same thing?  Were they all professional journalists?  Or rather, just persons, revealing the things that were most remarkable to them personally?  I mean, I can imagine that it would be possible that one may be disgusted by Thomas' doubt in light of such a miracle, and not want to rehash it.
Of course, it is easier to dismiss it as myth.

well, you tell me? Four 'journalist' accounts appear in print, three using the same wording but some adding whole chunks not in the others and another adding other chunks not in the others and rather tending to pull apart, shall we say, from the line of the others. The fourth, though clearly describing the same time and event differs still further.

Conclusion? You tell me, if this doesn't seem a watertight analolgy (so far as it goes) you tell me where.

Accounts 1,2 and 3 got their account from a single agency. They, in accordance with editorial policy, added bits to tweak the story to the views of the newpaper.

Account 4 differs so radically that, which accepting that something happened at the time involving certain persons (lets say someone got shot), it makes one question who is giving the right account.

The first one, pretty much Reuters untouched, looks good but then...the claim that the bod was shot by his own people rather than the guards of the admin that owns the agency which issued the original report. Hmmm. And the fourth. It also comes from the same admin but a different agency, so it is quite different in everything other than blaming the same people for  the shooting.

So, that is, as tight as I can make it, the analogy which you have asked for. the conclusion? That the internal evidence of comparing the 4 Journal accounts is that the event has been reworked in a somewhat contradictory manner, to achieve a policy agenda.

That is quite a different situation from just errors in eyewitness accounts.

And you attempt to explain away Thomas is feeble in the extreme. It is not one person who is disgusted but three, and they are not disgusted by Hudas because all four recount his doings at length. Surely Thomas and the amazing proof should have been mentioned. The conversion should count for more than the doubt.

In addition to all of that the times don't fit. Of you wish, you can look at the resurrection thread. I set it all out. In fact, my good Rev. Iy would only take you an hour to do it yourself.

No, yours is a feeble attempt to shug off one of the many glaring problems with the Gospels.

And I too overbearing? I don't know. Manybe if there was more attempt to evaluate objectively than to shug off problems in the interests of maintaining faith, I'd be a lot more gentle.

[Reverend G]

I dunno, you must not read much.  I typically read 3 newspapers a day, and well, what your describing seems pretty much a given in todays press.

[Transponder]

I dunno, you must not read much.  I typically read 3 newspapers a day, and well, what your describing seems pretty much a given in todays press.

Very well. In that case should we not try to get an overall view in comparing varying accounts, taking into account the particular angle of the paper or editor or government that controls the view of the paper, rather than just accepting whatever is said, on trust?

This is getting away from the ET mindset, rather, but it does have a bearing on the sort of mentality one brings to reading the bible - or anything else, for that matter.

[Reverend G]

Actually, greater minds than mine, or yours, have covered the issue of the Gospels numerous times, and come to conclusions vastly different from yours.  The idea of a source (Quelle) is known and disputed, even today.  Of course, either way, the end run does not dispute that the events related by all 4 Gospels are the same events, and most agree that they did occur.  Even atheists.  Sadly, you insist on giving these writers great intellects and journalistic abilities, when they were not.   If Jesus wanted it covered better, I guess he should have had a press corps?

[Molly]

Very well. In that case should we not try to get an overall view in comparing varying accounts, taking into account the particular angle of the paper or editir or govrnment that controls the view of the pare, rather than just accepting whatever is said, on trust?

This is getting away from the ET mindset, rather, but it does have a bearing on the sort of mentality one brings to reading the bible - or anything else, for that matter.

What is your point?  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were lousy 'journalists'?  They were not journalists, they were writing the Holy Scripture.

And, as far as modern day journalists are concerned, they write what they are told and they publish what their editor will allow.   Not much difference here, except in the above case, the editor was God.

[jabcat]

And, as far as modern day journalists are concerned, they write what they are told and they publish what their editor will allow.   Not much difference here, except in the above case, the editor was God.

I really like this quote Molly.  As I said earlier, we all serve somebody.  Our carnal mind may think we only answer to ourselves, and we may call that logic, reason, "seeing through things", having a higher consciousness, whatever.  But I maintain we're either influenced by the god of this world, or YHWH, Father-God Who loves us and only wants what's best for us.  Trans, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that you think you "see through" believers.  Well, God has prepared me to be able to "see through" atheists...He has given me 40+ years of observing, interacting with, and coming to know the mindset...and He shows me that a mistaken belief in controlling one's own destiny is exactly what Satan wants carnal man to believe...that's exactly a main way he influences us, subtly whispering in our ear that we know better than God, that we really can "lean to our own understanding".  That lie is as old as this creation, and most men are still falling for it.