Anthony Burgoyne

@IdahoJohn2011 No, John 1 doesn't identify Jesus as 'the word'. btw, "seen *its* glory, *as* the glory" <- two 'glory's, two targets, word is an 'it'

@PracticalTheolo John 1 identifies Jesus as the Word. “The word became flesh and dwelt among us, we have seen his glory, of the one and only son.” The whole topic of John 1 is the Christ. As for Thomas, he looked at Jesus and said “my Lord and my God”. No parenthesis words added. 1/

What do the disciples 'finally believe' at John 16:31 - is it that Jesus is God? "“Do you finally believe?” Jesus replied." Nope! It's that he *came from* God: "we believe that you came from God." (16:30) *The* point of the Fourth Gospel is that Jesus is *chosen by/sent by/authorized by* God, not that he is God.

@TradReform No, you don't agree. By 'the Father' you mean something different entirely.

@PracticalTheolo And by “God” you mean “the Father”, to which I agree. The Son is NOT the Father, but a son cannot be something DIFFERENT than his father. I say that Jesus is TRULY the Son of God by generation, and by that he cannot be anything other than God in terms of specie.

@BTalk712 He seems to really like Hebrews 7:3, for some reason.

This sums up a 30+ debate over the last 24 ours. Thank you Antony @PracticalTheolo for the question. It caused quite a stir with one. I don't know how I can be more clear. x.com/BTalk712/statu…

@HappyThurifer Because candles are expensive and a fire hazard, while movies have big budgets and crew to keep track of the candles whenever they're lit.

When people go to church, they want candles!! I don't understand why movies understand this and churches often don't.

@Thomasdelvasto_ Just ask whoever's in charge of the event if there's any doubt.

help me resolve an internal moral dilemma you're at a work event. there are over 20 full pizzas left. ppl have had 2.5+ hrs to get pizza, and it's past the scheduled end time is it ok to grab a full pizza to take home as you leave?

@Thomasdelvasto_ They can convert and be baptized as adults too ... ;)

I've had some cradle Christians confide in me that they're jealous I "got to" convert and be baptized as an adult this idea is nuts to me. most of us convert because we are miserable, it's not an easy path. it is an incredible blessing to grow up in the faith

'PINO's 😂

@Kryptotajeer Jesus didn't call himself 'God' in the Fourth Gospel, either, tho'.

Does Jesus call himself God? Matthew, Mark, Luke—these earlier sources—don’t report any instances where Jesus refers to himself as a divine being, except with the coming of the last source, which is the gospel of John. New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman explains why Jesus calling himself God is not considered historically or biblically accurate.

@KRISperrydt Tertullian didn't mean by 'trinitas' what Trinitarians mean by 'the Trinity'. Just goofy stuff.

@JohnnyTani3 Ya - and the NT largely just assumes theism, and even there, largely assumes monotheism, although as with the OT, does spend some time discussing idolatry. It's centrally about whether Jesus is in fact Yahweh's chosen one - the Christ.

@PracticalTheolo Depending on perspective, I agree it’s a false dilemma. Hopefully this will help clarify. Recorded this just a few minutes ago:

Pascal’s Wager is a false binary with Christian luggage already packed inside it. It only works if there are two horses in the race: atheism or the believer’s specific God. But there aren’t. There are thousands: Catholic, Calvinist, Sunni, Shia, Mormon, Hindu, Jain, Pure Land Buddhist, and plenty more, many with mutually exclusive rules and punishments for choosing wrong. Choosing the believer’s god doesn’t escape the gamble. It picks one horse out of thousands and pretends the rest aren’t on the track. That leaves the real question untouched: What method tells us which claim, if any, is true? Pascal didn’t hand us a wager. He handed us a betting slip with most of the horses missing, and a few of the listed ones biting each other:

@JandersonDalat @aztjk35 Because we have a broad-ranging contextual argument against your preferred interpretations of these few, scattered verses.

@PracticalTheolo @aztjk35 Why do you always contest the translations that are inconvenient?

The big problem with the Trinitarian/JW identification of Jesus with 'the word' at John 1:1 is what comes before, and what comes after. 1. What comes before is most of the NT. The Fourth Gospel was written last of the gospels, and there was already a central and broadly attested (22/27 books of the NT feature it) concept of 'the word' operating in Christendom as the active and living gospel/message re Christianity. Early Christians would have heard 'the word' in that context. Before that, there was the concept of 'the word' as seen all over the Old Testament, which wasn't a person, and wasn't Jesus, but again a message from God. 2. What comes after is the entire main body of the Fourth Gospel, where 'the word' is used > 30x but is never identified with Jesus, but again and again distinguished from him. Put these two together, and the received interpretation just isn't plausible.

@JandersonDalat @aztjk35 You've just made this up.

@PracticalTheolo @aztjk35 Nah. Flows from the deepest logic of scripture. The Son came because no creaturely sacrifices or priests, mere types and shadows, would suffice. Christ is no mere creature. He is "exalted above the heavens," has "the name above every name."

@JandersonDalat @aztjk35 You've emptied Jesus of his triumph, making it all a charade - play-acting. He couldn't have failed, there was no test or real temptation, he didn't triumphantly align his will with God's.

@PracticalTheolo @aztjk35 The LORD saves. God purchased the church with his own blood (Acts 20:28), not just some special dude he fancied. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Are these creaturely titles? Please, man. We were chosen in him before all worlds. You've emptied the gospel of its glory.

@IdahoJohn2011 Jesus isn't the word. And Thomas didn't declare Jesus as God, if context is our cue: "My Lord [Jesus Christ] and my God [the Father]." This then fits with the broad pattern in the NT of pairing those two terms in that way. U r welcome. 😘

@PracticalTheolo John 1. The word was with God. The word is God. Thomas declared Christ as “my Lord and my God”. No way around either.

@TradReform That's not what the text say - he's not *God*.

@PracticalTheolo He’s not the Father, you mean.

@heavenmaxxer My dear man, you're welcome to make an argument.

@PracticalTheolo Read John 1:1 again… then read John 1:14 and then think…

@AleMartnezR1 The point is that Philo didn't influence John in his writing of the Fourth Gospel.

@PracticalTheolo What is the point here? You dislike the two-stage logos theory, too?

There's no direct evidence that Philo of Alexandria's writings were influential or even reached Jerusalem, Ephesus, or anywhere around there in the 1st century. Bupkis. No evidence of rapid or wide dissemination of his writings anywhere. The historical record picks up with ... drumroll ... Clement *of Alexandria*'s writings ~150 years later (~200 AD). From there, it seems to spread. Long, long after the Fourth Gospel was written.

@Just_Vagabond That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God is the most central claim of the NT.

@PracticalTheolo Okay so you admit Jesus is the Son of God then? Can we get that straight?

@Just_Vagabond No, that's not what the texts say. *God* sent *the Son*.

@PracticalTheolo Yes, God *the Father* sent God *the Son*. That's Trinitarian theology.