Mark Lashbrook

@churchtalkative Your post is proof you don't understand the Bible

The thief on the cross never got baptized, never joined a church, never did a single good work. He just turned to Jesus in his last minutes and said “remember me,” and Jesus told him he’d be with him in paradise that same day. That’s proof salvation was never about what you’ve done. It’s grace, plain and simple.

@DocKrease @BrysonGray And, just in case the rhetorical question went over the reader's head, he explicitly says...V. 24 "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only."

Are you trusting in Him alone for salvation? Or your works? Pretty big distinction there. Let's look at the scripture. James 2:19-24 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Let's break this down a bit. What is James saying here about belief that there is one God? He says that the demons share this belief, and they tremble. He then clarifies that faith without works is dead; faith with no fruit is a dead faith and has no value. He then goes back to Abraham who's faith was accounted to him for righteousness, and then his faith was made perfect by fruit, by his works. He then concludes with another example in Rahab the harlot, and that faith without works is dead, just as the body without the spirit is dead. Faith alone justifies man before God; it is accounted to him for righteousness, but it must be true, living faith. If a man claims to have faith in Christ but that faith is not working in and through him, changing him to be more like Christ, then it is a dead faith.

James literally compares “Faith Alone” to the doctrine of demons. That doesn’t bother you?

@DocKrease @BrysonGray V 21 "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?" Rhetorical question with the implied answer being yes, Abraham was justified by works.

@RichardMi11igan @BrysonGray Nailed it.

I appreciate that you’re fighting for a high view of Scripture and pushing back against anything that smells like cheap grace or ignoring the Old Testament. That heart is good and needed. I’ve been studying these same questions hard lately (reading both the regular 66-book Bible and the fuller canon in the Orthodox Study Bible) so I wanted to engage thoughtfully instead of just taking shots and hoping you reply I think the core of what you’re saying is this: God never prophesied that He Himself would change or do away with the Law. He said it was good, not too hard, and would last. The Messiah was supposed to uphold it, not create a situation where following Him means we can drop it. So when people say “Jesus fulfilled it so now we don’t have to keep it,” it feels like that makes God out to be inconsistent or worse. Did I capture that right? Here’s where I think the argument runs into some real problems, brother. First, the word “fulfill” in Matthew 5:17 doesn’t just mean “obey it perfectly so everybody else still has to keep doing the same thing forever.” The Greek idea is to bring something to its intended goal or completion. Jesus didn’t just check every box on the list. He embodied the purpose the whole system was pointing toward. The sacrifices, the priesthood, the Temple, the purity laws, the festivals… they were shadows (Colossians 2:16-17). He’s the reality. When He said “It is finished” on the cross, He used a word from the same root. That’s not God changing His mind. That’s God finishing what He started. Second, there actually are prophecies that the way God relates to His people through the Law would change under the New Covenant. Jeremiah 31:31-34 is the big one (and Hebrews 8 quotes it and draws the conclusion). God says the new covenant “will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors.” He promises to write the Law on hearts and give forgiveness in a deeper way. Ezekiel 36 says He’ll give a new heart and put His Spirit in us to cause us to walk in His ways. That’s not evil people changing the Law, that’s God Himself promising a transformed relationship. Hebrews 8:13 then says plainly that by calling it “new,” the first covenant is made obsolete. That’s inspired Scripture talking, not some later tradition. Third, on the Gentiles and the Law, you said the Messiah was never prophesied to make it so His followers don’t have to keep it. But the New Testament is crystal clear that Gentiles were never under the Mosaic covenant the same way Israel was. The Law was given to Israel at Sinai. Abraham was justified by faith before the Law even existed, and the promise was always that all nations would be blessed through him (Genesis 12, Galatians 3). When the early Church had to settle this exact question in Acts 15, the Holy Spirit led them to say Gentile believers did not need to be circumcised or keep the full Law of Moses. They gave just a few instructions for fellowship. Peter called the whole thing a yoke “that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear.” If full Torah observance was supposed to continue for everyone who follows the Messiah, that council would’ve said something totally different. Paul is even sharper in Galatians. He says adding Law-keeping for justification is “a different gospel.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law. We’re not supposed to go back under a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1). And he calls the Law a guardian that was in place until Christ came. That’s not antinomianism, that’s recognizing the Law had a specific role in God’s plan that reached its goal in Jesus. I think the biggest issue is a false choice that keeps showing up. It’s presented like we only have two options: either the Law stays exactly the same in its Old Testament external form forever for all believers, or God lied and contradicted Himself. But what if the real biblical picture is that God is faithful by fulfilling the Law in Christ and moving His people into a new covenant administration, where the moral heart of the Law is written on hearts by the Spirit, where ceremonial shadows are completed in the reality of Christ and the Church’s life, and where Gentiles are brought in as co-heirs without having to become Jews first? That’s not God changing or lying. That’s the plan He revealed all along, now brought to light in the Messiah. I get why it feels like mainstream Christianity sometimes throws the baby out with the bathwater on the Old Testament. There’s real shallowness out there. But flattening everything into “we still have to keep the whole Torah exactly like before” also misses what the New Testament actually teaches about fulfillment, shadows becoming reality, and the freedom Christ purchased. The early Church didn’t require Torah observance for Gentile believers, and the fathers after them understood the ceremonial aspects as fulfilled, not still binding in the same way. I’m not saying any of this to dunk on you or call you a heretic. You clearly love the Lord and want to honor His Word. I’m just saying the “God lied so many times” framing doesn’t hold up once you let the New Testament interpret how the Old Testament covenants reach their goal in Christ. The Law is good. The moral principles still guide us. But we’re not under the old administration anymore. We’re in the new covenant realities. @BrysonGray

I want to make sure I have this right. You all believe God made a law, and he said the law wasn’t difficult to keep AND said it will last forever. He even prophesied it will be in the new covenant.

They arrested the President of the United States of America 4X, charged him 91X, indicted him 4X, spied on his campaign, sabotaged his first term, jailed his supporters, raided his private residence, censored him, gagged him, tried to bankrupt him, and attempted to remove him from state ballots. When all of that failed they tried to assassinate him not once but four times. And they go on national television to talk about how we need to vote for them to save democracy.

@SirBylHolte No. Because they're not losing money, they're investing it. The goal is not to entertain or to profit: it is to push a narrative.

LET'S SEE: They made "Star Trek" for women, black people and gay people: CANCELLED. They made "Doctor Who" for gay people, black people and black gay people: CANCELLED. They made Star Wars for women, gay women and black women: CANCELLED OR FLOPPED. They turned “Captain America” black: FLOPPED. They made “Snow White” for Latina feminists: FLOPPED. They made “The Little Mermaid” black: FLOPPED. They made “Ironheart” for black girls: FLOPPED and CANCELLED. They made “Wonder Man” for black people: FLOPPED. They're making Helen of Troy black: BACKLASH INCOMING. They made Snape black: MASSIVE COMEDY BACKLASH INCOMING! Will they ever get the message?

Someone explain to me how Drake Maye was in the running for MVP?

Worst #SuperBowl commercials ever

Worst super bowl commercials ever.

@55SweetThing Charlie was wrong

Charlie answers “In order to be saved, do I need to be baptized?”

@JamesSurowiecki Neither does "Stupid" yet here you are.

The word "God" does not appear in the Constitution.

@4thDayblog @brysongray What abomination did they do? Answer is obvious.

@brysongray Ezekiel 16:49-50 ESV Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. [50] They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.

Liberals should never talk about the Bible

@matt_vanswol Cuz only old ppl still believe the MSM

@michaelpfreeman You be dumb.

The United States is no longer into doing good in the world.

@GavinNewsom So?

These children were literally praying as they got shot at.

@MikeNellis Calm down, Mike. It's NBC.

This is fucking insane—NBC is reporting ICE deported a four-year-old with stage-four kidney cancer to Honduras despite him being an American citizen. I don’t know if they’ll ever face justice in this life, but I pray to God they get it in the next. Absolute ghouls.

@brysongray @grok CCG not gonna address Romans 14, I guess! Lol! @grok you're very patient.

@grok 😂 was the sabbath keeping in acts post - resurrection or before? Was the hearing the word of the lord and prayer during sabbath not post - resurrection?

Hey @grok most denominations and Christian sects including Catholicism and orthodoxy ignore the scriptures to fit their man made theology…wanna debate about it?

@brysongray True.

If being a Christian is defined by simply believing in Jesus Then, even demons are Christian 🤷🏾‍♂️

Hypocrisy at its finest. #Illinois #Pritzker #NeverPresident

@MilaLovesJoe Me!

Who voted for Elon Musk and D.O.G.E. to cut the government in half?