Jeremiah

@Fungame77 There was a multitude that left with Israel in the exodus. God also made promises to other nations such as in Deuteronomy 2.

his seed shall become a multitude of nations. Gen 48:19 This verse shows that the one nation of Israel is not the only nation that came from the tribes of Israel. There are a multitude of nations, who are also descendants of Israel.

@TheDemSlayer There is one bride. His bride. And you’re mocking her.

This accurately reflects the state of the Gentile “Christ is King” Church: An obnoxious, loud, lawless, disobedient, unjust, unmerciful, selfish, fat, slobbering, Israel-and-Jew-hating, horrendously hideous hag—one that Jesus will cast away from him on Judgement Day, declaring: “I never knew you! Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23) 💛📖👉🏻 “‘The days are coming,’ declares Jehovah, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the people of ISRAEL and with the people of JUDAH. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke My covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares Jehovah. ‘This is the covenant I will make with the people of ISRAEL after that time,’ declares Jehovah. ‘I will put MY TORAH in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, “Know Jehovah,” because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares Jehovah. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’ This is what Jehovah says, He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—Jehovah Almighty is His Name: ‘Only if these decrees vanish from My sight,’ declares Jehovah, ‘will ISRAEL ever cease being a nation before Me.’ This is what Jehovah says: ‘Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of ISRAEL because of all they have done,’ declares Jehovah.” — Jeremiah 31:31-37 💛📖👉🏻 “‘In those days, at that time,’ declares Jehovah, ‘the people of ISRAEL and the people of JUDAH together will go in tears to seek Jehovah their God. They will ask the way to ZION [Jerusalem] and turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to Jehovah in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’” — Jeremiah 50:4-5

I can tell you’re really considering what I’m saying; thanks for the thoughtful question. I think what’s happening here is the distinction between volition of action and volition of belief. I’m not arguing against volitional action at all — we clearly make real choices. But even our actions are limited by what’s possible (you can’t will yourself to sprout wings and fly… yet), and they’re always shaped by what we already believe and how we feel that day. The deeper question is the ontology of belief. Claiming we can will ourselves to believe something is what’s extreme, because it simply can’t be done. Try it: make yourself truly believe there’s a ghost under your sofa right now. You can’t. But if you started hearing strange noises, looked underneath, and felt an eerie chill… you might begin to suspect something — and none of that shift would be by deliberate choice. If the belief formed, you’d later find yourself acting on it (maybe never wanting to sit on that sofa again). Belief comes first, then volition.

@macrofern What about my view that we have volition/choice is extreme? I still don't understand how that is extreme at all.

This might cost me some followers, but it also might drive some good fruitful conversations: I don't think "Original sin" means that we inherit Adam's guilt and are sinful in the womb. We are simply born into a fallen world where Death exists as a result of Adam's sin. We all choose to sin on our own. I believe the gospel is synergistic. If you have faith in God, God will save you. We do not save ourselves but we must have faith in and repent and love and obey Him. God saves us fully, by His grace (the gospel and cross at minimum) through our faith in Christ as our Lord and Savior. In other words we have free will to choose or reject God. He does not overpower that free will to save us. Similarly I don't adhere to OSAS (once saved always saved) -- again, man has free will to accept or reject God. There are so many exhortations in Scripture to 'finish the race' that are non-sensical if we can't fall away. God will always remain faithful and no one can snatch you away from Him, but again He will not force you to follow Him, even if you've already been believing and following Him. I know many people will strongly disagree with these claims, and some will probably call me a heretic for them. I welcome conversations and questions on these topics in the spirit of iron sharpening iron. But please actually engage and don't just snipe me and say I'm a heretic and quote a verse out of context.

@ChristianKingTV Nasty.

Orthodox foot relic fetish. 🤦‍♂️aka "Sacred Tradition" 🤣🤣🤣 This is what happens when you are not sola scriptura. lol

@Delta55Sarg @Aaronaeus Was it really not there? Or was it just not understood? Paul said he taught only the law and prophets, so I would take the mystery as still being there.

@macrofern @Aaronaeus Does anyone study the OT? The NT authors are exegeting the OT and applying it to their generation; the only thing that wasn't in the OT was the jew+gentile in one body "the mystery". The song of Moses lays this out. youtu.be/O5gbuszuhqI?si…

What came first? The Church Or The Bible

That’s exactly the danger — but only if we stay locked in the false free-will/determinism dichotomy. That whole framing assumes something or someone has to be in meticulous control of our beliefs. It doesn’t. It’s actually not even demonstrable from Scripture or experience. We can still be real image-bearers who genuinely accept or reject the gospel without either extreme.

@macrofern Ok, interesting. And my focus on control/will is that I'm not a determinist. So if something outside of me determines what I do then I'm either a robot or something else, not a human made in God's image with the ability/capacity to accept or reject Him.

Great question! Why does anything have to be “in control”? A tree isn’t “in control” of the way its leaves unfurl or its branches twist — it’s simply responding to environmental stimuli. Belief works the same way. I encourage you to look into doxastic involuntarism. It’s well established, and I’ve never come across a strong refutation outside the distinction between direct and indirect. Would love to hear what you think!

@macrofern Yeah, I understand your point I think (even though I disagree). But what about my question, if you don't control what you put your faith in, who or what does?

@Machi1Nne Perhaps because another just like him would have ascended the throne and not gotten the point.

God ki||ed every firstborn in Egypt because Pharaoh refused to do what God told him. Why didn’t God k!ll Pharaoh instead of innocent children?

@prncecarrington @truthcartel816 @bigjonsteel @johncdirks @Canonandcreed @GregChacon5 @JPuncut @Abunajohn I’d swim away from the shark too. 😉

@truthcartel816 @bigjonsteel @johncdirks @Canonandcreed @GregChacon5 @JPuncut @Abunajohn @macrofern

I guess @C2Antiquity was indeed too much of a coward to debate Preterism. He knows the Preterist line of questioning asks prior questions to his church’s exclusivity claims, so he runs because he knows it collapses the entire system. Coward.

I think you’re striking right at the heart of it. Belief is never an act of the will — can you will yourself to believe anything? You can’t will yourself to believe the sky is white or that 2+2=5 no matter how much incentive you have. What happens is you encounter evidence, and you either believe it or you don’t. It’s often only after you believe that you even realize you believe (and frankly a lot of people don’t have a clear grasp on what they actually believe). Our volitional choices — what we do with our will — always flow out of what we already believe. In other words, will comes after belief. This is not to say beliefs can’t change later. A more powerful piece of evidence or stronger conviction can override or encourage us to nurture a different belief. But that always comes after.

Interesting. So if we don't have control over what we believe and put our faith in, what or who does? And yes, I strongly disagree that we don't have the ability to put our faith in something/someone based on what we hear and see and experience. I think that's exactly how we can believe and have faith through hearing the Gospel and the ways God has revealed Himself.

You asked for thoughtful discussion and I brought it! 😉 We’re aligned on all but one small but critical point: whether our belief is something we can actively will. Both biblically and philosophically, that doesn’t hold up. No one can simply choose to believe something the way we choose an action. This doesn’t push us into determinism at all. It just recognizes that belief isn’t under voluntary control. You encounter evidence and you either believe it or you don’t. Keeping in mind that a bad pizza or poor night’s sleep affects everything! If you’re interested, this is called Doxastic Involuntarism — a long-standing framework on the ontology of belief.

Love the careful nuanced answers here. I agree many terms and views like monergism vs synergism are clumsy and loaded terms. My main point is like you said we have the ability to accept Christ in faith or reject Him. We have the capacity, will, and freedom to do that and it's not pre-determined and decided completely by God (even though God is the one who saves us). As far as the old covenant model, yes, it's important to keep the covenants in mind Adam was certainly cut off and death entered the world because of his sin. (Love the James call-out as well). Again my main point here is that we aren't born in guilt, we have the freedom and will to resist or accept the gospel and Christ. We can choose to sin or obey ourselves. We are under the curse of death because of Adam, but we are not guilty because of Adam. And yes, in Christ alone through faith do we gain eternal life through the New Covenant and what He did on the cross to defeat death.

@MateyYanakiev @desertcynic When the text you referenced calls the same beings both “men” and “angels,” what in the passage forces us to read “angel” as “non-human spirit being who can temporarily incarnate” rather than “human messenger sent by God”?

@desertcynic Rejection of angelic procreation comes down to, “Doesn’t fit my philosophy.” Which is 100% backward. Philosophy must be built around data in Scripture—not the other way. Angels could take on fleshly bodies capable of eating & even being assaulted (Gen 18:8, 19:5; cf. Jude 7!).

Fr. Stephen is playing in the big league now. It's a shame that he's reviving a false theory rejected by the Church for 1600 years. People love their Manichean fairy tales, though.

@AnsweringRCs Paul also says scripture is sufficient for equipping the believer to ALL good work.

Scripture Alone is true because: 1. Oral apostolic tradition outside of Scripture is lost. 2. Scripture is clear that tradition is fallible. 3. And it is obvious that Popes, Councils and the modern invention of the modern ordinary & universal Magisterium are all fallible.

@xBalaamsAssx You’re breaking the law. God didn’t tell you could stuff off just because you’re not king.

@macrofern Can't do any of that without an established theocracy which we dont have And even if we did, having a justice system isn't difficult

Would someone who believes the law is done away with and a burden please explain to me which laws are too difficult for us to keep?

@Chris_Hackney_ Yes, that’s what I’m saying. And no, it’s not unjust. They ended in their natural state. They got to live, and then they died. Everything dies eventually even in your worldview. By what measure do you get to determine what is and isn’t unjust?

So no eternal torment, fair. But you’re still saying my Kemetic ancestors, who lived by Ma’at for 3,000+ years before Christ, are simply ‘dead’ forever unless they somehow knew about Jesus? That’s still unjust. Billions punished for bad timing. Kemet already had its path to eternal life and union with the Divine long before. We didn’t need to wait for him

SO THE BILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO EXISTED BEFORE "YOUR JESUS" ARE BURNING IN HELL FOR BEING BORN TOO EARLY IN HISTORY?

@Olu_Utd14 Sounds like a cop out to me.

@macrofern That question shouldn't be asked... I'm just a common person, if people have faith in me, worship me and see me as a god, I will surely do something…

If God is all seeing then he has witnessed every single child molestation in history and not intervened… If the above argument is true, then one of the following most be true: God is apathetic to the molestation of children God condones the molestation of children God does not have the power to stop the molestation of children Child molestation is all part of God's plan In addition to one of the above statements being true, what must also be true is that when God created humans, he designed our psyches in a way that makes some of us capable of doing such things, and that leaves the people it happens to traumatised…

@_Revelation_20 What do you mean by making “the kingdom a metaphor”?

Selective "spiritualization" of the Bible is a dangerous path. If we make the Kingdom a metaphor, we risk making the resurrection one as well.