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The issue is that with the completion of the New Testament canon of Scripture,
Which was done without the premise of the written word
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To the contrary. What I am saying is that no one can mature spiritually through the sayings of any religion or philosophy. For example, the words of Budda are meaningless as far as the Christian life is concerned. There is no spiritual value in the Koran. Staring at your naval in comtemplation while chanting 'ohm' over and over will not bring anyone closer to God. Only through the doctrines and principles that are found in the word of God can a believer mature spiritually. Explaining what scripture says does not contradict that fact.
And inherantly you have pointed out a religious philosophy that is just as meaningless.
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Truth is absolute and has only one correct interpretation. The idea that no one can know the truth is part of what I think is called post-modernism. The lie is that truth is relative.
Another false premise, the spirit of God is beyond language, so when you write words in your language you are asking people to conform to an assertion of words rather than what the spirit manifests in a person.
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That is a false assumption. You are under a mistaken belief that I ever implied that people need to listen to my pastor.
The meaning is the same, you believe everything you believe is the absolute truth and you have gotten that from other men in which you say have the authority to teach that absolute truth. It is all the same, you confuse the tenants of your doctrine for a truth of the written word no one can understand without being taught by people who believe exactly as you believe.
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Spiritually maturing involves the fact that as the believer progresses spiritually, he will come to a better understanding of certain doctrines that he once did not understand. And also that as he comes to a better understanding, he may realize that he was incorrect about something that he once thought to be true.
Another false premise, you basically have been told by pastors who you esteem to the authority of God that this means this and that, you yourself will not understand everything they say, and when you actually connect with what they tell you, you think you have matured spiritually and all that has really happened is that your thought processes have begun to conform to other mens.
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No. The question to be asked is if the believer is willing to study to show himself approved unto God, and rightly divide the word of truth and set aside personal bias and make the effort to learn what the Scriptures say.
Which is contradictory to most of what you try to say here, you assert yourself as already having and imparting that knowledge, you hold to the tenants of a doctrine and apply labels to things so that when certain words pop up that matches the labels you just basically say they are not true and repeat what the men you esteem in authority have told you.
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Acts 20:28 teaches that the Holy Spirit assigns a certain pastor to a certain congregation. 1 Peter 5:1-3 teaches that there are certain believers who are assigned to a certain pastor. God will lead the believer who is positive to the word of God to the right pastor. Most believers are not positive and if they go to a local church at all, it is one whose pastor does not even teach the word of God but instead has little devotional sermons.
Which only means that if they teach what you believe, then they have been assigned the correct spirit if they do not teach what you believe then they are not, which is a fallacy.
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You cannot grow to spiritual maturity without being under the teaching ministry of a prepared pastor teacher. You can make some progress, but only some.
Like I explained, you are growing only in the knowledge of other men, you confuse that with spiritual maturity. You will have to use circular logic in order to actually demonstrate a properly prepared teacher because a properly prepared teacher to you is someone who teaches everything you believe.
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If you are saying that you have met spiritually mature believers who have never learned the doctrines of the word of God, you have not.
Showing that you will again use circular reasoning to make that assertion, a spiritually mature person to you will agree with everything you have been taught, if they do not agree with what you have been taught then you will say they are not spiritually mature, it demonstrates nothing.
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Since we both know that you are not going to believe much or any of what I am saying, I think that I have spent enough time on this with you
And there again the fallacy continues making my point very well.
This is an excellent post Mike. Am I correct to assume that you believe 2 Tim. 3:16-17 that the Bible equips us THOROUGHLY? We need no other creeds, books, articles of faith, etc. All we ever need to know about our salvation and how to live a life pleasing to God can be found in the scriptures? I'm not debating here. I just want to know your thoughts on this. Regardlessof how you respond, I do think this is an excellent thread topic, and I completely get why you chose it. There are those on here who claim we worship the Bible, and put it above Jesus. They just don't get it! Maybe you can shed some light. I hope so.
Katie
Thanks.
Everything the believer needs to grow spiritually is found in the Bible. However, that does not mean that a believer does not need a pastor/teacher. And it does not mean that he cannot come to a better understanding of the scriptures or of a particular doctrine that he may not ever understand on his own by reading what theologians have to say about a point of doctrine.
I make use of the 8 volume 'Systematic Theology' by Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, the 'Bible Knowledge Commentary' produced by the Dallas Theological Seminary, and numerous other material produced by the pastors I study and have studied under. I avail myself of the online Bible classes of certain local churches (not local to my area) such as...
Home - Grace Doctrine Church (http://www.gdconline.org/default.aspx - broken link)
It's amazing that people who claim to be believers and yet deny that the Bible is the word of God can't understand that what God has communicated and set in writing through human authors is His word, His message, and therefore is the word of God. The Bible is the thinking of Christ set down in writing for the benefit of man. To regard as unimportant what God has communicated in His written word is to regard God as unimportant no matter what proclamations of love they profess to have for God.
God is not using angels, or dreams or visions, or prophets to make any new extra-biblical revelations to the church since the completion of the New Testament. That has nothing to do with the ''still small voice of God.'' That still small voice of God is not teaching any new doctrines or principles that God didn't include in the Bible. Hearing that 'still small voice of God' is dependent upon learning Bible doctrine so that the Holy Spirit can use it to guide the believer under the filling of the Spirit.
That "still small voice of God" has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with learning or teaching bible doctrine and anyone who has actually experienced it KNOWS THAT FOR A FACT. You've made it perfectly clear to everyone here that you haven't and that is just a shame...for you are missing the greatest experience one could ever have in their lifetime.
That "still small voice of God" has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with learning or teaching bible doctrine and anyone who has actually experienced it KNOWS THAT FOR A FACT. You've made it perfectly clear to everyone here that you haven't and that is just a shame...for you are missing the greatest experience one could ever have in their lifetime.
Not every voice is from God. The only way to know if it is from Him is to compare it to the Bible.
That "still small voice of God" has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with learning or teaching bible doctrine and anyone who has actually experienced it KNOWS THAT FOR A FACT. You've made it perfectly clear to everyone here that you haven't and that is just a shame...for you are missing the greatest experience one could ever have in their lifetime.
Here is what I said to which you are replying...'Originally Posted by Mike555
God is not using angels, or dreams or visions, or prophets to make any new extra-biblical revelations to the church since the completion of the New Testament. That has nothing to do with the ''still small voice of God.'' That still small voice of God is not teaching any new doctrines or principles that God didn't include in the Bible. Hearing that 'still small voice of God' is dependent upon learning Bible doctrine so that the Holy Spirit can use it to guide the believer under the filling of the Spirit.
What I said there is that the 'still small voice of God' has nothing to do with the communication of any new doctrines.
But!!! The believer being guided by the Holy Spirit is dependent upon having the content of Bible doctrine in his soul so that the Holy Spirit has something with which to work in guiding him. Bringing to memory some promise or principle to deal with some situation.
To the extent that a believer knows the promises and doctrines of the word, to the extent that a believer mixes the promises of God with his faith, he comes to rely on God during his time on this earth. A believer who is devoid of Bible doctrine does not have anything with which the Holy Spirit can work to guide him.
The believer who does not know Bible doctrine but claims that the Holy Spirit is speaking to him may claim that the Holy Spirit has told him things that completely conflict with what scripture says.
One person on this forum has said that the Holy Spirit told him things that happened in the garden of Eden that are not mentioned in the Bible.
I had a Mormon missionary once tell me that the Holy Spirit told him something (I don't remember what) that was completely contrary to what the Bible says.
Oh yes. One person on this forum thinks that God has led him to realize that the Bible is stale manna, and stale air.
Believers who are devoid of Bible doctrine can imagine that God is telling them all sorts of things which have no basis in reality.
The Holy Spirit will never lead a believer to believe something that is contrary to what is revealed in the word of God.
Being still and listening is valid. But without doctrine and the promises of God in the soul you will listen in vain. Oh, you may have a feel good experience, but that's about it.
But this is a sidebar. The topic is that the Bible is the word of God.
To the contrary. The Bible existed in the mind of Christ in eternity past. In due course of time, it pleased God to use human authors to record in writing that which He desired to communicate to man.
You make the error of assuming that because there were other texts which pre-date the written Hebrew Scriptures, that the Hebrews must have copied from the earlier texts. The reality is that in ancient times, both pre-flood and post-flood, God communicated to man through various means, such as direct communication, angels, visions, dreams. But many became disobedient to God and turned away from Him. In time, legends, stories, myths developed, many of which had their basis in truth, but were distortions of the reality. But when God began to have human authors record His revelations to them, an accurate account of things was given to man which are preserved in the Bible.
You further error in saying that Asherah was written out of the Bible. Israel certainly had problems with idol worship. In 2 kings 17:9-12 we see the following.
2 Kings 17:9 'And the sons of Israel did things secretly which were not right, against the LORD their God. Moreover, they built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. 10] And they set for themselves sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, 11] and there they burned incense on all the high places as the nations did which the LORD had carried away to exile before them; and they did evil things provoking the LORD. 12] And they served idols, concerning which the LORD had said to them, ''You shall not do this thing.''
Asherah is mentioned numerous times as in Ex 34:13; Deut 7:5; 12:3; 16:21; Judges 3:7; 6:25,26, 28,30; 1 Kings 14:15,23; 15:13; 16:33; 18:19; 2 Kings 13:6; 17:10; 17:16; 18:4; etc....
That has to be the funniest and saddest thing I've seen you post yet...this is INDOCTRINATION AND BRAINWASHING at its finest...and you've bought it hook, line and sinker.
Specify a few of 'those hundreds of God Breathed scriptures that didn't make it into the canon by the corrupted church fathers back in 300AD??????????' so that I don't have to make assumptions about what you are referring to.
Don't be obtuse...you know exactly what scriptures I'm speaking about. If you cannot answer the question without some fantasmagorically beyond belief explanation from your shepherds...just say so.
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Originally Posted by Mike555
Why would you expect to have to find a scripture that says the above in order for it to be true? The apostles were not robots. They wrote within the framework of their particular style of writing. They obviously used their own vocabulary in writing.
And the inspiration also had to be filtered through their own brains and their own understandings...you are confused about the meanings of inspiration and dictation...God inspired them to write he didn't dictate it to them as you'd like everyone to believe.
in·spi·ra·tion
1. an inspiring or animating action or influence: I cannot write poetry without inspiration.
2. something inspired, as an idea.
3. a result of inspired activity.
dic·ta·tion
1. the act or manner of dictating for reproduction in writing.
2. the act or manner of transcribing words uttered by another.
3. words that are dictated or that are reproduced from dictation.
Hearing that 'still small voice of God' is dependent upon learning Bible doctrine so that the Holy Spirit can use it to guide the believer under the filling of the Spirit.
This is a bold faced LIE. There are hundreds of thousands of people who hear "the still small voice of God" everyday and they've never even seen a bible let alone picked one up and read it. How arrogant and prideful of you to think that you know it all...your spirituality is as stale as the dogma and doctrine you've been indoctrinated with and you do a great disservice to humanity itself when you try to pass your drivel off as GODS TRUTH.
It's abundantly clear that you've never actually experienced God...and deep down Mike, you know I'm right...no matter how much you bluster otherwise. Seek God within Mike and quit looking to others to spiritually feed you because they are feeding you stale bread which is stagnating in your gut.
Don't be obtuse...you know exactly what scriptures I'm speaking about. If you cannot answer the question without some fantasmagorically beyond belief explanation from your shepherds...just say so.
I told you to give me examples of the scriptures you are talking about. Do it or don't. If you won't then this goes no further.
Further, if you can't communicate without the insults and adversarial style that you exhibit then don't expect any more replies from me.
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And the inspiration also had to be filtered through their own brains and their own understandings...you are confused about the meanings of inspiration and dictation...God inspired them to write he didn't dictate it to them as you'd like everyone to believe.
in·spi·ra·tion
1. an inspiring or animating action or influence: I cannot write poetry without inspiration.
2. something inspired, as an idea.
3. a result of inspired activity.
dic·ta·tion
1. the act or manner of dictating for reproduction in writing.
2. the act or manner of transcribing words uttered by another.
3. words that are dictated or that are reproduced from dictation.
HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO.
From post #1.
Jeremiah 36:1 'And it came about in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2] ''Take a scroll and write on it all the words which I have spoken to you concerning Israel, and concerning Judah, and concerning all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, even to this day...17] And they asked Baruch, saying, ''Tell us please, how did you write all these words? Was it at his dictation?'' 18] Then Baruch said to them, ''He dictated all these words to me, and I wrote them with ink on the book.''
God gave His message to Jeremiah ---> Jeremiah dictated the message to Baruch ---> Baruch wrote the message ---> Baruch read the message in the temple.
Throughout this process, the message from God to Jeremiah, from Jeremiah to Baruch, to its being written on a scroll, it is the Word of God that is said to be both the original message as well as the end of the process.
This same process is seen in the New Testament in 1 Thessalonians 2:13 where Paul says, 'And for this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God's message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.'
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That is so true CW2L!!!
