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Seeing-that-it's-done-right is difficult. Many messages would be difficult to judge in the moment, to say whether it was really from God or not. Who wants to be the one to say, "that's not from God"? Not me. In the church of my youth, prophecy and tongues were fairly common. But there was...

Hosea had it worse than most, but yeah... I started out in a Charismatic church. I'm credulous of continuing gifts of prophecy and tongues and everything else, because I've seen them firsthand. I don't think every instance is authentic - there's clearly some weirdness going on with tongues in...

This post is 7 months old. How did I miss this til now? lol Largely based on the text itself. The prophets claim to be prophets.** They say, "the word of the Lord came to me" or "thus saith the Lord" or "I had a vision" or "I was in the Spirit" or something similar to indicate that the...

I moderated at another Christian form for about 15 years prior to being here, and... ignoring exactly what false teaching it happens to be... there are levels to this. Are they playing devil's advocate and don't actually believe it themselves? Are they earnest but deceived? Are they...

I think of doctrine more in terms of being "the official teaching of the church." For instance, the Catholics have their catechism, and most protestant churches have "articles of faith." To the earlier question, I think the commandments can be taken as doctrine, but it requires us to ponder...

I started to reply to this, essentially saying that they can be used either way. I ended up deleting that. I have to think on that for a minute. Interesting question.

The Ten Commandments seem to endure. They never get abrogated. The the priesthood changes, the way they are enforced changes, but the rules themselves remain the same.

Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? (Job 39:9) Nobody will know what it means. Everyone will wonder

I'm here to have conversations about the Bible, history, and other topics I care about. People in my real life often aren't inclined to have in-depth discussions about religion, so... here. I'm not trying to sway anyone from their position. On the contrary, conversation is livelier when there...

The major difference is enforcement. In the covenant mediated by Moses, the people were required to enforce the Law AGAINST ONE ANOTHER: At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to...

Yes, God provided his doctrine directly to Moses. One can find it in Deuteronomy 5 or Exodus 20. Somehow there are 1,186 more chapters besides those two, which leads me to believe that St SteVen might be on to something with the idea that a lot of doctrine is man-made.

Isn't it just relativity? All measurements are made relative to something. There has to be a yardstick by which to measure. Should one remove the objective standard, only a subjective standard exists. Measurements made using a subjective standard aren't meaningful to society. By that...

Most of my experience is with the Assemblies of God, which was the church of my youth, and the Church of God (not the crazy one). I'm sure other churches have their own history, but most Pentecostals trace back to the Azusa Street Revival somehow or other. Acts quotes from the prophet Joel...

That isn't how early Pentecostals viewed it. They agreed with the idea of the cessation of sign gifts (tongues, prophecy, etc) after the period of the apostles. They simply believed that God was restoring those gifts here in the last days, in fulfillment of... And it shall come to pass...

It wasn't meant to be derogatory. Following our father's faith in places where we don't have a full understanding seems quite reasonable to me.

You're basically saying that Christianity just failed/aborted in the 4th century. If I'm putting words in your mouth, please correct me. I don't think that's the case. There are still so many people who worship God. I'm not sure "trinitarianism" was ever a sect of anything. As I see it...

That's an interesting question. I don't think it's the same question that was asked before, though. "Corner" is an interesting choice of words. If we are creating a room with option in each corner, I envision the first question's room as containing options like: (a) monotheism (b)...

I thought that rule was repealed? Anyway, if you create a dichotomy but both of the options boil down to "monotheism" then I don't think you actually have a dichotomy. So, yes - they do seem to be standing in the same corner.

So if I can find a verse that says something... then it's Biblical? Ecclesiastes 8:15 I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life (NLT) Skipping work and off to the local pub, then. The Bible said so!

I don't think Commandment #3 is about swearing at all. It's about prophecy. False prophecy. If we say some something "in the name" of someone, we are acting on their behalf, as their representative. "In the name of King Richard, I command you..." is valid if you're an ambassador of King...