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He does it through his Word, through permitted difficult circumstances that are caused directly by Satan's or our own doing, and through other people, again permitted, not directly caused by God. See the book What God Has Done: My True, Dramatic God-Biography for many examples (Amazon).

No, that is self-centered fear. Godly fear is reverence for God as our Father. Good, earthly Fathers set loving limits for their children for their own good and enforce those limits with loving discipline when they go outside of those rules. God also gives us good limits as Christians and...

I answered that question in the last post.

Ronald, there are two kinds of fear in the Bible. Believers' fear as God-fearers is a reverence and respect for God's high status as opposed to our humility as his lowly, fallen creatures resulting in our praise. You're right in saying that believers don't need to fear people, but they must...

I think the best approach to unbelievers is to listen to their experiences with Christians and churches and to taylor our approach to meet their spiritual needs. After a long friendship with them during which I build their trust along with my witnessing, I would present the gospel to the modern...

A Christian can have much better answers than those ones.

It depends on how the gospel is presented. If we use Christian cliches like sin, Lord, salvation, etc., the modern, post-modern person will not relate to them. On the other hand, if we use words like "imperfections" instead of "transgressions" or "iniquities" (they know that they're not...

No offense taken, amigo! I was just objecting to the thought that we should tell unbelieving seekers about God's election of people to be saved before God's creation of anyone, which is a biblical truth that is best reserved for the maturing Christian. That's all. Share the rest of the gospel...

Calvinists do not follow Calvin, but we have discovered that his writings are very biblical. Therefore, we are Calvinists. We don't idolize him; we criticize his actions when he was wrong, for example, when he agreed with the death of Servetus.

What??

Amigo, if you don't want to be pastoral with unbelievers and want to preach the whole truth to them, go ahead. We will all be called to account by God someday for our approaches to people. I prefer to teach people with the parts of the truth that they can handle at the stage of spiritual...

If you threaten unbelievers with hell and they come into the church as members, you get people who have a human terror of God, not ones who have a godly respect, reverence, and awe of him. The latter people are true believers, not the former ones. So, you have false conversions.

You forget, SteVen, that Romans 1:18-20 says very clearly: Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Rom 1:19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has...

Yes, everyone will have to fully agree the fact that Jesus is Lord, but the devil and the demons have that acknowledgment with true faith in him. They acknowledge that he is Lord with giving their lives to him and without knowing him personally, which is true faith.

I think that this article sets up an empty "strawman" that it knocks down. That is, I don't think that any churches or denominations are threatening anyone with hell if they don't repent and believe during their evangelistic efforts. So, the questions are moot points. However, the second...

You're right. Believers' fear is different from unbelievers' fear. The former have reverence and respect for God, because he has all power, all knowledge, is present everywhere, and is eternal; we do not. However, when Jesus re-appears, unbelievers will try in terror unsuccessfully to hide from...

God holds out his universal love to his whole creation during unbelievers' whole lifetimes, but they passively or actively reject him as their Creator. Since they do (Romans 1:18-20) by relying on false gods, he justly lets them have their way but removes all those idols at their deaths, which...

Yes, that's for true believers, but for lifelong unbelievers, it's a just expression of God's justice, sadly to them.

So true! Yeah, I followed the 12-year-old herd into confirmation, immersion, and church membership in a church that didn't really preach the Good News based on the Bible. But, at the age of 16, God led me through an intellectual process based on the Bible to convince me that Jesus' resurrection...

Furthermore, to answer your question at the beginning of the thread, in the Bible, the word "spiritual" means to be led and filled by the Holy Spirit.