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  1. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    Yes, Adam was, but he and all of us messed that image of God in us with self-centeredness (sin) and tarnished it. Jesus came to restore it by dying and rising again and continues to restore it as believers go to church, read the Bible, live for him, and pray!
  2. Bruce-Leiter

    The law

    Which chapter is that in 1 Timothy?
  3. Bruce-Leiter

    Will this work?

    Let me clue you in. I'm 82 years old and continue to sin. I mean that I still sometimes get frustrated and impatient and fail to pray when I should. We are all sinners, but the difference is that God motivates believers to want to avoid sinful emotions, decisions, and actions and to become more...
  4. Bruce-Leiter

    God as heavenly parent - the dysfunctional view we inherited

    During our 56 years of marriage, we had four children. One of them was very strong-willed; the others were compliant. Parents must show both tender and tough love toward their children. I mean that they must set and enforce limits for their children's actions when transgressing those limits...
  5. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    Gen_18:25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” 1Sa_2:10 The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them he...
  6. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    Apparently, you don't believe that God is a just God who must punish human sinfulness and that God satisfied his own justice through Jesus' death. Do you believe those truths?
  7. Bruce-Leiter

    Will this work?

    You would never be "born again" to become anyone that violates God's clear will, "You shall not murder."
  8. Bruce-Leiter

    Biblical Authority

    I completely agree!
  9. Bruce-Leiter

    Will this work?

    God's peace doesn't mean inactivity; it does mean acceptance of God's plan and will for our lives. Enjoying our glory seems to come from Romans 8:28 and 29 as well as 2 Corinthians 3:18, which both seem to say that when we come to believe, God puts a spark of his glory in us. I can really enjoy...
  10. Bruce-Leiter

    Job 19:25 I know that my redeemer lives,

    You're welcome, Pearl. May God bless you in your loss!
  11. Bruce-Leiter

    Biblical Authority

    So, what's your point? No matter how it came about, it still is the authoritative Word of God, as 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17 as well as 2 Peter 1 attest to.
  12. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    Accusing God of sadism is a very serious thing. You might rethink your judgment of him. He is a loving God but also a just God. The Bible is clear on both of those qualities. The whole context of those two verses shows that believers have received God's justification and unbelievers, his...
  13. Bruce-Leiter

    I abandoned my faith

    Until I was 16 years old, I was a pragmatist and the son of an unbelieving pragmatist. That is, I believed in my own experience, just like my dad's faith, to guide my life. Many people have faith in their reason, experience, or emotions to guide their lives. When my believing mother dragged me...
  14. Bruce-Leiter

    Job 19:25 I know that my redeemer lives,

    My sympathy to you, Pearl. Four years ago this coming November, my wife died suddenly after 56 years of our marriage. You are on my prayer list.
  15. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    We Reformed people believe that the Bible is clear about our ultimate destination being the new earth of Revelation 21:1, to which the new Jerusalem descends in that chapter. Our theology is far from Jehovah's Witnesses, since they don't have the same God. We believe in the 3-in-1 God of the...
  16. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    (1) If someone in authority over you commands to you to avoid doing something and you do it, you are in essence replacing that person's authority with your own. That's what rebellion is. (2) When Adam fell into sin, all of us fell with him. That's the truth Paul presented. Those who never knew...
  17. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    Basically, I would go with the plain meaning of Scripture without parodies or imagination added. After all, as Paul and Peter both say, it's God's Word to us. I don't want to mess around with it. Why do you have to add to Scripture things that aren't there? The "transgression' was in wanting to...
  18. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    (1) They were clear in knowing that God commanded them not to eat the fruit and that they would die if they did. That should've been plenty enough of information for them to obey. (2) They didn't have to know all that Satan had planned; they only had to know that their disobedience had dire...
  19. Bruce-Leiter

    Does God care more for himself than he cares for us?

    None taken. No, God didn't create humans to go to hell. They decided under Adam to send themselves there by trying to take over the rulership of his universe. That rebellion was their fault and sent them there because of their self-centeredness. We let Satan bamboozle us into imagining that we...
  20. Bruce-Leiter

    Biblical Authority

    I agree with you mostly. However, Jesus did "write" the whole Bible by being the Agent through whom the Father inspired all of it by the Spirit's power as the ONE Inspirer of it. He also guided the assembling of it according to the criteria he gave believers, who, nevertheless, are all fallible...