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Our student newsletter at Fuller Seminary was called "Balaam's Ass." They chose that title because of what a donkey supernaturally said to Balaam: "Then the Lord opened the mouth of the ass and it said to Balaam, "What have I done to you that you have struck me 3 times (Numbers 22:28)?" So I...

Mike, Have you read through my thread (currently 8 threads below yours) entitled "My Journal through the Lens of Spiritual and Paranormal Experiences?" I posted only a fraction of my paranormal experiences as a young Pentecostal, but your post has inspired me to post some of my later...

No, your proposed reversal is logically incoherent and therefore meaningless until you explain: (1) In what sense is Heaven "the final glorious accomplishment" for God? What exactly does Heaven accomplish? (2) God created us for a purpose. So how does Heaven enable God to fulfill His purpose...

Consider this way of getting at the question, "What's it all about, Alfie?" Most Christians view this brief passing breeze called earth life as our spiritual career and treat the afterlife as in effect a static but glorious nursing home or Disney World in which we eternally rest and retire. If...

In my church travels over the decades I have noticed a disturbing pattern: when modern praise choruses are sung, most of the congregation just listen as if to be entertained. Then when an old hymn like "The Old Rugged Cross" is sung as a change of pace, the sound is almost comically...

There is no debate among academic Bible scholars and commentaries about the meaning of "666." For 3 reasons, "Emperor Nero" is the unanimous answer: (1) The answer is determined by gematria, which is often used in this era. In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, letters also stand for numbers. The...

Dr. Larry Dossey has written a well-researched book on the power of prayer to kill or harm entitled "Be Careful What You Ask for." Tribal shamans effectively use curses to kill. But I think I've recently encountered an effective diabolical curse that destroyed an evangelical spiritual warfare...

Revelation presents this postmortem pattern: first death, first resurrection, 2nd death, second resurrection, but oddly fails to specify the occasion of the 2nd resurrection. "The first resurrection" happens after the millennial reign with Christ, however that be interpreted (20:5). What is...

Base 12, You must learn not to pontificate from ignorance of the nuanced meaning of biblilcal languages. For example, the standard dictionary of biblical Hebrew is the massive volume of Brown-Driver-Briggs. On p. 761 it defines "olam" as "long duration, antiquity." That is NOT eternal as the...

Hobie, Your thread nicely complements David's thread on universalism and most of my replies will be found there. For your thread, I initially want to draw attention to 4 points: (1) God wants Job to ponder the answer to this question: "Shall mortal man be more just than God (Job 4:17--KJV)?"...

David Taylor: "Why do some people think that everyone goes to Heaven in the end?" David. you and I have debated issues on this and on another site. So I want to preface my responses to your thread by saying that recently you have made some excellent points on various topics and, I think, are...

I repeat: it is a sad irony that Christians with the highest view of Scripture blissfully prefer the most corrupt text, the one used by the KJV. None of thse naïve Christians care enough about God's Word to read an academically respected book on Text Criticism such as the one written by my...

TruthOT: Please respond to these 7 questions which are designed to determine whether I should continue to dialogue with you and whether I consider you intellectually honest about your quest for the purpose of your life: (1) If God exists and rejects your agnosticism as a productive way to...

13 PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE POST-MORTEM STATE OF THE DAMMED: As expected, Evangelicals have either ducked the basic relevant 13 philosophical questions posed at the start of this thread or offered superficial answers that avoid an in depth response because of the threat that attunement...

Kathryn Kuhlman's death reminds me of the darkness and earthquake as Jesus died on the cross. I was fascinated by this nurse's eyewitness account of the manner of KK's death that apparently played a role in the nurse's conversion: kathryn kuhldman'd death nur se youtube - Bing video In my next...

Christian apologetics is self-defeating when it uses strawmen and simple-minded stereotypes to critique conflicting perspectives. For this reason, I have defended Catholic interpretations of Scripture and Tradition against simple-minded Evangelical mischaracterizations. Effective apologetics...

Covenant Promise, Not only am I not Catholic, but I have even won a lawsuit against the Catholic Church! Yet Catholic posters have Your claim has repeatedly been decisively refuted and your have no answer to the refutation other than mindless denials like this one.

marks: "If Dreams and Visions have authority, why are they not all received as such?" Spiritual dreams and visions can be revelatory and when they are, they are a sign of the church age in fulfillment of the prophecy in Joel 2:28: "In the latter days, it will be, God declares, that I will pour...

As a retired pastor and lifelong Christian, I have come to the conclusion that the least effective sermon topic is generally love. I say this for 2 reasons: (i) Most believers think of themselves as loving Christians and misapply insightful sermons on love to justify their often deluded...

(1) "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5)." The poster can find no evidence from antiquity whatsoever for use of the expression "born of water" as a reference to amniotic fluid. Jesus is specifying 2 necessary conditions...