Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omnibenevolence.

[amadeus]

Next day ...I'm over it. Thank you all.
I read everything. xo

God bless people whatever station in life they are.
I can always smile and go my merry way, if they are too much for me.

Give God the glory always dear Sister in Christ!

 

[Nancy]

but now you are talking about proselytizing, right, not manifesting Christ to ppl IRL per se.
understand the judgement implied in even the way i'm sure you went about this, with empathy, etc.

A better way to perceive that is maybe to see how one implies being in a superior position in proselytizing, like, um, Nancy, i see that you believe Jesus is physically returning for you at some point, so i am here to lead you to Christ, yay!

You coming, or not

ps i dunno about omnibenevolence, even if i think i get the point trying to be made; benevolence is a perspective that may not be shared by all, and imo this concept is covered in "if you do this, I will do that; but if you do that, I will do this."

Iow God can also be perceived as one's worst nightmare too, God will put you in a position of having to contemplate eating your own children even, etc, and He does not even appear to be shy about plainly stating the possibility

"

but now you are talking about proselytizing, right, not manifesting Christ to ppl IRL per se.
understand the judgement implied in even the way i'm sure you went about this, with empathy, etc. <--- As speaking from my last 2.5 years attending a local body and have experienced this, I have just, over the past 2 weeks started attending another elsewhere. All is well with my Pastor and he understands from where I am coming, I will attend there from time to time...(probably mostly in winter storms as they are only 5 blocks from my house) as well as their events... If at one time I belong to Ephesus as my local gathering, does not mean I might not be led to Philadelphia one day!!! Back to the post...you are/were correct in your observation that I had a judgmental attitude towards the shunning of a large part of the women at the local Body. I was hurt, as there is always a ready smile for anyone I meet or even make eye contact with. MUCH prayer and repentance of those thoughts/feelings. And, as usual, He is faithful ♥
As to proselytizing, mm-no. Ha, that would be the last thing I would ever wish to do! Besides, only God can convert one from right to wrong.

"Jesus is physically returning for you at some point, so i am here to lead you to Christ, yay!" Ahaha! Yer so phunee! I am very pleased with the "teacher" of all truth that I now have, but gee tanx for the offer Mark! NOT to sound unteachable because we should always be teachable.

"and imo this concept is covered in "if you do this, I will do that; but if you do that, I will do this."
Not seeing the connection here...but nobody can ever tell me that God is not ALL good ALL the time...you are as free to believe anything you want as I am.

"Iow God can also be perceived as one's worst nightmare too, God will put you in a position of having to contemplate eating your own children even, etc, and He does not even appear to be shy about plainly stating the possibility" Only the unsaved afaic Any Scripture that speaks to this?

 

[Miss Hepburn]

Give God the glory always dear Sister in Christ!

Oh my...He tells me to go left or right!

 

[Harvest 1874]

I don't disapprove of men's philosophy unless it tends to confuse people about God. God really is effectively everywhere. When a person rejects God or does not believe in Him or acknowledge Him that person simply becomes completely blind to the things of God and may be used to accomplish the work of the left hand of God. It does not mean that God is not there. Such blind people have no perception [no vision, no hearing, no taste, no touch, no smell] of God except perhaps a small glimmer of Hope if they should look in the right direction and decide to pursue that Light. This small glimmer is seen here:

"That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." John 1:9
Notice that verse says the Light lighteth effectively every man born of woman. This light is not salvation, but a glimmer of hope for every man. If it is pursued it will lead a person to the Light, which is Jesus which is the Way to salvation.

Moving toward the Light is going with the right hand [the sheep] of God. Going away from the Light is going with the left hand [the goats] of God, which is a hopeless direction, the direction of death, the direction of never seeing the face of God.

"And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:" Matt 25:32-34

"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:" Matt 25:41

Arguing against the omnipresence of God as I understand it simply needlessly confuses things and our God is not the God of confusion. We need to know that no matter where we are, God is there for us, whether we avail ourselves of Him or not.

Who's arguing? We merely stated our point of view based upon the scriptures, we were not questioning anyone's belief, let each be convince in his own mind as to the truth. The sword of the spirit will do its own cutting where it may.

 

[bbyrd009]

Only the unsaved afaic Any Scripture that speaks to this?

sure, although you might note the text does not seem to differentiate between "saved, unsaved" as it is invariably Israel that is being addressed, all "saved" iow. Similarly all of the Hebrews who left Egypt as freemen were "saved" too, for an analogy. i understand this might sound a bit obtuse, but you might contemplate that none of the blessing/cursing passages ever say a word about beliefs being the decider, but always actions

Not seeing the connection here...but nobody can ever tell me that God is ALL good ALL the time...

well then, so much for "omnibenevolence?" Although i would agree to a very similar concept i guess, everyone gets the same treatment, there are no favorites per se, God does not respect persons iow

"if you do this, I will do that; but if you do that, I will do this"
is the standard language of blessing/cursing passages

 

[OzSpen]

Are these some of the attributes/characteristics of God that we can all agree on? Do you limit God Almighty? My personal belief is that God is all of the above...and more-He is ALL. Any biters, lol?

Nancy,

I accept those attributes because I'm an evangelical, born-again Christian whose life has been changed through an encounter with the living Christ.

However, I accept these attributes of God because I believe the Bible to be the authoritative, inerrant Word of God in the original languages.

There are droves of clergy across the world who do not believe these attributes. As examples, I've taken a grab from one of my articles, Was Jesus’ Resurrection a Bodily Resurrection?

In regard to the bodily resurrection of Christ, what false teaching do we have in the late 20th and early 21st centuries?

1. New Zealand Presbyterian minister, Sir Lloyd Geering

(Sir Lloyd Geering, image courtesy Wikipedia)

He defended what “Gregor Smith had said in [a book called] Secular Christianity … that the Christian is free to say that the bones of Jesus lie somewhere in Palestine, and until the Christian feels free to say that, he hasn’t understood what the Resurrection is about” (in Kohn 2001).

Geering continues, “The Resurrection was not a resuscitation, it was not a return to this life of a physical body. It was in fact something quite different. It was in fact the rise of Easter faith in the disciples, more or less as Bultmann had been explaining for some time” (in Kohn 2001).

In other words, the resurrection of Jesus was not a risen body in the flesh, but it was a spiritual experience for Christ’s disciples.

You possibly won’t read Lloyd Geering and some of these other false teachers today, but do you know the people who do read them? Those in the mass media who want to create doubt or a controversial perspective, readily seek comments from these doubters. When it comes to Easter and Christmas times, they won’t call on you and me, but these false teachings and their heretical teachers will hit the headlines.

2. Edward Schillebeeckx
A Dutch Roman Catholic, he wrote, “Jesus’ resurrection is not a return to life as in the story of Lazarus… it is certainly not a miracle of intervention in natural laws to raise a corpse to heavenly life” (from Schillebeeckx, God Among Us, p. 134, cited in Mann 1993).

3. The German Protestant Lutheran, Rudolph Bultmann
Bultmann wrote that “the resurrection itself is not an event of past history” (from Kerygma and Myth, p.39, cited in Mann 1993).

4. Protestant theologian Karl Barth
“Christians do not believe in the empty tomb but in the living Christ. Is the empty tomb just a legend? What matter? It cannot but demand assent, even as legend.” (from Church Dogmatics III, 2, p.454).

5. Former Episcopalian bishop of Newark, NJ, John Shelby Spong:
“The probable fate of the crucified Jesus was to be thrown with other victims into a common, unmarked grave. The general consensus of New Testament scholars is that whatever the Easter experience was, it dawned first in the minds of the disciples who had fled to Galilee for safety, driving us to the conclusion that the burial story in the gospels is both legendary and was developed directly from the words of II Isaiah” (Spong 2004).

6. John Dominic Crossan, a Roman Catholic, of the Jesus Seminar
Crossan speaks of “the apparitions of the risen Jesus.” What’s an apparition? A phantom, a ghost. Jesus’ resurrected body was not real flesh. He says that “the resurrection is a matter of Christian faith” (1995, p. 189). So, for him, the resurrection of Christ is really a spiritual resurrection among believers – whatever that means.

So, what happened to the body of Jesus? Crossan wrote: “Jesus’ burial by his friends was totally fictional and unhistorical. He was buried, if buried at all, by his enemies, and the necessarily shallow grave would have been easy prey for scavenging animals” (Crossan 1994, p. 160).

Let’s come closer to my hometown in Queensland – Bundaberg, Australia.

7. Rev. David Kidd, Bundaberg Uniting Church
At Easter time 1999, David Kidd wrote an article in The Bugle, Bundaberg, a local freebie newspaper that was titled, “The Resurrection of Jesus” (Kidd 1999, p. 19). I lived in Bundaberg at the time. In it, he stated: “The resurrection of Jesus.[3] It’s impossible. Even our brain dies after a few minutes of death. It’s just not possible.’”[4]

The above are examples of ministers, theologians and historical Jesus scholars who deny the omnipotence of God in relation to Jesus' resurrection and other theological matters.

If you want bibliographical information for these quotes, please go to my article where you'll find them at the foot of the article.

I conclude that acceptance of these and other attributes of God depend on one's view of God and the Bible. Theological liberalism destroys the Bible and churches.

Blessings,
Oz

 

[amadeus]

Who's arguing? We merely stated our point of view based upon the scriptures, we were not questioning anyone's belief, let each be convince in his own mind as to the truth. The sword of the spirit will do its own cutting where it may.

No argument.

 

[Nancy]

sure, although you might note the text does not seem to differentiate between "saved, unsaved" as it is invariably Israel that is being addressed, all "saved" iow. Similarly all of the Hebrews who left Egypt as freemen were "saved" too, for an analogy. i understand this might sound a bit obtuse, but you might contemplate that none of the blessing/cursing passages ever say a word about beliefs being the decider, but always actions

Nancy,

I accept those attributes because I'm an evangelical, born-again Christian whose life has been changed through an encounter with the living Christ.

However, I accept these attributes of God because I believe the Bible to be the authoritative, inerrant Word of God in the original languages.

There are droves of clergy across the world who do not believe these attributes. As examples, I've taken a grab from one of my articles, Was Jesus’ Resurrection a Bodily Resurrection?

In regard to the bodily resurrection of Christ, what false teaching do we have in the late 20th and early 21st centuries?

1. New Zealand Presbyterian minister, Sir Lloyd Geering

(Sir Lloyd Geering, image courtesy Wikipedia)

He defended what “Gregor Smith had said in [a book called] Secular Christianity … that the Christian is free to say that the bones of Jesus lie somewhere in Palestine, and until the Christian feels free to say that, he hasn’t understood what the Resurrection is about” (in Kohn 2001).

Geering continues, “The Resurrection was not a resuscitation, it was not a return to this life of a physical body. It was in fact something quite different. It was in fact the rise of Easter faith in the disciples, more or less as Bultmann had been explaining for some time” (in Kohn 2001).

In other words, the resurrection of Jesus was not a risen body in the flesh, but it was a spiritual experience for Christ’s disciples.

You possibly won’t read Lloyd Geering and some of these other false teachers today, but do you know the people who do read them? Those in the mass media who want to create doubt or a controversial perspective, readily seek comments from these doubters. When it comes to Easter and Christmas times, they won’t call on you and me, but these false teachings and their heretical teachers will hit the headlines.

2. Edward Schillebeeckx
A Dutch Roman Catholic, he wrote, “Jesus’ resurrection is not a return to life as in the story of Lazarus… it is certainly not a miracle of intervention in natural laws to raise a corpse to heavenly life” (from Schillebeeckx, God Among Us, p. 134, cited in Mann 1993).

3. The German Protestant Lutheran, Rudolph Bultmann
Bultmann wrote that “the resurrection itself is not an event of past history” (from Kerygma and Myth, p.39, cited in Mann 1993).

4. Protestant theologian Karl Barth
“Christians do not believe in the empty tomb but in the living Christ. Is the empty tomb just a legend? What matter? It cannot but demand assent, even as legend.” (from Church Dogmatics III, 2, p.454).

5. Former Episcopalian bishop of Newark, NJ, John Shelby Spong:
“The probable fate of the crucified Jesus was to be thrown with other victims into a common, unmarked grave. The general consensus of New Testament scholars is that whatever the Easter experience was, it dawned first in the minds of the disciples who had fled to Galilee for safety, driving us to the conclusion that the burial story in the gospels is both legendary and was developed directly from the words of II Isaiah” (Spong 2004).

6. John Dominic Crossan, a Roman Catholic, of the Jesus Seminar
Crossan speaks of “the apparitions of the risen Jesus.” What’s an apparition? A phantom, a ghost. Jesus’ resurrected body was not real flesh. He says that “the resurrection is a matter of Christian faith” (1995, p. 189). So, for him, the resurrection of Christ is really a spiritual resurrection among believers – whatever that means.

So, what happened to the body of Jesus? Crossan wrote: “Jesus’ burial by his friends was totally fictional and unhistorical. He was buried, if buried at all, by his enemies, and the necessarily shallow grave would have been easy prey for scavenging animals” (Crossan 1994, p. 160).

Let’s come closer to my hometown in Queensland – Bundaberg, Australia.

7. Rev. David Kidd, Bundaberg Uniting Church
At Easter time 1999, David Kidd wrote an article in The Bugle, Bundaberg, a local freebie newspaper that was titled, “The Resurrection of Jesus” (Kidd 1999, p. 19). I lived in Bundaberg at the time. In it, he stated: “The resurrection of Jesus.[3] It’s impossible. Even our brain dies after a few minutes of death. It’s just not possible.’”[4]

The above are examples of ministers, theologians and historical Jesus scholars who deny the omnipotence of God in relation to Jesus' resurrection and other theological matters.

If you want bibliographical information for these quotes, please go to my article where you'll find them at the foot of the article.

I conclude that acceptance of these and other attributes of God depend on one's view of God and the Bible. Theological liberalism destroys the Bible and churches.

Blessings,
Oz[/QUOTE

Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction (2 Thess. 2:1-3).
Christians seriously need to pray for discernment, especially in this age.

 

[Enoch111]

Are these some of the attributes/characteristics of God that we can all agree on?

All genuine Christians should all agree on these attributes unquestioningly, if we believe that the Bible is the Word of God. God -- by definition -- has no limits.

However there are many unbelievers and naysayers who simply do not believe what has been revealed. Then we have the Atheists who do not even believe in the existence of God. Then we have those following pagan religions and believe that are numerous *gods* in addition to the one true God. Then we have the JWs who believe that Jesus (the Word) is "a god" (John 1:1 NWT).

 

[bbyrd009]

^

you tagged me here Nancy, but if you would could you rephrase or state what you seek a reply to from me there?

And btw you might notice you are like breaking the software and making it really hard for others to trackback through a convo later wadr. If you hit "reply" to your own post there you can see what you are doing maybe

 

[Nancy]

you tagged me here Nancy, but if you would could you rephrase or state what you seek a reply to from me there?

And btw you might notice you are like breaking the software and making it really hard for others to trackback through a convo later wadr. If you hit "reply" to your own post there you can see what you are doing maybe

SRY ... don't remember why I tagged you...I'll look for it.

 

[Nancy]

sure, although you might note the text does not seem to differentiate between "saved, unsaved" as it is invariably Israel that is being addressed, all "saved" iow. Similarly all of the Hebrews who left Egypt as freemen were "saved" too, for an analogy. i understand this might sound a bit obtuse, but you might contemplate that none of the blessing/cursing passages ever say a word about beliefs being the decider, but always actions
well then, so much for "omnibenevolence?" Although i would agree to a very similar concept i guess, everyone gets the same treatment, there are no favorites per se, God does not respect persons iow

"if you do this, I will do that; but if you do that, I will do this"
is the standard language of blessing/cursing passages

Sorry @bbyrd009
I miss-wrote this : "Not seeing the connection here...but nobody can ever tell me that God is ALL good ALL the time..." I MEANT to say that "nobody can ever tell me that God is NOT good all the time...

 

[bbyrd009]

I MEANT to say that "nobody can ever tell me that God is NOT good all the time...

well but of course they can, even if i get your point there, yes. What i mean to reflect on here is mostly that "benevolence" and "good" are subjective definitions, perspectives, opinions; even if we broadly agree on most of them. God is good, all the time, but someone who is eating their baby and God goes, essentially, "I did that, that was because of Me," might be hard to persuade, right. Also we read that God does not respect persons, yet
I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.

 

[Nancy]

well but of course they can, even if i get your point there, yes. What i mean to reflect on here is mostly that "benevolence" and "good" are subjective definitions, perspectives, opinions; even if we broadly agree on most of them. God is good, all the time, but someone who is eating their baby and God goes, essentially, "I did that, that was because of Me," might be hard to persuade, right. Also we read that God does not respect persons, yet
I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.

"well but of course they can" Lol.
I do see your point. And, I must agree that the verses you quoted above are a couple I seem to avoid because maybe my mind cannot accept it? Yet, my faith tells me that His ways are higher and plans always better than mine.
This one will require much prayer and study on my part if I want peace about it.

 

[bbyrd009]

"well but of course they can" Lol.
I do see your point. And, I must agree that the verses you quoted above are a couple I seem to avoid because maybe my mind cannot accept it? Yet, my faith tells me that His ways are higher and plans always better than mine.
This one will require much prayer and study on my part if I want peace about it.

i don't mean that benevolence etc are not good things to seek and even practice, but that it can be easy to label charity the way we define it now as a good thing, when imo it is mostly evil

 

[Nancy]

i don't mean that benevolence etc are not good things to seek and even practice, but that it can be easy to label charity the way we define it now as a good thing, when imo it is mostly evil

It's not so much that I am seeking benevolence here, just trying now to reconcile His goodness to the scriptures you just reminded me of! lol.
Yes, the way "charity" is looked upon today is pretty skewed, just like everything God made "very good". The bible says in the latter days that men will call evil good and good evil...

 

[Enoch111]

Now as the bible says: Good=bad and bad=good.

What kind of psychobabble is this?

 

[Nancy]

What kind of psychobabble is this?

"psychobabble"??
Isaiah 5:20 "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!"

Many other scriptures pertaining to this, I'm sure you know them.

 

[Nancy]

What kind of psychobabble is this?

I should have reread and reworded that. Sry.

 

[Enoch111]

Many other scriptures pertaining to this, I'm sure you know them.

You said: "Good=bad and bad=good"

You may have meant that some mistakenly or wilfully call good "bad" and vice versa. But the Bible does not teach any such thing.