Why did God...

[face2face]

Saul already needed a thorn to keep from becoming conceited due to the greatness of his revelations. How would he fare if he didn't consider himself the chief of sinners?

Stephen being martyred was a great event, probably achieving more for the kingdom than had he continued living this life.

Something I don't think is preached on much is the value of adversity for strengthening our faith. 1 Peter 1:7

We inevitably aim for comfort, it is human nature to seek lives of abundance even when it isn't best for us.

In terms of Christian resiliency and their willingness to live 1 Peter 1:7 have you consider firstly how difficult it was for God to foreknow the persecution (before birth) and that Paul would be a light unto the Gentiles but also how difficult for the early church members to accept Paul?

Imagine that in real life... 'yeah so I chased down and killed your brother but then Jesus appeared to me and told me I was on the wrong track and now I'm converted...so can we break bread?'

We are given very little insight into the trail here.

Galatians 1:22-24 is beautiful

I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they praised God because of me.

This is about people who only knew him by reputation! What about the people that knew him because they'd come face to face with him as a persecutor?

Paul is an enigma - he was full on and intense in every meaning of the words. His early learning, his rigid observance of the law, his persecution, his blindness, his conversion, his preaching, his humility, his guilt, his thankfulness, his joy. It's all part of the picture that made him the right person for the job.

God's perfection, foreknowledge and wisdom in directing some things and letting others play out, intricate balance of time, place, people, circumstance.

Many Christians who know not the power of the Word of God miss the mark and fail to look for these insights. So few want to discuss but rather seek for meaningless subjects and argue over pointless teachings, while the weightier matters of faith under trial, go largely unnoticed.

If Paul killed my brother God would expect me to open my home, provide food and shelter and listen to his teachings...imagine that in today's post Christian world?

Crazy.

 

[quietthinker]

Correct...understanding the true nature of the Adversary (satan) in the apocalypse is a study in itself...not for this thread.
Thanks
F2F

I would make it clear that the Serpent identified in Rev. 12:9 is that referenced in Eden. It further tells us his origins were in Heaven.

 

[face2face]

I would make it clear that the Serpent identified in Rev. 12:9 is that referenced in Eden. It further tells us his origins were in Heaven.

Make of it what you want Quiet...many have to their own hurt.

 

[quietthinker]

Make of it what you want Quiet...many have to their own hurt.

hmmmm, paradigm which assumes 'truth' is a tricky business!

 

[face2face]

hmmmm, paradigm which assumes 'truth' is a tricky business!

You should start a thread of your own making. If you want to believe in man-made notions of supernatural monsters with pitch forks, go right ahead...I'll stay within the confines of the Inspired record thank you.
F2F

 

[quietthinker]

You should start a thread of your own making. If you want to believe in man-made notions of supernatural monsters with pitch forks, go right ahead...I'll stay within the confines of the Inspired record thank you.
F2F

as implied, the process of tarring truth with myth is ever ready to exonerate itself.

 

[face2face]

as implied, the process of tarring truth with myth is ever ready to exonerate itself.

Correct and the myth that Angels can sin is up there with one of the most damaging. Believers such as yourself would even harm their own reward...go figure?

 

[quietthinker]

Correct and the myth that Angels can sin is up there with one of the most damaging. Believers such as yourself would even harm their own reward...go figure?

yet you say 'I'll stay within the confines of the Inspired record thank you.' .....post #25
hmmmmm!

 

[face2face]

yet you say 'I'll stay within the confines of the Inspired record thank you.' .....post #25
hmmmmm!

Right you are...one must stay within those confines otherwise you end up believing in all manner of false teachings.

 

[face2face]

@quietthinker why do you think you have struggled to enter Acts 9? It's noticeable your interest has been elsewhere...

 

[quietthinker]

@quietthinker why do you think you have struggled to enter Acts 9? It's noticeable your interest has been elsewhere...

making a mountain out of a molehill is an expected response.

 

[face2face]

making a mountain out of a molehill is an expected response.

Interesting response Quiet...its okay to share!

 

[face2face]

One could even say that his zeal as a Christian was even stronger than his former zeal as persecutor.

 

[face2face]

We are not told of those Christians who were left in prison in Jerusalem or what came of them. In truth it matters not to the record or the reality they were kept for that great day of the Lords coming. The Christians in Damascus were now safe to continue their preaching.

Do you find it interesting the conversion story is told 3 times?

And each time its clear the overriding teaching is that Paul saw Christ - nothing more than that.

This in itself is interesting.

 

[Brakelite]

@APAK
It is remarkable that in the time of Patrick, as later testimony from Alphonse Mingana will point out, there were large groups of Christians stretching all the way from the Euphrates to northwestern India. Furthermore, in 411, when Patrick was at the height of his work, the recognized head over the Church of the East at Seleucia, Persia, consecrated a metropolitan administrator for China who must have had many provincial directors under him. This indicates many Christian churches in China in that age. Ambrose reported in 396 that Musaeus, an Abyssinian church leader, had “traveled almost everywhere in the country of the Seres.” Seres was the name for the Chinese. Truly, the age in which Patrick labored saw stirring scenes throughout the world.

It was the terrible wars waged by Ogotai which brought home to the nations of Europe the threat of subjection to the Mongols. Batu, the intrepid and invincible general of Ogotai, suddenly appeared on the eastern flanks of Poland and Hungary. Hungary had been relied upon to check the Mongols, but unexpectedly it offered comparatively feeble resistance; and for a number of years the forces of the Tartars passed and repassed over her lands, pillaging, ravaging, and devastating. Only the Holy Roman Empire now lay between the conquerors on the east and France and England on the west. Ogotai died in the year 1241. The princes were recalled from war to elect a new khan. While they were coming together, the queen mother labored earnestly for the election of her favorite, son, Kuyuk, and her work resulted in his election. Kuyuk was a true Christian, and in his days the prestige of the numerous Christians in his dominions was very high.23 Mingana relates that his camp was full of church leaders, clergy, and scholars, and that a Christian by the name of Kaddak was his grand vizier. Under Kuyuk the massacres and devastations which had characterized the rule of Genghis and Ogotai seem to have come to an immediate end. It is a question if Europe was not spared further Mongolian wrath because a Christian, such as Kuyuk, was elected to supreme command. After the death of Kuyuk in 1251 the succession passed to Mangu. Tule, a brother of Ogotai, was a mighty general. Of Sarkuty Bagi, the wife of Tule, Mingana shows that she was another Christian queen, a true believer and the wisest of all.24 She was the mother of three sons who in turn became vested with imperial dignity, and all of them were professed Christians or possessed of Christian wives. Their names were Mangu, Hulagu, and Kublai.

 

[Brakelite]

The careers of Genghis Khan and his son, Ogotai, and their friendly relations to the Church of the East, belong more to the history of Asia as a whole. This story has already been told. The story of the three nephews of Ogotai — also emperors and conquerors; namely, Mangu, Kublai, and Hulagu — are prominently connected with the triumphal hours witnessed by the Church in China. Emperor Mangu and his father, Tule, completed the conquest of China. Kublai, succeeding Mangu, removed the capital of the Scythian world from its ancestral center in Siberia to Peking, called in those days Khanbalig. When Kublai mounted the throne of the Mongolian world, he appointed his brother, Hulagu, to be independent emperor, or viceroy, over territories bordering on Europe, with his palace in Persia. King Frederick of Saxony gave no stronger support to Luther than these three sons of the victorious general Tule gave to the Assyrian catholicos of Bagdad and his far-flung churches in India, Asia, and China. In the writings of an author who lived contemporaneously with Mangu, the Christian convictions of that emperor are clearly set forth in the following words: “a follower and a defender of the religion of Jesus.”3 Mangu treated Christians, Moslems, and Buddhists with kindness; but he was especially anxious to attract the communities of the Church of the East to his country, because he found their medical learning and great business ability to be beneficial to his subjects.

For centuries China was in the west called Cathay. The great emperor soon discovered the abilities of Marco Polo and chose him for an imperial officer. As such, he made many journeys throughout the realm and reported concerning the numerous towns and villages in which he found Nestorian Christians.25 As an officer of Emperor Kublai Khan, he went to the southwest part of China and noticed the existence of Assyrian Christians at Yunnanfu, the capital city of the province of Yunnan.26 Of the city of Yangchow, over which Marco Polo was placed for a time as governor and which had twenty-seven other wealthy cities under its administration, it is related that it had three such church buildings.

Thus, there are famous witnesses who saw with their own eyes the flourishing churches in the empire of China from 600 to 1300. These churches are not there now. What has happened since then? Another revolution embracing Asia and Europe in its sweep overthrew the Mongols and made the Turks dominant.

Now one could ask, why did God allow the overthrow of Christian churches and Christian nations to Mahommedan warriors?

 

[face2face]

Now one could ask, why did God allow the overthrow of Christian churches and Christian nations to Mahommedan warriors?

It's not unlike the empires that have come and gone...God set in power Whom He wills. Dan 4:17

 

[APAK]

@APAK
It is remarkable that in the time of Patrick, as later testimony from Alphonse Mingana will point out, there were large groups of Christians stretching all the way from the Euphrates to northwestern India. Furthermore, in 411, when Patrick was at the height of his work, the recognized head over the Church of the East at Seleucia, Persia, consecrated a metropolitan administrator for China who must have had many provincial directors under him. This indicates many Christian churches in China in that age. Ambrose reported in 396 that Musaeus, an Abyssinian church leader, had “traveled almost everywhere in the country of the Seres.” Seres was the name for the Chinese. Truly, the age in which Patrick labored saw stirring scenes throughout the world.

It was the terrible wars waged by Ogotai which brought home to the nations of Europe the threat of subjection to the Mongols. Batu, the intrepid and invincible general of Ogotai, suddenly appeared on the eastern flanks of Poland and Hungary. Hungary had been relied upon to check the Mongols, but unexpectedly it offered comparatively feeble resistance; and for a number of years the forces of the Tartars passed and repassed over her lands, pillaging, ravaging, and devastating. Only the Holy Roman Empire now lay between the conquerors on the east and France and England on the west. Ogotai died in the year 1241. The princes were recalled from war to elect a new khan. While they were coming together, the queen mother labored earnestly for the election of her favorite, son, Kuyuk, and her work resulted in his election. Kuyuk was a true Christian, and in his days the prestige of the numerous Christians in his dominions was very high.23 Mingana relates that his camp was full of church leaders, clergy, and scholars, and that a Christian by the name of Kaddak was his grand vizier. Under Kuyuk the massacres and devastations which had characterized the rule of Genghis and Ogotai seem to have come to an immediate end. It is a question if Europe was not spared further Mongolian wrath because a Christian, such as Kuyuk, was elected to supreme command. After the death of Kuyuk in 1251 the succession passed to Mangu. Tule, a brother of Ogotai, was a mighty general. Of Sarkuty Bagi, the wife of Tule, Mingana shows that she was another Christian queen, a true believer and the wisest of all.24 She was the mother of three sons who in turn became vested with imperial dignity, and all of them were professed Christians or possessed of Christian wives. Their names were Mangu, Hulagu, and Kublai.

Well you have provided a much more detailed account of the history, to Christianize Asia. Quite interesting. So what does that say about God's plan and purpose for Asia. Why did Asia eventually settle with other religions and philosophies? I cannot tell.

 

[quietthinker]

It's not unlike the empires that have come and gone...God set in power Whom He wills. Dan 4:17

So you are saying that basically God is a yin/yang God; one who perpetuates evil as he does good.

 

[face2face]

So you are saying that basically God is a yin/yang God; one who perpetuates evil as he does good.

You certainly have a way with words. Yes, God is involved in His Creation...He forms light and creates darkness - do you know Him?