Oh I see. The Stupid statements are your own rather than the truth in quotations, in the title of the article. It’s almost like wasting the ability for deep thought trying to prove you are “holyer than thou” and find fault in the purest form of faith itself to degrade it somehow. Or I suppose you would think that God has no control over that which is wrong, dangerous or stupid and lacks the ability to make it right, safe and smart whenever he so choses.

I would first like to respond, to the point as to why should we concern ourselves with the evidence, if the ones we are speaking to cannot respond, unless the Holy Spirit draws them to faith. God told Ezekiel to speak to the dry bones. Certainly these bones could not respond to the spoken words of Ezekiel unless God brought them to life. Now surely God could have brought these bones to life without the words of Ezekiel, but he chose to use his words to raise the dead. In other words God uses means to accomplish his works, in this case the spoken words of Ezekiel. In the same way when we are speaking to unbelievers, we are speaking to DEAD MEN. However we have been commanded to speak, and to be ready to give a DEFENSE for the hope that is in us. The next point I would like to address, is pointing to my changed life as evidence. While I would love for this to be true, I’m affraid it is not. Sure there are many times I do Godly things, however there are also times when I fail miserably, the things I want to do I do not, the things I do not want to do those things I do. So then although I could point unbelievers to things in my life as evidence, they could surely point to things in my life that contradict. We need to also think of all of the biblical characters, men like Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, and King David, all of these men are considered men of great faith, but they were also men of great sin. In others words God saves us not because of us, but rather in spite of us. My point here is the christian faith is true despite my inablity to live it perfectly. Is’nt this the Good News, God saves us inspite of ourselves. I wonder how the world would respond to such a thing.

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Why would living within my heart not be a true assensus? If we EXPERIENCE God living within our heart, it is as true of an experience as the fact that I am experiencing my own typing of these words on a computer right now, or experiencing my friendship with the people in my community.

I don’t “believe” God lives within my heart any more than I “believe” that I have a girlfriend or “believe” that I am a human being.

One more verse.

Acts 4:13 (New International Version)

13When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

With respect, the title to this post is upsetting and untrue.

It seems to encourage the condescending divide between the mushy-headed and sentimental lay Christian and a more theologically robust scholar.

I told my wife just last night (in the context of discussing our Bible College friends) that, shockingly, there is almost no correlation between intellectual biblical scholarship and the apprehension of Christian truth. In fact, if I may say so, I think they may be, in some (perhaps many) cases, inversely porportional.

What is going on here? It is almost as though a sense of superiority and self-relient intellectualism were not the keys to the Kingdom!

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. Or John 14:15

15″If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you.

These aren’t isolated exceptions. They’re exemplary of a whole theme of scripture. The personal, experiential knowledge of God is not a sentimental or charsimatic alternative to scriptural Christianity and solid theology it is scriptural Christianity. It’s God’s endorsed and biblical plan. We don’t just have a baseball card knowledge of God (stat’s, history, etc.) we may know Him intimately because He indwells us by the Holy Spirit.

Arguments of uncommon intellect like great ships in port. They draw us aboard beguiled and over-awed by their imposing manufacture then quietly depart without announcing where they are taking us.

Where are we headed? The writing is excellent. The power of the intellect impressive… why then would such basic truths be called into derision? How can so much training result in such a complex statement underpinning such basic error?

I loved the articles except
I just noticed the title of this article.

The phrase from the famous hymn is not stupid. See Romans 8:16

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

(and yes, I know you were dealing about faith on an emotional level when you cited that song).

It seems that Paul’s writings are consistent with Christ’s work and message, and pretty much consistent with other NT writers. What damage did Paul do to the church? Was it just a squabble over the word ‘apostle?’

Paul didn’t hijack the church, but he had an effect on it by ignoring Peter as the chief apostolic successor. Other apostles also ignored that, and Peter himself never insisted on leadership as far as we know.

rey,

Isa 53:11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
Isa 53:12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

When will Christ divide the spoil and with whom?

Could it be Christ will divide the spoil in the evening? Seeing when you are victorous that is the time to celebrate and look at what the battle won. I happen to think Paul will be included in this celebration of dividing the spoil . Paul will be celebrating in the evening ,dividing the spoil with Christ.

It is dangerous to fabricate so much from one verse such as Gen 49:27

I guess it all then boils down to this: If we cannot trust anything in the new Testament, then why should I believe that Jesus told the truth? His disciples could have embellished His story above and beyond the bounds of reason. Sorry, but your message destroys faith in Christ, not builds it up.

Unless you have some contradictory belief system, you have to explain to me why I should trust ANYTHING Jesus said if the NT is such a fraud. Good luck…

1. You have it exactly backwards. Asia Minor is a region in Asia, hence the name minor for it is only a small part of the whole. And in the NT “Asia” is always Asia Minor. And Paul does NOT commend John as a pillar but says that the top three only “seem to be pillars” and “whatever they really are makes no difference to me.” He is demeaning them in a vain attempt to make himself an apostle in their place. His rhetoric that they accept him is nothing but subterfuge and irony, as if to say “even these who I condemn as false apostles accept my apostleship.”

2. Yes, and Herodion is his kinsman not merely countryman. Otherwise the addition of the descriptive would be superfluous.

3. It was in a time when Paul was not popular. Had Tertullian not found an OT prophecy he could spin as a positive prophecy of Paul then Paul would have never gotten off the ground and we would not be having this conversation. How unfortunate for us all, however, that the ancients were so uncritical as to accept the Benjamite wolf prophecy as confirming Paul’s apostleship (!) seeing it does the opposite.

4. Because he could not.

5. Paul speaks of false apostles only to throw you off his own trail so you will not suspect him. “Why would a false apostles warn of false apostles?” And as to 2nd Peter 3:15-16, it is inauthentic. In Tertullian’s Book 5 Against Marcion, why does he refer to the Benjamite wolf prophecy and the book of Acts to establish Paul’s apostleship and not to Peter’s epistle if it said that at that time? Peter never wrote such words. They were put in his pen at a later date.