Confused about Christ?

Motar

Council Member
Jun 18, 2013
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Initially, Nathanael was confused about Christ.

"Philip found Nathanael and told him, 'We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.' 'Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?' Nathanael asked. 'Come and see,' said Philip." (John 1:44-46 NIV)

Then Nathanael met Jesus.

"When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, 'Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.' 'How do you know me?' Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, 'I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." (John 1:47-48 NIV)

One life-altering encounter and Nathanael's confusion gave way to confession.

"Then Nathanael declared, 'Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.' Jesus said, 'You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” (John 1:49-50 NIV)
 

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
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Red Deer AB
1Jo:2:9-12:
He that saith he is in the light,
and hateth his brother,
is in darkness even until now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light,
and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
But he that hateth his brother is in darkness,
and walketh in darkness,
and knoweth not whither he goeth,
because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
I write unto you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.

You don't have to find Him, it is the Sheperd's task to find all the sheep.
 

Motar

Council Member
Jun 18, 2013
2,472
39
48
1Jo:2:9-12:
He that saith he is in the light,
and hateth his brother,
is in darkness even until now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light,
and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
But he that hateth his brother is in darkness,
and walketh in darkness,
and knoweth not whither he goeth,
because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
I write unto you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.

You don't have to find Him, it is the Sheperd's task to find all the sheep.

Is that Calvinism, MHz? By God's design, it is the sheep's task is to recognize and follow the Shepherd. (John 10:14, 27)
 

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
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Nakusp, BC
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
116,362
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Low Earth Orbit
Wilson was bat sh;t crazy just like McKenna. I guarantee they cried out in angst blaming God for their early demise.
 

Motar

Council Member
Jun 18, 2013
2,472
39
48
At first meeting, Nicodemus who came to Jesus at night was confused about Christ.

"Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, 'Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.' Jesus replied, 'Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.' 'How can someone be born when they are old?' Nicodemus asked. 'Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!' Jesus answered, 'Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.' 'How can this be?' Nicodemus asked. 'You are Israel’s teacher,' said Jesus, 'and do you not understand these things?" (John 3:1-10 NIV)

Nicodemus appealed to the law experts from the law in defense of Christ.

"Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, 'Why didn’t you bring him in?' 'No one ever spoke the way this man does,' the guards replied. 'You mean he has deceived you also?' the Pharisees retorted. 'Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.' Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 'Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?" (John 7:45-51 NIV)

In a public act of faith, Nicodemus participated in the burial of Jesus' body.

"Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night." (John 19:38-39 NIV)
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
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Wilson was bat sh;t crazy just like McKenna. I guarantee they cried out in angst blaming God for their early demise.

so, how are you going to guarantee that?

Seems his last words were "Hold on, I've just worked out how I might follow Schrödinger's Cat to the Trick Tophat universe ... just a moment ..."
 

JLM

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 27, 2008
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so, how are you going to guarantee that?

Seems his last words were "Hold on, I've just worked out how I might follow Schrödinger's Cat to the Trick Tophat universe ... just a moment ..."

I never heard of the guy until now.
 

Motar

Council Member
Jun 18, 2013
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"The time is approaching—indeed, in some instances it has already arrived—when Christians in this country will suffer abuse for upholding the truth about marriage. We encourage our fellow Christians to stand firm in obedience to Christ, for that ­obedience is the most compassionate service we can offer society. In doing so, we must strive to heal the wounds of a confused and broken culture, to foster human flourishing, and to honor the God who ­created human beings in his own image, male and female. For Christ said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10)."
The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage by Evangelicals and Catholics Together | Articles | First Things

Let us return compassion for abuse, Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, upholding the truth about marriage in our own lives.
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
14,698
73
48
How many groups survive that can't reproduce?

They don't need to reproduce. They're born gay to heterosexuals. Now, if all heterosexuals stopped reproducing then gays would become extinct, as would all humans.
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia
Gerrald Massey's Lectures

The Jewish writers and Rabbis with whom I have talked always deny the identity of the Talmudic Jehoshua and the Jesus of the Gospels. "This," observes Rabbi Jechiels, "which has been related to Jehoshua Ben-Perachia and his pupil, contains no reference whatever to him whom the Christians honour as God!" Another Rabbi, Salman Zevi, produced ten reasons for concluding that the Jehoshua of the Talmud was not he who was afterwards called Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth (and of the Canonical Gospels) was unknown to Justus, to the Jew of Celsus, and to Josephus, the supposed reference to him by the latter being an undoubted forgery. The "blasphemous writings of the Jews about Jesus," as Justin Martyr calls them, always refer to Jehoshua Ben-Pandira, and not to the Jesus of the Gospels. It is Ben-Pandira they mean when they say they have another and a truer account of the birth and life, the wonder-working and death of Jehoshua or Jesus. This repudiation is perfectly honest and soundly based. The only Jesus known to the Jews was Jehoshua Ben-Pandira, who had learnt the arts of magic in Egypt, and who was put to death by them as a sorcerer. This was likewise the only Jesus known to Celsus, the writer of the "True Logos," a work which the Christians managed to get rid of bodily, with so many other of the anti-Christian evidences.
Celsus observes that he was not a pure Word, not a true Logos, but a man who had learned the arts of sorcery in Egypt. So, in the Clementines, it is in the character of Ben-Pandira that Jesus is said to rise again as the magician. But here is the conclusive fact: The Jews know nothing of Jesus, the Christ of the Gospels, as an historical character; and when the Christians of the fourth century trace his pedigree, by the hand of Epiphanius, they are forced to derive their Jesus from Pandira! Epiphanius gives the genealogy of the Canonical Jesus in this wise:--
Jacob, called Pandira, Mary=Joseph--Cleopas, Jesus.
This proves that in the fourth century the pedigree of Jesus was traced to Pandira, the father of that Jehoshua who was the pupil of Ben-Perachia, and who becomes one of the magicians in Egypt, and who was crucified as a magician on the eve of the Passover by the Jews, in the time of Queen Alexandra, who had ceased to reign in the year 70 B.C.--the Jesus, therefore, who lived and died more than a century too soon.
Thus, the Jews do not identify Jehoshua Ben-Pandira with the Gospel Jesus, of whom they, his supposed contemporaries, know nothing, but protest against the assumption as an impossibility; whereas the Christians do identify their Jesus as the descendant of Pandira. It was he or nobody; yet he was neither the son of Joseph
3​
nor the Virgin Mary, nor was he crucified at Jerusalem. It is not the Jews, then, but the Christians, who fuse two supposed historic characters into one! There being but one history acknowledged or known on either side, it follows that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jehoshua of the Talmud, or is not at all, as a Person. This shifts the historic basis altogether; it antedates the human history by more than a hundred years, and it at once destroys the historic character of the Gospels, together with that of any other personal Jesus than Ben-Pandira. In short, the Jewish history of the matter will be found to corroborate the mythical. As Epiphanius knew of no other historical Jesus than the descendant of Pandira, it is possible that this is the Jesus whose tradition is reported by Irenæus.http://pc93.tripod.com/gmlectrs.htm



 

Motar

Council Member
Jun 18, 2013
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48
Let us return compassion for abuse, Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, upholding the truth about marriage in our own lives.

Martin Luther, as he taught in his sermon “On the Estate of Marriage”:

It is an outward and spiritual sign of the greatest, holiest, worthiest, and noblest thing that has ever existed or ever will exist: the union of the divine and the human natures in Christ. The holy apostle Paul says that as man and wife united in the estate of matrimony are two in one flesh, so God and man are united in the one person Christ, and so Christ and Christendom are one body.The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage by Evangelicals and Catholics Together | Articles | First Things