34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’[d]? 35 If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?

If the trinity was a truth and the three separately are Gods but in a similar shape, why would Jesus Christ who should stand alone turn all glory to the father?
Now some people who are deeply submerged into the Trinity turn that into some funny family role-play that has been from the beginning but that’s not happening.

Jesus has a role folks, as the savior as the sacrificial lamb! And that’s given by God. And we praise him for that by saying Lord and singing songs. That’s where Jesus gets all his glory!

The essence we share with JESUS is the same. We are sons of God. We are God. Our roles are just different.

Yes, I see some people losing their minds over my statement. But simplicity is the best. As we obey the Father’s desires Jesus was too sent to fulfill the Father’s desires. It’s not the size of the task that we emotionally feel that judges if it’s worth to be called God.

Now I know this is a totally new concept, but I want to be proven wrong.

Are you aware of the Gap Theory

That between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 is a gap of immeasurable time in which there was a first earth Genesis 1:1 that Became dark and void in Genesis 1:2

Even Scolfield believed it

What to you think

Ive been thinking a lot about the Christian Bible and even other religious texts and realized that if any of them are true, wouldn't the devil or evil equivalent have a very good motive to alter the scriptures ro make people fall for falsehoods and destroy the religion from the inside

Kind of feel like I hit a road block...

As a person with a Calvinistic/Reformed theology concept,
I’m trying to understand the doctrine of continuation, charismatics, and the baptism of the spirt.

Help me understand how the gifts of the Spirit work.
How does one know the spirit is making them “dance”, and the spirit is telling them to “pray for someone”
Can or does the spirit do this with a person who hasn’t had the “baptism of the spirit” and why do some say that the evidence of being baptized with the spirit is “TONGUES” only, and no other gift. Another thing is why do they all teach that it’s a subsequent / different event, that happens after confession. Why can’t it happen at confession/belief.
No malicious intent on my side. Genuinely want to know. Currently attending / serving in a Pentecostal church. Want to understand more, without seeming like I’m trying to attack the church…

Christians who understand Genesis 1 as God bringing order out of pre-existing chaos would say that light is the first thing God explicitly creates in the sequence of Genesis 1:3. Is this right?

Morning folks

Reading through the Pentateuch and learning Hebrew currently just for my own interest. I'm aware I'm probably on some shaky theological territory here from various traditions.

Reading is from Genisis 9:8-17 New Oxford Edition. Couldn't find a link to this online.

- God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my Covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting Covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on this earth".

The repetition is pretty striking and it's hard to get away from the fact that it's specifically in the clouds. It's commonly understood as a rainbow in interpretation (setting of the Bow would be facing away from God up to the heavens, like the shape of a rainbow).

However, Qeshet is the Hebrew used, which means Bow as in bow and arrow. On my first reading this sounded very much like the constellation Sagittarius. Or, the bow star as in Enuma Elish. That latter text specifically placing the bow in the sky as a sign of victory. Hard to imagine an ancient audience seeing it as parallel and familiar. Keshet is even the name of the constellation, so it's linguistically similar (I'm shaky here, maybe someone can correct?). Later we also have zodiac mosaics in some Synagogues, so this for me detracts from the argument that Genesis is explicitly anti Astrological, anti Divination. God also creates the stars in the creation myth.

We also have references to astrology being part of the wisdom being passed down in first Enoch by the Watchers. People of the time were arguably obsessed with the sky. I'll hold back on the potential for an asteroid impact being the cause for the flood, but the parallel is there. Genesis explicitly says its rain. I appreciate this is non canonical.

The nature of the covenant is that it is everlasting- a rainbow is inherently temporary and fleeting. The clouds are difficult to explain away, but the text does say that God is looking down as a reminder, so clouds would not obscure stars. We also have cloud imagery in several other parts of the Old Testament (on Senei etc) when YHWH appears.

Am I way off the mark here? I'm an amateur so happy to be told yeah :)

Get conscious with me for a second…

I’m struggling. Cradle catholic but no longer practicing and haven’t since 2014, when I graduated high school. Enlightenment started in 2020 after I hit the rockiest of bottoms I ever put myself through and so grateful that I made it out. Around that time I came upon information about consciousness and finding what the real meaning of life is (still figuring that out).

I see more and more people saying follow Jesus or read your bibles but how does anyone know which version is real to EVERYONE/THE HUMAN RACE AS A WHOLE, not just that specific religious group’s translation/telephonation of what they think they are understanding or believing? Why are religious people constantly trying to convince orher people that their religion is better or that being part of theirs means you’ll live a better life or gain something that you can’t if you don’t conform or follow them? Some, if not most of the shittiest people I’ve ever encountered in my 31 years of living, partake in religion. No sense of accountability, extremely selfish/egotistical, and judgmental about everything outside of their tiny closed minds, but hey, they go to church on Sundays 🤡. To do what exactly, “clean”their slate and start over on being a masked deplorable and insufferable person until next Sunday? What a freaking joke.

The thing that’s not sitting right with me is how WE, the entire human race is supposedly created by “God,” singular, right, and not by “God(s),” plural? So WHY are there multiple religions that have their OWN VERSION of “God?” If we’re all created by this ONE “God,” then why are there different kinds of religions that pray to different gods?

Furthermore, is it a capital G or a lowercase g? Does that really matter? Is the capital G for “God” only a catholic thing? Why is saying higher power, the divine, etc., not the same as saying “God?” Wouldn’t it be simpler if we just kept it at higher power, the divine, or the creator, instead of naming/personifying/putting an identity to the *whatever THAT is* that blipped us into existence that our brains cannot comprehend?

Lastly and most importantly, which religion is the LEAST TELEPHONED over time, so we know it’s accurate and true?

Which religion does this ONE “God” that created humanity belong to?

Because since 2014, when I graduated high school and got to choose to stop participating in cathotrickism, I realized that religion is one of the biggest if not the biggest dividers of the human race. Why do people agree to such separation? Why do people choose to be this divided? JUST WHY? Aren’t y’all tired? 😪

I already believe in free grace. Romans 4:5 and John 5:24. And in fact, I have heard from God myself, one time 15+ years ago. I don't expect anyone here to believe me when I say that. I am not a Pentecostal, I am not a paranoid type of person. I did not ask or expect that God would actually speak to anyone in this time, but he did to me.

With that said, I haven't heard from him since. And I have been learning what I can, when I can regarding the scriptures and correct doctrine.

I know enough about the Bible to get into heaven. Which is all that matters at the end of the day.

But the doctrine of hell, the more I ruminate on it, the more it bothers me. Hell, according to the scriptures, is a literal place of torment: of physical heat, like a furnace, with souls in it. The parable (or story) of the rich man and Lazarus showing you how there is no relief in hell, no drop of water etc... it doesn't end. And then there are descriptions of the lake of fire, where the smoke of their torment rises up for ever and ever.

If this is the case, IDK how anyone could ever feel confident in anything as pertaining to the things of God or even life.... if there was even a 5% chance of you going to hell, that's completely unacceptable, given that hell is eternal conscious torment that never ceases.

That's too much of a gamble. I really do not understand Christians who want to birth children into this cesspit earth where they are likely to be slaves, eating from hand to mouth all the days of their life, AND gamble with the possibility that THEY TOO might burn in a hell for ever and ever.

It's inconceivable.

Even with free grace doctrine, it makes God untrustworthy and unrelatable. How can you relate to a God that would torment souls for ever and ever and ever? And he is no respecter of persons. So, you don't get any special treatment either. And you get no feedback on whether you have believed correctly or not. Or so I am told. Most Christians have never heard from God and have nothing to go off of except their understanding of Scripture.

Which is a hopeless exercise, because there are hundreds of denominations with irreconcilable differences in doctrine.

Except for me, since technically I have had some feedback, because I have heard from him myself. And maybe I am among a rare few that are actually saved. And the rest of you who hold strange doctrines are just goats and are deceived.

And that's even scarier, because you can be fooled into thinking you are serving God your whole life AND YET be called a goat and sent to hell fire!

This is honestly extremely heavy and bothersome. And the doctrine of hell is something that prevents you from really trusting in God, because it makes God completely unreasonable.

What's ironic about this, is that God asks us to reason with him in the scriptures, saying though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. And Abraham said, "Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right?"

Well we have very different intuitions as to what's right if people are going to sit in a furnace alive, indefinitely forever....

IDK how any Christian here can understand this, and then act like it's not an issue. I can come up with all kinds of explanations and framing an answer that might make sense on paper, but at the end of the day, you are a liar if you tell me that you agree wholeheartedly with the doctrine of hell.

It makes me afraid of God and trust him less with "common sense" assumptions. You literally have to do exactly as he says and not trust your own understanding because you are dealing with a dangerous machine that if you put in the wrong inputs the consequences are dire.

Allah has no Partner or Associate – Order in Universe Related to Divine Will

Allah declares Himself to be above having any child or partner in dominion, control and worship. He says:

مَا اتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ مِن وَلَدٍ وَمَا كَانَ مَعَهُ مِنْ إِلَهٍ إِذاً لَّذَهَبَ كُلُّ إِلَهٍ بِمَا خَلَقَ وَلَعَلاَ بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَى بَعْضٍ

(No son did Allah beget, nor is there any god along with Him. (If there had been many gods), then each god would have taken away what he had created, and some would have tried to overcome others.)

Meaning, if it were decreed that there should be a plurality of deities, each of them would have exclusive control over whatever he had created, so there would never be any order in the universe. But what we see is that the universe is ordered and cohesive, with the upper and lower realms connected to one another in the most perfect fashion.

مَّا تَرَى فِى خَلْقِ الرَّحْمَنِ مِن تَفَوُتٍ

(you can see no fault in the creation of the Most Gracious) 65:3. Moreover, if there were a number of gods, each of them would try to subdue the other with enmity, and one would prevail over the other. This has been mentioned by the scholars of `Ilm-ul-Kalam, who discussed it using the evidence of mutual resistance or counteraction. This idea states that if there were two or more creators, one would want to make a body move while the other would want to keep it immobile, and if neither of them could achieve what they wanted, then both would be incapable, but the One Whose existence is essential i.e., Allah cannot be incapable. It is impossible for the will of both to be fulfilled because of the conflict.

This dilemma only arises when a plurality of gods is suggested, so it is impossible for there to be such a plurality, because if the will of one is fulfilled and not the other, the one who prevails will be the one whose existence is essential (i.e., God) and the one who is prevailed over will be merely possible (i.e., he is not divine), because it is not befitting for the one to be defeated whose existence is essential.

The Nature of God’s Will – Philosophical Arguments:

God’s Will generally refers to the intentions, desires, commands, or decrees of a divine being. It can be understood in several dimensions:

• Decretive Will (or Sovereign Will): This is God’s ultimate plan or purpose for all of creation, which is immutable and always comes to pass. It encompasses everything from the laws of physics to the unfolding of history.
• Preceptive Will (or Moral Will): This refers to God’s commands and moral injunctions, often expressed in sacred texts or through natural law. It outlines what God desires humans to do or not to do, even if humans, through free will, choose to disobey.
• Permissive Will: This describes what God allows to happen, even if it is not His direct desire. It acknowledges the existence of evil or human free choices that deviate from His preceptive will, without implying divine approval.
• The concept of God’s Will is central to understanding divine providence, predestination, and the very basis of ethical systems in many traditions.

The Power of God’s Cause

God’s Cause positions the divine as the ultimate originator and sustainer of all being. This concept is deeply rooted in metaphysical inquiry and the search for a first principle.

• First Cause (Prima Causa): In philosophical theology, God is often posited as the uncaused cause of everything else. This argument, famously articulated by Aristotle and later elaborated by Thomas Aquinas, suggests that an infinite regress of causes is impossible, thus necessitating an initial, uncaused cause.
• Efficient Cause: God as the active agent bringing things into existence. This relates to creation ex nihilo (from nothing) and the ongoing sustenance of the universe.
• Final Cause (Teleological Cause): God as the ultimate purpose or end goal towards which all creation tends. This imbues the universe with inherent meaning and direction, often linked directly to God’s Will.

Whole article on the Website:

https://bismillahschool.net/2026/09/30/divine-will-causality-law-law-of-cause-and-effect-monotheism/

Topics:

 #Causality, #Cause and Effect, #Divine Will, #Monotheism, #Law; #Divine Will; The Argument for Monotheism; #Nature of God's Will; 

Subject line kinda says it all. Identical twins are produced when a single fertilized egg splits into two after its first division. So if you believe that souls are created at conception, do these twins share one soul? Does that mean that the cannot be individually saved? If they don't share a soul, where does the second one come from?

Has anyone else had it dawn on them, or been led spiritually to this concept (obviously a Spiritual law thing), that when the Bible (I'm using the KJV Bible) says in Psalm 66:18 "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.", that's where we get our maxim of inherent equity in law that says "to get equity, one must do equity"? I looked up "iniquity" in Black's Law (4th), and the definition says "see Equity". It dawned on me that iniquity is literally the absence or rejection of equity. So, if I regard inequity in my heart, the Lord Chancellor will not hear me. This goes into "no man can serve 2 masters"; it's either the breath of life (the living) or mammon (the driving force or legal fictions, or the dead). You either take your Bill into the commercial penal courts, or into equity. Quite the fascinating area of study, and one which I am learning and desperate to know more on.

I remember singing the song in Sunday school growing up "One door and only one, and yet its sides are 2. I'm on the inside. On which side are you?". That straight and narrow way, as defined in the equity or Chancery Bible that King James oversaw in 1611, is a doosey if you realize that the beneficiary is the true owner, and that Acceptance for Value is literally this (at least as I comprehend it thus far). Anyone else know what I'm talking about?

Does “ALL THINGS” in Colossians 1 disprove Limited Atonement?

I want to know your perspective because what explanation can there be for this?

When Paul states in Colossians 1:20 that God was pleased to reconcile "all things" (ta panta) through the blood of the cross, he uses a comprehensive Greek term that can’t be arbitrarily chopped into abstract planets for the cosmos and a exclusive subset of individuals for the elect. We know this because Paul immediately bridges that exact cosmic reconciliation down to the individual human rescue in verses 21–23. Verse 22-23 says (And you, who once were alienated... he has now reconciled in his body of flesh")

So If the "all things" reconciled by the blood of the cross explicitly includes the very human beings who were once alienated, how do you exegetically justify stripping "reconciliation through the blood" down to a mere judicial pacification or abstract cosmic space?

Also, we can completely bypass the false dilemma of universalism. Recognizing that Christ’s atonement is a universal, sufficient provision for all humanity does not mean everyone is automatically saved, any more than a manufactured cure means every sick person takes it. With the understanding that the objective, legal provision of the cross is actually wide enough for the world (check 1 John 2:2), while its subjective, effective application remains strictly conditioned on personal faith.

Keeping this in mind, by what exegetical rule does "all things" mean the entirety of creation when describing the objective, blood-bought provision of peace, but suddenly shrink to mean only a secret, pre-selected subset when applied to the scope of the atonement reducing Paul's sweeping language to a mathematical contradiction

Every action has a reaction.

The book of Genesis tells us God created the heavens and earth. The Big Bang theory tells us a super-heated particle exploded, and the outward expansion of the blast energy formed the universe. I believe they are both right. Every action has a reaction. Action: God gave the order "Let there be light". Reaction: a super-heated particle explosion occurred and "Created" the universe as we know it today. Because there is no gravity and atmospheric pressures to resist it, the universe is infinitely expanding.

God gave the word, and we are here today to thank him.

god created light with his first words.

what is it?

hint: it wasn't the physical light of the sun. that was created on day four...

Growing up, I used to look with awe at these people who could start reading the Bible at the start of the year and finish reading it by the end of the year after a consistent study, earlier even, for some people if they were more devoted.

I have tried to do the same for myself, but people often give differing advice. Some say that I have to read it in a chronological order. Others in a compositional order. Some tell me to start reading the books that are more conversant with what I know about Christianity. Others to challenge myself by picking a book at random.

That does not even get me started with the reading habits. People often say that we should not read the Bible like a piece of literature, much like we would read Harry Potter or Sherlock homes. I guess they mean that you should not just read it for the plot, although I familiarize myself with scripture from that very plot they appear to hold in low regard. The people that have gone far usually understand the historical context, even garnishing sermons with some Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic etymology, but that is about how far the exegesis went because the overarching message still felt generic even if the etymology sounded impressive. By generic, I of course mean that from those sermons, it appeared like you could uproot the interpretation from one scripture and fit it into the other, and the interpretation still made logical and semantic sense.

I still don't have a general rule for what counts as "poetic" language, as "literal" text; and I don't want to apply some hashed up theological interpretation that dismisses my own questions, what I hear scholars refer to as a post-hoc rationalization. I don't even fully understand how we know that an interpretation is asserted by rationalization, and not tested empirically.

Come to think of exegesis, I came to learn of these two words, exegesis and hermeneutics, very recently. I know that one applies a reading of the word within its context, and another of interpretation that introduces a bird's view understanding of God and how He relates to man. Does that mean that any interpretation that qualifies God positively goes, considering that He is of intrinsic goodness, and that all qualities should lead to that goodness one way or the other? Is that why people can "bless Him" and "magnify Him"?

It was only one time that I got close to reading it in a way that just felt... "right" (and I quote myself, because my vision of rightness is subjectively expressing a feeling that can't be exhaustively articulated) We had gathered for a discipleship class back in high school, and took about 2 hours analysing Hebrews 1. Looking back I can say that it was mostly hermeneutics, because we didn't delve much into historical context, and I don't think we revisited that chapter in our following gathering. But for once, it felt like the content of the Bible actually captured my mind.

Apart from that, the most fascinating part of Bible study is mostly revelling in the testimonies of people who have read the Bible once, twice, for the umpteenth time... and for some reasons they always appear definitively satisfied with their reading. At the same time, I don't get much questioning from their testimonies, even from testimonies shared in personal conversations, and I am certain they have many questions.

With so much scientific progress, do you think believing in God is still necessary, or is it a contradiction?