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Bible Study Cain and Abel

Jesse your gonna open a whole new can of worms... Next would be predestination... My advice? Tip toe through the TULIP. :)

In short, one is only free to choose from the choices available....
 
StoveBolts said:
Jesse your gonna open a whole new can of worms... Next would be predestination... My advice? Tip toe through the TULIP. :)

In short, one is only free to choose from the choices available....
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Ok....I will take your advice, see, I told you I wasn't all that mature. haha

Ever hear of Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll? Uh yeah.......my old church, true, blue Calvinist....and I'm not even a Calvinist. lol
 
From Seattle. Yup. My roots are in Spokane.
Ever hear of Mars Hill, Rob Bell?
Suddenly, TULIP just became a safer discussion lol!
 
StoveBolts said:
From Seattle. Yup. My roots are in Spokane.
Ever hear of Mars Hill, Rob Bell?
Suddenly, TULIP just became a safer discussion lol!
Click to expand...
Ha, yup Rob Bell is the guy who doesn't believe in hell, correct?

I hear they are both emergent church pastors? I had no idea. Only the Mars Hill here is no longer, and I heard rumor Mark Driscoll turned WOF. So

TULIP might not be so safe after all. lol
 
Jesse said:
Hey smaller,
I get sidetracked easy - lol - I also got stuck on one of your very first paragraphs above. This may take awhile. haha

Would you also be saying Adam and Eve were without free will? Would that be the same for us?

If I see a candy bar and want to steal it, can I prevent myself from taking it or do I have to take it because I an unable to "not sin"?

Trying to gather more detail from you. Thanks.
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As a very long time 'sin hunter' on a personal scale I was eventually 'led' in for a closer examination of matters of sin. What you are reading is what is able to be gleaned from the scriptures. It is a personal examination for any believer who WILL by our 'new nature' to discover the 'source' of not only our own sin, but also WHY we have such a hard time convincing other people through our sharing of the Gospel.

The carnal man, the natural man, which all of us are, remain planted in weakness, corruption, dishonor, disobedience and a natural body. All as a direct consequence that said body has been given access to by temptation, deception, theft of the tempter. It's the most difficult personal contemplation to come to grips with that there is for believers. But if we want to understand it, it is important to understand why for example, we have evil thoughts, which do still defile us. I know everyone has them. Those who say they don't are, and I don't say this to insult or demean them, but they have been made liars by the sin that indwells us all. In the end it became better for me to understand why it happens.

But there are some, what I may term, Divine Ground Rules that only God in Christ can bring any of us to in order to find understandings. For me this journey began in the Roman catholic church of which I was a member at the time I was saved. I had a very real and very personal encounter with Jesus Christ after reading the N.T. Gospels in their entirety for the first time in my life about the age of 27. I'm 60 now. I literally 'felt' the Love of God in Christ course through me. It instantly 'changed' me. I have never been the same since. In the early courses of this kind of salvation '
'experience' we are earnestly led to avoid all sin and evil. I was that guy. I no longer did the things I did before. I won't give those things any cyber space. But I just saw all the things that I equated to sin as things to shun entirely and completely. I didn't smoke, drink, curse, went to church 3 times a week, read the Bible from cover to cover numerous times, did Bible study groups, on and on and on.

But where I finally stumbled in all of my efforts was eventually pinned down to the internal matters. The matters of internal temptations. The what I considered 'evil thoughts' that would arrive out of nowhere to blindside my walk in faith. Random EVIL internal thoughts. I will never forget the day when after completing the exercises of confession, contrition, absolution and the receiving of communion, that no sooner had I turned around from the altar I was blindsided by an internal lustful thought. One of the bigger no no's on my sin checklist. It wasn't about any particular woman I might have observed. I had strictly avoided ALL of the 'male sin's' that are played about lusting after and commenting on women, and particularly so as a married man. But there I was struck, nevertheless, after all of my efforts to maintain a clean and clear mind and heart. Quite frankly it just made me MAD. I considered my own failures in this matter. I wanted to know WHY it happened. And it was there I began the long road of understanding. For 10 years I engaged in scriptural studies about law and grace. Trying to understand these two great matters. And what I wrote above is just a part of that discovery. It was always written for view and understanding in the texts, but I was not immediately able to understand it because I had not taken the Words of Jesus PERSONALLY. I had always always always automatically DISCOUNTED this [will cite again later] as happening to me, because after all, I , I , I was born again.

I finally happened into a brother whom I respect greatly. And had a discussion with him about some of the blockades between these issues of law and grace. As you might know there are two great but opposed camps built on these two grounds. I was fully engaged in study of both sides of the equations. And could not find a remedy or harmony between them. There are great proof texts for both camps, but they are very difficult to harmonize. In the discussion, this brother asked me something I hadn't considered before. And it basically thunderstruck me. He asked me this. he: Would you consider the devil and his messengers to be lawless? me: Yes, of course. Beyond any doubt. he: Who is the law against? me: Undoubtedly the lawless. he: Would you consider the law to be against them then also? me: Yes. he: Where do the Gospels show us that the devil and his messengers are located? me: Why, IN MANKIND.

The instant I said that, I KNEW where all my long years of study had utterly fallen SHORT. Because I had not even SEEN them as part of the equations in theology. It was as if they were not even in the picture. And I also then immediately knew that the source of my own struggle with internal EVIL defiling thoughts were not with mySELF, but were with the TEMPTER.

Then I had to re-examine everything I thought I knew up to that point in all of those studies. I had forgotten a critical component. I tested this understanding for about 3 years worth of studies. And considered to ponder how this worked into theology. I also had spent a lot of that time studying word meanings in the original texts to understand allegory and parable.

So one day, I sat on my bed, reading. Trying to understand the 3 accounts of the man possessed with Legion (12,000 devils in one man) as it was part of the study I was undertaking, understanding the overlap with mankind and devils that is deployed throughout the N.T. I saw that Matthew had termed 'the man' singular as 2 'possessed of devils' in the land area of the Gergesenes. But Luke had termed him 1 man of the Gaderenes. Why the difference? So I turned to this link: http://www.linkedword.com/matt/8/-8/0 , saw in the Matthew 8 account, the Aramaic word, tracked it to the Hebrew root word, and found the term to mean 'dweller on clayey soil.' OK. Then turned here to Luke 8, http://www.linkedword.com/luke/8/-8/0, for Gadarenes, = "reward at the end"

Indeed. Jesus did come to 2 men. The man possessed and the MAN of sin, the league of devils that had possessed the mind and body of that man. But after his deliverance, we see a man in his RIGHT mind, apart from his tormentors. The 'reward at the end' of his encounter with Jesus.

I was flabbergasted, as I had never read any such dissections in hundreds commentaries in attempts at harmonizing these readily apparent different delivery structure, surface conflicts.

So that was the direction I was led. To see Jesus encounter, not with just the man, but also with the mans internal enemies who had captured him.

And it was in this way, that I had to confront this scripture personally, the scripture that I had insulated and isolated myself from previously every single time I read it. I always had a voice in my mind that came immediately that said "THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN TO YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE A BELIEVER." I'm pretty sure now it happens to every believer when they read it:

Mark 4:15
And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.

From that moment on, I no longer wondered where such thoughts came from, because I KNEW that it DID happen to me, and still does. It's as sure a principle as there is in the text. But those who can not see this, by the power of that adversary CAN NOT see it, because our internal adversary leads them NOT TO.

Spiritual lessons 101 to see what happened to CAIN.
 
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StoveBolts said:
From Seattle. Yup. My roots are in Spokane.
Ever hear of Mars Hill, Rob Bell?
Suddenly, TULIP just became a safer discussion lol!
Click to expand...
Ah, yes, Mr. Bell. An escapee from the reformed camp...:nono

I applaud the man for standing up! But do so quietly here...:rolleyes I can't however come to 'some' of his conclusions, NOR of Mr. Driscoll even more, having spent considerable time in WoF.
 
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A little food for thought....

In the beginning the Lord said that of every tree that is in the garden they may eat of. But he gave one commandment: Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, for in the day that you shall eat of it you shall surely die. What ever the reason Cain slew his brother we could speculate on all day long. But for Adam and Eve surely this was a witness to them that God's word was true, for they had now tasted of death.

As for God placing a mark upon Cain and commanding that he be not touched. The first murder bears witness to the Word that death was given reign and dominion in the world.

Imagine, knowing the Faith and Forgiveness that we hold in Christ in the face of the Judgement of the Lord, how would you answer if you just got caught eating from the tree of knowledge and God had said unto you, what have you done? Could you stand before the Lord and say I have eaten from the tree Knowledge, but I do not understand. If you were Cain and the Lord had said unto you, what have you done? Could you say I was angered with my brother and I slew him?
 
Jesse said:
Say what!?!

This is how much I keep up on current events! Praise God he's not teaching the other anymore! Seriously, I think he led many astray with the other doctrine.

Thanks for posting the link!
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I've always doubted the extent to which he has been accused of MANY things, simply because he wouldn't ignorantly stumble into word traps sly and devisive interviewers were constantly laying for him.

Did you read what I posted about my friend's soon-to-be-released book, in which he makes a statement that he does not believe in god? It's very much the same thing, IMHO. (That's NOT, at all, what he means, BTW)
 
Jesse said:
It blows me away how Joseph forgave his brothers and treated them like he did when they came for food. I think he tested them at first to see if they had changed, by placing their money back into their sacks and making them bring Benjamin. Once he realized they really had matured, he reveals himself. He's a good example of forgiveness.

I wonder if Adam and Eve were ever able to forgive Cain?!?
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I don't think it was easy at first for joseph to forgive them.remember he also had to forgive the dad in law too. he married potiphars daughter. that same guy whom jailed him for a crime he didn't commit.
 
jasonc said:
I don't think it was easy at first for joseph to forgive them.remember he also had to forgive the dad in law too. he married potiphars daughter. that same guy whom jailed him for a crime he didn't commit.
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I thought he married Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. Are they the same guy?
 
jasonc said:
I don't think it was easy at first for joseph to forgive them.remember he also had to forgive the dad in law too. he married potiphars daughter. that same guy whom jailed him for a crime he didn't commit.
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Do we know how long it was from his kidnapping until he was on the scene again? I wonder how old he was when he was taken?

Imo, forgiving is an act of God.
 
Willie T said:
I've always doubted the extent to which he has been accused of MANY things, simply because he wouldn't ignorantly stumble into word traps sly and devisive interviewers were constantly laying for him.

Did you read what I posted about my friend's soon-to-be-released book, in which he makes a statement that he does not believe in god? It's very much the same thing, IMHO. (That's NOT, at all, what he means, BTW)
Click to expand...
I honestly thought he wrote a book about how there is no hell. In the article you posted he said he believed in hell "now".

I did not see where you posted your friend's book, can you direct me? Thanks.
 
Jesse said:
Ha, yup Rob Bell is the guy who doesn't believe in hell, correct?

I hear they are both emergent church pastors? I had no idea. Only the Mars Hill here is no longer, and I heard rumor Mark Driscoll turned WOF. So

TULIP might not be so safe after all. lol
Click to expand...
Bell believes in Hell. But not as traditionally taught. I happen to concure with many of his points. Personally, and it should come as no surprise, but I take more of a Jewish view on the matter.

Ironically, people seem to like the traditional view of hell and if you try to bring in the idea of grace or mercy, they have a tendency to get upset, even vehement at times. Its all very odd indeed.

In a way, Bell reminds me of Paul. He ticks off the religious elite and shares the gospel to anyone!

My wife loved listening to Driscoll. I don't keep up on all them anymore.
 
Jesse said:
I honestly thought he wrote a book about how there is no hell. In the article you posted he said he believed in hell "now".

I did not see where you posted your friend's book, can you direct me? Thanks.
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I believe you will find that there was more to that sentence. He said he believed in hell now (at this time, in this world existence) AND also after we die.

Here is the intro to Jeff's book.
My next book, The Atheistic Theist: What You Don't Believe About God is Just as Important As What You Do Believe About God, is nearing completion and should be released in early to late January. It will be a much simpler and shorter book than my last, and will focus on getting us to ask questions of our faith, and will seek to set us on the path of an atheistic theist - that is, one who rejects all Gods but the loving Abba of Jesus.
I wanted to share the introduction to the book with you all, so here it is! Enjoy:
I don’t believe in god.
It’s true.
I don’t.
Now, before you close the cover on this book and list it for sale on Amazon, – since throwing it in the trash wouldn’t be all that economical - let me explain.
I believe in God, I just don’t believe in god.
That is to say that while I do, in fact, believe in a God, there are many others whose existence I vehemently reject. I guess you could call me an atheistic theist. While there are multitudes of gods whom I have always rejected, there’s another that is fairly new to the list.
The god of Christianity.
Now, I know that’s sort of a shocking opener for a book that you probably found in the “Christian” section of some bookstore or website, but if I’ve gotten your attention, then it did its job.
One of the most prominent and outspoken atheists/anti-theists of our day, Richard Dawkins, has written “Everybody is an atheist, some just go one god further”. And what a true statement that is!
Barring the possibility that you’re an ancient, Norse time traveler, there’s a very good chance that you’re an atheist when it comes to Thor. We’ve been atop Mt. Olympus, and have all pretty much concluded that Zeus doesn’t exist either. We’ve dived to the ocean floor, have calculated its depth with sonar technology, and have viewed it from outer space via satellite, and as of this writing, there’s still no sign of Poseidon. We know the precise distance of the sun from the earth, what it’s made of, and approximately when it will burn out, but have yet to capture even a blurry photograph of Ra, the sun god of ancient Egypt.
The world is dominated by atheists as far as most of the gods of antiquity are concerned, some people just keep going one god further.
The Muslim, for instance, is an atheist concerning all gods but Allah, and the Jew concerning all but Yahweh. There’s a very good chance that you’re an atheist concerning all but one god as well. It’s likely that you reject the Hindu pantheon, and I highly doubt that you’re secretly offering sacrifices to the gods of ancient Greece or Rome. I assume that Ba’al and Molech aren’t your religious cup of tea either, and I’m almost entirely certain that you don’t bow before Tamuz, if you even know who he is.
Yet, with all of these gods you disbelieve in, I’m sure that there is at least one whose existence you still cling to, and it’s likely the God who “wrote the Bible” through the willing channels of prophets and apostles, inspired David to pen worship songs about murdering Babylonian babies, created the cosmos in six literal twenty four hour periods, and still had enough energy to personally oversee founding of the United States of America – that is, the God of modern, Western Christianity. As I’ve already stated, this god is one whom I’ve freshly added to the gods-I-can-no-longer-believe-in list, but I also stated that, while rejecting this god, I do, in fact, retain a belief in God.
So…which God, if not that of Christianity, do I as a Christian believe in?
The God of Jesus.
While some may argue that the god of Christianity and the God of Jesus are one and the same, and couldn’t possibly be separated, I would beg to differ.
The god of Christianity is largely a cultural phenomenon, and one that we Western nations have exported to the rest of the world. He looks peculiarly like us, votes republican, is always very much on our side in whatever war it is we’re fighting (be it cultural or militaristic), and, last time I checked, His favorite colors were still red, white and blue. He speaks in King James English, goes to church on Sundays, and is more concerned with whose posterior is planted in a swivel chair in the Oval Office than he is with whether or not babies in third world countries go to bed with empty stomachs.
He’s a god that is chained to both Old and New Testaments, and must look like the deity described in both. He must approve of genocide and infanticide, while also promoting non-violence and a strict, turn-the-other-cheek policy. He claims that raping a young woman can be remedied by paying the girl’s father fifty shekels and marrying her, but also insists that there is no male or female, and that women deserve as fair of treatment as men. He is the God who commands us to love our enemies, but who, if we succeed in life as Christians, promises to bring us back with Him - on spirit horses - to help him slay and butcher his enemies.
He’s a God whose actions are often extremely contradictory, and beyond difficult to reconcile.
He’s up one day and down the next.
Bi-polar doesn’t even begin to describe Him.
Yet, He’s the god that most teach their children about. He’s the ultimate standard of goodness held up as the proverbial “moon” for which we must shoot. Yet, if we ever did hit said moon, we’d be jailed for criminal conduct.
This is the God that has been taught and promoted in Christianity for far too many years and whose existence has gone largely unchallenged by those who claim to worship Jesus. Though His actions are as barbaric and “bronze-aged” as those of bloodthirsty Canaanite deities, most Christians still remain theists as far as he is concerned.
But it’s time for that to change.
For centuries, it has been only those from outside of the institution of Christianity who have dared criticize, ridicule, and attempt to disprove the existence of this god, but that must change as well. Those who claim to follow Jesus must become as staunch of atheists as Nietzche or Dawkins when it comes to this violent deity, and must then come clean, making it clear to a hurting and confused world that this “god” represents neither Christianity nor its Christ!
It is time for the atheistic theists to arise - those who have caught a glimpse of a beautiful, loving, non-violent Father, revealed through His Son Jesus Christ, and who have let go of all vestiges of a bloodthirsty god of wrath and war. This god’s existence may be provable through the use of scripture, and his character qualities may be rooted and grounded in the words of the Bible, but Christianity is required to go further than obscure passages from Joshua or Exodus. We are required to look squarely into the face of Jesus Christ, and define our God by what we see in His countenance. And though our stiff and starchy brand of religion has restrained us from doing so, we must do it anyways.
It is truly time for an atheistic revolution, where a wholesale disbelief in the god who has masqueraded as the Abba of Jesus Christ takes hold, and a kind, loving, self-giving and humanity-loving God is re-revealed!
It’s time for a new breed of Christian; it’s time for the atheistic theist.
Many would say that it's not important to define the god we do not believe in, and that we only need to loudly and proudly proclaim the one we do believe in. They’ll usually follow up with an illustration about counterfeit money or something. However, in a culture that has been wounded, beaten and battered by an angry brand of Christianity, and terrorized by its monster-of-a-god, it is just as important to define who we don’t believe in as it is to define Who we do believe in. We must move beyond being theists, and become atheistic theists who make it clear that we not only believe in a God of love and grace, but also staunchly reject and disbelieve in a god of anger and violence.
Throughout the pages that follow we will seek to dismantle and deconstruct some of the angry portraits of God that have been painted in the past by Christianity, and to then redefine Him in the light of what Jesus has revealed. We’ll see that the identity of one’s god may be wholly rooted in the scripture, and yet that god can still be an idol of the likes of Thor, Ba’al or Molech.
We’ll liberate ourselves to ask questions of our faith, think outside the box and color outside of the lines. We’ll attempt to discover a brand of spirituality that isn’t chained to the idea of denting a pew or lying prostrate in prayer, but that is based on an observation of God in everyday life. We’ll even drill to the center of doctrines like Biblical inerrancy, and see if they truly hold water in light of the revelation of Jesus. And hopefully, at the end of it all, we’ll discover that we can be both atheists and theists at the same time.
I’m not asking you to abandon your belief in God, just in a certain picture of god. I’m not asking you to throw away your faith, only that you direct it away from one god and toward another.
I’m simply asking that you add one more god to the pile you already disbelieve in. Yes, this one may prove to be a bit more difficult for you to discard than the others, but still, I’m asking you to consider going one god further in your atheism.
Yet I’m also inviting you to add one, and only one, to the Gods-I-can-believe-in list, and it is the one revealed in the loving, altruistic, violence-rejecting, humanity-embracing life of Christ.
I’m inviting you, brave reader, to become an atheistic theist.
Are you ready?
 
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