Allan

Okay, so I forced myself to watch pretty much the whole thing. I do take issue with quite a bit of this guys perspective and interpretation. Becoming a Christian through a denominational, trinitarian organization (for a start) would not have gotten him off to exactly a 'well informed and logical start', would it ?! Then going on to a Jesuit university I suspect would have made him doubt even more in exactly WHO Jesus was. He said "the immediate world of Jesus environment shaped who he was". That's a logical deduction if one believes Jesus Christ was 'merely a man'. The Bible states that Jesus was the Son of God. Born of Mary, partaker of the flesh by way of Mary's egg AND a 'perfect seed' implanted that carried perfect genes, dna, pure blood etc...(so deduct from that what we will about his appearance. Whatever a perfect man would look like!) I do not really believe western nations for the most part have ever really believed he was blonde hair and blue eyed lol. My real question is, what would drive a human being like William Wallace, Joan of Arc, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther etc...to risk life and limb ? It could only be their driven belief in their cause. Jesus happened to believe (or associate himself as the one prophesied about throughout the old testament, rightly or wrongly) Those that got caught up in his 'movement' also. Many (allegedly) saw many, many signs, miracles, wonders occur, culminating in his crucifixion (and subsequent resurrection). The outpouring of the holy spirit 50 days later with the occurence of mass ' free vocalizaion' :), glossalia. I have no reason to doubt pretty much anything in the entire Bible. Moses existed, Joshua existed, the queen of Sheba existed. The Caananites existed, King David, Caesar, Pontius Pilate, John, Luke, Nero. Good, bad, indiffern't. Love, hate, evil. Jehovah, Elohim, El Shaddai, satan. Egypt, papyrus, dead sea scrolls...Jesus of Nazareth

yes, maybe the Presidential election !

I agree, these people will not do this without expecting some kind of financial gain. One cannot seperate them from $$

WOW ! Could not capture the words and essence any better than this !!

Okay, so I took an alka seltzer to enable me to listen to all of it...TBH I didn't need to even read between the lines...a leopard usually doesn't change it's spots ! "enjoys one on ones", "exhort, encourage"...left out the 'rebuke' part..interestingly still not wanting to get really honest with herself and her God...all smileys and full of advice...until one says "o.k. I gotta go now "...growing up I had a little sister that would have friends over and have fun girly stuff. When her friends wanted to go home my sister would start trying to beat them up !! lol, funny the 'imagery' God gives.

Not only not very interesting but listening to the sis-in-law Mary Strickland sharing about 'happy endings' and remembering when we left twi her words to us "your neighbours now know what horrible people you are" (after a letter she wrote us was sent to them) and 'prophesying "our kids would grow up to be homos" because we were leaving twi...smacks of hypocrisy. We got our happy ending, wonder about hers ?

I must say, I know neither of you two BUT, as soon as you mentioned you were a limb C0-0rd and 'they' had a 'dysfunctional marriage' that YOU had to 'sort out' has raised my doggy doo doo antennae...just going by past experiences of LEADERSHIP sorting out 'others' relationships. Your take on their marriage is supposed to be believed the same way you dismiss JJ's words ?

I'm with you on this JimJack ! I tend to write mine down as I don't want to forget them.

Thankyou WW ! Does it have pictures ?? ...One sentence huh ? I'm gonna have to look into it now to see if I'm guessing right lol

Thankyou all for your help indeed. The athletic terminology is pretty straight forward, as is the soldiers gear etc...I guess the question IS THEREFORE, how is salvation a helmet ? How is the gospel of peace our footwear ? How is our righteousness a breastplate ? I figure the Word of God as a sword symbolises us speaking and wielding it (offensive and defensive ) and our faith as a shield used to believe to put out the fiery darts....the not 'shadow boxing' (beating the air) to tell us to make each 'punch' count ...and the keeping in the lanes as an exhortation to...stay the course ?

Thankyou Mark ! great help...I've come to the conclusion it's figurative, symbolic and used as exhortation to endure as an athlete, farmer, parent, soldier would and to stick to a commitment..God bless !!

Thanks heaps WW ! Ephesians 6 mentions 'wrestling' so I'm sort of going along with Twinkies explanation, with 'athletic' terminology being the predominant imagery and pretty much all of it being the good ol figures o' speech anyhoo :)....hey Twinks I'll pm you, we may be able to catch up in enzed !

how long for ? darnit, we going next month for 5 days...you may be shocked by the prices of accomodation there now !!

fair point, thanks waysider

Thankyou Twinks !! I was thinking along those lines as well...love and bless ya heaps and 'hoping' Brexit turns out well for ya'all !!! My God majority of politicians are evil aren't they ?!

Hi all, need some help here..pretty please ...forgive me if this has been addressed here but any thoughts on are we actually meant to be 'soldiers for Jesus' ? I vaguely remember fartindale sharing about Ephesians 6 expanded translation referencing athletic equipment but cannot reconcile it with 2 Timothy 2: 3,4 talking about us as 'soldiers for Christ' ?? Somewhere in the back of my bourbon and coke soaked mind I remember fartindale saying the word for 'soldier' used there was 'palak' (aramaic for endurer or laborer) BUT new testament was supposedly written in koine greek, not aramaic !! Wordwolf ? Mark S ? Twinky ? Anyone ??

Perhaps another interesting 'aside' to this is latest medical discovery that the brain does not necessarily die as soon as one's heart stops beating ! Medical scientists have 'discovered' that the human brain has a type of 'back up energy system' that keeps it functioning for as long as 4-6 hours after typical declaration of death. This could explain people seeing and hearing things after they had supposedly 'died'. Don't know if this is a particularly good thing ?!

Wayne Clapp also did a fantastic breakdown on this topic and zeroed in on the greek words for 'eternal' and 'everlasting'. In a nutshell, John 3:16...two options for mankind 1/ everlasting life or 2/ perish (be no more)...thanks Mark !

geesh, didn't even notice that ! I was probs still so peeved off with them trashing one of my fave carols

Please tell me you don't have these Uniting Church muppets over there ? Causing a firestorm here in Australia

I was sitting in a bar in Thailand 2 years ago. Next to me was a 10 year old, yes 10 year old boy having a beer and smoking a cigar...real gangster lol...there is no minimum age there. Twinky...mince n cheese pie :)

Also, languages/migration...in the pacific region there are indigenous people that have migrated across the seas as recently as 800 years ago and developed their own variations of their original mother tongue. I can see similar things happening very easily over 5000 years

I think that Rafs 180 degree from solid believer to non- believer is a great example of believing who Jesus Christ was/ is.... or not and....like some have said 'it will all come out in the wash' anyhoo...each to their own. I'd rather 'believe' and possibly be wrong. The whole 'snake' chit chat earlier on is interesting from the point of view that satan is called a REPTILE, not necessarily a snake. I've been reading articles and 'conspiracy theories' about demons actually being reptilian in appearance and nature....thoughts anyone ?

So, have I read this right ? R&R are just as bad as TWI was/are ? I know a leopard doesn't change it's spots BUT you'd think if it was given a chance at a new life it would certainly be out trying to source a bottle of bleach ?!

I also personally know of some girls who turned to prostitution after being sexually assaulted by leadership...I guess they figured might as well make some money out of it.