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4 minutes ago, Mike said:

No.  This one issue of the canon has sat dormant for 40 years.
I was using this thread, and stated so, as a beta testing sight.

I think this was the first big position change I ever declared here.

 

You also get caught contradicting yourself by various people here...if u wanna call that a position change....ya ok then

 

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Just now, OldSkool said:

You also get caught contradicting yourself by various people here...if u wanna call that a position change....ya ok then

 

No, there were at least 4 posts I made lately about the Top-Down approach having it's strengths and some weakness also.  Maybe more than 4.

My materials in 1972 for researching the Top-Down approach were scarce, with no Internet.  Libraries had a lot of the latest hip theology laced into it, which was Thomas Altizer's famous "God is Dead" theology.  

When I read about the Top-Down approach back then it was appalling to me how the writers were trying to make the Bible look bad and uninspired by one Author.

So I ignored that approach, and tried the Bottom-Up approach.  I was surprised at how many verses I could find.  I worked them for ten years, up to 1982, and I closed my paper folder on that research.  Then came this thread, and I re-opened my old paper folder and my memories.

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Mike said:

When I read about the Top-Down approach back then it was appalling to me how the writers were trying to make the Bible look bad and uninspired by one Author.

You are appalled because cognitive dissonance causes you to get agitated with reality. It is inspired by the same author - God - over a 1500 year period, through various cultures, languages, empirees....etc. Yet the books still retain the names of their author's because God GAVE them credit for writing down what he inspired in them. That's a lot more than VPW ever did -- he gave nobody credit but himself. It would be a wise choice to try and understand the Bible for what it is, and how it actually came into being in the form we recognize today. But the problem with so called Biblical research as practised by the way is they like to change everything else to match their premise. 

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3 minutes ago, Mike said:

So, quote me on it.  Maybe you are mistaken, as they may be.

Nah...Im not accepting assignments at the moment. Heck, I already did and you did the backstroke better than Michael Phelps.

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23 minutes ago, Mike said:


I think it was WordWolf who opined I  may have been referring to John's diet and homelessness. He was right. It was to that I was referring when I hinted that he was too weird to date your sister.

But I responded to waysider above on more about that appearance of John the Baptist on that list:

HOWEVER, it SORT of fit in with the rest of the people on that list.  Do you remember that list?

It seems that for some of the BIG jobs God had to resort to whoever (even wierdos) could get the job done, and done at the right time.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the post that contained the list containing John the Baptist:

 

 

  On 10/18/2022 at 7:19 PM, So_crates said:
And, by the same token, you must realize there are some things WE will not budge on. ... As for me: ...Do I believe God would have entrusted what you claim was the most important revelation since the bible itself with a man who defined sin and refused to repent? Not God as I understand him in the bible.

 

 

 

 

 

My response to So_crates was:

 

 

Not God as I understood Him from the Bible, either. …initially

 

 

But as I studied the Bible over the decades my understanding of God has changed some.

 

 

When I first opened up the Bible in the early 1970s I was 22 years old.  By that age I had absorbed churchy and cultural impressions as to what Bible teachers should be like. I envisioned Jesus-like characters could be the only ones God could entrust with big jobs. 

 

 

That’s how we humans must do it, I figured, when we hire out jobs to people. We want to examine a candidate’s past record, and see that they have been good, and thus predict that in the future they will probably be good for the job.

 

 

So this early innocent impression of how things worked in the Bible was a deep expectation, as I started reading the Bible. But soon this expectation was challenged some, as I read in Genesis.  I noticed right away that the story of Noah seemed to have some rather odd post-Flood scenes with Noah’s family that had to be censored out of the children’s Sunday School version… I guess. One clear thing is that Noah got drunk.    

 

 

Reading along the challenges got greater as I read about young Abraham involved in some kind of crazy wife-swapping protection scheme, but was stopped by the pagan Pharoah, who knew better. 

 

 

Later, Abraham had a child with Hagar, with Sarah’s approval?   I also seem to remember him having concubines.  The children’s Bible stories never had these parts in them, did they?

 

 

It doesn’t stop there. My whole notion of who God could entrust big jobs to was constantly challenged in Genesis. I think we can skip Abraham’s son Isaac, after reading somewhere he had no concubines. But the grandson, Jacob, was a doozy!  His name, before God changed it, meant “con artist” and he stole his brother’s birthright…  with God’s approval???  He also had at least 4 wives, and maybe a concubine.  I wonder how Sunday School teachers define “concubine” for the pre-pubescent children?

 

 

Past the book of Genesis, the stories still are challenging to me.

 

 

I marvel at God’s forgiveness of our future sins.  Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about this? Look at all those revelations and miracles He gave to young David, fully foreknowing that in mid-life crisis David would resort to murdering his best friend.

 

 

And how did God’s people receive the Psalms of David?  Were the relatives of Uriah satisfied with David’s public repenting?  Do you think that Bathsheba was David’s first “mistake,” or did he gradually work his way up to having sex with his best friend’s wife? Life experiences tell me it was the latter.

 

 

And I did not realize the extent of Solomon’s late-life corruption until recent decades.

 

 

What was the time-line of his life like? How deep into his concubines and their idols could he get, and still be able to pen God-breathed scriptures?  I don’t know. It just blows my mind that God would give young Solomon all those revelations, but know in His foreknowledge that old Solomon would get totally corrupt… or nearly totally?

 

 

Then there is that beautiful prophesy that came to Balaam, who was crookeder than a dog’s hind legs. Why did God entrust such wonderful words to him?

 

 

John the Baptist was a real weirdo, yet the greatest prophet?

Peter was pretty impetuous and had a violent temper, and pretty forgetful at times. 

Paul was a murdering de-programmer, and God entrusted a lot to him.

I guess God’s  criteria for selecting His big job workers is a lot different than the criteria we must use in selecting our Sunday School teachers.

 

 

Why is this?  Because we can only look at the past actions of a person, and we know nothing of their future actions, and we know nothing of their heart. But God does know a person’s future actions, and He does know their hearts. 

 

 

I guess God is far more interested in getting His big jobs accomplished, and less interested in conforming to our limited ways of judging candidates for a job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I responded by telling you God says He's a just God.

A just God would NOT use an evil person to give, as you claim, the most important revelation since the bible. If so, show me one other instance in the bible where God did so.

Oh, most of your examples repented before they found favor with God.

Saint Vic, himself, said in PLAF, God said David was the apple of His eye. He didn't say that when David was running around with Bathsheba. David had to right himself first.

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28 minutes ago, So_crates said:

And I responded by telling you God says He's a just God.

 


Most of God's justice seems to be in the future.

First Corinthians 3 talks about Christians who have not built within themselves a home for God to hang out in will suffer loss when Christ returns. 

I am confident that the Just God will perfectly "even the score" for us all.

We will all get what we earned in rewards, and we will suffer loss of rewards for where and when we blew it.

To my best understanding, the rewards have to do with the ability to function. They have to do with being allowed to do work for God in the future.  Makes sense, that those who love to work for and with God now will be allowed to do it more in the future.

 



 

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48 minutes ago, OldSkool said:

You are appalled because cognitive dissonance causes you to get agitated with reality. It is inspired by the same author - God - over a 1500 year period, through various cultures, languages, empirees....etc. Yet the books still retain the names of their author's because God GAVE them credit for writing down what he inspired in them. That's a lot more than VPW ever did -- he gave nobody credit but himself. It would be a wise choice to try and understand the Bible for what it is, and how it actually came into being in the form we recognize today. But the problem with so called Biblical research as practised by the way is they like to change everything else to match their premise. 

What an awesome point about a book that is divine/human coauthored!

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2 hours ago, Mike said:


Most of God's justice seems to be in the future.

First Corinthians 3 talks about Christians who have not built within themselves a home for God to hang out in will suffer loss when Christ returns. 

First Corinthians 6:9 also talks about how no adulterer will get into heaven. Paging Saint Vic!

2 hours ago, Mike said:

 

I am confident that the Just God will perfectly "even the score" for us all.

We will all get what we earned in rewards, and we will suffer loss of rewards for where and when we blew it.

And there's the flaw in your reward excuse. We'll have the loss of the reward, but will we know or understand why?

2 hours ago, Mike said:


To my best understanding, the rewards have to do with the ability to function. They have to do with being allowed to do work for God in the future.  Makes sense, that those who love to work for and with God now will be allowed to do it more in the future.

So if your claim of future rewards is true, then Saint Vic's Christians Should Be Prosperous is a lie, right? As is Saint Vic's interpretation of John 10:10?

Edited by So_crates
Correcting an error in a listed verse
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1 hour ago, T-Bone said:

What an awesome point about a book that is divine/human coauthored!

Thanks! It seems to me that fundamentalism sets up false expectations on scripture. Original perfection being lost through imperfect beings, for example. I have no doubt God's thoughts are perfect as is everything else about him. However, he is communicating to imperfect beings who are imperfect in most all they do....or perhaps everything. While the original revelation could have been perfect as it was originally given does that eliminate all imperfections possible from an imperfect creation that received the revelation? Does scripture ever explicitly state that scripture was perfect at it's inception and then lost to imperfect creations? Perhaps this is one of the reasons we are told to study to show ourselves approved? Rhetorical questions, but thoughts for consideration just the same. 

My questions do not cheapen the Bible -- if God's power and perfection can redeem the imperfect then it speaks to God's awesomeness that he was able to do it through a sea of imperfect men and the creation of one perfect man (Jesus Christ) to carry the burdens the imperfect were unable to bear. 

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28 minutes ago, So_crates said:

First Corinthians 3:9 also talks about how no adulterer will get into heaven.

 

Did you get the verse wrong?

Usually people point to verse 17

1 Cor 3:8-17

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.

10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. 11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. 14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

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4 minutes ago, Mike said:

Did you get the verse wrong?

Usually people point to verse 17

1 Cor 3:8-17

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.

10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. 11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. 14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Yes I did. It's 1 Corinthians 6:9. 

 

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2 minutes ago, So_crates said:

Yes I did. It's 1 Corinthians 6:9. 

 

Do you think God will have any trouble sorting out who gets what at that time?  I don't. 

I have enough trouble sorting it all out for myself right now. 

I don't bother to guess about other people's set of rewards or what rewards they will be denied. 

I just know that God sees absolutely all and that we see relatively nothing.

 

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6 hours ago, Mike said:

Do you think God will have any trouble sorting out who gets what at that time?  I don't. 

I have enough trouble sorting it all out for myself right now. 

I don't bother to guess about other people's set of rewards or what rewards they will be denied. 

I just know that God sees absolutely all and that we see relatively nothing.

 

And this has what to do with what I asked you. I didn't ask you if God would know I asked you if we would know.

If we don't know then God could make the person with many rewards a captain and the person with little rewards a private and the individuals would have no idea of the reason for the rank.

There's also an element of future faking here. Just keep what your doing and it'll all come to you in heaven. Did Saint Vic wait for his rewards in heaven? Did Craig?

So two ministry leaders didn't wait, why should I even believe it's the truth.

When you think about it, it's the perfect con. Nobody's going to come back from the dead to tell you it was all a scam.

Edited by So_crates
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From another thread:

14 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

Great point!

it seems like he’s doing the same diversionary tactics he does on the NT canon thread.

 

Excuse me, but this thread was set up for me to lay out my canon theory.

Please document how I have diverted this thread from my laying out my canon theory.

 

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9 minutes ago, Mike said:

From another thread:

 

Excuse me, but this thread was set up for me to lay out my canon theory.

Please document how I have diverted this thread from my laying out my canon theory.

 

That's right, Mike. That's riiiight.

I started this thread for you to explain your proposition that the Bible canonizes itself.

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2 hours ago, Mike said:

From another thread:

 

Excuse me, but this thread was set up for me to lay out my canon theory.

Please document how I have diverted this thread from my laying out my canon theory.

 

That’s right - and you still have NOT done that.

 

To document where you have been diversionary on this thread would incorporate just about every one of your posts… soooooooo

 

how about YOU document where YOU have shown evidence that is compatible with your theory.

Edited by T-Bone
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1 hour ago, Nathan_Jr said:

That's right, Mike. That's riiiight.

I started this thread for you to explain your proposition that the Bible canonizes itself.

Well, you should see it in the original text...thats riiiight!

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On 10/29/2022 at 11:43 AM, Mike said:


I think it was WordWolf who opined I  may have been referring to John's diet and homelessness. He was right. It was to that I was referring when I hinted that he was too weird to date your sister.

But I responded to waysider above on more about that appearance of John the Baptist on that list:

HOWEVER, it SORT of fit in with the rest of the people on that list.  Do you remember that list?

It seems that for some of the BIG jobs God had to resort to whoever (even wierdos) could get the job done, and done at the right time.

Here is the post that contained the list containing John the Baptist:

  On 10/18/2022 at 7:19 PM, So_crates said:
And, by the same token, you must realize there are some things WE will not budge on. ... As for me: ...Do I believe God would have entrusted what you claim was the most important revelation since the bible itself with a man who defined sin and refused to repent? Not God as I understand him in the bible.

My response to So_crates was:

Not God as I understood Him from the Bible, either. …initially

But as I studied the Bible over the decades my understanding of God has changed some.

When I first opened up the Bible in the early 1970s I was 22 years old.  By that age I had absorbed churchy and cultural impressions as to what Bible teachers should be like. I envisioned Jesus-like characters could be the only ones God could entrust with big jobs. 

That’s how we humans must do it, I figured, when we hire out jobs to people. We want to examine a candidate’s past record, and see that they have been good, and thus predict that in the future they will probably be good for the job.

So this early innocent impression of how things worked in the Bible was a deep expectation, as I started reading the Bible. But soon this expectation was challenged some, as I read in Genesis.  I noticed right away that the story of Noah seemed to have some rather odd post-Flood scenes with Noah’s family that had to be censored out of the children’s Sunday School version… I guess. One clear thing is that Noah got drunk.    

Reading along the challenges got greater as I read about young Abraham involved in some kind of crazy wife-swapping protection scheme, but was stopped by the pagan Pharoah, who knew better. 

Later, Abraham had a child with Hagar, with Sarah’s approval?   I also seem to remember him having concubines.  The children’s Bible stories never had these parts in them, did they?

It doesn’t stop there. My whole notion of who God could entrust big jobs to was constantly challenged in Genesis. I think we can skip Abraham’s son Isaac, after reading somewhere he had no concubines. But the grandson, Jacob, was a doozy!  His name, before God changed it, meant “con artist” and he stole his brother’s birthright…  with God’s approval???  He also had at least 4 wives, and maybe a concubine.  I wonder how Sunday School teachers define “concubine” for the pre-pubescent children?

Past the book of Genesis, the stories still are challenging to me.

I marvel at God’s forgiveness of our future sins.  Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about this? Look at all those revelations and miracles He gave to young David, fully foreknowing that in mid-life crisis David would resort to murdering his best friend.

And how did God’s people receive the Psalms of David?  Were the relatives of Uriah satisfied with David’s public repenting?  Do you think that Bathsheba was David’s first “mistake,” or did he gradually work his way up to having sex with his best friend’s wife? Life experiences tell me it was the latter.

And I did not realize the extent of Solomon’s late-life corruption until recent decades.

What was the time-line of his life like? How deep into his concubines and their idols could he get, and still be able to pen God-breathed scriptures?  I don’t know. It just blows my mind that God would give young Solomon all those revelations, but know in His foreknowledge that old Solomon would get totally corrupt… or nearly totally?

Then there is that beautiful prophesy that came to Balaam, who was crookeder than a dog’s hind legs. Why did God entrust such wonderful words to him?

John the Baptist was a real weirdo, yet the greatest prophet?

Peter was pretty impetuous and had a violent temper, and pretty forgetful at times. 

Paul was a murdering de-programmer, and God entrusted a lot to him.

I guess God’s  criteria for selecting His big job workers is a lot different than the criteria we must use in selecting our Sunday School teachers.

Why is this?  Because we can only look at the past actions of a person, and we know nothing of their future actions, and we know nothing of their heart. But God does know a person’s future actions, and He does know their hearts. 

I guess God is far more interested in getting His big jobs accomplished, and less interested in conforming to our limited ways of judging candidates for a job.

I find it far easier to start from Titus and Timothy with the written leadership qualities and postulate that examples in living of those qualities would be who would be growing into larger service missions.  Big jobs is language I don’t see in the Bible.  

Candidates for a job is very business related terminology.  I do not see the Bible reading “God was up in heaven and said I need the best candidate for the job.  Gabriel and Michael took a poll and came up with Jesus in Gods foreknowledge as the most viable candidate.  The hiring committee approved and Mary was impregnated”  lol

This type of thinking really serves as being an enabler of the Superman image with kryptonite in his past.  And until you stop being a post-humous enabler of a narcissistic liar in your mind, there is really only one thing that is taking up residence there rent-free that is VP and his legacy.  Missing the vastness of the body of Christ for a binding lesser choice.

Maybe a big job for you is getting to the root of the source of the truth intended in scripture and freeing yourself from the bondage that limits perspective and growth.

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On 10/12/2022 at 5:37 AM, OldSkool said:

Not trying to straw man you here mike. It is worth considering who the people are/were who translated anything. Im not saying Llamsa is totally worthless as I think a lot can be gleaned from him culturally, etc. However, it's important to note what his beliefs were and if his beliefs affected his translation. Please read along:

https://www.equip.org/articles/george-m-lamsa/

 

 

Reminds me of that malodorous verse from the Translation of the Ancient PerShonta Text: 

“For this purpose was I flushed down the toilet” 

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1 minute ago, T-Bone said:

Reminds me of that malodorous verse from the Translation of the Ancient PerShonta Text: 

“For this purpose was I flushed down the toilet” 

Literal translation according to usefulness. 

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On 10/29/2022 at 2:12 PM, So_crates said:

And I responded by telling you God says He's a just God.

A just God would NOT use an evil person to give, as you claim, the most important revelation since the bible. If so, show me one other instance in the bible where God did so.

Oh, most of your examples repented before they found favor with God.

Saint Vic, himself, said in PLAF, God said David was the apple of His eye. He didn't say that when David was running around with Bathsheba. David had to right himself first.

I believe Christ works and is willing to work regardless of the sinful or non-sinful state another man may be in.   One example that was conveyed to me is through the Roman Catholic Mass.   The example given to me was pretty crude.    A priest is having a sodomitic session with an altar boy.   Half hour later, they're serving in the Mass.  Does Christ not appear because of that sodomitical act?   NO, He is there.    Why?   Because he loves YOU.    You came to that mass because you want to worship Him, and so, he is going to be there for YOU.     The takeaway is:   Christ works when we have Faith in Him; and it isn't sin that ties his hands, it's the lack of Faith.          

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46 minutes ago, oldiesman said:

I believe Christ works and is willing to work regardless of the sinful or non-sinful state another man may be in.   One example that was conveyed to me is through the Roman Catholic Mass.   The example given to me was pretty crude.    A priest is having a sodomitic session with an altar boy.   Half hour later, they're serving in the Mass.  Does Christ not appear because of that sodomitical act?   NO, He is there.    Why?   Because he loves YOU.    You came to that mass because you want to worship Him, and so, he is going to be there for YOU.     The takeaway is:   Christ works when we have Faith in Him; and it isn't sin that ties his hands, it's the lack of Faith.          

 

I’m sorry but that twisted logic offends me…maybe it’s just me…but it reminds me of the same type of thinking that wierwille probably had to justify being a sexual predator.

Read   I Corinthians 10  - especially in light of your statements “…A priest is having a sodomitic session with an altar boy.   Half hour later, they're serving in the Mass.  Does Christ not appear because of that sodomitical act?   NO, He is there.    Why?   Because he loves YOU.    You came to that mass because you want to worship Him, and so, he is going to be there for YOU.     The takeaway is:   Christ works when we have Faith in Him; and it isn't sin that ties his hands, it's the lack of Faith.”

 

 27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. 29 I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience?

 I Corinthians 10

 

My takeaway – wierwille never considered the damage to his own conscience or that of others

 

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53 minutes ago, oldiesman said:

A priest is having a sodomitic session with an altar boy.

Literally, according to usage, the priest is raping the alter boy. 

 

53 minutes ago, oldiesman said:

Does Christ not appear because of that sodomitical act?   NO, He is there.    Why?   Because he loves YOU.    You came to that mass because you want to worship Him, and so, he is going to be there for YOU.     The takeaway is:   Christ works when we have Faith in Him; and it isn't sin that ties his hands, it's the lack of Faith.          

Christ is there? Isn't he absent?

Faith? Like believing faith? Or the measure of faith that we have?

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