Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning preaching.

[Cyclops]

Would God be unjust if he elected some to salvation and not others?

I agree Justice is adherence to the Law, and mercy is the opposite of justice, breaking the law because of feelings.

God is described as merciful and just, which seems like a paradox, but if you accept God as supreme, then its less so, and that's an honest theologian who says "I don't know". There's far to many who misquote scriptures to "prove" you have to obey this prelate, or follow this exact ritual to be saved.

I like the theologians who don' try to shackle God in mathematics and rules and iron logic, our human minds are to weak to encapsulate whatever the creator is with our trivial concoctions.

I can't accurately describe all the events of my own life, let alone the universe. The doesn't mean the universe (and my life in it) doesn't exist, its just I am flawed.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The rejection of any concept of doctrine or rules wouldn’t be theology because theology involves the systematic development and study of religious doctrine. If one wishes to adhere to a code of disbelief in anything unverifiable through human experience, the concept of God is superfluous.

[basics]

Cyclops,

How is justice and mercy opposites? Mercy is as much justice as fufilling the law justice. Judges show what we now call leniency everyday in courts yet is that not mercy in the true sense? God shows mercy every single day all across this world as it sins its way through life, how? Well since sin is hated by God and we are all sinners, saved and unsaved, shouldn't He by His Law kill us for that is what the Law demands? So, in fact He grants all of us mercy until the appointed time for our departure from this world and a Saviour for the next if one cares enough about that.

[Prodromos]

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Thus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, became a curse on our behalf. ... And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down upon Himself the appointed curse, being made a curse for us. ... And in that He made our sins His own from His love and benevolence towards us.

[basics]

Aye, to think He became a man for the sole purpose of going through that horrendous experience for me and others. His naked body covered in dirt, sweat and blood He hung there for all them that the Father had chosen for Him and that before the worlds were made. He never protested but He did flinch very briefly in the garden before He was arrested letting show His humanity but once on that cross He knew what had to be done would be done. At one point he cried, " Father, Father, why hast thou forsaken Me? " but had He? It must have been heart rending for the Father to see the justice that Jesus bore so that a filthy wretch like me might be saved from that justice yet it had to be done if any of mankind were to return to their Creator and live.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Spoiler for pg-13: 

lel

[basics]

If only they taught what Jesus taught but alas they don't.

[Akar]

I agree Justice is adherence to the Law, and mercy is the opposite of justice, breaking the law because of feelings.

So if the law said to hang blacks or gays, obeying the law and hanging them would be "just"?

If the law says you aren't supposed to kill blacks or gays, breaking the law because of your feelings and killing them anyway would be "mercy"?

[basics]

So if the law said to hang blacks or gays, obeying the law and hanging them would be "just"?

If the law says you aren't supposed to kill blacks or gays, breaking the law because of your feelings and killing them anyway would be "mercy"?

Akar,

How do you work that one out?

[Cyclops]

So if the law said to hang blacks or gays, obeying the law and hanging them would be "just"?

Yes you make interesting points. I'm going to hide behind my dictionary here, the OED says Justice is

Maintenance of what is just or right by the exercise of authority or power; assignment of deserved reward or punishment; giving of due deserts.

..so if the laws were just, and you follow the laws, that is justice. I'd say "killing blacks and gays", in and of itself, is unjust as it seems bigoted and/or racist, so that's an unjust law and following it would not be justice.

If the law says you aren't supposed to kill blacks or gays, breaking the law because of your feelings and killing them anyway would be "mercy"?

The OED here says mercy is

Clemency and compassion shown to a person who is in a position of powerlessness or subjection, or to a person with no right or claim to receive kindness; kind and compassionate treatment in a case where severity is merited or expected, esp. in giving legal judgment or passing sentence.

Mercy is about softening justice, ameliorating its harshness in favour of kindness. I think killing someone against the law would not be kindness, but of course perhaps we can imagine mercy killings or some unlikely scenario.

Thanks for probing my statements thoughtfully, its worth clearing the woolly sounding language I used, I was trying to make a point about the way mercy and justice interact. God makes very harsh laws, indeed almost impossible to adhere to, and also extends arbitrary-seeming mercy eg to the thief at the crucifixion. Why weren't all the crucified given a chance at redemption? Or all thieves in the world?

[basics]

Cyclops,

Quote," Why weren't all the crucified given a chance at redemption? Or all thieves in the world? " Unquote.

The short answer is that one believed and the other didn't. One was on the wide road to hell and the other the narrow road to eternal life. In the middle was the Mercy of God in Jesus Christ. He is the Rock on which life stands or falls.

[Akar]

Akar,

How do you work that one out?

Clearly I'm just pointing out a flaw in his reasoning/definitions.

[basics]

God is very choosy. Why most Christians will never see Heaven. In the original Hebrew one of the cardinal rules for the Messiah is his word shall not be translated. So right there any Christian who reads from a non Hebrew Bible is on the wide road to hell. Its very sad stuff. But true Christians accept this. Can't go against the word.

Lyon Bob,

Please give me chapter and verses that say God's word may not be translated? Didn't Jesus tell His disciples to go out into the world and preach the Gospel? Didn't the people saved at Pentecost not hear the word in their own dialects, the very reason that Paul could speak in many tongues as he laid out the ground rules for these infant churches?

[Prodromos]

“There are, in truth, but two denominations upon this earth: the Church and the world—those who are justified in Christ Jesus and those who are condemned in their sins.”

-Charles Spurgeon

[basics]

There is only one Way round death for it was defeated at the cross by that Way. The problem for most is that they will not enjoy the afterlife as will those that follow the Way will.

[Lord Thesaurian]

In an unusual move, more than 150 Russian Orthodox clerics have called for an immediate stop to the ongoing war in Ukraine in an open letter issued on March 1.

At least 176 Orthodox clerics said that they "respect the freedom of any person given to him or her by God," adding that the people of Ukraine "must make their own choices by themselves, not at the point of assault rifles and without pressure from either West or East."

It is very rare for such a large number of religious clerics of the Orthodox Church to openly challenge President Vladimir Putin's government. In recent years, the Russian Orthodox Church and its leader, Patriarch Kirill, who did not sign the letter, have fully supported Putin's policies.

"We call on all opposing sides for a dialogue because there is no other alternative to violence,” the letter says. “Only an ability to hear the other side can give us hope to get out of the abyss our countries were thrown into several days ago. Let yourself and us all enter the Easter Lent in the spirit of faith and love. Stop the war."

There was no comment or other reaction from Patriarch Kirill or from Russian officials.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ortho.../31730667.html

The letter is linked in the article.

[Prodromos]

What Putin’s Invasion Means for the Baptists of Ukraine

Ukraine has the second-largest Baptist population of any European country, only slightly behind the United Kingdom, and the Ukrainian Baptist Union is the largest Protestant group in Ukraine, numbering over 100,000 believers across 2,000 churches. Ukraine’s Baptists trace their history to German Anabaptists, and they have been well-established in the country since the 1800s. Ukraine’s Baptist seminary has 1,300 students, and its interdenominational Evangelical seminary has another 500. In recent years, Ukraine has become more prominent in sending Baptist missionaries to other countries as well.

Ukraine has long been a hub for Evangelical Christianity in Eastern Europe, but Ukraine’s Evangelicals, especially its Baptists, are now under threat of increased persecution from Russian invaders.

Evangelical Christians in Russia experience what amounts to conditional toleration. “As long as they stay in their lane, stay quiet, do their thing in the corner, they are more or less tolerated,” Bunnell tells NR. “But once they get out publicly into more dynamic evangelism, they are pretty quickly pushed back to their corner.”

The Russian government uses its anti-evangelism law, signed by Putin in 2016, to do the pushing. Passed under the guise of “anti-terrorism,” the law prevents believers from sharing their faith outside of church. It has been used most often against Russian Evangelicals. Passing out New Testaments or meeting in small groups at home to talk about the Bible is punishable with fines.

With that regime invading Ukraine, Baptists are concerned. Elijah Brown, the general secretary and CEO of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), was in Ukraine last week. He told National Review that, without the war and persecution Baptists in Ukraine face, “we anticipate that the Ukrainian Baptist convention would become the largest Baptist convention in all of Europe.”

Baptists in the separatist-occupied Crimea and Donbas regions have been facing persecution for years. The BWA adopted resolutions condemning that persecution in 2014 and again in 2018. Brown tells NR, “It’s one of the places in the world where Baptists can say they, in particular, receive a special level of persecution.”

...

In Luhansk, the Ukrainian Baptist Union was designated as a terrorist group, the Baptist Hymnal was banned, and all 44 Baptist churches in the region have been closed. “We’ve heard repeatedly from pastors in that area who have talked about being taken into the woods and beaten and had the money they had on them stolen. We’ve heard repeatedly about military forces stationed outside of churches,” Brown says. “One of the pastors from that region, an older gentleman, told us that the persecution he was facing today was worse than anything he had lived through during the times of the U.S.S.R.”

“If the occupation of these territories is a foreshadow of what may come to Ukraine,” said Brown, “it should lead all of us to pray with greater fervor.”

[basics]

One way or another, whatever happens, we who are born of the Spirit of God are being held fast in the arms of Jesus and absolutely nothing can separate them from Him.

[Sir Adrian]

This is a great mini-documentary about the satanic evil of the prosperity gospel and megachurches

[basics]

If people would only study their Bibles I think they would quickly see what is of God and what is not but alas most are quite happy to hear what the guy in the pulpit has to say and thus they end up manipulated by him or her. They are no more than wolves in sheep's clothing and they'll use anything, words and music, to draw people in and they do.