Category Archives: 1 Corinthians

What is real?

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. (NIV)

In what sense is the world “real”? What are we asking, when we ask that question?

Anna Salamon doesn’t know. I don’t know. Perhaps Jordan Peterson knows.

I’m going to talk to you today about a different way of looking at what real is.

It’s not easy to figure out what real is because we don’t really have infinite knowledge and so we’re always making some sets of presuppositions about what’s most real.

It really matters what you assume is most real because you base the decisions that you make, that run the entire course of your life, on those assumptions, whether you recognise it or not. And if you get the assumptions wrong, or even if you leave them incomplete, you’re going to pay a big price for it.

See also The Naturalist and the Supernaturalist.

Soulmate Delusion

love quote

Soulmates?

God gave us free will. We’re free to choose right or wrong. Love is a choice! There is no such thing as divine energy holding two people together, that simply is not love. Love would be meaningless if it was not an ACTION of our free will, but pre-programmed to love someone. It just doesn’t make any sense.

We can fall off a bike, fall off a chair, fall in the toilet, but we cannot fall in love. We choose to love. Falling in any context, is not choosing.

This brings me to the purist definition of love you will ever find.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=535774786541473

What does the Bible say about drug addiction?

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. (KJV)

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. (NIV)

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (KJV)

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. (ESV)

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For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (ESV)

So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (ESV)

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (ESV)

The Gospel of God’s Grace.

ggg

The Gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead showing his victory over sin and death and guaranteeing our salvation and justification before God.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord *Shall* be saved.

For by grace are ye saved, through faith… it is the gift of God.
Not of works lest any man should boast.
For God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ.

You cannot *add* or take away anything from this…. God’s ordained prescription for salvation in this age.
You cannot deny Christ’s Sacrifice and resurrection and be saved.
You cant say “I’m a good person.. I dont deserve to go to hell”…. for there is none Righteous no not one, For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.
If you deny that it was necessary for Christ to shed his blood for you…. you reject the gift of God.

cross

You cannot *Add* to the finished work of Christ as preached to us by the Apostle of the Gospel of Grace St Paul.

False preachers of the Law say that a person must keep the Law to be saved…. ie they add *works* as necessary for salvation.
They prove they dont understand the Gospel of grace at all!
They fail to ‘Rightly divide’ the word of truth and so twist the scriptures to say what they want…. by mis-applying the old testament, the Kingdom preaching of Christ, St Peter, St James, etc…. and corrupt the Gospel of grace into Slavery under the Mosaic Law.
They add things like baptism, like keeping the Sabbath etc as necessary for salvation.
These ‘additions tend to enslave those whom they deceive into obeying *The Church hierarchy*….. ensnare them in tithing etc.
This is to deny the Liberating Power of the Cross, which sets us free from the Law.

If all this seems confusing….. Satan Laughs and spreads his wings…. He created this confusion to keep you from the Simple truth.
That Christ has paid the penalty of our sins and that if we simply ask God to save us in Christ’s name…. we will be saved indeed… no ifs…. no But’s….
Christ came to save us Sinners.
No matter who you are or how evil you have been, or what your personal struggles and vices are.…. Christ s Blood can save you!
Rejoice in the Love and GRACE of God our Heavenly Father.

Tim Wikiriwhi
Protestant King James Bible believer Dispensationalist Libertarian Independent.

Read more from Tim….

Hell is for the Self Righteous, Heaven is for Sinners.

A High Calling.

Christ’s work of Salvation on the Cross… The Great Equaliser.

The Christian Fellowship is a voluntary private society, not a theocratic political movement.

Do you believe you have the Perfect Word of God? Theism vs Humanistic Rationalism. Seeing The Light! My Testimony.

The hope which is In Christ. Terrible grief shall be turned into great joy!

The Rock of Divine Revelation.

Jimi vs Jesus.

Car Crash.

Post-mortem Docetism. Dear sister, desist.

resurrection

A Facebook friend of a friend on Facebook recently posted the following comment.

Jesus never “came back to life again” – at least, not in the same human form or the kind of life that he had or that we live. That is actually an incorrect message that is passed on in ignorance. If you read the Bible you will see that he only ever appeared in spirit form following the resurrection, in the same form that angels appear(ed) and possess. And I (and many millions of others) have indeed seen this exact same form for ourselves in our own lives at very different and unexpected times and in very different and unexpected places. There are literally thousands of normal and perfectly sane people who for some unknown reason have been presented with this vision. I and many of the people whose books I have read or youtube accounts I have watched were not even Christian at the time. But there is one thing that each of us has had in common: the spirit form is a shimmering white form with a human-type head. It is like us. 🙂

Now, she’s a jolly good fellow Christian an’ all, but this is a heinous heresy! It’s post-mortem Docetism!

Jesus was resurrected in bodily form. We read in the Gospel of Luke how, after Jesus’ body was reported missing from the tomb, two of his followers met Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

“What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. …

As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. (NIV)

That “he disappeared from their sight” does not necessarily mean that Jesus vanished like an apparition. If Jesus had appeared to the two followers as “a shimmering white form with a human-type head” I think they’d have noticed, don’t you?

Later, Jesus appeared again, this time to a group which included the eleven remaining disciples.

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. (NIV)

Jesus himself denied being a ghost! He was “flesh and bones,” not “in spirit form”. In fact, he was hungry, and ate a piece of fish! Ghosts just don’t do that. Jesus certainly did come back to life, and in the same human form he had before his crucifixion.

In fact, this belief, in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, is Christianity’s central tenet. Paul certainly seemed to think so. He says in 1 Corinthians 15

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (NIV)

Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,

“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.” (NIV)

What’s the bottom line? Keep it Biblical.

Having highlighted someone else’s heresy, what of my own? I think of the coming Resurrection of the Dead in terms of software and hardware. It’s the software that matters, not the hardware. Same program, different machine. Doesn’t matter, as long as the software licence permits installation on more than one machine. Or does it? Somebody called Eric says

I think it is very important to address 1 Corinthians 15, especially in regard to Chuck Smith. According to Paul, those who deny the bodily resurrection at the last day are divisive and enemies of the faith. Unfortunately, Chuck Smith clearly denies boldily resurrection, and instead teaches an innovative heresy of bodily replacement.

According to the Apostle Paul, doctrinal error that is held to at all costs by those not willing to be corrected causes division. He relates this specifically in his second letter to Timothy to the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which is the crux of the good news God has called him to preach. (2 Tim. 2:8) There is no other issue more important. No other issue demands our sobriety and clear-thinking and prayer as Christians as does the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ. If he did not resurrect, if His selfsame body did not leave the tomb after three days bearing the scars of crucifixion, then we are doomed and we have no hope.

Selfsame body or replacement body? Is the latter heretical? If it is, at least it’s “innovative”!

But does it really matter? I think the authors of the comic strip Coffee With Jesus have it right.

Coffee with Jesus - I'll be resurrecting the dead, Joe

The Resurrection of the Dead

TxTrib-SOPA011_jpg_800x1000_q100Regular readers, thank you for your patience during the recent Eternal Vigilance outage.

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (NIV)

Eternal Vigilance has now moved to a new imperishable server.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord for ever. (NIV)

Furthermore, Eternal Vigilance has now moved to a new cloud server.

We’re hosted by Rackspace, based in Denver, Texas, where everything is bigger, brighter and better.

Algud.