Seth Doty

That chapter as a whole deals with Gods judgment on the nation of Israel for their rejection of his ways and ultimately the rejection of Christ. It also contains prophetic reference to Christs betrayal by Judas for thirty pieces of silver and how that money would be "cast" to the potter. This was fulfilled when Judas threw down the money in the temple, and it was used to buy the potters field. The specific verses you mention are making poetic reference to the eventual destruction of the nation of Israel, with the cedars of lebanon, the oaks of bashan, the young lions and the shepherds all bein

Church Covenants are neither biblical nor unbiblical. They are just one of a number of ways to assist in making sure everyone is at least roughly on the same page. Given that church membership is voluntary not compulsory, given that covenants are commonplace in scripture, and given that it is not uncommon for people to enter a church with ulterior motives a church covenant can be one tool to make subversion of a congregation a bit more difficult.

Welcome to the board lynn, I see you made it.

This is probably going to backfire on the network. The media has been pushing hard for homosexuality to be completely accepted as "normal" and to frame all those who disagree as "bad" people and bigots some time. While they have made significant strides toward shifting public opinion to match their point of view they are not all together there yet. They are overreaching on this one as the biblical point of view on homosexuality that he expressed is not yet as widely rejected and despised as they wish it would be. There are still a lot of even completely secular people who find it disgusting an

Your experience has been different then mine. Most of the ones I have run across have been between somewhat and quite knowledgeable of the bible. They knew what it said and either ignored it or intentionally misrepresent and misinterpret it to fit their choices. Other than in the media I don't see a great deal of that anyway. Secondly, just about any homosexual at a pro-homosexual rally is proud of it and likely to be extremely unreceptive to the truth no matter how it is presented. They are there to make sure their wickedness is shoved in the face of everyone else. The vast majori

I see what your saying here to be an ever increasing refrain among professing Christians and very honestly I don't like it one bit. I think it is either a intentional or unintentional effort to bring the Christian world view a little "closer" to the modern acceptance of homosexuality in the western world. Yes, it is indeed quite true that any sin will send someone who has not trusted in Christ to hell but some sins are indeed "worse" than others and are frequently indicative of a exceptionally deep level of depravity. God overthrew Sodom & Gomorrah to make an example of them when that sort

I was just going off memory but I checked online and it was an ABC 20/20 special from 2011 not the anderson cooper special. It was indeed the same pastor chuck phelps I was thinking of though, he has been heavily involved in the BJU circles for years but is now pastoring a different church in a different state than he was at the time of the TV special. Apparently from the news today he lost a son and daughter in law in this wreck. Wouldn't see eye to eye with them doctrinally on a ever increasing number of things but it is a tough situation no doubt.

I don't think there is a good way to know how much God "micromanages" life any more than we can know how much or how directly angels interfere. From scripture it is obvious that at times God very carefully controls even little details to bring about certain events but at other times it seems he less directly controls what happens. For example, when God allowed the devil access to Job God allowed the devil to more or less "work out the details" on what the devil wanted to do to Job but specified a couple of things that the devil could not do. Likewise when Christ mentions a tower that fell on s

I think it is balony.

I am glad your being open about it, and I don't think that it is so much a entirely flawed view of God suzy, it is just a incomplete picture. Take this verse I came across just last night. "Jeremiah 22:6 For thus saith the LORD unto the king's house of Judah; Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited." God is telling Israel how much they mean to him yet in the same breath he is telling them that isn't going to stop him from punishing them when they really deserve it and are unrepentant about it. I think

Your loosing the youth with or without "hymnal only". The only question is what are you loosing them to? My suspicion is that many conservative churches are essentially like the Church at Sardis and loose the youth in part for that reason, however, what they loose them to tends to be either the world outright or Laodicean like churches. If A Sardis like church is loosing its youth to the world and Laodicean like churches the answer is not become more like the world and Laodicean like Churches, the answer is get right with God, get real, and be something worth having and being rather than bein

I would say that is very accurate. The percentage may well be quite a bit higher than that. I will also say it seems to matter very little how carefully they were protected & raised or what standards their parents had or didn't have. For example in my family there were eight children which grew up in pretty conservative IFB churches. Myself, two brothers, and five sisters. All seemed to be more or less ok up until they left our parents house. Within a few years of that both my brothers at separate times decided they were atheists and slowly adopted lifestyles that reflect that, one of my s

I have a younger sister who goes to college there and she likes it. Tells me the staff is good, some students are, and some aren't. That is the best one can hope for I suppose.