MikeWatson1

Yeah, that's real abuse of power. Its true I haven't experienced that kind. What I have seen is when the pastor meets with people during the week to disciple and they get dependent on the pastor.. rather than relying on the Word themselves..so the pastor may go overseas for training..or plant another church.. and those people leave or flounder. Sort of like youth going to a big christian conference.. getting hyped... They go home buzzed...buzz wears off and they were relying on the feelings rather than the key learning from the conference.

I think a big thing is people thinking they can have 'church' anyway they like. So they might leave an IFB church and then join an online ministry and call it their 'church'. IFB churches are usually very sure of what a church should be and maybe the person leaving wants to have it their own way. I cant imagine leaving IFB churches myself.. I dont know of any other kind of church that is as clear about what they believe and why, but I also have never been sure of KJVO.

Just to clarify on the repenting God did when Israel turned from their evil ways. The thing here is that their turning from evil ways here is called... works. So since salvation isnt by works ..and turning from evils ways IS works.. hence the issue with repent meaning 'turn from sin'. So there is what I was meaning.

Well, I agree with knowing you are a sinner before salvation and by free will, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's not really calvinism.

This is true. What im saying is if we are a sinner before conversion... and after we still sin.. though propelled by the Holy Spirit to sin less.. then what sin do we turn from before conversion? Because that is a ton of sin..seeing we are imperfect. So this is the problem, is why im saying you can only turn from sin after conversion, because their is simply no overcoming it before getting converted. Someone can believe on Jesus Christ..yea.. and that is all.

How do you repent of your evil ways BEFORE conversion, when you are dead in sin? I understand knowing you are a sinner.. and then believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. But repenting of sin-- as an action.. as a commitment.. before being saved.. is just something you can't do if you are a sinner. But again.. I think we are saying the same thing in a different way.

The key thing is the change in heart to believe on Jesus. So therefore i think we are saying the same thing.

The thing is.. before conversion, a sinner is dead is sin. So any kind of commitment to lessen sin in your life means nothing. It had to be all Jesus converting you. Then after...you can lessen sin in your life. When God repented it had zero to do with sin..but a change of mind. If you are saying people like me are saying repent and believe..... is saying believe and believe ... Thats not it.. its saying change your mind about Jesus and believe in Him. Its not a commitment of behaviour from us.. but believing on Jesus Christ. We can then commit to good behavior once our sin is forgiven. John 3:16, 5:24, 6:40, Romans 10:9-10. Maybe we are saying the same thing in different ways. But there is nothing about sin we can flee from before conversion..or commit to flee from.

In 1 Corinthians 12:13.. it is most commonly seen as salvation. That 'the body' here is all redeemed. The thing though.. that i have seen very few get.. is that the body in question in this passage is the church AT Corinth. The body here is a congregation. It's not all redeemed. So here is where we get baptism for membership to a congregation. A common objection I see to this is people then think I'm saying the church of Corinth is the ONLY body..seeing they think of 'there is one body..' In Ephesians What this isn't taking into account is the English grammar of referring to numerous things as one entity. 'The horse'... is that one universal horse? 'The bar' is that one universal public bar'? 'The horse is a magnificent animal' .. is the way 'the body' is used in scripture. So... there is one body at Ephesus..one at Corinth...one at Phillipi etc 'The body' as the institution of God's congregations/assemblies. Singular standing for plural. Standard English grammar. If you are going to make 1 co 12:13 about the Spirit giving salvation.. then you have the church at Corinth being what that salvation enters into. The church at Corinth is the body in 1 co 12. With application to other church bodies plural.

I am mostly agreeing with you, but what church are you referencing? I believe all redeemed are not 'the church', not until all believers become one assembly in heaven.

I have looked at Ephesians 4 and it was shown to me that it is a supporting passage for the cessation of supernaturally empowered ministry gifts. With 1 co 13 as the main passage shown for sign gifts ceasing..Ephesians 4 was shown to me as ministry gifts ceasing. What that meant is we now have faith, hope and love as abiding spiritual gifts. When I look at Ephesians 4 though .. that looks to me like maturing in a church in unity with other members, rather than saying at a time in the future, ministry gifts will cease. 'The knowledge of the unity of the faith' 'measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ ' was shown to me to be the complete canon..but now I don't know if the passage supports that. Your thoughts?

In Samoa, people dress up for church. Not sure about now, but in the 80s.. the majority of people went to a church service on a Sunday and wore white. But this was then usually a more formal type of lava lava. I don't know how it is now, but they do a very similar thing in Fiji and Tonga

Yeah, Scofield's bible is the KJV with Scofield notes right?

I remember in Fiji seeing a car that had accidentally hit a cow. The whole bonnet was collapsed in on itself. The share weight of the cow! A weird thing we had here is we had the sailing gp in Lyttleton Harbour here in Christchurch, NZ. It went ahead, complete, but apparently the environmentalists thought the boats were harming the dolphins. They won out and we aren't getting the gp back for now.

A friend of mine was saying tithing is an OT law practice and not required under the NT system. I thought the principle remained of giving a tenth to support your church. Giving to your church is obviously in the NT.. my friend said that was offerings, not tithes. It got me thinking about the Biblical base for tithing. My impression is although it was an OT practice, the standard remains in giving to your church..and the standard amount always having been a tenth or more.