I came across this recent podcast episode from Christian apologist, Frank Turek, where he interviews Shane Rosenthal about his new book, "Luke's Key Witness."

The new book posits that some evidence may point to Joanna, who was a disciple of Jesus during His 1st advent, as being one of the people from whom Luke drew information for his Gospel. I found this interesting and hadn't heard it before, so I'm posting it here in case any of the rest of you would like to listen in on the discussion. (The video is set at the 12:30 minute mark because that's where the main conversation for the book actually picks up].

Who is Luke's Key Witness? with Shane Rosenthal​

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Greetings to everyone here and praise the Lord!

I have arrived here to look for fellowship of other Believers! (even if it's online) I look forward to getting to know you, this place, and more importantly, getting to grow my relationship with Christ!

(Also to the staff) Thank you for giving me as well as everyone here the opportunity and privilege to be with each other and to serve God at this place!

I'm back after a long sleep. Was ABlessedMan in the past. Had a little change.
@hhodgson, @PastorMike .... I knew many others here in WoF but too much time has passed to remember handles.

How active is this forum these days? It doesn't look very active from the topside. Am I wrong?

I was going to post this in the what are you watching thread. But it’s so out there I figured it’s a better fit here. At first glance this is really unsettling. But are there use cases when the technology could be helpful? And if so, what would that involve from your perspective? I don’t necessarily want a debate. But an opportunity for us to view the topic from different angles. Not only ourselves but others in different circumstances. This is going to be an issue for our generation and we might as well confront it.

The Ai Girlfriend Apocalypse. It’s an interesting piece and expected to rise significantly in the future. Elon did an ad campaign with Kim Kardashian last year and I knew was a certainty. The video stated the most common use case for Generative Ai was therapy and companionship. I’ve heard some people mention its suitability for mentorship and related tasks. I’m including the video and a link to the app Replika. The intro is a little racy but it’s harmless.

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Goodbye dad
I am heart broken
That I have lost you
So fast
I can't stop crying
Yes I could never believed
That you had to part so soon
But deep down
I could not stand to see you
Suffer every day
Battling you disease
I tried to make you
Comfortable
Also I had to be strong for you
And it is very hard to do
Yes you lost you battle
And at the same time
It was hard to see you leave
This earth
But at the same time
I must understand that
You are in a better place them
Me
You are living a new life in
Heaven
Without suffering
Dad go ahead
And rest all you want
Yes darling daughter
You still have a life to live
On earth
Ahead of you
Please daughter live your life to
The fullest on earth
Yes daughter heaven holds a place
For you
Daughter do me a favor
And pray for me every night
AIso I will be watching you down
From heaven
You can't see me anymore
Because the earth is far
From heaven
Also I am weaving goodbye
To you daughter
From heaven
You can't see me waving goodbye
To you
Yes daughter one day
When you die
You will come to heaven
And you will see me in
Heaven
And in heaven we
Will meat again
Some day
Daughter of mine
In this difficult time
I must say that you were
Brave
Now it is time
To grieve daughter
I can't tell you
How long you must grieve
And I know that
Everybody grieves different
From each other

If you want to find a Catholic wife worthy marrying, start here.​

Last year, I wrote a piece for Catholic Answers called “How to Find a Husband.” Here is the belated companion piece for men who are looking for a good Catholic wife.

Much of the advice is the same: expand your social circle by attending both Catholic and not-necessarily-Catholic events that attract single adults, then challenge yourself to actually speak to at least one single woman at each social event. Have a “wing man” hold you accountable to this goal if needed.

However, I have some specific tips for men, too, based on what I liked when I was looking for a husband a couple of years ago, and what I heard from other women as I researched for my book, Pretty Good Catholic.

Many Catholic women complained that the devout Catholic men they met were . . . well, boring. They tended to have fewer hobbies and interests than non-Catholic men and didn’t joke or flirt as much. So you can take three concrete steps to make sure you stand out from the crowd.

1. Develop or rekindle some interests so that you’re well rounded. Ideally, you should do something physical that keeps you fit and doubles as a social activity, where you can meet women who share the interest. (I know a married couple who met through a casual Ultimate Frisbee group, and plenty of Catholic women love partner dancing!)

Intellectual and creative pursuits are great, too: play an instrument, learn a new language, or read some great works of literature. Basically, do things that women also do, so that you have something to talk about with them, and somewhere to take them on dates besides coffee or dinner. If you find that you and she are both into art, inviting her to a museum comes naturally.

If you’re using a dating app or website, showcase all these interests on your profile, via words and pictures, so women can really see who you are.

2. Lighten up a little bit!

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Revelation 13 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion:

According to Daniels visions these animals are - Greek empire , Media Persia and Babylon and all can be seen here in this picture of the Greek empire. However , Italy Rome and the Vatican are not in this prophetic picture , so where did I go wrong ?

One of the most famous and dramatic scenes in the entire Bible comes in Genesis 22 when God tells Abraham to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him in the land of Moriah. For Christians and non-Christians alike, the passage can feel challenging and perplexing. How could an all-loving God command a father to kill his innocent son? And what’s to stop God doing the same thing again in the future? To answer these questions, we need to look more carefully at what’s going on in the biblical text.



A Willing Victim

The first thing to notice about the sacrificing of Isaac—also known as the Aqedah, or “binding”—is that Isaac is old enough to consent to what’s going on. Jewish tradition holds that he was in his 20s or 30s at the time, and this is supported in the text of Genesis. For one thing, the same Hebrew word that’s used to describe Abraham’s servants (“young men” in the RSV) is also used to refer to Isaac (“lad” in the RSV).

Additionally, there’s the important detail in the narrative that Isaac is the one who carries the wood for the sacrifice: “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son” (Gen 22:6). Given that the quantity of wood would have been considerable, Isaac must have been a strapping young man by this point. And it makes sense that Abraham would lay the wood on his son, since Abraham was well over a hundred years-old by this point (see Gen 21:5)! Isaac could easily have resisted and overpowered his elderly father if he so chose.

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Hi, brothers and sisters,

A couple of months ago, my church stopped saying those words in the title of this thread: "Most Holy Theotokos, save us" in all of our services. I asked my priest. He said it was never part of the liturgy, just done out of respect. I was thinking it was because of all the new people coming to our church (and others around the country) - that they didn't understand what that meant (which is understandable because it's a saying for people already members of the church), and many Protestants are offended by that, thinking we're asking the Panagia to save us as in through salvation, which isn't the case.

Has anyone else's church here in the U.S. or elsewhere taken out that lovely chant? I'm sorry to see to gone. So used to hearing it. I still say it at church (not loudly, but quietly) during the liturgy and such. Anybody?

I don't understand these online news feeds that present controversial subjects as their article topics and then do not allow people to comment on the article unless it is in support of the controversial article. Sensible responses need not apply against these articles, the comment usually doesn't get posted. But I tried with what I thought was a sensible and polite response:

"You got that right! A long while back, yes there may have been one or two trans people in each of our communities but, they did their whole "trans" thing and the rest of the world was allowed to ignore it and not have to play along with their delusions.

Now, the online news medias have to throw it in our face 24/7 as if the more they present the subject the more "enlighten" we'll become and accept the false trans lifestyle. I can tell you, it'll never happen even in a million years - because it is so unnatural.

I think that some of the people who report for these online news medias are even more delusional than the person who acts trans. Maybe, psychiatrist need to take a closer look at those people."


So, after trying to post the above response, I got the message, "This comment doesn't meet the community guidelines; please try another one." Anybody see anything repulsive, mean, hateful in what I wrote? A far as I can tell there is nothing bad about this response. So, I thought we could have a better discussion here on the subject. Here, everybody can say what they want (to a certain degree).

Q: Is it always wrong in every case to lie? What about the so-called “little white lie?”‘ I’m thinking of situations where you tell a person something you know is false to spare their feelings, when they’re likely never going to know the truth anyway.

A: Our Catholic faith teaches us that lying is an offense against the eighth commandment and is in principle always wrong. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “By its very nature, lying is to be condemned. It is a profanation of speech, whereas the purpose of speech is to communicate known truth to others. The deliberate intention of leading a neighbor into error by saying things contrary to the truth constitutes a failure in justice and charity” (CCC 2485).

Speaking and acting against the truth​

However, as your question suggests, there are some nuances to consider. For one thing, a lie might be mortally or venially sinful depending on the objective importance of the truth being obscured and on the seriousness of the potential harms that might come about because of the lie. A quick fib about eating the last piece of cake is obviously not on the same level as a lie in a business transaction that causes a family to lose their entire savings.

It also might be useful to consider what a lie technically is. As the catechism, referencing St. Augustine, puts it: “A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving” (CCC 2482). This means that not every untrue statement is a lie. To give some examples, acting and some jokes involve saying things that aren’t true, but untruths uttered by an actor in a play or as part of the set-up for a clear punchline aren’t intended to deceive and typically aren’t misleading in actual fact. Likewise, inaccurate statements that come about from an honest mistake also are not lies, because there was no intention in such statements to distort the truth

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CNN —
Colombian senator Miguel Uribe, in the running to join next year’s presidential race, is in a critical condition in hospital after being shot at an event in Bogota, allegedly by a 15-year old boy.

The 39-year-old, from the center-right Centro Democrático – or Democratic Center – the biggest opposition party in the South American nation, had expressed his intention to run in next year’s election.

He was shot twice on Saturday afternoon in the capital’s Fontibon district, according to the General Prosecutor’s Office. Police said the 15-year-old was carrying a Glock pistol when he was arrested.

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ABC News’ senior national correspondent Terry Moran has been suspended after going on a late-night screed against top White House adviser Stephen Miller along with President Trump on social media — drawing scathing backlash from the Trump administration.
Moran, who landed an interview with the president in April, blasted Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, as a man “richly endowed with the capacity for hatred.”

So much for unbiased news.

The term “passion” has multiple meanings: It can refer to strongly felt emotion, especially love, as in, “He felt passionately about her.” Yet it can also describe great suffering, especially the afflictions of Jesus in what we call “the Passion of the Christ.” I’ve always been intrigued by the Gospel of John, in which both these senses of “passion” converge in the account of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus — a picture John paints, if you will, with the colors of a wedding! A wedding? Yes! Although at first it would seem that a funeral and a wedding have nothing in common, the apostle John insists that Jesus’ death was actually a marriage, one in which the divine bridegroom gives his body for his bride.

This idea of God being the bridegroom of his people has deep roots in the prophets of ancient Israel, such as Hosea, who spoke in the voice of God himself to describe a future in which “I will now allure her (Israel), and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her” (Hos 2:14), and again (Hos 2:16-20):



On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, “My husband” … And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord.



Moving to the New Testament, we find that, of all the Gospels, it is John’s that most clearly portrays Jesus’ fulfillment of these beautiful prophecies. The fulfillment climaxes at the cross, but John prepares us to understand the cross by describing several events earlier in Jesus’ life that foreshadow his role as the divine bridegroom.

For example, Jesus’ first miracle in the Gospel of John is to change about 180 gallons of water into the finest wine for a wedding in Cana (2:1-11). In ancient Judaism, the bridegroom was responsible for providing wine for his own wedding party, so the point of this miracle is that Jesus did the job of the bridegroom … and did it on a massive scale: enough wine for a royal wedding!

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Subject line says it all. Any suggestions for other Christian forums?

It was probably inevitable that Narcissistic Alpha males on the level of the US president and the world's richest man were going to fall out at some point. To be honest I do not really care about Tesla or the American budget. But there is one area where this feud really matters.

I wonder if the fact that NASA funding for a Mars trip now depends on a Trump, determined to punish Musk, means that the Mars program will be set back a decade - this would effectively hand victory to China. I say this because the success of this program depends on the involvement of SpaceX which Trump is probably now going to boycott. NASAs own program is mired in bureaucracy and cost overruns and maybe now budget cuts and a lack of political will. Blue Origin and Boeing do not have the ambition, culture, or background for Mars right now but SpaceX does. Without SpaceX and Musk's involvement, this is probably not going to happen on Trump's watch.

If China gets to Mars first then they will rightfully be able to claim that they have not only surpassed the USA economically but also technologically. It is a message the whole world would read as the end of US hegemony.

Help, as in for me...I just offered to help at Junior Church. I said I could do art and crafts, and I can...it is just that children are like beings from another planet to me. I know Jesus will help with that part, the Bible is not exactly ambiguous about His feelings about the little people. I did explain to our Family Minister, and she is a gift from heaven in her role, so I am sure it will be just fine when it comes to it.

How are all of your churches doing for volunteers?

The Presbyterian Church (USA) recently gave final approval to an amendment to its Book of Order that will require clergy candidates to be questioned about their views on LGBT ideology.

Known as Amendment 24-C, it was part of a proposal known as the Olympia Overture, which sought to amend G-2.0104b of the Book of Order to require candidates to be asked about their views on issues including sexual orientation and gender identity.

The measure was approved for consideration last year at the 226th PCUSA General Assembly by a vote of 297-130. From there, the measure needed to get a simple majority of presbyteries, or regional bodies, to vote in favor of it.

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Good Morning and greetings to all from England
Haven't been on any forums for some time now so looking forward to some 'online' companionship and sharing.

Hope you all have a Blessed Sunday

When an infant child dies does its soul go to be with God in heaven or does something else happen?

My bible has 73 books in it and was formed as a canonical source of authority in the fourth century AD, and dogmatically defined as 73 books in the fifteenth century and again in the seventeenth century. It formed my Church's theology but was not alone in doing so. Church tradition as presented in the early Church Fathers and in Church practises played and continue to play a fundamental role in forming theology. There is also the living presence of the Holy Spirit and in her people as well as her bishops playing a role of continuous theological formation that is called by some "the development of doctrine" which means that doctrine develops as the need to express it more and more clearly draws it into greater clarity as new issues arise. This is the Catholic way of approaching holy scripture and doctrine.

What is your understanding of how you form your own theology and of how your denomination forms its theology?

I have a website dedicated to Christ, www.heavenandfreedom.com I just checked my website stats, in the last few days it has gotten 1 hit from Israel! There has been a good 10 hits from Israel in the last few years since I launched my website! Also 1 hit in the last few days from the United Arab Emirates, this is probably Dubai! Also 1 hit in the last week from Egypt! Also 1 hit in the last week or so from Iran! Also about 500 hits from people using Apple iPhones, they may be people in 3rd world countries without a computer! HALLELUJAH!