NewLifeInChristJesus said:

Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin." (Jn 8:34).​

You are re-defining slaves to suit the context, as I said before. You want slaves to mean that slaves of sin have no way to choose righteousness on one hand, but you do not want slaves to mean that slaves of righteousness have no way to choose sin or that "whoever sins is a slave of sin". You can't have it both ways. Ironically, your case would be stronger if you just let slave mean slave. But then you would have to give up on the idea of Progressive Sanctification...

Hint:

...those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness." (Ro 8:8–10 NASB 1995)​

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You do know that the Holy Spirit wasn’t given till after Pentecost, right? Jesus was talking in that verse (John 8:34) to people before He died, which was before the day of Pentecost. So, yes, at that time, people were slaves to sin because they had not received the gift and power of the Holy Spirit to guide and change us.

Thanks for the “hint”, but in Romans, we believers are not in the flesh because we have been redeemed and have the Holy Spirit to guide us and work on us to help us conform to the image of the Son. Also, I don’t know if you noticed that in the Romans 6 scripture I quoted in the my previous post, Paul was speaking in the past tense. Before they were saved/regenerated, they were slaves to sin.

Do you not understand the difference between unbelievers and believers? Or the difference between the pre-fallen world and the post-fallen world? Perhaps you should take a Bible study class and learn these things before posting here because you seem to not know anything about what the Bible teaches. It feels like you are making it up as you go.

NxNW said:

That was a misinterpretation by the right from a TRN stamp on the end of the bullet by the manufacturer.

The shooter wasn't trans; he was a Mormon from a right-wing MAGA family.

What is it about MAGA that brings about such violence?

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MAGA did not bring this assassination upon Charlie Kirk.

GoldenBoy89 said:

It is.

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No. It is not.

FreeinChrist said:

The Christian Post has become a rag.

So the bias against Christians:
- They can't block people from entering abortion clinics, which also happen to be where women also get treatment for other gynecological conditions and routine care not involving abortions. They can't assault those women either.
- Liberty University got fined for lying "about the cost of its doctoral programs to attract students to enroll". Christians aren't suppose to lie, right? They also violated the "Clery Act, which requires universities receiving federal funding to report data of campus crime and report threats to students".
- "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) under Biden threatened the federal funding of the St. Francis Health System in Oklahoma for displaying a prayer candle in its chapel in 2023, the report noted.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the law firm Yetter Coleman LLP fired off a letter to HHS officials that year after an independent commission demanded that the hospital system extinguish a candle that represents the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, citing potential safety concerns for patients with oxygen equipment."

They eventually allowed the candle due to backlash - but hopefully people are aware that open flames are not allowed in hospitals be ause of the fire risk, and because many patients are on oxygen . Smoking is also not allowed. It is a fire risk.

As to the candle representing the presence if Jesus Christ in the Eucharist - don't you think that Jesus doesn't need a candle in order to be present?

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You forgot about the discrimination against Christian employees at HUD over posts on the website regarding celebrating Christian holidays while allowing leftist agenda posts, discrimination against the Little Sisters of the Poor to try to force them to do abortions, discrimination against churches that wanted to meet outside with mandated spacing during COVID whilst allowing up close and personal protests, denying military remembers the right to refuse the vaccine for religious reasons, OTHER people who protested at abortion clinics who DIDN’T block the entrance, excessive and unjustified fines on Christian schools that were way out of proportion to fines levied against non-Christian schools.

timewerx said:

It's not carnot....Unfortunately, I can't tell more.

There is no plan B. If it doesn't work, then that's the end of it. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life trying to crack it! It's been two months so far of grilling AI on the subject, even rebuilding the concept with "fresh AI memory" from scratch using different pathways several times. It always arrive to the same conclusion. You can't fool AI on this one especially when it comes to violating the law of conservation of energy.

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I sincerely wish you good luck! Perhaps it will benefit us all

Benaiah468 said:

No, Israel is not "lost" but is facing significant challenges, including the aftermath of the Oct 7, 2023, attacks and economic strain from the ongoing conflict with Hamas. Christians actively supports Israel through humanitarian aid, first responder equipment, housing for evacuated families, trauma counseling, and rebuilding efforts, asserting that a strong bond of friendship and support exists between Israel and Christians worldwide.

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Spiritually lost, not in a literal sense.

Vambram said:

I see that you think that honoring Charlie Kirk and his family is a political thing to do.

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It is.

DaisyDay said:

But violence actually seems to be falling in the cities somehow, not rising. Most school shootings, for some reason, do not take place in the inner cities.

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This may be merely selection bias, but a disproportionate number of the ones that come to my attention seem to happen in Denver suburbs.

Jerry N. said:

I agree with you that praying to saints can be a big stumbling block, but I’m not sure it can lead to damnation

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It does not = particularly since the prayer to the saints is not really a prayer but a request for prayers. It does not deprive Christ of His role as our sole Mediator, since all traditional churches - Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrians, Anglicans, Lutherans, liturgical Methodists and so on affirm that Christ is the sole Mediator - attempts to declare the Theotokos “co-Mediatrix” are a neo-Collyridian error and have been thus far rejected by the Roman Catholic Church. Collyridianism (worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary) and Antidicomarianism (refusal to venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary or acknowledge her virginity) were both identified by St. Epiphanios of Cyprus as errors of equal magnitude in the late fourth century (the same Epiphanios that some iconoclasts erroneously try to enlist as proof that the early church rejected icons, when rather, it was likely he was removing an Arian depiction of our Lord, for we know from archaeological evidence such as the Arian Baptistry in Ravenna that the Arians in rejecting the deity of Christ would depict him as a beardless youth).

Jerry N. said:

However, repeating the same prayer to the same saint in a ritual over and over again distracts from the saving grace of Christ and give the impression of working one’s way into heaven by saying the rosary plus other rituals.

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That’s completely false - I pray the Hail Mary many times a day as did Martin Luther, among others, and it has not distracted from my focus on Christ our God as our only Savior - and as both our advocate and judge in the Eschaton. I know of no Orthodox Christians or Roman Catholics whose love for Christ is compromised by their Marian devotion; if anything, a strong Marian devotion increases love for Christ, because the Theotokos tells us in the Gospel according to John, of her son, “to do as he says.” Thus I do that by celebrating the Eucharist and pursuing prayer without ceasing, particularly the Jesus Prayer but also the Hail Mary, and the Divine Office. Nothing our Lord commanded precludes requesting other Christians, whether of the Church Militant or the Church Triumphant, for their prayers. In the Orthodox Church, we have certain knowledge of the presence of members of the Church Triumphant in our spiritual lives, because of their tendency to appear and do things for the benefit of the faithful, for example, the recent baptisms performed in Romania by St. Nektarios of Pentapolis.

Seems like the flag is almost always half staff for one thing or another..

The Liturgist said:

Are you denying the doctrine of the Trinity? Since Jesus Christ is God incarnate, one with the Father according to the Gospel of John, prayers can absolutely be addressed to Him, but you seem to be referring to him as a Man distinct from God, as opposed to being God incarnate as a Man, which according to John 1:1-18 he absolutely is

By the way @SabbathBlessings with regard to the Incarnation - this absolutely can be proven biblically; the doctrinal errors I was referring to which lean on the Nicene Creed for refutation are rather errors such as Sabellianism, Eutychianism, Nestorianism, Monothelitism and so on.

I would note we have examples in Scripture of prayer to Christ our True God as well as the Father, and all traditional churches have prayers addressed to all three persons of the Trinity, primarily the Father but also in many cases the Son and the Holy Spirit.

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You misunderstand me, I'm saying if you pray to anyone other than God and since Jesus IS God and our mediator, then we can pray to him but thats it. Mary and anyone else false out of that category. I Hope that clears up the confusion

Vambram said:

I see that you think that honoring Charlie Kirk and his family is a political thing to do.

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Isn't it? Ron Desantis seemed to think that the Pulse Nightclub Memorial crosswalk was political:

Is this different?

Jerry N. said:

I agree with you that praying to saints can be a big stumbling block, but I’m not sure it can lead to damnation. However, repeating the same prayer to the same saint in a ritual over and over again distracts from the saving grace of Christ and give the impression of working one’s way into heaven by saying the rosary plus other rituals. Even if the Roman Church does not teach this explicitly, it comes across to some Catholics implicitly. The other problem is Mary overshadowing Christ. Even if she could hear our prayers, she is not more merciful and forgiving than Christ. Again, Catholics say that it is not formal church doctrine, but many Catholics act like it is.

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Any continual sin that you don't want to give up leads to damnation.
Hebrews 10:26 - "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,"

It's not the idea of messing up and sinning, asking for forgiveness and keep striving to walk righteously, it's the idea of the acceptance of sitting in sin continually, even if it's only 1 type of sin. So if you are continually breaking the first commandment, that alone leads to hell.

I do agree with the rest though. Like Mary..... there is a house by my parents house that has a statue of Mary and people will stop and pray to her and expect her to bless them. Technically, you have now made Mary into your god.

NxNW said:

That was a misinterpretation by the right from a TRN stamp on the end of the bullet by the manufacturer.

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Are you serious?

NxNW said:

His death provides a convenient distraction from the GOP's refusal to release the Epstein files. Kirk wanted them released, after all.

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You seem bothered by the fact that the world doesn't revolve around Epstein.

Tropical Wilds said:

No… No trans whatever whatever as they reported?

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That was a misinterpretation by the right from a TRN stamp on the end of the bullet by the manufacturer.

The shooter wasn't trans; he was a Mormon from a right-wing MAGA family.

What is it about MAGA that brings about such violence?

How many moments of silence and/or loud prayer did she request for the victim of a school shooting in the district next to hers in Colorado, who is still in critical condition?

MotoToTheMax said:

You're probably taking it more seriously than the shooter did. It's not a statement that's inherently homophobic or anything. It's just a typical crap posting designed to rage bait with no real meaning behind it. Might as well have just said "lol u mad bro?" on it.

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Ok but I am taking all the inscriptions as one demented message.

"Black Star" by Radiohead

The Liturgist said:

@rusmeister I don’t post threads on current events but i’ve been praying fervently for Irnya Zarutska, memory eternal, and her loved ones, who was the victim of a terrible violent act, and for Charlie Kirk, memory eternal, and his loved ones, as well as the victims of the crash of the Elvador da Gloria in Lisbon. These events cause me great distress and all I really want to talk about on ChristianForums is the liturgy and a few other subjects of mutual interest; I also defend from unwarranted attacks, most of which seem to come from Seventh Day Adventists and Pentecostals (whose opposition to us and rapid growth were prophesied by Fr. Seraphim Rose) the traditional liturgical churches such as the Roman Catholics, the traditional Anglicans and confessing Lutherans and conservative liturgical Methodists, the Eastern Catholics, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, and naturally the canonical Eastern Orthodox and our Oriental Orthodox friends.

I hope you don’t think the fact that I haven’t made posts on those issues to indicate a lack of care or concern - far from it. I am in an unpleasant situation with my health which is interfering with my work and creating problems almost as unpleasant as some of those you have had to deal with, and I am just doing my best. But I want you to know I’m praying for you, I love you very much along with all other Eastern Orthodox members, and my main hope for the Orthodox forum is that we continue to love one another here and not allow this forum to become like a now-defunct Orthodox forum which I never joined, where the members seemed to be cruel to each other for recreational value.

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Hi! I wasn’t meaning to pick on anyone in particular.
Anyway, it was an aside, and I don’t want to derail the thread.