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  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

‘House of David’ Expands With New Moses Special Starring Ben Kingsley and O-T Fagbenle

I watched the first series but now I don't have the subscription channel. I am tempted to just sign up to watch the 2nd series lol. I have Netflix now and its getting boring. But then I don't watch a lot of TV.

I am watching online various short movie/documentaries on the old testament prophets, judges and kings. I am trying to go through the old testament from Genesis. But I keep jumping ahead and now I am confused lol.

I watched the one on Solomon when things started to go downhill before the Babylonians invasion and destruction of the Temple. That would make a good series.

I would like to see the Moses one as well.
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What is evidence?

Hawkins is right in his assessment (assuming Hawkins is male?) Any evidence of anything there is can only be perceived by humans using human means. Human means are finite, and not all-encompassing. Much of the universe's mysteries and unsolvable mathematical problems are likely due to reasons that humans have no way of detecting, let alone measuring (do I dare say, "yet"?). This would be akin to humans using x-ray technology in the year 30,000 BCE--they had no comprehension of x-rays, but may have been able to randomly imagine such a concept. My decades of reading articles from Scientific American and the like has shown me that much of the technology man has developed over the centuries has been due to accidental discoveries. I don't think it rational (from a Christian viewpoint) that our Creator intended us to understand everything--at least not until after our mortal bodies pass away. Space and time are just the two mediums by which humans exist that are detectable. The life force within each of us is individually experienced, but not detectable by any means limited to the natural universe--it appears to transcend it (yes, think "interdimensional").
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What is your personality type?

The Judging Temperament

There's a flash flood carrying everything down Main Street. A young boy, watching it out the window, notices a red hat that floats by but turns at the corner of the house, only to reverse direction and float by again. Amazed at this phenominon, the boys calls for his mother. She calmly replies, "Relax, that's your father. He said he was going to cut the grass today, come hell or high water."
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Trump's war on science as the Ocean Monitoring System is Dismantled.

I don't need a $370 million ocean-floor observatory network to give me climate data on coastal environments, marine ecosystems, and powerful global ocean currents.

All I need do is go stand out in Tumon Beach for five minutes and get all the information I want for free
This is a wholly accurate statement by you and should be acknowledged as such. It also eloquently illustrates the underlying problem with the action of the Trump administration in this regard:

It gives you all the information you want. It does not give the US government, or the US people, or the rest of the people on the planet the information they need.

Your wants had best take a hike.
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Couple leading Florida’s oldest black church faces more than $3M in IRS liens: report

Rudolph McKissick Jr., senior pastor of Florida’s oldest black congregation, the Bethel Church, historically known as Bethel Baptist Institutional Church in Jacksonville, Florida, is facing more than $3 million in IRS tax liens along with his wife, Rev. Kimberly McKissick, the church’s executive pastor.

The liens stem from the couple’s failure to pay personal income taxes for income earned from 2006 to 2021. Records cited by Action News Jax show the couple was hit with one federal tax lien in April for more than $1.85 million covering 2010 to 2014. Additional federal income tax liens were imposed on the couple in 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2021 for unpaid taxes from 2006 through 2013, and 2016 to 2017.

Church officials were unavailable for comment Friday when contacted by The Christian Post.

In addition to being the oldest black church in Florida, the 14,000-member congregation, which was established in 1838, is also one of Florida’s oldest churches.

Continued below.

Did you know dinosaurs can never be cloned?

The OP is likely correct. Birds cannot be cloned and birds are a form of dinosaur. The differences in mamallian and bird reproduction are the obstacle. Research to restore extinct, or near extinct species focus on manipulation of primordial germ cells, creating birds that can produce the gametes of another species, allowing genetic material to be propagated through breeding rather than through true cloning.
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"The Logos was in the Magistracy"

Yes, but Thayer and Strong defined "ἀρχή archē" without specific verse context.
While Mounce defined it as "magistrates" in the context of Luke 12:11, and for John 1:1 context as "in the beginning of things."

And from Louw and Nida Greek-English Lexicon it is defined as - before the world was created, the Word (already) existed, etc.

Also from Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament it means - in a & b as "of time: beginning (origin), point of origin, etc.


G746 (Mounce)
ἀρχή archē
55x: a beginning, Mat_24:8; an extremity, corner, or, an attached cord, Act_10:11; Act_11:5; first place, headship; high estate, eminence, Jud_1:6; authority, Luk_20:20; an authority,
magistrate, Luk_12:11; a principality, prince, of spiritual existence, Eph_3:10; Eph_6:12; ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, ἐξ ἀρχῆς, from the first, originally, Mat_19:4; Mat_19:8; Luk_1:2; Jhn_6:64; 2Th_2:13; 1Jn_1:1; 1Jn_2:7; ἐν ἀρχῇ, κατ’ ἀρχάς, in the beginning of things, Jhn_1:1-2; Heb_1:10; ἐν ἀρχῇ, at the first, Act_11:15; τὴν ἀρχήν, used adverbially, wholly, altogether, Jhn_8:25.

G746 (Louw and Nida Greek-English Lexicon)
ἀρχή archē
in the beginning was the Word' or
'before the world was created, the Word (already) existed' or 'at a time in the past when there was nothing ...' John 1:1
(from Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domain. Copyright © 1988 United Bible Societies, New York. Used by permission.)

G746 (EDNT)
ἀρχή archē
always signifies "primacy" whether
a)
of time: beginning (origin),
b) of place: point of origin or departure,
c) of rank: power, dominion, kingdom, office.
(from Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament © 1990 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved.)
Yes. It is context that determines the meaning.
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Justification by Faith

Are the monergists right, or are the synergists right?

Yes, they are.

How?

Simple concept.

The idea is that it depends on how far out you zoom out to God's sovereignty or zoom in to man's agency.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talks.

FYI, I am writing a (very short) book on my view of soteriology. I have had a Catholic look it over, and he did not disagree with it much. He is an INFJ, so he is more amenable than a lot of people, but if he has not much to debate me on, that is a good sign, as I am a Messianic Evangelical. Why am I mentioning this?

I need readers for this document. If you would like to read what I have written so far (almost done at about 20K words), please send me a DM. Thank you for your interest.
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New Career Opportunity

Lord God please provide a stable job for ‘the apostle John’. Either the one he is looking into or a better one. I pray his interviews go with confidence and his bosses will be impressed in every aspect of the interview. Work in him lord and make him ready. It sounds like he is qualified so please help and bless him. In Jesus Name. Please lord.
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Behave Like You Love Jesus

Romans 12:9-13 NKJV

“9Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. 10Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; 11not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; 13distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.”

The Video Portion

Now at the end of this you will see a link to a video talk I did on this passage of Scripture. These talks are mostly all not preplanned and prescripted video talks, but generally I just read the passage and then just talk about it as the Lord leads. It is a lot like we are just sitting in the living room across from one another and I am just sharing what I get out of the passage as I read it. And while the video is being uploaded to the internet, then the Lord has me write the written portion, which is not going to be an exact replica of what is in the video. But again, I am trusting the Lord to give me the right words.

Love Without Hypocrisy

This word “love” means to prefer, more specifically to prefer what God prefers. And what he prefers is all that is godly, righteous, morally pure, upright, honest, faithful, and obedient to our Lord and to his commands. And to be hypocritical is to pretend something you are not, to give the outward appearance of being one way while in private, when no one else is looking, you are the opposite of that. It is to claim love with your lips, but while you do what is unloving, usually deliberately and habitually, without conscience.

Abhor What is Evil

We learn about what God regards as evil when we read the Scriptures. But if we are true followers of Christ, we have the Holy Spirit living within us giving us a conscience and biblical discernment to know what is evil as opposed to what is good. And yet the Scriptures teach that if we do evil that we are without excuse because God has revealed himself to us through his created works. So if we choose evil, we do so in rejection of the Lord because our flesh prefers evil over good. But we are to be those who truly hate evil.

Cling to What is Good

What is good is to be determined by God and by the teachings of the Scriptures and not by human flesh. What is good is what God prefers which is all that is holy, morally pure, upright, honest, faithful, and obedient to our Lord and to his commands. This is what we are to embrace. This is what we are to hold on to. This is to be what we look like and how we live, in practice. And this goes right along with abhorring evil. So what is good is not ignoring evil, but it is calling evil what it is, and calling people to repentance.

Brotherly Love

Now this kind of love is more of an affectionate and friendly and relational kind of love among followers of Christ. But it still needs to be the kind of love which comes from God and which prefers what God prefers. The two go hand-in-hand. We should love the sinners, but we should hate the sin. We should not give people permission to keep living in sin, doing evil to others, because we want to show them “brotherly kindness.” For it is never kind to lie to people by giving them permission to keep on in habitual sin.

Serving the Lord

As those who profess faith in Jesus Christ, we are to be followers of Christ who obey him and his commands and who put sin to death, by the Spirit, and who walk in holiness and in righteousness, all in the power of God. Our lives are to be surrendered to the Lord, in his service, diligent and fervent in spirit in our desire to serve the Lord and to do his will. We are not to be lazy and slothful people who give God a short nod of notice while we go on living in the flesh. We are to be serious about obeying him daily, in practice.

Rejoicing in Hope

Now here we need to test the spirits to see which ones are of God. And we need to be testing what we hear as “the gospel” message against the teachings of the Scriptures in their correct biblical context. Many people are teaching lies and are giving people a false hope of eternity with God. But Jesus taught that to come after him we must deny self, die to sin daily, and follow him in obedience to his commands. And this involves tribulations and suffering for the sake of the truth of gospel at the hands of the deceivers.

Meeting Needs

Now this one requires much spiritual discernment. Yes, we should be loving and compassionate people who care about what others are going through who reach out to help where we can. And we are to be those who are actively ministering to the needs of our fellow Christians who are followers of Christ. We are not to be selfish and stingy. But so many liars and con artists are preying upon the compassionate hearts of others in order to take advantage of them. So pray for discernment to know what true needs are.

Safe in the Arms of Jesus

By Frances J. Crosby and William H. Doane 1868

Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast;
There by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.
Hark! ’tis the voice of angels
Borne in a song to me,
Over the fields of glory,
Over the jasper sea.

Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe from corroding care,
Safe from the world’s temptations;
Sin cannot harm me there.
Free from the blight of sorrow,
Free from my doubts and fears;
Only a few more trials,
Only a few more tears!

Jesus, my heart’s dear Refuge,
Jesus has died for me;
Firm on the Rock of Ages
Ever my trust shall be.
Here let me wait with patience,
Wait till the night is o’er;
Wait till I see the morning
Break on the golden shore.

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Video Talk on The Same Subject

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Behave Like You Love Jesus
An Original Work / June 7, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
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More good days

Everybody has good days and bad days and they just happen as they do, lord. We are thankful for the good ones and we pray our faith will pull us through the bad ones because you are with us through all of them, Lord.
thank you for blessing us and we all want more of you. So I pray for joy in trials and pleasure in afflictions as the word states. Even Paul had physical problems too, we are in good company. Let joy be our strength and get us through. Let us have some pleasure when we are suffering lord, for this is your will. Bless you now in Jesus Name. And extend our good days and those who need them, you are a God of healing and can heal us in so many ways. We allow you to do so oh Lord in Jesus Name
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The only thing out there is the UFO industrial complex

If ever there was an exercise in futility, and a demonstration in intentional stupidity, it was the just dropped UFO files from the US Department of War.
But how can that be? The Universe Is Soooooooooooooooooooo Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig that there have to be magical aliens with flying saucers. The utter dearth of evidence of their existence serves only to prove how clever they are at hiding their existence from us barbarous uncivilized earthers.

They're out there. We are not alone. Their powers are beyond our understanding. They could crush us like insects. Ad infintum, ad nauseum.

It's bad enough people are so eager to embrace this kind of arrant idiocy This is 2026, for all love, we're supposed to be smarter than that, with at least some capacity for logic. Nope,not biit of it.. They have their own "logic". They all boil down to "aliens are magic".

"Aliens didn't obeythee laws of physics." They don't have to, they'tr magic." or ""They have different physics". "They're supernatural and physics don't apply to them".
"We've never seen any aliens" THey don't want to be seen", ot They'tr masters of disguise" or :they're supernatural and can only seen if they want to be.
We don't see any RF spectrum evidence of civilized life in the universe." Thet're roo advanced to use the RF spectrum" or THey're hiding their RF emissions so as not to be see by lesser creatures", or they're supernatural so don't need RF for anything.

But the bast of all "Aren't there reasonable and parsimonious mundane explanations for most if not all "alien" activity? No, aliens are are the best and simplest explanation for any event that looks even the least bit spooky, so why consider any other?

The bottom line is that the typical UFO enthusiast is like z person so has just signed on with the religious cult because "it answers all of life's questions". They're True Believers, ready to do battle against all the vile heresies of the diabolical infidels. They've found The Answer, and anyone who questions it is at best a dupe, and at worst an evil deceiver ij the emply of The Enemy.



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Most Canadian Evangelicals hold unbiblical beliefs, poll suggests

I think the problem starts with not know why we believe what we do. Evangelical churches stress the Great Commission, but I think to the point that church members think they believe only because that is what they are told. Have heard a heartfelt musing by a Sunday School teacher on whether he would have been a Muslim had he been born in a Muslim country rather than a Christian, and he had a point. Evangelicals stress the gospels, but rarely how we can trust the gospels. Fundamentalists stress reliance on the bible, but not how we can trust the bible. The end result is trusting in arguments by assertion and when someone comes along with a different argument but with more razzle-dazzle and the air of authority, then it's easy to be swayed. If Christians were solid in why we believe what we believe, those with counterfeit doctrines wouldn't end up teaching in seminaries in the first place.

It goes beyond seminaries, of course, and as much damage can be done to unsuspecting believers in a secular college as a seminary, but seminaries are the training ground for most future ministers, and rot that starts there can spread through entire denominations.

You are absolutely right my brother - a key point I preach constantly falling on deaf ears. Without Christian apologetics being taught, people lose their faith easily upon tragedy or influence. A blind faith is not a solid faith that's grounded with conviction.
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With some Western reservoirs set to run dry, officials in Colorado, Utah and Oregon lift fishing limits in some areas

(Despite the name, it appears to be a reservoir.)
This gets into the meaning of "reservoir." Have seen some "lakes" built for recreation that were nothing more than great big fish ponds. Apparently the water can be tapped for irrigation, so "reservoir" is likely the best term. The odd thing is what came up on a search of "San Carlos Lake:"

Since construction, it has been nearly empty 20 times and nearly full 3.
Draw-down for irrigation has reduce water levels to where the fish die.
In wet years, the water flows over the top of the dam.
Will Rogers, on viewing the grass in the bottom of the just completed lake, quipped that if it was his lake, he'd mow it.

Without malice, that sounds more like local fish ponds, except on a larger scale.
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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OUR TWO MAIN CREEDS

Sort of off-topic, but since you raised it: 2 Cor. 5 is not about the resurrection, but the state of souls in heaven before that event.

Your point is entirely correct, since it refers to Heaven and not the World to Come or other indicators of the post-Resurrection parousia.
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Reading the Bible with the Eyes of Christ

F: In one of our earlier discussions, you explained why we cannot restrict our reading solely to the Bible, that it is not a good idea and that we should also read other texts. You said that the Bible was given to us by the Church. A reader commented that this is putting the Church over the Bible, which the reader considered to be blasphemy. How would you respond to this?

JP: On the contrary, this person is guilty of bibliolatry—the worship of the book. The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. The book is merely something that the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ has given to the world.

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