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Has anyone heard from him? I hope he’s ok.

To start off I want to say I do believe in the Trinity. This thread is not here to prove the Trinity right or wrong, which I believe is against the rules of the forum anyway. The question is if we need to believe in the Trinity to be saved?

If a person trusts in Jesus for his salvation, believes Jesus paid the price for his sins on the cross, believes Jesus is God's only son, but doesn't believe Jesus was God incarnate, on what basis can we say he isn't saved?

Here's a new podcast on the subject of eschatology for anyone who's interested.

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You can discuss here, but the podcast welcomes your questions as well, to be answered on the next episode. It focuses on the subject of Christ's future kingdom from Genesis to Revelation.

Hey guys. Me and my gf of over a decade broke up a few weeks ago and im riddled with guilt,regret,major anxiety,panic attacks,nervousness, u name it. I didnt put a ring on her finger is the primary reason she left me. At this point im questioning why i was unable to commit, feeling the guilt, the pain of seeing her with another guy is insane. People in my circle say things like “trust God, let go” etc. and things like “yall werent meant to be, we all saw it”. But in my mind i feel like i just screwed up. Im 43. I feel likethat was my one chance at love and i blew it. Anyone have any helpful advice?

Hey you might want to have a look at this! There was a baptist church that was never water baptized or Spirit-filled and suddenly God just shows up and they all were water baptized and received the Holy Spirit en-masse! This is amazing!

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Luciano Anastasi published a review of Missing Monarchy on Medieval History.

“Through a meticulously argued discourse, Smith challenges the prevailing misconceptions and romanticized visions of democracy that dominate contemporary American thought..."Missing Monarchy" is both scholarly and provocative, filled with extensive references to historical sources and modern analyses. Smith's arguments are well-researched and compellingly presented, making the book a significant contribution to political and historical discourse...It is a thoughtful, well-argued, and timely critique of democracy through the lens of historical monarchy, providing a fresh perspective on what governance could look like if informed by the past. The book is recommended for those interested in political theory, history, and critiques of modern governance systems.”
Medieval History – Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty

Pray that there is No more gunshot firing, missile firing and/or military confrontation along the Israeli-Lebanon border, and No more forest fires as a result of any kind of military confrontation along said border:

Israel’s northern border is ablaze

John 10:

22 Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter,

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This festival was not prescribed by Moses. It celebrated the rededication of the Second Temple in 165 BC.

Wiki:

The Feast of Dedication, today Hanukkah, once also called the "Feast of the Maccabees", is a Jewish festival observed for eight days from the 25th of Kislev (usually in December, but occasionally late November, due to the lunisolar calendar). It was instituted in the year 165 B.C. by Judas Maccabeus, his brothers, and the elders of the congregation of Israel in commemoration of the reconsecration of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and especially of the altar of burnt offerings, after they had been desecrated during the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes (168 BC).

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It is also known as the Feast of Lights.

Windy’s 24th penguin chick – SWNS

A great-great-great grandmother Humboldt pengiun in England’s blustery eastern coast has brought a member of yet another generation into the world after she shacked up with a bird 20-plus years her junior.

Windy surprised everyone at the zoo when during the last breeding season she paired with 4-year-old Nacho. A pairing doesn’t guarantee that mating will occur.

But despite the fact that Windy’s first egg was laid before Y2K had been disproven, and Nacho had only recently reached adulthood, the two produced a healthy young chick.

Continued below.

According to Paul in Galatians 1:

1 Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.

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According to Jesus in John 2:

19 Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.

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Jesus was the man/God divine mystery. The above verses are consistent with the divine mystery expressed in John 10:

30 I and the Father are one.

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Romans 8:

11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

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Acts 5:

30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross.

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Who raised Christ from the dead?

Father, Son, Spirit, and God. I'd count it part of the divine personal mystery.

The accused killer illegally crossed into the US in February 2023 after he vicously murdered another young woman.
Martinez-Hernandez was in the US for six months before he allegedly targeted Morin while she was walking alone on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air.

How sad and tragic. So many American deaths that would not have happened but for the Biden administration.

There was a woman in the synagogue in Luke 13:

10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.

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There is a riddle in the Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 9d:

In a town in which all the residents are priests, when they spread their hands [in the synagogue] and give the priestly blessing, who responds ‘Amen’?

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The answer is

the women and children.

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This means that women and children attended synagogue services as the Jerusalem Talmud assumed.

See also Do women and children belong to the assembly of Israel?.

1 Kings 3:

16 two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 The one woman said, “Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. 18Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house. 19And this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. 20And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. 21When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had borne.” 22But the other woman said, “No, the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours.” The first said, “No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine.” Thus they spoke before the king.

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Nice and concise description. However, in reality, more testimonies must have been given by the two women in the charge and counter-charge as they argued before the king's questionings. Near the end of the proceedings:

25 the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”

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Was it really a wise thing for Solomon to command?

Yes, because by this point, Solomon was acquainted with the psychologies of these two women. He knew one was good and one was bad. The true mother was the good one. He just needed to confirm it by this unusual command.

26 Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death.”

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Solomon expected the above response from the good woman.

But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him.”

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Solomon banked on that kind of response from the bad woman.

Why did she respond like that?

That's her psychology. There are people like that. She wasn't loving toward the baby. She hated the true mother for bringing this lawsuit before the king. If they actually had gone ahead and killed the baby, that would have been her revenge against the true mother and no one would know she was guilty.

What if she responded by saying the same as the good woman: “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death”?

By her personality, she wouldn't. If she had, Solomon would just give the live baby to its true mother.

Was Solomon wise in this episode?

Yes, he was wise in the sense that he could psychologically tell what kind of women were before him and predicted their responses.

27 Then the king answered and said, “Give the living child to the first woman, and by no means put him to death; she is his mother.” 28 And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.

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What about us today?

James 1:

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

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Link to Table of Contents​

Continued from Hebrews It! (Legal Study, Chapter 2:15) Pt. 11​

Closing statement of OP Pt. 11

Hebrews 2:16 For it is clear that He does not reach out to help angels, but to help Abraham’s offspring.
Hebrews 2:16 For it is clear that He does not reach out to help angels, but to help Abraham’s offspring.
17 Therefore, He had to be like His brothers in every way, so that He could become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

18 For since He Himself was tested and has suffered, He is able to help those who are tested.

Netanyahu dissolves War Cabinet that was steering war in Gaza, Israeli officials say​

Israeli officials say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the influential War Cabinet that was tasked with steering the war in Gaza.

The three-person War Cabinet was dissolved a week after Benny Gantz, a popular opposition lawmaker and former military chief, quit Netanyahu’s governing coalition in frustration over how the war was being handled. In the early days of the war, Gantz demanded a small Cabinet with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant be formed as a way to sideline far-right lawmakers in Netanyahu’s government.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the change with the media, said Monday that going forward Netanyahu would hold smaller forums with some of his government members for sensitive issues.

Critics say Netanyahu’s wartime decision-making has been influenced by ultranationalists in his government who oppose a deal with Hamas for a cease-fire in exchange for the release of hostages. Those hard-line politicians have voiced support for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians out of Gaza, currently home to some 2.3 million people, and a return to military occupation over the territory.

Netanyahu denies the accusations and says he has the country’s best interests in mind.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 37,100 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians who are facing widespread hunger.

Philip met an Ethiopian eunuch and expounded to him a passage of the Scripture in Acts 8:

36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” 38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.

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Where was this body of water?

Pulpit cited Robinson:

"When we were at Tell-el-Hasy, and saw the water standing along the bottom of the adjacent wady, we could not but remark the coincidence of several circumstances with the account of the eunuch's baptism. This water is on the most direct road from Belt Jibrin (Eleutheroplis) to Gaza, on the most southern road from Jerusalem, and in the midst of a country now 'desert,' i.e. without villages or fixed habitations. There is no other similar water on this road" (Robinson,' Bibl. Res.,' vol. it. p. 345).

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Matthew Poole suggested this:

A certain water; this water is supposed to be a fountain in a town called Bethsora, or a river called Eleutherus, which in that road must needs be passed over; it being otherwise very dry, and water very scarce there.

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Another possibility is that it was a miracle. God showed Hagar and Ismael water in Genesis 21:

19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

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On the occasion of Father’s Day 2024, a day focused on the celebration of fatherhood, four Catholic men from different African countries recently shared their experiences of impacting the lives of their children.
The Catholic fathers — who hail from Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria — talk about the importance of “being present,” of protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and of being a model of family values for their children, who they believe someday will become parents as well.

Tony Nnachetta, 68: Fatherhood is a full-time enterprise​

Tony Nnachetta shares a moment with Pope Francis. The married father of four is a parishioner in the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa

Tony Nnachetta is a married father of four who attends the Church of the Assumption Parish in Nigeria’s Archdiocese of Lagos. Nnachetta has been a parishioner there for 40 years, and he was wed there 38 years ago. A member of the Grand Knights of St. Mulumba, he originally hails from theArchdiocese of Onitsha.

I got married to my friend after we dated for four years. I was looking forward to fatherhood and I was mentally prepared for it. Here are the lessons I have learned along my fatherhood journey.

First, being a father means you watch your children grow and become independent. You watch them get to a point in their lives where they can engage in a debate with you and even disagree with you.

Fatherhood is a long process. You would be fortunate to go through the entire process and maybe see your children’s children. I have seen mine achieve excellence in school and even leave home and go across the world as they sought to become independent.

Wherever your children go, what is important for them is what they take away from home — what they take from mommy and daddy. I have always told mine to “remember the child of who you are.” This means that they are not allowed to break the Christian values in our family.

I taught them to always stand for the truth and never to flow with the tide. We have encouraged them to always say what they mean. These days, they have jokingly turned around the statement and they tell me, “Remember the dad of who you are,” and we laugh about it.

Continued below.

Isaiah 12:

2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.”

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What is the significance between "God is my salvation" and "he has become my salvation"? Why did Isaiah make this distinction here?

Let's see the chiasmus form A-B-B'-A':

A. Surely God is my salvation;
B. I will trust and not be afraid.
B' The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense;
A' he has become my salvation.

Isaiah used this poetic structure to repeat two ideas A and B. B and B' form a synthetic parallelism.
A and A' form a synonymous parallelism. I wouldn't read much into the difference between A and A'.

Thought this would be good to discuss our love of old skool games.

‘That He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living.’ —Pope Pius XII

Of the three great Solemnities that follow in the wake of Easter, the Solemnity of Pentecost, falling exactly 50 days after the Lord’s Resurrection, is the one we are most likely to remember. Sandwiched between the prefiguring event of the Ascension, which is one week before, and Trinity Sunday, one week after, it appears to enjoy pride of place in the Church’s calendar of feasts. And yet while clearly surpassing the former, it is totally eclipsed by the latter.

That is because who God is necessarily takes precedence over what God does. Being before doing, as it were. Without the Holy Spirit breathing forth the love of the Father and the Son from all eternity, you can forget about the Spirit’s fiery descent upon anyone, never mind the disciples cowering away in the Upper Room on the morning of Pentecost.

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June 14, 2024, marks the 88th anniversary of Chesterton’s death, but his wit and wisdom lives on.

“When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”

An acquaintance of mine recently took a weekend trip. He mentioned to me a little while later that he’d spent a fair amount of time with a certain gentleman, who’d expressed his own belief that the world is flat, during that trip. My acquaintance didn’t hesitate to laugh while mentioning this to me.

Flat-earthers, as they are labeled, are still uncommon. The spreading of misinformation via social media has helped make them less uncommon in recent years. A few high-profile figures, such as basketball star Kyrie Irving (who’d spent his one year of college at Duke), have publicly expressed their own skepticism about our world’s roundness. And I do wonder about the degree to which such beliefs are fueled by pride, a desperation to “know” that which the bulk of humanity knows not, that a person would readily believe in just about anything in order to have an excuse to consider himself intellectually superior.

The irony of my acquaintance’s ridicule occurred to me a few days later.


This particular acquaintance’s own political beliefs veer left, well into woke territory. The bulk of his friends share similar political sentiments. He constantly surrounds himself with those who’d oblige a man who prefers to be referred to as “she/her,” or perhaps “they/them,” and would apologize profusely in the event of any “misgendering” slip-ups which that delusional man would object to. The kicker is that most all of these friends of his are well-educated, if having degrees from prestigious colleges is considered the measure of education, and many of them are technologically well-versed enough to work in computer-related fields.

Continued below.

While there is no authoritative definition or corpus of books on public theology, there are several common traits which are observable in varying degrees. Katie
Day and Sebastian Kim note six common "marks" of public theology.

Firstly, public theology is often incarnational. It is not confined to the church but meant to be relevant to people outside of it as well. It is meant to be realistic and concerned with all aspects of societal life.

Secondly, there is often discussion over which public(s) to engage and the nature of the public sphere.

Thirdly, it is interdisciplinary because it draws on other fields of study in order to be more relevant to society.

Fourthly, public theology always involves dialogue and critique from both the church itself and society as well.

Fifthly, it has a global perspective because many issues affect countries across borders, such as immigration, climate change, refugees, etc.

Lastly, public theology is performed, not just printed in books. This field of theology is not theorized first then applied, but it is a theology that develops and evolves while being expressed in society

A common critique of public theology is the overly broad range of issues it is concerned with.
Another critique public theology faces is the inherent difficulty in retaining its Christian distinctiveness while being publicly relevant.

Republicans embrace a Confederate symbol, after years of unease​

The House vote to restore the Confederate Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery failed, but not before it got a lot more GOP support — about 89 percent — than similar recent votes.

The House voted Thursday on a Republican amendment to restore Arlington National Cemetery’s Confederate Memorial. The century-old monument, which was removed in December, features [among other figures] an enslaved Black “mammy” holding the infant child of a White officer, as an enslaved Black man follows the officer off to war. The monument references the “Lost Cause,” a mythology about the Civil War era favored by apologists for the Confederacy.

The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), did not pass, but it got very strong support in the House GOP conference. While 24 Republicans voted against restoring the monument, 192 voted in favor — nearly 89 percent of voting Republicans.

That’s significantly more GOP support for a Confederate symbol than we’ve seen over the last decade.

In 2016, 84 House Republicans voted in favor of the proposal [to remove the Confederate flag from cemeteries]

[Proposal to remove Confederate statues and Justice Taney from the Capitol] got the support of 72 House Republicans in 2020 and 67 in 2021.

McCarthy and Scalise also voted in favor of removing the Confederate statues from the Capitol after Floyd’s murder, with McCarthy spinning the move thusly: “All of the statues being removed by this bill are statues of Democrats.” (The South was dominated by Democrats during Civil War times; it’s now overwhelmingly Republican.)

But on Thursday, among those voting in favor of restoring the Confederate Memorial at Arlington were every single top House GOP leader, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Scalise, who is now House majority leader.

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background from last December

Confederate Memorial at Arlington will be removed despite GOP opposition​

Though dozens of congressional Republicans protested the move, the Army says it will begin work in coming days [to comply with law].

The U.S. Army intends to remove a Confederate memorial from Arlington National Cemetery next week as part of its ongoing work to rid Defense Department property of divisive rebel imagery, defying dozens of congressional Republicans who have vociferously protested the move.

A woman representing the American South, standing atop a 32-foot pedestal, lords above most other monuments within America’s most revered resting place. It portrays, according to the cemetery’s website, a “mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”

The Army, which operates Arlington Cemetery, informed lawmakers Friday that it would proceed with the monument’s removal, officials told The Washington Post, because it was required by the end of the year to comply with a law to identify and remove assets that commemorate the Confederacy.

The [Congressional] commission found about 1,100 assets that commemorate the Confederacy, including base names and street signs, and advised the Pentagon on what should be removed or changed. The memorial at Arlington was the last significant item on that list, Army officials said

I was reading this passage from 1 Timothy in a study of pride and its effects.

1 Timothy 3:1 This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of an overseer, he desires a good work. 2 An overseer then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; 3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; 4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence 5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?);
6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. 7 Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Can a man of God, who by reason of pride fall into reproach unto the same condemnation as the devil still be saved, or is that same condemnation the lake of fire? I did note the word 'same' is italicized, not in the original or in the King James.