Recent content by OFavro

It seems to me that during Christ's earthly ministry the Father was drawing all those who heard the words and witnessed the works that Christ said and did - at that point the hearing/seeing individual had to make a decision of his/her own free will.

John 6:44-47 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me should draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught of God.' Therefore everyone who hears from the Father, and has learned, comes to Me. Not that anyone has...

John 1:4-10 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the...

based on how the conversation was going I thought it bore repeating :;):

We have to begin at the beginning … In the Tanakh there is only ONE god and His name is YHVH (the LORD). Therefore in the NT there can be ONLY ONE god and His name must be YHVH (the LORD). Now in the NT: The Father is identified as God ~ The Son is identified as God ~ & The Holy Spirit...

God has a Sovereign Will of which no part may be countermanded by anything in creation BUT God also has a Permissive Will within which falls the natural order of things like the weather and the seasons as well as man's 'free will'. His PW 'allows' things to occur. These things may seem to go...

1Co 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality 1Ti 1:10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers...

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Well ~ I don't 'see' what I took as 'literal' that isn't quite 'literal' - God's love is quite literally toward the whole world and His desire (will) is that everyone would accept His love and be saved thus His long-lasting patience - now perhaps what you think I am saying is that the whole...

Der Alter wrote: There is one God! The Father, the Son, and the Spirit, all three are called/ referred to as God, in scripture, but each has a distinct mind, will, and self; I understand ‘what’ you are trying to say and I agree with ‘most’ of what say here BUT neither...

I 'believe' that a strictly 'literal' reading is the best and only starting point for understanding the NT - unless, of course, what is being read is figurative or in some way illustrative, like a parable - John 3:16 is quite 'literal' when Jesus said that 'God so loved the World that He gave...

Albion wrote: Too often, we take meaningful verses as though they are guarantees that we can hold up to God and say "you promised; I'm reading the fine print" when in fact they are statements of principle. Rom 1:19-21 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to...

John 17:11 … Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are. John 17:22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, There are two ‘onenesses’ spoken of in these verses...

Albion said: When we speak of free will in a religious, a Christian, sense, we are not talking about what color of car to buy but, obviously, about the one most important choice--to accept God or not. Since we do not witness God in the way that we do the ordinary things of life, and because he...

I would like to one more verse to the mix: John 10:30 I and the Father are one. As in John 1:1 (god), John 4:24 (spirit) & 1 John 4:16 (love) in John 10:30 'one' is in the nominative case without the 'article' making it a qualitative modifier of its subject(s) 'I and the Father' - they are...