You don’t believe because you did not get a response? That is one way to handle the problem.
Another way to approach the question is to ask if there is something in my life or attitudes that prevents me from receiving the peace that God would like to give me.
Faith in God is a relationship. We can live in daily and hourly contact with God and learn through our relationship with Him. Trust grows slowly when walking step by step with Him - I’m still learning and my trust is growing although I have been a confessing believer for almost 40 years.
When I live with Him, trust Him and follow His advice, I can experience the peace that is not dependent on circumstances. That has been my experience. I hope that you can experience it too, sooner or later.
Exodus: what evidence should we expect, archaeologically? Given the more or less continuous occupation of the area, much has been lost to later human activity or erosion, or it may be under modern structures. Except for the Bible itself, the earliest efforts at objective historical reporting that we have from the region is the Babylonian Chronicle. The Egyptian attitude was typical – the only official functions of foreigners are to get defeated in battle, to trade with, or to give tribute. Nobody admitted to getting defeated, nor was there any effort to record interesting events in other places. (No doubt some sort of official annals made note of such things, but monuments and other lasting or public records did not contain such information.) Thus, we cannot expect to have any record of the Exodus from surrounding countries. A smallish band of wandering Israelites would not leave a huge trace, and anything useful that they dropped would probably be grabbed by a later nomad. So we should not expect to see obvious traces all over the Sinai Peninsula. The total number of Israelites is problematic. Although a quick read of an English translation of the censuses commemorated in the title of Numbers suggests a total of rather over a million, plus animals, the translation of the numbers involved has complications. “Thousand” can also mean “group”. The number of firstborn males suggests a rather lower number of people, as does the fact that Jethro only recommended having judges over groups up to a thousand and the ability of what seems to be the entire group to listen to Moses. Also, a line including a million or two people simply wouldn’t fit well in Sinai. So a lower population total seems to be better exegesis. The geographic and cultural setting of the Exodus is the second half of the second millennium BC. The cities mentioned in Egypt only existed in the 1200’s and were later abandoned and forgotten, with remaining usable building supplies taken away. Distinguishing such traces as remain of the wandering Israelites from any of the other passing nomads would be quite difficult; they were linguistically and culturally quite similar to their neighbors. The technology of building the tabernacle, for example, is standard for the day. The ark of the covenant and the tablet inside it would be more distinctive, but Harrison Ford reported significant difficulties in finding it and examining the contents. What about their arrival in Canaan? A superficial reading of Joshua 11 might lead one to expect total devastation of Canaan, but reading the whole book reveals that only Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were destroyed; the remaining population experienced battlefield defeats and maybe a raid on the city (if they didn’t submit like the Gibeonites) but was largely still around. A few cities burned down was not unique for any particular time period. The one distinctive archaeological occurrence was the sudden appearance of a large population in the hill country that seemed to be unusually adverse to idols and to pork, in the second half of the 1200’s. Shortly before 1200 BC, a pharaoh boasted of having wiped out Israel. Allowing for similar rhetoric as in Joshua 11 or the modern sports pages, this is evidence for a people group identified as “Israel”, some of whom lost a battle. Thus, there is reasonable evidence for the Exodus. As a different line of evidence, “We’re a rabble of escaped slaves who wouldn’t listen to God” is not exactly the sort of origin story that tends to get invented.
I suspect that you are referring to Matthew 17: 21 or Mark 9:29, on two different occasions where the disciples were powerless. Jesus explained that some kinds of demons are removed only by prayer and fasting.
You would probably find that the first soul to go to the afterlife is the first name in God’s Book of Life. My best guess is that souls “Created in the Image of God” are accountable to Him.
The historical “contradictions” may well be the same kind of misinterpretations you noted in your first sentence. Come up with the chapter and verse you question and I will do my best to find the answer.
The Holy Spirit is very personal and intimate, but He will not be manipulated. Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3 that a spiritual relationship is a prerequisite for interacting with the Holy Spirit. His only commitment to people who do not know Him is to help them to incline their hearts to the Righteousness of God and seek His grace. Spiritual communication requires heartfelt confession and spiritual cleansing at the Throne of Grace. Jesus is the High Priest of God and His Holy Spirit will communicate with you on God’s terms. I recommend that you read the whole little book of John to get a better understanding of the Lord’s program here on Earth.
Personally, in my hour of greatest need, the Holy Spirit “showed up” with “the peace that passes all understanding” so I can assure you that He is very real. My Best, Bill
111K HS
So that means you believe in exorcism. I tried it and the exorcist was rude to me and didn’t have enough time for me in the hotel room. He if comes to my house I have to pay $3,000. And Jesus also said you can raise people from the dead and it is said that demons are the causes of all diseases. So has exorcism cured cancer patients, autism, incurable genetic aliments, etc? I didn’t share that link for no reason. In it there are stories of Christians dying from treatable medical conditions. In one instance a 2 year old girl died by choking on a banana. She had signs of life even one hour after she died, the church members only prayed, not performing CPR or calling the medical services. 2. Who are these people they lived much longer than 6,000 years ago, What is the benchmark for a person to have a soul and go into the afterlife. Intelligence but how much? And what happened to all the animals before us, the monkeys. Monkeys and other intelligent species show emotions, they mourn there dead. They have feelings and they love their offspring.
I should have said it better. The fact that faith healing is not real. If so we don’t need the vaccine. 4. I don’t believe in the Holy Spirit since first of all he only goes to sinless people and you have to be sinless first. If the Holy Spirit is real he can make people sinless and cure depression anxiety and all the other worries.
Well there are many problems. The first one is I believed in deliverance ministry and I came to an exorcist to solve my spiritual problem and he didn’t help me. He was also rude to me and said that if it is so bad that he needs to come to my house then I have to pay him $3000. The exorcist died not help me. And these verses show us that many diseases can be cured by exorcism: [MT 4:23-24], [9:32-33], [12:22], [17:14-18] [MK 1:23-26, 32-34], [5:2-16], [9:17-29], [16:9], [LK 11:14][4:33-35], [8:2], [27-36], [9:38-42], [AC 8:7], [16:16-18]. There are just so many contradictions in the Bible. Please, look at the website and it will tell you the problems, and I hope you can solve them. Also, people do not answer me when I tell them this and i suspect this websites perpetrates this as well, but from my own experiences, I know that salvation is by works as well, not faith alone. Trying to live the Christian life is torture. I always was scared for my salvation. I saw the hell testimonies on YouTube. The Bible says if you lie even once, then you not be saved.
I would like to say that I believe this peace is psychological, second, you have the trust of God but I can’t understand his book since there are so many problems, and there is no indications that it has to be interpreted differently. And another thing, I would have to be sinless to get the peace from God if it does come from God and is a supernatural peace and not psychological.
I forgot to mention and say this on accident, but unfortunately this website has very little content. I search for specific biblical problems such as “exorcism” and “faith healing” and no content related to that shows up. It only shows mostly as defending evolution and that’s it. And I tried to email this website directly twice and they don’t even care about my fears and concerns.
Topics such as exorcism, NDE, and faith healing are not part of the stated purpose of Biologos, and will probably be addressed only in passing if at all. If interested in content on those subjects, it would more fruitful to look elsewhere. The forum is participant driven and given more latitude, but opinions expressed here are those of individuals and do not represent Biologos. And I state that as an individual, and not a moderator.
That is not to say your concerns are not important and your struggle real, just that this may not be the best venue for those issues. I might be a good idea to discuss your concerns with a pastor you trust, as sometimes too many voices can be be confusing, and YouTube is a zoo.
When God interacts with us, our brain/mind is involved. I assume that it also involves a response that could be called psychological. Anyhow, it is a deep peace that is not dependent on external conditions. You have to experience it to know what it is really like.
You do not need to be sinless, you need Jesus. Jesus was sinless and traded his sinless life in exchange for our sins. Jesus said that he is the door and the way. If you approach God through Jesus, God will accept you.
Aww, that is really disappointing to hear, since not only is this one of the most important problems of the Bible that involve Jesus himself, but also is the starting reason that I lost my faith in a literal word of God, since I believed in this and it in my experience these exorcisms and other things that Jesus talked about are just plain false. Why can’t BioLogos cover those topics I brought up? If they truly believe science and the Bible can go hand in hand than they need to explain this using the Bible alone. If not then maybe this website unfortuntealy is just a desperate attempt. And which pastors? All of them have conflicting voices just like this forum does. I used to go to church and the pastor I believe refuses to accept evolution. There are anti vaccine pastors, including one hateful one by the name of Dan Corner who says the vaccine is the mark of the beast, so I have no idea where to go.
Rafal, Yes, I believe that Jesus cast out demons. I think that he also empowered his disciples to do that as well. I also believe that the purpose of those healings was to validate to the people he was ministering to that he was the Messiah and his power was from God, his father. Otherwise, no one would believe in his ability to forgive sin and save souls as he promised.
The “benchmark” for a person to have a soul and go into the afterlife is scriptural. It says that It is appointed for a man once to die and then is the judgment.
Jesus said that he came to “seek and to save those who are lost.” That means those lost in sin. It is his blood-sacrifice that ransomes and redeems sinful people from the judgment for their sin. No one can be sinless before coming to Him. When someone comes to Jesus with a genuinely repentant heart to ask for forgiveness, it is His Holy Spirit who comes beside them and helps them at the spiritual Throne of Grace. It is His grace that saves a person and makes them sinless. The work of the Holy Spirit is not always to " cure depression anxiety and all the other worries." He is called the Comforter and the Paraclete because He is the one who comes alongside and helps (perhaps through depression, anxiety, and worries.") I know because He has come alongside me in my greatest times of stress and need.
You clearly state that you do not believe these things. When you change your mind and decide in your heart that His promises are true you can pray that He will hear your prayer and come into your heart and life. That is the time of spiritual “birth” which formalizes your adoption into the family of God. Believe it with all of your heart and mind and soul, and beg for His forgiveness, and you may see things differently. Carefully remember who you are dealing with. He knows the intentions of your heart and insists that you come with the right spirit and complete truth.
Really? I would like to see screenshots of those conversations. Demon possession is also pseudoscience I believe. I used believe in this but since it failed now I am a sceptic in that.
Again, conversations in the forum are not the same as site content and go to broader conversations. There is a search function that can help you find past conversations,@Rafail. Just click the magnifying glass icon at the top of the page and enter in your search terms.
And Beaglelady, I do think recent movements related to the pandemic have a demonic component, but not real sure my opinion is helpful as a topic of discussion.
And by the way I have evidence form this a lot of it from the internet and it has been verified. And also, the Bible says that I cannot see a doctor, rather, I need an exorcism.