There you are being funny again. How about this Maggie of mine in her own words that I just repeat, lo these many times: Maggie’s testimony.
We are talking about God’s providence for his children, Richard. Winning 1.5 G$ is certainly not necessarily a blessing and in most cases probably not. We agree.
It is not in the least bit funny. Your view is sick.
Yes, you are talking about prejudice. You are talking one rule for Maggie and another for the children in Ethiopia or the residents of the Ukraine, or the millions suffering from debilitating or cruel diseases. That is what you are talking, and you just cannot see it.
The providence in the Bible is for Israel. it is not for the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Babylonians, the Philistines or any other group or Nation the Bible talks about. Uness you are a Jew, providence in the form you are believing does not exist.
Richard
There you go, not paying attention, not reading well or taking something out of context… or all of those. I was referring to your ‘this Maggie of yours’. She is your sister as well. Please think before you speak… isn’t there a verse or several in Proverbs advising to that effect?
You should know better.
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 1:20
That means many, many OT promises to Israel can now be applied and appropriated by Christians individually, including most about his providence.
Dispensation?
But you are still applying the Jewish view of providence to just Christians instead. Your view ignores everybody else. Try Jonah this time.
Richard
PS Maggie is your illustarion. I meant nothing more or less. It seems you require a verbal precision that you actually do not adhere to.
No I don’t think God devises our sufferings. Much of our suffering is the fault of things which people did. But God made the rules by which our lives work. And that includes suffering. The struggle with suffering and death is at the heart of what life is and how it works. You take these away and life doesn’t exist (and I am not just talking about evolution). So God made suffering a part of how it works for a reason. But clearly it is not all planned and arranged by God. But Richard, living organisms are the same. It is all of a piece – same pattern.
Romans 8:28 We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, Revised Standard
It is God who works for good, not all things which work for good.
And none of the other passages say that our suffering comes direct from God. Nevertheless, I would say it is all a gift from God because it is all a part of the same gift of life.
I agree in the sense that God created a world with basic rules that cause suffering.
One key decision was giving some amount of free will to humans. Free will can be used for good and bad, and many use it for bad. That causes suffering.
Some of the suffering is caused by natural laws governing the physical world. For example, an earthquake or eruption of a volcano cause suffering for people that are too close.
Some suffering seems to be related to factors that are generally beneficial for humans but may cause suffering if something goes wrong. For example, cancers can be caused by mechanisms that mainly work for the benefit of life.
I would not say that suffering is at the heart of what life is. Rather, suffering is the ‘side effect’ of the interaction between our nervous system and what happens in this world.
That verse from Colossians indicates that, just as Christ’s suffering resulted in the benefit of others, the suffering of his followers can also benefit others. Thus, each Christian, in his suffering, can become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.
Sharing Christ’s suffering for the sake of others is alluded to elsewhere in the NT:
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
2Cor 4:8-11
“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation.”
2Cor 1:5
“that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings”
Phil 3:10-11
“and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
Romans 8:17-18
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
1Peter 4:12-13.
The nervous system is mostly just a long distance communication system for multicellular organisms to inform parts of the organism about what is happening in another part of the organism. The interaction with the environment is part of what life is. Without that there is no life. And suffering is the part of this which gets the organism to respond and to learn. That is also a central part of what life is. Without it there is no motivation and learning and without that it is not life.
I am reminded of the Buddhist teaching that life is suffering. That much is correct. But then they make it their goal to escape this, and that is where I will never agree. It is choosing death over life. I seek just the opposite… MORE life! As Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” That is a promise I can see as worthwhile. And so I reject the vision of heaven as an escape to bliss like some kind of druggie high. I hardly see a difference from what the atheists promise – nonexistence, which is certainly an end to all suffering.
Your articulate implication I did not infer. What are you talking about.
So? Blame Paul.
Try reading John 17, mentioned recently.
I cannot see any relevence here. It is about Jesus praying for His disciples. His disciples were Jews. Jesus came for the Jews. Dispensation is the belief that that was transferred from the Jews because they did not believe
matthew 16
But Jesus did not answer a word. So His disciples came and urged Him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Whereas Jonah is specifically about God wanting to forgive non-Jews becasue He cares for all of His creation.
Richard
Ah, the fallacy of changing the subject!
You made a claim. I corrected that claim.
You then threw out a mantra that is unrelated.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
Good point. If someone asks how I got from Indianapolis to Baltimore, I don’t have to list every gas station, restaurant, and rest stop along the way; I can in fact just say, “I drove”, and possibly, “Mostly I took I-70”. I also don’t need to add how much wear there was on my tires or whether I had to pull over to let my service dog pee or how many phone calls I got, or what lane changes I made, or whether I used a Garmin GPS navigator or Google Maps or whatever.
Wow – talk about a total failure to know just the basics of things!
If volcanology isn’t about explaining why eruptions occur, then what was David Johnstone doing on that ridge six miles from Mount Saint Helens that fateful morning??!?
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
A Psalm of the Designer
Evolution declares the glory of God,
and the chromosomes in cells proclaim His handiwork!
Day to day pours out research,
and night to night reveals studies.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them,
yet their message has gone out to the whole earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.
He has set a tent for DNA,
which sends its messengers out from its chamber
like strong men they run their course with joy.
Its reach is from the birth of the Earth,
its circuit all around it,
and there is no life apart from that reach. selah
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory within the cell.
When I look at all life, the work of your fingers,
the nucleus and the mitochondria§, which you have set in place –
What is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,
*the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, *
all that swim the paths of the seas.
Oh Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
§ or, “the plants and all animals”
If you think that is comparable to TOE you do not understand TOE.
More likely you have no idea what a concept means to be able to make analogies
Richard
Actually it comes from the scriptures: God declares that all wholeness comes from Him and that all catastrophe comes from Him – and that covers the entire range of events except perhaps moral evil.
It’s just that for the most part He controls everything in accordance with the rules He chose.
And
“Count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials…”
– James 1
The early church considered all suffering as sharing in the suffering of Christ.
Are you going to claim rules for the onset of dementia or the contracting of MS?
Are you going to claim rules for accidents occurring that may maim or kill?
What sort of rule covers the invasion of Ukraine or even the continued drought in Ethiopia
What rule covered the recent Covid pandemic?
What rule kills a child so the parent has to bury them?
How much evil are you going to assign to God? God cannot initiate evil, that would be contrary to his Nature.
Richard
It is about my terrible view of God’s providence that you complain about, profess to abhor and consider heretical. Maybe you’ve read it too many times ignoring that particular content so you no longer even see it and have desensitized yourself, becoming callous to it. (It’s funny, but Jesus is as bad as Paul about God’s elective providence.) Sorry, black highlighting is not available at BibleGateway:
Either the way of expressing matters was different or I do not agree with those church fathers.
As humans we live in a world where there is suffering. Living among the suffering and suffering with the suffering ones is our part as humans, something that is common for believers and atheists. As Christians, we can bring comfort and support to the suffering ones, from the level of an also suffering neighbor. Although this is our reality, I do not call it suffering for the sake of others.
There is much suffering for the sake of others, followers of Jesus having to suffer because of the anti-Christian attitudes and acts, or risking their health and wellfare to serve others. That is ‘suffering for your sake’. During the first centuries, that was the reality where the followers lived. Following Christ and spreading the gospel were associated with much suffering.
There were also much asceticism, an attitude that giving up everything and suffering in the desert as a hermit was something better than the life of an ‘ordinary’ follower. The ‘desert fathers’ were appreciated and what they said and wrote was taken as a model. Spending time in prayer and in the presence of the Father is valuable, even as a hermit, but I fear that the attitude includes something that Paul warned us in Colossians 2: 20-23:
“These are matters which do have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and severe treatment of the body but are of no value…”
When a child has terrible pains, for months, and there is nothing the parent can do to help the child (medication does not always help in serious nerve pains), it is very difficult to think that the suffering is somehow good, beneficial, ‘sufferings for your sake’, or ‘sharing in the suffering of Christ’.
I think this is just a matter of perspective rather than right or wrong. Maybe even linguistics.
IOW I think we agree but are putting it differently
Richard
I wasn’t aware that @St.Roymond had that sort of authority to decree these things even exist let alone must be taken into account.
Richard
Okay lets get this straight.
I abhor
I do not abhor your views of meteorolgy I just disagree with them
I find your view of evolution bi-polar inasmuch as you argue one thing but believe something else. I actually am sympathetic to your view of God’s involvement but think it might not be as heavy-handed as you do.
Richard
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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