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• "What are your beliefs about baptism in your church and how do you handle that."

• We believe baptism is an outward showing of an inward reality. Romans 6:3-5 along with Colossians 2:12 tell us that baptism represents the death of our old man (nature) along with a resurrection into a new life in Christ. If the reality has occurred, if I have received Christ as Lord of my life and been born again into salvation, baptism means something. If not, it's just an empty ritual. We also believe it's a public confession of our commitment to follow Jesus, and so we baptize publicly. Usually in the Columbia River at a local park.

• "I have read a Commentary that taught in Acts 1:26 The Disciples chose on their own to make selection for Matthias to be the twelfth Disciple. And this election was done by lot. But I am aware that as God chose the original twelve, it was out of order for to disciples to choose the disciple that would replace Judas Iscariot. Now my question is this,, Do you have any reference to this commentation? The writer of the article and commentary that I read said that as God called the original twelve, so God called Saul and made him the twelfth disciple and changed his name to Paul. Do you agree or disagree, and how would you prove your facts?"

• I've heard lots of teachers with the same opinion. But Paul in 1 Cor. 15 put himself outside of the group of the 12 Apostles:

  1 Corinthians 15:3-9 "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." (NKJV)

  Paul did not consider himself to be one of the twelve.

• "A couple of days ago a friend from graduate school e-mailed me. I was wondering before I reply again to him on this matter if any of you have any good arguments or knowledge concerning what he is talking about. [Ever read the Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels? In 1945, some Egyptian farmer accidentally dug up an ancient container full of manuscripts that turned out to be additional gospels that the Catholic Church had deemed heretical. I really enjoyed reading about the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Truth and other books conveniently excluded from Christianity by the early church fathers. But, my favorite passage comes from the Gospel According to Thomas. Jesus talks about doing what's in your heart in a sort of Zen Riddle fashion when he says, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." I thought you'd like that one...]".

• This woman has her facts mangled. Every time I talk with someone about this stuff they always pop off with the, "Well you know the church has hidden these books from us, so they can control us..." line. Nonsense, the early church fathers knew about these books and rejected them because they had no apostolic authority, among other things.

  For example the "Gospel" of Thomas was written about 140 AD in Syria. Thomas was long dead by that time. It's why these books are called pseudepigrapha. These guys would put the names of apostles on their writings to make them "authoritative" and get an audience. This lady fell for it.

  Irenaeus refers to "an unspeakable number of apocryphal and spurious writings, which they themselves (heretics) had forged to bewilder the minds of the foolish." Origen said, "The Church possesses four Gospels, heresy a great many."

  After I let them in on some of the facts they're missing I like to quote the writings they're so worried about. I know this lady quoted "Thomas" but she quoted selectively. Here are some of my favorites:

  7 Jesus said, "Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human."

  Hmmm...whatever!

  14 Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.

  Dagnabit! Knew I shouldn't have been praying so much!!

  37 His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?" Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample then, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."

  Finally, a way to coerce the return of Christ!!

  
  AND MY MOST FAVORITE IN THE WHOLE 114 VSS!!!!!

  114 Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

  Since she apparently considers "Thomas" to be authoritative, have your friend send this one to the lady... hee hee :0)

  Don Stewart wrote a book called "What Everyone Needs to Know About The Bible". He has some chapters on this subject.

• "If I don't get myself into doing other things for the Lord (active evangelism, church service, etc.), will I have sufficient "fruits" to present the Lord at Judgment? Or will my only reward be salvation?"

• The fruits that God expects in your life are listed in Gal. 5:22; Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, etc. That's what God is looking for in you. And these are accomplished by the power of God's Spirit, not yours. The other thing He wants for you is a life of loving obedience to Him. That may include what I believe you're thinking about when you speak of "church service", but ministry always needs to be something that God leads you into. Not something you do to try to receive reward or approval from Him. For example, what God may have for you is the life of a prayer warrior. You may never have an "up front" type of ministry. And God will reward you for your obedience to Him. On the other hand, if God did have that for you and instead you tried to become, let's say, a pastor, He would use your efforts (He always does) but you would be in disobedience to His plan for your life. What I'm trying to say is, all you have to do as a believer is be in love with Jesus and ask Him to lead you. He'll make clear to you what He wants for your life, especially in the area of ministry. As far as rewards- He gives out rewards for things as seemingly insignificant as our lovingly giving out a cup of cold water, Matt 10:42. He's really good.

  2) If the Lord returns (or if I die) during a period of my transgression, is it likely that I would be left behind? I feel like I am riding a thin wire between salvation and damnation. Sometimes I feel like giving up (at which point I fall into transgression). I've asked the Lord for healing, but apparently I'm not going to get it.

  If a person has received Christ as Savior, salvation is secure as long as the person is in Christ. The sin that gets people into Hell is rejection of Jesus (Jn 3:16-21) and Proverbs 24:16 says, For a righteous [man] may fall seven times And rise again, But the wicked shall fall by calamity. (NKJV) What you need to worry about isn't whether or not God will receive you, but whether you'll want to be with Him. Sin hardens your heart and you can become calloused to God through repeated transgression. Paul says we are to flee youthful lusts, James 4:7-8 says, "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." It goes on to say that we're to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. Jesus in the Sermon on the mount said if our hand or eye caused us to sin we were to cut them off. His point was that if something was threatening our walk with God, we needed to take drastic measures to get rid of it. If you are struggling with internet porn, repeatedly, you may need to take drastic measures. Computer screening programs, Integrity Online (a server that will screen the net for you), or even getting rid of your computer modem. Are you accountable to your wife? Just some suggestions.

  Is it possible I am not predestined? That I think I'm saved, but not? Doesn't James say that children of God do cannot sin? I sin, therefore, I am not a child of God, right?

  If you have received Christ as your Savior, the answer is no (1 Jn. 5:10-13). As to the vs. you are referring to, it is in 1 Jn 3:6, 9 and the context and Greek demand the interpretation "sin continually". This doesn't refer to a fall, it refers to a lifestyle. Because you are a believer, you have the Spirit of God working within you, changing you, and helping you grow in righteousness. Since you have God living inside you, you will not continue to live a sinful lifestyle. The verse you need to pay attention to is 1 Jn 1:9.

  As to predestination: the Bible teaches that all who are saved are predestined from the foundation of the earth. The way you get saved is by receiving Jesus, Jn 1:12-13:

  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: (NKJV)

  Predestination is the teaching that those who choose to follow Jesus have already been chosen by God. It's meant as a doctrine of comfort. In other words, God looked down through the ages and saw you, decided He wants you and began to work in your life to draw you to Himself. You chose Him because He chose you. Here's the neat thing. When He chose you, He knew everything there was to know about your past, and He still chose you. He knew everything there was to know about YOUR FUTURE and He still chose you. You have not, and you will not, surprise God with your failures. He set His love on you in spite of them.

  You need to turn away from your sin, and continue to do so, but not out of fear of what God might do to you. It needs to be out of love for Him and a dread of disappointing Him.

• "Why when reading through Mark chapter 16:9-20 do some of the old manuscripts not contain this passage?"

• One of the ways you can authenticate a passage is by who quotes it and when. In the case of this passage, it is missing from some early texts (more about this later) but it's quoted by church fathers who lived earlier than the texts that are missing it. That means that the guys who quoted it were reading from a Bible like ours, no matter what text turned up from a later date. This means that the passage could not be "added" after the date of the Sinaiticus, for example, since people who lived before the Sinaiticus was copied had the passage in their Bibles.

  1. Papias refers to Mk 16:18. He wrote ca. AD 100.
  2. Justin Martyr's first Apology quotes Mk 16:20. AD 151
  3. Irenaus, 3rd book Against Heresies quotes Mk. 16:13 and remarks on it. AD 180
  4. Hippolytus, in Peri Charismaton, quotes Mk 16:18 and 19. In his homily on the heresy of Noetus he refers to Mk. 16:19. He wrote while he was Bishop of Portus, AD 190-227.
  5. Vicentius, Bishop of Thibari, quotes from 2 of the verses in the 7th Council of Carthage held under Cyprian. AD 256. Augustine, a century and a half later, in his reply, recited the words again.
  6. The apocryphal Acts of Pilate contains Mk 16:15-18. It's assigned to the 200's AD.
  7. The Apostolic Constitutions clearly alludes to 16:15 in two places and quotes vs. 16 outright. Assigned to the 200's or 300's AD.

  I could pile on here, Eusebius discusses them without a question of their genuineness 325 AD. and a number of other fathers quote them. (Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome...)

  Of the four oldest codices of the Gospels that we have, B (Vaticanus), Sinaiticus, A (Alexandrinus), C (Ephraemi Rescriptus), only B and Sinaiticus exclude these vss. In the case of B, at the end of every book the scribe begins the next one at the top of the next column, except at the end of Mark. In that place he leaves a blank column between the end of Mark and the beginning of Luke. The column has enough room to easily contain all 12 vss. that are missing. This is the only such occurrence in the entire 759 page manuscript.

  In Sinaiticus as the scribe approaches the end of Mark his writing uncharacteristically becomes lengthened. When he begins Luke, his writing style returns to its more compact form. If the scribe had continued his compact writing style through the end of Mark there would have been plenty of room for the last 12 vss.

  So there is evidence in both of these codices that the copyist was familiar with the last 12 vss. and deliberately left them out.

• "Last Sunday night you talked a little about where the use of Christmas trees started. You referred to the pagan use and an earlier Christ centered use of the Christmas tree. Where did you get the history on that? My wife would like to look it up in more detail. She wanted to use the examples for something she's doing with the women at church."

• The pagan customs related to draping greenery around their houses. This dates back to Roman times. The Christmas tree came from medieval Germany, probably from what were called "Paradise plays," and were originally representations of the tree of the knowledge of good & evil and then later, the tree of life. I apparently deleted the article I had on this (can't find it) but she can get this from an encyclopedia or probably by checking out the local library. They should have books on the subject.

• "Do you have any insight on this questions I received, I have not head this argument before.. here is the question. Is there some reference to 3 gifts in I Cor. (I think my pastor told me healing, prophecy and one other were referenced this way) with a prefix of 'es' or something which could mean a one time occurrence that won't happen again. He doesn't use the method you mentioned Sunday to say the gifts aren't for today (at least that I know of) he uses this 'es' argument. I need to do my own study too, but I thought I'd start w/ asking you."

• He may be referring to 1 Cor. 12:9-10, where "gifts of healings", "working of miracles" and "discerning of spirits" are in the plural. The translations can be "*gifts* of healings" (as it *is* translated in NKJV), "*workings* of miracles" and "*discerning* of spirits". The implications are these; if, for example the Gk had been *gift* of healings instead of *gifts* of healings, the person with the gift would be able to empty hospitals. As it is written, the implication is that every healing is distinctly a gift from God. The same implication applies for miracles and so on. In other words, although God may give the ministry of performing miracles or healings to someone, every miracle or healing performed is a distinct gift from God. God being in control of who is being healed or what miracle is done, even though He uses a specific person for the task.

• "Could you give me a brief opinion on what Paul's reasoning was for quoting the Isaiah passage (1 Corinthians 14:21) in regards to the subject he was talking about on tongues? What I'm looking for is a simple exposition on verses 21-25. I understand it for the most part, but, I'm tripped up on why or how he is tying the two together."

• The quote has to do with a judgment God brought on Judah for unbelief- "you won't listen to prophets who speak in your language, I'll send you people speaking in another language, as an act of judgment." I think what Paul is saying here is that tongues has a dual purpose, one being as a gift for self-edification (vs 4) and edification for the body if interpreted (theme of ch 14), the other as a sign of judgment on the unbelief of hardened unbelievers. An illustration of this would be the example in Acts 2 of the Jews who accused the believers of being drunk at 9am because they spoke in tongues.

  He then goes on to point out that even though Isaiah said tongues would confirm the unbelief of those in danger of judgment (who would obviously despise believers for the use of the gift) the Corinthians were not to use the gift inappropriately because of the danger of inquirers having the same reaction. In vs 23 he speaks of the "uninformed". Literally "inquirers."

  Upshot would be this; In the assembly of believers there will be hardened non-Christians, inquiring non-Christians and Christians. If tongues is used rightly, the hardened people will mock - and tongues is a sign to them of their hardness and impending judgment. Inquirers will ask "What could this mean?" You have both reactions in Acts 2:12-13. The sign aspect is there but it's not to be used as an excuse to cover my abuse and the normal reaction of people who see it. "You guys are crazy!" "Well, you think that because you're hardened to the Spirit!", when in actuality they have an excuse for thinking that because I'm using tongues out of order and acting like a wacko.