Martin Luther wanted 4 part singing in church services, which the people slowly but certainly should learn with their own voice. He even sang in 4 part at home, with his wife and children and his students. Sadly it wasn't successful back then and singing in 4 part in church services never became a success with him.
Nowadays most miracles in the Bible are not believed any more by many people, even within the church, mainly due to the influence of the Enlightenment era and evolution (, I think). As a result, the general conviction is that everything we cannot understand rationally, according to todays accepted human standards (science), or do not experience nowadays anymore, should basically be considered nonsense.
A poem I wrote.
Many people today believe in conspiracy theories. Are they blessed with deeper insight? Or, are conspiracy thinkers maybe missing or ignoring something? Who is right? What are the consequences of it, or why would it even be dangerous, as I claim? I’ll explain.
We live in times where people have exchanged the truth for the lie. Conspiracy theories are widely believed, not in the least place because the mightiest man in the West is spreading them, unprecedented, like never seen before and without any proof. Yet people believe them anyway. But not only just people, also Christians and therein lies a problem.
These turbulent times (Covid19 and large and widely spread protests after the killing of George Floyd) raise questions about civilian obedience, whether disobedience is justified or not. I saw someone, an American Christian, who, for other reasons, I have in very high esteem, quote Romans 13, to make a point. I question if that is very wise under the given circumstances of largely peaceful protests worldwide, about the death of George Floyd, the brutal killing by a police officer. I don’t think so. Why? Because it implicitly calls upon protesters to stop and be submissive to the government. In other words, to stop protesting and quietly go home. It is very questionable if the signal that goes out from it is sensible or wise, to put it mildly. I don't think so. Also, it doesn't do right to the historical 'straw that broke the camels back', for what the protesters keep going on the streets. One could even ask if, when quoting Romans 13, one does right to the seriousness of the matter and if the problem is acknowledged at all. It gives the impression to use a Bible part, to make people shut up, who have a right to protest and who just want change and to finally be treated unequally. Does that help? Or does that make the need for protesters to finally be heard and really taken seriously even more urgent and necessary? Anything that is said and done or being published to bully and downplay the problem is very unwise, because recent history proves there is a big problem. It would be an ever greater injustice to deny that or keep running away from it, or even denying that there is a problem at all. That is not true. There is a serious and deeply embedded problem. To make them shut up with Bible verses is inappropriate and does the protesters no right. One may even very well be very wrong. Let me explain.
In this article I make clear why I think that there is primarily no ‘individual predestination’, as we learned to know it, but that one can only consider oneself predestined, individually, because one belongs to the whole group of believers, that, as a group is predestined and therefore also the individual who belongs to it.
The Bible tells us that Jesus is the creator of the universe. In this article I explain why and make this clear with Bible verses. Why is that so important, one might think? Well, if Jesus is indeed The Creator, imagine what it means when Jesus came to that same creation, became man and became part of His own creation, to save us. Also imagine what it means when one would say to believe in Jesus and that it would be possible to, at the same time, believe in evolution. One can impossibly separate the gospel, and Jesus, from creation. He made it. Saying everything came into being by evolution is directly insulting Jesus and neglecting who He is and what He did. This article shows why.
In a table all Bible verses in the New Testament are summed up that mention something with respect to creation or that have something to do with it or are of importance to the subject creation / evolution.
Many so called Christians are trying to mix or combine evolution with the Bible today. This happens for example in theistic evolution. Such persons are often, for all kinds of reasons, already convinced of evolution, but want to combine it with faith and therefore come up with all kind of creative ideas how to mix this with Genesis 1-3. That often leads to a total different interpretation of the Adam and Eve as described in the Bible, like suggesting they could have been apes. What are the direct implications of such attempts, especially to the Gospel?
As we all know and can observe today, there is a strong tendency in the Church to neglect or deny the literal importance of Genesis 1-3. Often one can hear things like: ‘Genesis is not written like a newspaper, with factual information about how it really, historically happened. It tells us the main things, the big picture’, one says, it gives answer to ‘who’ and ‘why’, not exactly ‘how’ and ‘when’. So, it leaves room for things that went factually different’, they say. This article discusses the consequences of mixing evolution with faith and why they cannot go together.
This article describes eight characteristics with which an answer is given to the question why the Bible is so completely unique. Now, of course being unique does not automatically mean that it would also be the inspired word of God, but this article, certainly with the whole picture 'sketched out', also gives clues about that.
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Email: gertim . alberda @ gmail.com (without spaces) |