This ought to be interesting!

Prove Jesus as the Son of God or as the Messiah without using the Bible.

Why?

Hitch

Do you find the early church fathers to be authoritative? You could go there to "prove" it.

~Matt

Today @ 02:19 PM post located here
Hitch:

Why?

Hitch

Because you can run into people who do not want you to use the Bible to witness to them.

Today @ 02:20 PM post located here
InquisitorKind:

Do you find the early church fathers to be authoritative? You could go there to "prove" it.

~Matt

Would work if those people knew about that.

Today @ 03:23 PM post located here
NSMinistries:



Because you can run into people who do not want you to use the Bible to witness to them.

If they do not accept the Bible, the first task would be to getting them to accepting it, not trying to prove that which is in the Bible through external sources.

~Matt

Today @ 03:23 PM post located here
NSMinistries:



Would work if those people knew about that.

Why don't you educate them then?

~Matt

Prove Jesus as the Son of God or as the Messiah without using the Bible.

That is kind of a moot point, because without the Bible, we wouldn't know of such a "thing" (term used hesitantly) as a Messiah.

Joel

04-14-2003 @ 08:46 PM post located here
joelkaki:



That is kind of a moot point, because without the Bible, we wouldn't know of such a "thing" (term used hesitantly) as a Messiah.

Joel

The fact that natural man can not come to God on his own. God can enlighten man to understand scriptrure so basically what I am saying is that a unbeliever will not believe until the HS enlightens him to understand scripture and realize its divine nature.

By His Grace For His Glory
Blake Reas

Yesterday @ 05:05 PM post located here
Blake Reas:



The fact that natural man can not come to God on his own. God can enlighten man to understand scriptrure so basically what I am saying is that a unbeliever will not believe until the HS enlightens him to understand scripture and realize its divine nature.

By His Grace For His Glory
Blake Reas

That's right. Atheists who have claimed to have studied the bible daily, are only wasting their time without the Spirit of God. See my sig.

Today @ 01:53 AM post located here
AVmetro:
That's right. Atheists who have claimed to have studied the bible daily, are only wasting their time without the Spirit of God. See my sig.

How does that work? You have to believe in the Spirit of God to call on it, and you can't call on it unless you know about it, and you won't know about it unless someone teaches you about it or you read it in the Bible.

So is the Bible no good on its own? How does an atheist get from 'I don't believe in God and His word is useless to me because I don't have the Spirit of God', to 'I believe in God and His Spirit! Praise the Lord, I now understand the Scriptures!?

Thanks for your reply to me a while back by the way. Now I'm less busy, i'll see if I can get aroun dto it.

How does that work? You have to believe in the Spirit of God to call on it,

Or simply God - Heb11:6.

and you can't call on it unless you know about it, and you won't know about it unless someone teaches you about it or you read it in the Bible.

I said without the Spirit of God. What does the passage I cited say? Are you implying that it doesn't mean what it says? What was I applying this to? Atheists who READ and STUDY the Bible DAILY and are yet STILL in disbelief.

That was the context of my point.

2Ti 3:7 - "..always learning, but never being able to come to a full knowledge of the truth.

..cf..

1Corinthians 2:14 - "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

So is the Bible no good on its own?

Not if you can't understand it. See the above. What was I applying this to?

How does an atheist get from 'I don't believe in God and His word is useless to me because I don't have the Spirit of God', to 'I believe in God and His Spirit! Praise the Lord, I now understand the Scriptures!?

Here's another, related means - Jn6:44, Jn6:65, Rev3:20.

Thanks for your reply to me a while back by the way. Now I'm less busy, i'll see if I can get aroun dto it.

Thank you.

-God bless-

[i]04-20-2003 @ 07:50 PM post located here
Or simply God - Heb11:6.

So you have to believe in God before you can read the Bible, fine. So where does that leave atheists?

I said without the Spirit of God. What does the passage I cited say?

Yes I know. So the Bible doesn't make sense unless you have the Spirit of God, and you can't get the Spirit of God unless you know about God, and how you know about God is... how?

[qutoe]Are you implying that it doesn't mean what it says? What was I applying this to? Atheists who READ and STUDY the Bible DAILY and are yet STILL in disbelief.[/quote]

I agree that atheists read and study the Bible daily and are yet in unbelief. I disagree that this proves that you need the Spirit of God to understand the Bible. Christians all over the globe apparently have the Spirit of God, and come to radically different conclusions on just about everything. So God can't really be too concerned about what we believe. Just a few essentials, that's all.

2Ti 3:7 - "..always learning, but never being able to come to a full knowledge of the truth.

..cf..

1Corinthians 2:14 - "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Yes, I agree with this. So Paul tells us to compare spiritual things with spiritual things. And I believe that this is what the Bereans did. How else do you tell what is true?

Not if you can't understand it. See the above. What was I applying this to?

But what is your final authority for determining truth? Are you Sola Scriptura or not?

"Prove Jesus as the Son of God or as the Messiah without using the Bible."

There are cases where a tribal person or even the whole tribe are stricken with repentance for their sins, and begin to seek God just on the assumption that if they feel remorse for their sins then there must be some reason for this conviction, that reason being that God is real. Eventually when Christian missionaries show up the people consider the Gospel an answer to their prayers. Some even have visions where they see white men arriving with an answer to their prayers. If you're curious I'll give you more details.

Otherwise, typically the method of missionaries is not to arrive and preach a meaningless Gospel anyway, since the people would have no social or even religious ties to the message of the Gospel in the first place. What most missionaries do that I know of is they go and pray for people and give them things they need, allowing God to establish in the giving and answered prayer a basis for understanding.

Most people who don't believe in God are unaware of something of which the believer is thoroughly convinced: that God was there long before the missionaries ever showed up.

What about other holy writings? There are many other gospels and letters that weren't included in the bible that is found in the Nag Hammadi Library...like the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, and Gospel of Philip....

But if we are going to exclude the non-canonical books as well. You can find proof of Jesus, in studying his brother, James the Just. Robert Eiseman wrote a great book on him, "James the Brother of Jesus". I highly recommend it.

So you have to believe in God before you can read the Bible, fine.

Where did I say this? I said that in order to COME to God, you must believe in Him. You alluded to Heb11:6, whereas I cited it in order to show that I agreed with you on that point.

So where does that leave atheists?

It leaves them with Heb11:6. But let me guess your coming response. 'We must come to God by reading the bible, but to read the bible we must "believe in God" first? (See your below quote) No. You misconstrue my statements likewise.

Yes I know. So the Bible doesn't make sense unless you have the Spirit of God, and you can't get the Spirit of God unless you know about God, and how you know about God is... how?

Read once again:

Blake Reas stated: The fact that natural man cannot come to God on his own. God can enlighten man to understand scriptrure so basically what I am saying is that a unbeliever will not believe until the HS enlightens him to understand scripture and realize its divine nature.

I replied: That's right. Atheists who have claimed to have studied the bible daily, are only wasting their time without the Spirit of God. See my sig.

I stated further after your initial post to me: I said without the Spirit of God. What does the passage I cited say? Are you implying that it doesn't mean what it says? What was I applying this to? Atheists who READ and STUDY the Bible DAILY and are yet STILL in disbelief.

I then cited the following:

2Ti 3:7 - "..always learning, but never being able to come to a full knowledge of the truth.

..cf..

1Corinthians 2:14 - "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

So what you need to tell me is how an atheist who reads and studies the scriptures, indepth, daily (in unbelief), is able to come to God.

What did the passages you snipped out in my last post say? Why is it that we "pray" for unbelievers? So that God may do what? Are you insisting that God has little to do with the calling out of His sheep? I think you are.

How can an atheist come to God? He SEEKS God despite his disbelief. He doesn't go into the bible to disprove it, but to FIND God whereas the Spirit of God will open his eyes. If God draws you and you seek Him, you will find Him with the aid of His Spirit. Jn5:44; 6:44; Rev3:20. See also Jn12:37; Jude1:19 etc. versus Luke 24:45; Acts16:14; 1Cor3:6; Eph1:17.

I agree that atheists read and study the Bible daily and are yet in unbelief. I disagree that this proves that you need the Spirit of God to understand the Bible.

Simply "understand" or "understand and believe"?

Christians all over the globe apparently have the Spirit of God, and come to radically different conclusions on just about everything. So God can't really be too concerned about what we believe. Just a few essentials, that's all.

We're speaking of belief vs non-belief. Not Christianity in general.

Yes, I agree with this. So Paul tells us to compare spiritual things with spiritual things. And I believe that this is what the Bereans did. How else do you tell what is true?

? Paul is telling us that those without the Spirit of God do not accept those things which COME from the Spirit of God. In other words, no matter how much they read the bible, they will not accept those things (resurrection of Christ etc.) w/o God's Spirit.

In other words 1Cor1:18; 1:23.

But what is your final authority for determining truth? Are you Sola Scriptura or not?

Yes, I am. But the fact that you are asking only goes to show that you are misconstruing what I'm getting across.

-God bless-