The Upper Room

Convincing the nonbeliever that they are a sinner is the first trick. It's even in the bible that without the law there is no guilt. They don't know anything about it until you tell them. So then you drill them down and make them feel like they are a sinner, all depraved and everything.

Now they need a savior.

okokok here we can agree.I dont like when people preach to non belivers that there life is crap and need Jesus

That might be good a few times but mostly wrong

You preach repenting inside not outside

That's how it works though. If they don't get it off the bat, they'll get it eventually. The smarter churches, usually bigger ones, start with the social aspect. Come hang out, talk about happy things in the bible. Later, once they're a subscriber, they'll really get the squeeze. Usually happens around Easter and Good Friday.

The Church should love each other And when the rest of the world see how good and the truth in the church they will turn to God and ask him to take part of this new life in Christ.

Now they spend all Good Friday going "I'm such a horrible sinner, and Jesus had to take the cross. How horrible, and it's all my fault!"

And then on Easter, they rejoice because he lives. "Yea! He's alive! Now we can live forever too."

It's a very mean trick. What's worst is the tricksters believe it too and are completely sincere.

But now these believers are sealed for life.

12:11 AM

Trump is soon one,wonder what he will say Tonight! He is in Florida.. I have pizza and coca cola. the most interesting events on Tv these days are Trump.

They know that if they reject Jesus they'll be rejecting the greatest act of love ever given. How could they ever do that? No matter what doubts you may have, you'll just have to trust that it works out in the end.

Intresting why so many vote for him and that he did beat all the others

Hey man,Its faith,dunno why God made it that way

??? I don't know why the sudden topic change. There's a politics.se, if you'd like to talk politics.

sorry, Im not here to talk politics

@Aigle lol. "god made it that way". The real challenge is to look and see if he really did.

I've looked, and I've been convinced that he did not.

Christianity does not have any appearance of divinity in it. It looks like every other bollocks of religion.

12:15 AM

I say like Dalai Lama :If every christian was like Jesus,everyone would be christian

Belief looks far too human to me.

you can see it both ways

you can explain away everything

No, I believe that some things should be explainable before hanging your hat on them.

Life altering decisions, like "I'm Christian now", should be one of them. Or the much more common alternative, "I was raised Christian and that's what I believe and follow".

Q: Can somebody please help me provide acceptable answers?

Ok first of all.I became christian when I was 19 After I said to a friend I would be interesting to know about Jesus.He prayed for me and ever since then I had a strong faith,I dunno how.I did not have faith in God before he prayed for me. And He was the only christian i knew.After two years I started to go to a church

When I came there I did think It was all a mistake because They where no doing the stuff in the bibel.

And I said that to the pastor of that church.

And he did understand and said to me:My church do not listen to what Im preaching

So I did pray And God did send alot great people into my life.With wisdom and faith

And I did pray many times:these christians are booring,strange,they just grew up with it and don't know life at all

But I did meet alot of great people with interesting life storys with great faith.And I have layd hands on sick people and they have been heald,fasted and seen people come to freedom

Does Elisha speak?

4:39 AM

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I recently answered the question What is the Biblical evidence that there are ONLY three persons in the “Trinity? As of right now, the question has 20 up votes that I can see. It was asked in 2011 and it's been considered an on-topic and acceptably formatted question for about five years. The q...

alvoutila

6:42 AM

@Nathaniel Ok. I know this passage. But my main point is my practical problem where I realise that I am in solitude and realise that I am almost only with my thoughts and I realise that I don't enjoy myself. And solution would be that I genuinely enjoy myself when I'm alone. So my main point is this practical problem which occurs when I'm alone.

and I tend to align myself to that passage

11:24 AM

@fredsbend Sorry to be a downer on that Revelation question. I can't speak for others, but I'll happily admit that I find Revelation to be extremely difficult, and this probably contributes to my sense of suspicion when I run across someone saying that understanding Revelation is a straight forward matter.

That said, I don't have an issue with discussing eschatology, as I think my history on C.SE shows; I'll even bite off big overview questions now and then. But my interest in the subject has certainly waned over the years.

Still, the reason that I'm in favor of closing that question is the same reason I'm in favor of closing virtually all unscoped exegesis questions – I think we'd be in for a real mess if me and Dialogist and Geremia and Lee and Dick and a JW all started giving our traditions' answers to these questions.

Decrypted

1:39 PM

@Nathaniel To get a better understanding on Revelation, consider Revelation 12:5 realize who that talks about, then apply the timeline correctly.

@fredsbend This is the scientific proof of faith.

We have two main divisions in the brain to reference, the Cerebral cortex and the Limbic system.

Within the Limbic system lets reference the Amygdala.

The function of the Amygdala gives "Threat Awareness".

Upon activation of the Amygdala signals get sent through the Limbic system to modify the autonomic nervous system.

Which has two main divisions, the Sympathetic Nervous System and the Parasympathetic Nervous System.

The sympathetic nervous system "Fires Up" the body and acts much like a gas petal, pumping adrenaline into the system.

The parasympathetic nervous system "Waters Down" the body and acts much like a brake pedal.

From the knowledge of good and evil, mankind became aware of the concept of "Threat Awareness".

Hence Adam felt threatened by his nakedness, and chose to hide.

Acceptance of a situation prevents the activation of the Amygdala.

For its when a "threat" gets discerned that the activation occurs, and the spirit of the person shifts.

"Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." (Ephesians 4:30 NASB)

Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance

Denial <- That's the opposite of faith.

Acceptance <- That's faith.

It's your acceptance that makes you well.

For then the Parasympathetic Nervous System may activate and heal the body.

What is causing cancer? Is someone thinking its from the activation of the sympathetic nervous system?

Decrypted

2:36 PM

And if Adrenaline is our enemy, what does that say about masturbation, getting an erection, doing drugs, drinking alcohol, arguing in general, fighting, smoking cigarette, or any work of the flesh?

What about watching scary movies, or listening to heavy metal music?

3:09 PM

@Nathaniel Straw man. No one said that's what we should do. And I certainly don't think my answer represents anything more than what the book says. I don't do any interpretation in it at all. Just break it down to make it easier to see the order of events as they are told.

@fredsbend Sorry, what's a straw man?

@Nathaniel Your argument against allowing everyone to answer with whatever they believe.

No one said we should do that.

@fredsbend My point is only that I'm not sure how to distinguish between what the book "literally says" and what people interpret it to say, especially regarding such a controversial passage.

As written, that question seems to invite anyone's perspective.

@Nathaniel I strongly disagree. I bolded the part that makes it exegesis. "In relation to ..."

That's order of events.

As they are told.

Mixing them up would be interpretation.

@fredsbend "mixing up" – how do you determine that the events of Revelation take place after those described elsewhere?

even if we assume all the events in Revelation are chronological?

To put it another way, the word "rapture" doesn't appear in Revelation. So how do you know where it appears, without "interpreting" that 1 Th 4 fits in somewhere?

More broadly, I'd be very interested to see your answer to my meta question on exegesis questions... I'm genuinely interested in understanding how unscoped exegesis questions fit in on this site. If I sound like I'm on some sort of crusade against exegesis questions, that's not my intention – I am trying to understand on what basis, and when, they fit into the site's culture.

3:28 PM

@Nathaniel You talking about thesselonians? "Dead in Christ will rise first". That sounds like the first resurrection mentioned in Revelation. But I don't need that in my answer. I put it in because that verse is where the idea of the rapture comes from.

And the asker mentioned rapture specifically.

@fredsbend So, would you say that because the OP hasn't defined what they mean by "rapture," that answers can take any of the common interpretations of it? Because I've argued elsewhere that the "rapture" is a perfectly valid term for amillennialists and postmillennialists to use when referring to the final resurrection.

3:46 PM

@Nathaniel I think rapture is a dogma. It comes from the phrase "caught up" in thesselonians. But the OP mentioned it as his frame of reference.

The Rapture is strange stuff

i don't understand Why or how people can think that will happen

to me It's the same as when some people say that we will walk in heaven on streets of gold

Well maybe there will be a rapture But Not like,people are just Flying up to heaven

@LeeWoofenden What does sweedborgians say about the rapture?

@Nathaniel I didn't want to tell him it's probably bollocks. He's just trying to understand revelation.

@Aigle It all takes or has taken place in the spiritual realm.

@fredsbend I also think so.just seems to me some people think we will fly away

@Nathaniel So am I interpreting or making proper exegesis?

For reference for other readers we are discussing this question: christianity.stackexchange.com/q/52634/3961

4:02 PM

@fredsbend Definitely the first, the latter is more debateable =). It's been a long time since anyone pinned me down on the best understanding of eschatology so I can't confirm or deny if your analysis is correct. But proper exegesis is usually interpretation.

4:23 PM

@Nathaniel if we're talking about the ever increasingly pedantic use of the word interpretation, then yes you're right. However I use a much more conservative definition of the word as I believe most Scholars do. There is a difference between exegesis and interpretation. Proper exegesis is not interpretation.

As I said in comments on the question I believe the problem is that people are generally uncomfortable with Revelation entirely. So I don't expect to convince this community to change their mind, but it would be nice.

4:34 PM

Whoops. @Aigle That last message was meant for @Nathaniel

On mobile. Hard to get these things working when your screen is only 4 inches across.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend (Fixed it for you.)

@fredsbend Ah okay; wasn't sure! Like I said, I can't speak for others, but to me this question is comparable to "How old is the earth according to the Bible" or something like that... to me it's not a Revelation-only problem. But Revelation does seem to create more disagreement than most books.

@El'endiaStarman Thanks for confirming my theory – if I mod-edit a chat message, the @ person gets a ping :)

El'endia Starman

@Nathaniel Yeah, every edit with a ping re-pings the person.

5:23 PM

@Nathaniel that's not the same question at all. To answer that question you have to look at all sorts of different books and make all kinds of guesses about history and how much time has passed between events in the Bible. Instead the question we're talking about only asks to look at revelation. This is the difference between exegesis and systematic theology.

6:56 PM

@fredsbend I forgive you

Lee Woofenden

9:15 PM

@Aigle Once again, we don't take the end-times predictions literally. We don't think there's going to be a literal rapture. I could go into a spiritual exposition of the verse if you're interested.

Although we don't think the Epistles have a regular spiritual meaning, they still use quite a bit of figurative language. Being "caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thessalonians 4:17) is not talking about something that will happen with our physical bodies, but something that happens with our spirit when we lift our mind above earthly thoughts to spiritual ones.

I doubt that the early apostles really thought they were going to go flying with Jesus.

@Nathaniel Is there a meta post proposing that unscoped biblical exegesis questions be shut down? I recall having a conversation about it, but I don't recall whether there was an actual meta post about it. I've gotten shot down on a number of attempts to close unscoped biblical exegesis questions, so I'd be happy to see the matter settled.