Baptist Pastors and Ministers

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Baptist Pastors and Ministers

This group will invite discussion of issues and experiences of Baptist churches--both metropolitan and rural.

Members: 144
Latest Activity: Sep 11, 2019

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Still in the Process

Started by Rev Dr Gloria Gay Mar 12, 2011. 0 Replies

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Comment by Pastor .Val-Val on February 17, 2009 at 2:06am


The Chocolates may all be gone now, but show the rest of us just how sweet you can be this year.Smile.
Comment by Pastor .Val-Val on February 5, 2009 at 2:40am
WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR SOUL? Did you know that when you are in a battle you do not have time to pray? Did you know that we as a human race should never go into battle without the Lord being approached? This includes all types of battles(military and civilian).

Did you know that when the test is hot that the Lord is furiously leading the battle to make you the victor?

Did you know that you should give God the glory all the day long-in action and in deed?

Did you know that the saying the idle mind is the devil's work shop is not in the Bible literally-but that God owns all rights to our thoughts even when their not on him?

Did you know that when the saints sing the song "All My Sins Are Under The Blood", this is to be taken literally? It means that when the Lord placed your sins in the sea of forgetfulness that he did not provide golashes and long rubber gloves to any human or being on this earth to dive under the blood and through the sea of forgetfulness to retrieve(pull) it out and use it against you?

Did you know that the scripture that says "to him much is given, much is also required of that one" (paraphrased), means that whatever the Lord suffers to happen to you and whatever the Lord allows you to become privy of you and I have a heavenly responsibility to him to live in that knowledge? I know-I know-sometimes we'd like to play possum on the subject matter but our God is one whom gives day visions as well as night visions-so he's inside the possum with us at all times. Smile.
Comment by Pastor .Val-Val on January 31, 2009 at 6:47am
Comment by H Lee Clay on November 30, 2008 at 1:44pm
This is an interesting topic. The first step in answering the problem of evil is this: We've got to get clear on what this thing "evil" actually is. It does seem to follow that if God created all things, and evil is a thing, then God created evil.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that the second premise is not true. Evil is not a thing. The person who probably explained it best was St. Augustine, and then Thomas Aquinas picked up on his solution. Others since them have argued that evil has no ontological status in itself.
The word ontology deals with the nature of existence. When I say that evil has no ontological status, I mean that evil, as a thing in itself, does not exist.

Let me give you an illustration to make this more clear. We talk about things being cold or warm. But coldness is not a thing that exists in itself; it has no ontological status. Coldness is the absence of heat. When we remove heat energy from a system, we say it gets colder.

"Cold" isn't a thing. It's a way of describing the reduction of molecular activity resulting in the sensation of heat. So the more heat we pull out of a system, the colder it gets. Cold itself isn't being "created." Cold is a description of a circumstance in which heat is missing. Heat is energy which can be measured. When you remove heat, the temperature goes down. We call that condition "cold," but there is no cold "stuff" that causes that condition.

It’s the same thing with a shadow. Shadows don't exist as things in themselves; they're just the absence of light. Evil is like that. Evil isn't like some black, gooey stuff floating around the universe that gloms onto people and causes them to do awful things. Evil is the absence of good, a privation of good, not a thing in itself.

When God created the universe, He created everything good. He made a universe that was perfectly good. Everything was as it should be. After God was completely done with creating everything, something happened that reduced the good in the world. That loss of good is called evil. That's why in Genesis 1 we read "it was good" many times. From the record we know that God didn't create evil. But something did happen in which evil-the loss of good-took place, and as a result a lot of other grotesque things came about.

So shadows don't exist; they're just the absence of light. And evil doesn't exist; it's just the absence of good.

The next question is, if God created everything good, why would He allow evil to infect His creation?
Satan would be the first example of an independent source of evil. Adam and Eve would also be a source of evil with regard to the human race. They didn't get Satan's evil; they initiated their own. Satan influenced them--he made his own hole in goodness--but Adam and Eve made their own holes in goodness. They're responsible for their own evil. It isn't that Satan did something bad and passed that stuff on to them, because evil is not a stuff. This is a key point in this discussion. They cannot "dip into" evil because it's not a thing to dip into. When we make a shadow, we don't do it with shadow stuff, but by blocking existing light.
In the same way, evil doesn't cause our actions. In fact, it's the other way around. Our actions are what cause evil-or the loss of goodness-in us, and that loss of goodness does have an impact on future actions, giving us a
predisposition to cause further evil.

God did not create Adam and Eve with bad stuff in them. What He did was to create them with a capability to rebel against Him or choose to do wrong. This is called moral free will, and it's a good thing, but it can be used for bad. It can be used to rebel against God, which digs out a hole in goodness, so to speak.
Satan and man both used their free moral agency to originate actions that fell short of the goodness of God. I'm sure God had a good reason for allowing evil. It has caused a lot of suffering, but that suffering has, in turn, also brought about a lot of good under God's direction.

Now the real question at this point is, "Was it worth it? Good can come out of evil, but was it worth it in the long run, the measure of good that comes out of the measure of evil in the world?" And my response is that the only One who could ever know that is God. You and I couldn't know that because our perspective is too limited. Only God is in a position to accurately answer that question.
Apparently God thinks that, on balance, the good is going to outweigh the evil that caused the good, or else He wouldn't have allowed it to happen. Christ paid a tremendous price, an example of the tremendous love God had for us. God would not be able to show His sacrificial love unless there was something to sacrifice for.
Comment by charlie on July 7, 2008 at 1:23am
HELLO, HOW ARE YOU
MY NAME IS DEACON WEST

EVERY CHURCH OR MINISTRY
NEED AN ECONOMIC MINISTRY

I HAVE BEEN SAVE FOR ABOUT SIX YEARS. I HAVE FOUND THAT A GREAT MANY CHURCHES AND MINISTRIES NEED A NUMBER OF TOOLS TO CARRY OUT THEIR MISSION. ALSO A LARGE NUMBER OF GOD'S PEOPLE KEEP COMING UP FINANCIALLY SHORT, SIMPLY BECAUSE OF A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OR WILLINGNESS TO EXPLORE NEW AVENUES. GOD HAVE GIVEN ME A PLAN THAT WILL ALLOW HIS CHILDREN TO PROSPEROUS

MONEY IS JUST A TOOL TO DO GOD’S WORK

IF INTERESTED IN MORE IMFORMATION LEAVE ME A NOTE OR COMMENT TO THAT AFFECT
PLEASE READ MY PROFILE
 

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