Tag Archives: God

Should We Change the Lord’s Prayer?

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Many news outlets have reported that Pope Francis wants to change the translation of the Lord’s Prayer.  Specifically, he objects that “lead us not into temptation” (Matt. 6:13) makes it seem like the Lord leads us to sin. 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/12/07/pope-francis-wants-to-change-line-our-father-prayer.html

With all due respect, I strongly believe he is wrong.  The pope said, “That is not a good translation.”  Actually, it is an excellent translation as you’ll see in this article.  Continue reading →

Work Is Good

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We often get the idea that work is a bad thing.  However, God didn’t create work to be that way.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam had work responsibilities.

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (Gen. 2:15)

Notice first that God put Adam in the garden.  God was the One Who created work.  As we saw in the previous verses, God made everything good, so work must be good.  In Genesis 3, work became difficult due to sin, but work itself was created by God to be good for mankind.  God made human beings to be productive.
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The Seventh Day

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It took God just 6 days to create everything.  This is a testimony to His omnipotence.

Genesis 2:1-3  Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.  2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

That creation was “finished” means that there was no more creation out of nothing (ex nihilo).  All physical matter had been created.  Of course, the created matter could change through various means (chemical, nuclear, etc.), but from this point, matter could neither be created or destroyed (First Law of Thermodynamics).  Continue reading →

A Brief Look at Election and Foreknowledge

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1 Peter 1:1-2  Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,  2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

Peter addresses his first epistle to the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”.  There is a long debate over the relationship with God’s sovereign election and mankind’s free will.  A related discussion is the aspect of “foreknowledge” as helping reconcile the two.  The argument goes like this: God looked into the future and saw who would believe on Jesus as savior.  He then elected those persons to salvation.  This is an valiant attempt to bring election and free will together, but it fails under closer scrutiny.  Here’s why. Continue reading →

God Made Everything Very Good

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Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made , and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Everything that God made is described as “very good”.  This indicates the perfect nature of God’s creation.  Sin had not entered the universe at this point.  Adam and Eve are best thought of as “innocent”—they had the ability to sin, but had not done so yet.

There are some logical conclusions to this sinless state.  First, physical death was not a possibility.  Sin brought sickness, pain, suffering, and death as is seen in Genesis 3 and numerous other passages in the Bible. Continue reading →