Did The Bible Misquote Jesus?

I couldn't agree more.:thumbsup:

And this is exactly why James White and his debates are needed.

 

Inviting Erhman to my church and hearing a debate in a seminary and university are not the same thing. No, I would not want Erhman speaking in my church, but this was never the issue I was addressing here.

I know about the cults as I've been in apologetics settings for quite a while and a lot of my ministry friends are reaching out to people in cults. However, they see these debates as helpful.

Erhman is already influencing people via his book(s) and other ways. Let people see he can be refuted. I wish I could get a dollar for every time I get asked by Christians how to refute something they heard from a New Ager, atheist, Mormon, etc.

I agree with what Grasshopper posted here.

 

While I agree with you and the same thing has happened to me. However over 90% of the time that sort of thing has happened in a discipleship situation.

What I have found is that if Christians were to know their Bible well, they would be able to refute those folks and if they could not refure them on the subject they could easily identify the fruit.

I was in a church as a college student where a man was similar to Ehrman and started recruiting people. He was able to recruit a few until the elders found out. The elders taked to the man and did not get anywhere with him. Those elders were great men who knew their Bibles well. The pastor was a great pastor. It was a very good church. On one of the Sundays the pastor announced that the man was taken through the proper steps and was then excommunicated from the church. The pastor went through the passage and talked about what was done specifically and how he should be treated. That man vanished and we never saw or heard from him again. He went out and I do not know of one person who heard from himn again. He had no further opportunity to do damage. Ehrman is given one of the best audiences. He gains an audience and opportunity to sell books. Where else would he get such an audience? How many non-Christians would be interested in his message. In my lifetime I have met one person who is not a Christian where I had a discussion about the matter. He knew some things about it because he had studied it some. Thankfully I was able to help him see the truth. Initially the discussion because he asked em about what would be a good church to try. Before I answered he laughingly talked about a KJVO church that I know some who have posted on BB have bought and/oir read their materials.

It is impossible for me to understand why anyone would excommunicate a person from a church and turn right around and give them an audience among the same people somewhere else.

 

Do you really realize that every year while I was a student at SWBTS there were those studying to be pastors who received Christ? My neighbor told me that she received Christ when her husband was preaching as the pastor of his first church. When he gave the invitation she came forward at that time. I remember an occasion when one of the students confessed that he was having premarital sex with one of the female students at the time. All the time maintenance found pornography in the student housing. I remember the time the police were called when one of the students was beating his wife late one night. I think your estimation of seminary stusdents is very high. Some are very godly while others are not Christians an others are young Christians. Consider the leaders of many deniminations and conventions and if they are making disciples. If they are not then they are disoebedient. Those professors I know who make disciples will tell you that very few of the professors do make disciples.

I do not know of one person who I was in the Navigators with who ever left or took a detoured from the faith. However I do know some from my seminary days.

Even Judas did not follow Jesus. Education does not take care of many things but discipleship sure does a better job.

 

I'm no expert on Bart Ehrman, but I don't believe it was Christians who gave him his fame or fortune. He could never debate a Christian and sell millions of books and in fact did just that. I would bet anything non-Christians are the bulk of his audience. As White pointed out it is Muslims, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others who use Ehrman's arguments to bash Christianity and to support their own views. To leave his arguments unchallenged is to empower his influence. To challenge him through good debate is to innoculate those who might be confonted with his views, especially in the college sttings across this "Christian" nation.

Your above example above is good for the local church, but fails on the national level. To pretend his arguments don't exist (not sure you are necessarily saying this) is to leave a vacuum where students and others are left to assume there is no credible response.

 

Mark 14:3-7
And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her. And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

 

I don't see how this refutes anything I said. Some seminary students are good and astute, some not. Let those who benefit, benefit. It's not an ideal world, so let each of us do what we think is best.

Yes, we are all for discipleship, but apparently it's not being done. Until then, let the debates continue. I know numerous people who benefit.

We are not going to agree on this.

 

If pastors, leaders, and congregations were equipped at the local level, the national level would take care of itself.

Not one of my friends from the days when I was in the Navigators ever left the faith but I cannot say that about some of those studying to be pastors I knew when I was in seminary. A lot of my friends do not know much about what Ehrman speaks about but they know God and they know what good fruit looks like.

We cannot begin to address every possible argument but we can know God and know the truth. A few years ago I was told by an older man from anohter country that Zoroastrianism preceeded Christianity. I did not have a clue about that but the man told me about it and after listening to him I asked him some questions and then after awhile he began to listen to me. He finally told me that he had been to several churches and felt that what he heard is what I would call sugar water. We have had some discussions since. He knows I will tell him how I see things. When people are open to Christ they will listen but if all they get is the massage that they have more faith than the preacher they get harder. When their time is wasted with sweet warm milk like they are a cat they cannot appreciate that.

If every person listened to the debate and was convinced they would still not understand and be able to refute someone simply because they have not studied it for themselves. They have to know for themselves.

Every leader should be making disciples. If every person sitting in the pews on Sunday made one disciple every two years then our churches would double with reproducing people every two years. However quite the opposite is happening.

 

Jesus did not command debates with non-Christians who have hard hearts, but he did command us to make disciples. The church is having troubles not so much because of people like Ehrman (and the fact that most people have never heard of him) but because the church is not making disciples as Christ commanded. If Ehrman never existed the church would stilll decline because of internal troubles we have today.

While I understand your point I see little if any profit in it. If one listens to a debate he will still know little and be able to refute another very well. That issue must be studied by those who want to know the truth. The truth is found by reading those who know the truth. If one never hears lies then he will never know or have to deal with lies. If he knows the truth he will recognize lies.

When Paul lived there were traveling philosophers and we read what Paul wrote about them. Ehrman fits that category.

I have never known any of those I was in the Navigators with who ever left the faith but there are seminary students who do. The results speak for themselves. One who knows God cannot say God does not exist and let their faith die because of a man.They know God and see His power and answer to their prayers. Ehrman would have no affect on them just because they could not refute him.

There are those who are making disciples and are not being misled even though most of them know little about what Ehrman speaks. However they know God and what genuine fruit looks like.

 

I like to point people to Hebrews 13:7 as the real test.

Heb. 13:7 "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith."

Liars speak lies and their life displays and demonstrates that. Their fruit is often clearer than the lie of their message.

For years in some of the Bible studies I have led among college students I have taken them down a road of quoting scripture out of its historical context (but the text has the right words) and rational thinking to show them how easily they can be misled then I follow it by telling them the truth.

Recently I had a discussion with my daughter about a similar idea. I told her that we may not have all the answers and we may never have some of the answers for them or ourselves. The question are endless and can be a smoke screen in front of the truth. I had her take a lot at in a fugurative sense the forest instead of the ants on the ground. I had her taker a look at hisotry because she likes history.

The discussion we had was about homosexuality and the rights of homosexuals. She appealed to me on the basis of what she had read about what scinetists proclaimed. I had her take a look how long homosexuals live. Then I showed her historically where many times scientists were wrong and in some cases deceitful and liars. (My firest two years in college were spent studying physics). We also took a look at what scripture teaches and what the message is in Romans 1. What I found was that the passage teaches something different than what we often hear. Then I appealed to her on the basis of reason taking the side of the scientists who claim it is not about choice. So I told her that we all have different issues that we battle but it is our choice to act on it or not act on it. I told her there are times when I get angry but it is my choice how I handle my anger.

By the time our discussion ended the issue was over in her mind. I knew she had been struggling with something for quite some time. I also knew it was because of soemeone she saw as smart and some she knew who proclaimed various orientations.

When we had the discussion about looking at how long they live and how they live it gave me opportunity to point out how often times other things go along with their lifestyle to bring them down. It is like the person who takes drugs and does not have money to pay for them. What I was trying to communicate is that there are tiems when we must accept the way things are and that God is in control. He blesses thoser who follow him. So I used examples of people we knpow who are blessed who walk with God and compared themn to others who are not. She knows some of the people I have dealt with and troubles they have had.

One who knows God cannot deny Him. He knows God and no matter what he does and does not understand he still knows God. That same person knows God's power too.

 

Apologies for the delay in replying. I've been a bit out of pocket for the last several days for ministry endeavors.

Check out the store, there are other items in there.

I'm not complaining about $6, I'm taking issue with the principle about the whole thing. Maybe were looking at the trees too closely and not enough about the forrest. Why does this kind of a "ministry" need a "store" on their website? Seriously, why? If it is a ministry of te Gospel of Jesus Christ what is the purpose of hording all of one's resources for a strictly paid for basis.

I'm not saying that we need to have everything for free, but most of what ministries are producing for the Church should be available for all those in the Church. Just my opinion.

We should celebrate our agreement!:thumbsup:

No worries. I just think that they are different, particularly when we are talking about ministries that are just recapitulating what other theologians and scholars have already said.

I think that comparison is primarily about ministries and ministers who bring unabashed markets into our churches. It is a troubling thing to confuse the honest but spiritually delicate people with titles, products, and materials that are often deeply contradictory and little more than pop-psychology in Christianese-clothing.

It is the larger issue of cruises, conferences, and credit line extensions for stuff people who need it. It is the constant billowing of "give, give, give" coupled with "buy, buy, buy." Give to our ministry and then also make sure you buy my latest book. How is this possible when we have pastors in Africa that barely have a copy of the Bible for themselves? When Christians in China meet in the midst of oppression? When most Christians in the world don't have air conditioning, heating, chairs, walls, or sound systems? I just think we've got our priorities out of wack.

 

If it were not for neoptism and corruptive favortism in the ranks, and those people were making disciples rather than being part of the machinery, those whom they are discipling would raise a huge red flag. It is doubtful that would even happen because they would know they are being watched and must be transparent to make disciples.

If money were not associated with "ministry" and it cost them money instead I wonder how many of the gurus today would be reaching people and working a regular job? It is the men and women who do ministry because God has given them a passion for it that are godly and are doing their best to live the Christian life.

What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men -- men of prayer. E.M.Bounds

 

So you have one false teacher (Calvinist White) debating another false teacher (Agnostic Ehrman)?
Why would I want to listen to that?
They both are going to the same place. Probably hand in hand.

What was it the Bible said about the reprobates...

Romans 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Romans 1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Romans 1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Romans 1:31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Romans 1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

oh they like to debate...

You people need to open up your Bibles some more and read it than listening to false teachers debate eachother, you might learn a thing or two but it's like eating very moldy bread you will probably vomit from it or get some other spiritual disease (like Calvinism or Agnosticism).

 

I think you've got your name backwards. Shouldn't it be Socialist in Baptist Land? Why don't you call James White on his Dividing Line program and challenge him on his views or are you just a message board tough guy?
Let me guess KJVOnly guy?

 

Ignore my request above, I just noticed your intellectual interpretation of Romans 1:29.

Romans 1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

White would eat you alive......like moldy bread.

 

From my Darby,NASU and TNIV the word is translated "strife".


oh they like to debate...

What do you do with Scriptures such as Acts 18:28?

TNIV : For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate,proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.

NLTse : He refuted the Jews with powerful arguments in public debate. Using the Scriptures,he explained to them that Jesus was the Messiah.

 

I would think that Dr.White would show more discernment than eating moldy bread!