Encouragement For Widows • Surrendering To The Text • From Death To Life Wrap-Up

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR WIDOWS
Erika is a fairly young widow that I believe can be an encouragement to other young widows and mothers going through a similar trial in their lives.
Please check out her blog.  This Thorny Rose

SURRENDERING TO THE TEXT
Do we look for loopholes to what Scripture says or do we dig deep into it and surrender to what it says?
The following article explains what that means.
Do Your Hermeneutics Hold to Sola Scriptura?
 by Abner Chou

WRAP-UP
A quick wrap-up of my review of  the book From Death To Life: How Salvation Works by Allen Nelson IV.
Chapters 9 &10  in the book encourage evangelism, and the conclusion of the book also deals with baptism and being careful about pronouncing people saved.
The final parts of the book deal with problems with the Sinner's Prayer, the necessity for church discipline, etc.
One of the things that gave me pause is the church covenant section.
I'm very cautious about making promises while being supportive of spiritual growth and a desire for holiness.
Holiness can't be manufactured by the making of promises.
It is good to have doctrines you can affirm and to encourage people to grow.
On the whole, the rest of the book is pretty good, and I am thankful for the opportunity to read and review it honestly.

Why Christianity & Roman Catholicism Are Not The Same Thing Part 5

Responding to the idea of transubstantiation

When Jesus served the first communion / Lord's Supper He was right there for the disciples to see.
It is quite obvious that He was speaking symbolically about the bread and the wine being His body and blood..
Jesus was the One who gave the cup and bread to the disciples, so clearly He didn't ask them to grab His hand and take a bite out of it.  He wasn't teaching cannibalism.
Tell me, do you taste literal flesh when you eat the bread, or do you taste bread?
Jesus is God and able to do real miracles.  If He wanted people to eat His literal flesh and blood, then He could have made that happen...but He didn't and doesn't.

Does God have literal wings? Psalm 91:4
Correct Biblical hermeneutics is very important in understanding Scripture.  It is true that when the plain sense makes sense you don't need to seek another sense.  However, in the Bible there are things like poetry, figures of speech, metaphors, parables, etc.  as well as literal historic accounts.

Jesus Christ is called the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), but did He suddenly turn literally into a dumb animal?  No!
Christians are also described as sheep.  That doesn't make us literally woolly animals.

Nicodemus was told he must be born again or he would not see the Kingdom of God in John 3 . Nicodemus thought Jesus meant physically (John 3:4), but that was not the case.  He needed to be born from above (and not as a literal physical baby).

Christians are God's temple.  Do we physically turn into a building?  

There was a time when reading and having a Bible for yourself was not only discouraged, but people were killed for putting Scripture into the languages and hands of the people.

Since many people now have access to Bibles (though not all),  my desire is for people everywhere to read the Bible for themselves and not check their brains at the door of a church.

The Bereans were noble-minded for reading the Scriptures to see if things were so.  Why?
Because leaders in the church are fallible human beings who left unchecked can help people to Hell by their heresies.

Please watch this VIDEO by a friend who was formerly a Roman Catholic for more on transubstantiation.