Author	Thread: Only believe: Really!!
Admin	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 18 Apr, 2010 10:23 PM Do you realize how many times this word is used in the new testament, and what it means? I wrote this in response to a post earlier today. I wish as many as would, take the time to ponder this word and it's meaning, what does it mean to you? Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 18 Apr, 2010 11:09 PM I could care less what it means to me, to you, or anyone else for that matter, I only care what the people writing it and receiving it thought it meant, then I would bring that principle to today and apply it. That is called grammatical historical hermeneutics and every Christian should learn some proper hermeneutics to understand the Bible rightly. To many people smash in their 21 century western culture understanding into the Bible and they are so wrong. You have to remember the Bible wasn't written for us! It is a eastern book written for an eastern mind, to our benefit. You know what Non means? Nothing! If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything. Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 18 Apr, 2010 11:52 PM BTW: Do you realize how many times repent is used? About 30 times depending on translation! Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 19 Apr, 2010 05:24 AM Well i can say what the word means according to my dictionaries and what I learned in Greek class. I consider this a better foundation than emotions I have about a word. So I guess you mean "to believe", which is pisteuo in the bible. This is related to pistis = faith. Pisteuo means, as gfar as I've been told, to believe in the sense of "to trust". There is another word: nomitzo, which also means "to believe" but rather in the sense of "to believe to be true based on a rule". "Nomos" is the law. So pisteuo is believing based on no rule or law to follow. Just pure trust like a child trusts his partents to always protect it, without questioning this for there is no reason questioning it. The child doesn't follow any law that it derives the trust from, it's just there:yay: So this is what I think "to believe" means in the NT. Believing based on nothing but the believing, the faith itself. As Bultmann said: If you believe in God for a reason you have not yet understood. God bless you all. De Benny Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 19 Apr, 2010 09:25 AM I don't realize how many times it has been used. I do not know what it means. But to me, it is a way for even a child to enter the kingdom of God. :yay: its a way to keep me from leaning on my own understanding and praying in faith continually that he makes me into what he will's as i read his word. nyanda:purpleangel: p.s you MUST become just like a child to enter the kingdom of God.[mark 10:15] Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 19 Apr, 2010 10:24 PM Darrel O, your response is not one that a believer would make, if you don't believe the word is true, infallible, then there is something wrong, but i would agree by your post you do not agree with the word. Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 19 Apr, 2010 10:29 PM That is pretty well put Benny, and the real key is understanding that one believe's with the heart, defined in the bible as the spirit of man, the core of his being independent of his reasoning, or mental faculties, By the way it is used more that 200 hundred times, and it translates to faith or to act as if true. Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 19 Apr, 2010 10:31 PM Nyanda, that sure is a good way of putting it, I worked in children's ministry for yrs and children just receive what you tell them. Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 20 Apr, 2010 01:42 AM I think it has still soemthing to do with reasoning. But it's not like you get to faith by reasoning. We base all our reasoning on some basement, actually on what we consider to be true, what we believe, in a very worldly way. Like we believe the world is shaped like a ball, that the planets move according to the rules (more or less) we learned at school, that the physical rules we learned at school do apply etc... many such things, so we take these things we believe, because we have seen them happen (gravity? Take an apple and let it fall, you'll see it. Gravity is one explaination you can have). Those basements of our thinking and reasoning are the ones we get from looking at the world and reasoning ourselves. So we put up those rules to have a pattern to live in. Like never put your hand into fire, it'll hurt, there is this rule etc... And then there is something we cannot see by ourselves, like apple falling from trees or the sun rising every morning. This is the truth only God Himself can reveal to us individually. We cannot prove it, for we don't control it. We can do the experiment with the apple again and again to prove gravity, but the truth of God is not in our hands like the apple, so we cannot prove it, but it is proven to us individually by God. He shows us something we then take as our other experiences. But this one experience will turn everything upside down. We still have our reasoning, we still have the base of our reasoning being derived on what we experienced, but this time it is not only about falling apples and rising sun, there is also the truth of God which He revealed to us and which becomes part of the basement of our thinking, of our reasoning. So God doesn't want us to switch our brains off, at least this is what I think. He changes our beliefs by showing us something new, indescribable and unreprodceable by man. After being shown that, we will take it as true as gravity or the movin of the planets. Of course the enemy wants us to get rid of this truth, and there is also reasoning involved, like reasoning the rules of science, that if you cannot reproduce something it most likely isn't there, or at least cannot be taken into consideration etc... but one could use other reasoning to get this doubt raising idea rejected again as well. So the case isn't reasoning vs God, it's God vs devil, and not the One in our hearts or emotions and the other in our brains, but both in both places. God bless you all Post Reply
View Profile History	Only believe: Really!! Posted : 20 Apr, 2010 08:31 AM PhillipJohn I have no clue what you mean or what I said to make you think that??? I do Believe the Bible is the inspired (God breathed) infallible (can not fail) inerrant (no errors) and totally sufficient (it needs nothing else added) Word of God. You say believe, I say repent and trust or repent and believe. I want to know how the original writer and audience thought it meant, not what I want it to mean or what you think it means. Post Reply