Principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world

What if his theology is on par with other theologians? Does this now mean their theology is also untrustworthy? You need a better hobby. Like trying to refute an argument, and not trying to be so dismissive. You're too judgemental, and I'm sure if I looked at you long enough I could find something I didn't necessarily like. That doesn't mean you're untrustworthy. I may dislike the way you wear your hair. Can I dismiss you as untrustworthy?

You remind me of the superstitious Corinthian church in 1 Cor. 8-10. Get ahold of yourself.

By condemning Lewis, you have to condemn a whole lot more Christian literature than his. And probably some you even like.

the fallen rebels have gone through great lengths to have the world consider them nothing more than mythology. egyptian greek roman its all the same thing. false gods pretending to be something they are not. pretty much every culture around the world had their own experiences/examples. dont lose hope though, the good guys are at work too.

so the big question you ask is, how do they act/influence/affect us. the first way they do so is with their religion and physical inspiration for humanity. the second way they do this is through their own religious order openly practicing their discipline. both of these things are so embeded into humanity and society, i doubt 99.9% of humanity is even aware of it. they have kept humanity so occupied with the physical things of the world, that we have become blinded to the spiritual things of the world. its not even acknowledged as a possibile solution. their religious order openly acts to prevent humanity from ascending to a spiritual consciouness, even they dont know what they are doing. seems like none of us do. i know i didnt, until i asked Jesus for help.

money and physicians, humanities biggest two hold ups to spiritual advancement. both seem well intentioned and useful if not down right practical. humanity has had to rely on these two things more and more over the centuries. its not like there is an alternative... we are more enslaved to the fallen in the world today then we were when we were in eygpt. at least there we could see the chains. we could see the whips. money is both a chain and a whip, a carrot and a stick. its made the slaves their own slavemasters. people dont go to a high priest of the fallen and offer up their child as sacrifice to be burned on the alter for freedom. they go to a doctor for an abortion and then burned as medical waste for freedom. why did the slave worship a golden calf? mooo replied the slaves.

if only the bible taught us that money was the root of all evil and that we cannot serve two masters..."did God really say what you thought he said?" asked the devil to eve. so why do the churches always seem to be asking for money? red pill or blue pill? choose one. i'll even go one better. a thief enters your house in the middle of the night and awakens you. the thief ask you, whats it going to be, your money or your life? better ask your physician first and see if you can afford this...

Jesus is the door for humanity. he will save your soul and bring you enlightenment. confess, repent, be led by the Spirit, put to death the sins of the flesh. make of yourself a living sacrifice. everyone knows what to do by now. the hold up seems to be that when its time to follow the Spirit, humanity freaks out so much about this break with the accepted "reality" that they run to a physician who says, nope you're "diagnosis" take these pills and it all goes away. and wouldnt you know it, those pills work. no more scary things happening thanks to those pills. whew what a terrible nightmare. ask any doctor to diagnose abraham, moses and noah as a patient in todays world and see how they rebrand those examples. test-ament indeed.


duewell
i knew nothing until i asked Jesus for help.
the rainbow connection

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So much for high christian standards.

There is the gravest of differences between what a man does and what God in His wisdom does through feeble men.
There is a character to truth that is undeniable regardless of its source. That God chooses to use the most unlikely and weakest of sources to reveal Himself more fully is merely in keeping with His practice of showing Himself to be the ultimate source. Thus, it is to God's glory that revelation comes through frail human means.

to be fair, Lewis' Mere Christianity does contain some unorthodox theology. however, it's the book the Lord used to bring my brother-in-law to Christ before he died. God does good with the most unlikely things at times.

I agree. But I don't hear God getting glory here, man is. That's exactly my point. People give men glory, but not God.
How many times have we heard the phrase "great man of God" instead of "God greatly used him"?

We are affected by spirits of this world because we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Someone said we are influenced through our thoughts. I agree so we must not believe all our thoughts. If a thought is not out of love then it is from a wicked spirit and will surely cause suffering.

So much for right judgement.

While you make a valid point, even those praising men are inadvertently praising God. Look for the good.

Thanks. Perhaps you could provide some examples? It has been a while since I read it.

NO. NEVER glorify man before God. That is an abomination before God.
I suppose the "eat the meat & spit out the bones" saying is acceptable. Fine, feed that to the babes in Christ & watch them choke on them instead of feeding them the sincere milk of the Word.

Those that don't stand for something usually fall for anything.

You misunderstood my post. I'm not advocating glorifying men. I'm merely pointing out that God is in the glory business and finds glory in ways men cannot conceive.

All things are by Him, through Him, and to Him.

2 Corinthians 10:4 plus Matthew 24:6~ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

You are ignorant, unfortunately. You do know the power of Satan, which his craftiness and intelligence. Satan is utterly defeated, but he still has power over the world. Many Christians fall into his snares also. God's people are still destroyed by their lack of knowledge.

Mankind's rebellion put them firmly under the control of Satan. He is the god of this world that has blinded the eyes of those who are perishing. I don't know how you get that Jesus was speaking to Peter alone. Satan incited Peter, so both he and Peter were rebuked. It was not a human or a low level demon that tempted Jesus in the wilderness. It was Satan in the garden of Eden too.

You are accusing God of evil. I'd stay away from that if I was you. God knew what Adam would do, but that does not mean He made him do it.

Easy. Have you ever drunk English beer? A lot of it would barely qualify as an alcholic beverage. I know this from personal experience.

for you, brother, anything

i remember something wonky about the Atonement, but this is the first quote i could find this morning:

There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. (p 178 in my copy)

i think you'll agree this contradicts Jn. 14:6. it sounds like, i dunno... salvation by sincerity?
it reminds me of one of the Narnia books where the boy, Emeth, a Tash worshipper, is accepted by Aslan as having followed him without knowing it.

i want to stress Mere Christianity is a good book, it just has some sad deficiencies. perhaps better to read it when one has been inculcated into basic truths of the faith so one will notice the unorthodox points.

The sound from those worldly sources is reminiscent of borborygmus.

Guinness comes to mind, but I guess Guinness is Irish beer though there is a brewery in England. 4 pints of Guinness would have me wanting a nap...

By all means please enlighten me, I see Satan used in scripture as a metaphor for sin, and I think others only see and wrongly interpret the figurative verses with literal applications, so maybe that could be a good start point to correct me? Ill try and explain how I see things and maybe you can point out(nicely) where I'm going wrong This is a perfect example for the differences on how we think, You say Which you should because Scripture tells us Satan is defeated and Christ is victorious, and then you say the big There is always a but... To me its a contradiction, to say Satan is defeated but is still in power? It would be exactly like if I said to you Hitler is totally defeated, but he still has power over Europe! Ironically if you said Hitler was literally defeated and is no longer in power and existence, but figuratively he still holds some sway and power there, as there are groups in Europe who follow and worship him and have the same ideals, I would agree with you. And its how I see the bible speaks about Satan.

Mankind's rebellion put them offside with God, it allowed sin and death to enter the world which spread to all. It would make no difference to me if Satan was banished at the garden of Eden.

Totally agree if a metaphoric meaning like scripture uses, disagree if you are saying Satan is literally the God of this world, and going around poking sticks in peoples eyes and blinding them.

I don't even know what low level demon is? Of course it was Satan in the wilderness with the Lord, who would even dispute that. How did Satan incite Peter to say to the person he thought was Messiah, loved and followed not to go to His death? It seems a pretty humanistic response to me! Did Satan also not want the Lord to go to his death?

I think God is sovereign and in control of everything and allows what happens, I think people when they like Peter don't understand why God does things a certain way, maybe in the same sense as Peter erred as it seems the wrong way or opposite way to what we are expecting, so instead credit the state of the world to Satan instead of sin, yet we are also told to submit to all authorities and powers, yet Christians seem to contradict themselves and want to do the opposite.

A question for you, so I can understand your view better, you say God knew what Adam was going to do! does that mean God could have stopped what was going to happen or change what was going to happen if He wanted too?