If you read UW last reply to me, you will know what I mean. It's a waste of time, effort, energy to point out the mistake. When UW cannot defend a point, he just conveniently skip it. It's a waste of my research and effort to be honest. He just do not have the decency to answer the critical points, twist verses and misrepresent other people and after a while, he and his gang will then start name calling you and say that you are hostile, etc. He keeps on assuming things. He keeps on assuming that I am preaching a kind of works based "after-salvation" when if you read what I posted, it's not at all.

2 Peter 2:2 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.

i think this verse fit you the most, sylar

My problem is your ego.
for the 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000th time, I have no problem with God giving his children good gifts AKA HE DIED FOR OUR SINS/ GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE.

But this keeps happening: I say "Prince says this this and this, so how can we not conclude that he teaches that God promises you wealth?"
You say "nonono you misunderstand him, he actually means that God will provide our needs, he didn't say that God will promise you richness"
To which I say "Your argument is based off reading your own meaning into what he meant to say, he is clearly saying that by being a Christian, you gain alot of wealth (in other words, being rich)"
Then you say "He means that God will provide our needs means he means that God will provide our needs, but you don't believe that God will make anyone rich and you believe that all christians should be poor"
To which I say "I didn't say that! I was only against Prince teaching that by believing in God, you will DEFINITELY gain alot of wealth"
Then you say "No he didn't mean that, you just don't believe that God will bless Christians"
To which I say "No! I said it before and I'll say it again, I believe that God blesses whom he blesses, but he didnt promise us all!"
Then you say "See Prince meant that by saying that by believing in God you will prosper, he meant something completely other than what the word prosper means"
To which I say "No, the selection of words that Prince used doesn't allow you to interpret it that way, the fact that he chose the English word prosper had to mean what it meant"
Then you say "You trust in man not the bible, come let me show you some prooftexts that God provides, but oh, you don't even believe that God provides"
To which I say "3rd time saying this, that is not what I'm talking about!"
Then you say "So just admit you lost the argument"
To which I say "Wait, we're talking about whether or not Prince is preaching the prosperity gospel"
Then you say "Here let me show you what the Bible says about God's provisions, but oh, you don't even believe that God provides"

...

^ - that is my problem.
Let me quote more from Prince from his book "unmerited favor":

"When the little boy brought his five loaves and two fishes to Jesus, did He gobble them up and say, ‘I am giving you a lesson in poverty?’ Of course not!… Jesus did not feed the multitudes with just enough food. He blessed them with more than enough food. He is the God of more than enough and that is His style. Likewise, Jesus wants to bless you with more than enough, so that you can be a blessing to others.” (p.238)"

"“Religion is blinding. Religion will tell you that ‘God’ wants you sick to teaching you character and patience. Religion will tell you that ‘God’ wants you poor, so that you will learn humility. It sounds noble, doesn’t it? But these are LIES from the pit of hell! Let me tell you this: It is the devil who wants you sick and poor, but the God I know paid a heavy price to redeem you from the curse of sickness and poverty!” (p.30)

^ this quote alone justifies him being called a false teacher! Christ died for the redemption of SIN, not poverty and sickness!
“The more occupied you are with Jesus, the more money follows after you! Now why is that? It is simply because when you seek first the kingdom of God, and put Jesus, His righteousness (not your righteousness), His joy and His peace as your first priority, God’s Word promises you that ALL the material things that you need will be added to you.” (pp.233-4)"
So when I throw all my welath away to become a missionary in a third world country, I'm not occupied enough with Jesus?

" “Don’t be afraid to use the word ‘prosperous.’ It’s God’s promise in the Bible.” (p.207)"

From his ministry website "God's promises on health and healing"

"This means that if you are sick, God’s heart is and will always be to heal and restore health and life to you. He so desires for you to walk in health and life that He gave you His beloved Son, Jesus, so that you might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). God is for you to walk in abundant health and life. He does not want your body and life sapped, incapacitated or debilitated by pain, sickness and disease, and He will never withhold healing from you."

Mind you, the prosperity gospel doesn't have to only be about money, it can be the lie that "Believe in Jesus and he will cure your cancer".

I do think Prince is "on" to something by focusing on Christ in his ministry, but the way interprets what our salvation is is just baffling!

i cannot bear it anymore when he said Jesus did not save all sinners on certain chosen sinners?
this is clearly hypocrite!

Okay end this (people complain liao): Just answer this question so that I know where you and Calvary stands on the issue: Why did Jesus die on the Cross?

Ok.

I already told you why I had to ask: just to be clear on the position of you and your church

It ends here.

I'm not the TS of the thread. I just help open a new thread. Got no mod power or anything like that.
Exactly why I am not passing and judgements. Because I just told everyone to calm down

A debate is NOT insulting each other
A debate is NOT a grudge match
A debate is NOT telling each other off/wrong/ect same as first point but nevermind.
I've been in such debates before. And flung my own fair share of church abuse hate stories around.

And it's not helping anyone. I feel bad, the other person feel bad, and then everyone feels bad.
Even a reply to me is already getting personal. Apa lagi a debate.

@TS

This is what I mean. This is the 4th time I'm telling him to just drop it, but this happens. I have no problem answering his questions, but it's gonna go in circles again. What say you, TS?

In this case, I also give you the power: You want us to proceed in our discussion that *might* be perceived as hostile, or not?

If I need to give verdict it will be this:

Everyone retire for the night and rest.
Clear heart, clear mind.
It's midnight now. Emotions run high at this hour.

I will repeat this.

Everyone. Calm. Down.
Do you respect me as TS?

we won't fall into sin after we become a disciple?

Good morning! Hope you've been having a great morning.
welf
Anyway, a note about the "greek" for Salvation: Yes according to a  concordance (I used this one http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/gr...as/soteria.html ), salvation *could* mean welfare or prosperity, but it's an error in hermeunetics to say that just because the greek word can mean a range of definitions, therefore the verse is talking about all those things.

Now, according to my textbook on hermeneutics:

"Both the original language word (Hebrew or Greek) and the English word used to translate it will have a semantic range. There will be some overlap, between the semantic ranges of the two words: That's what makes translation possible. But the ranges will not be identical. We must remember that they are different words and will almost always have different (but overlapping) ranges of meaning"

-Duvall and Daniel Hays, Grasping God's word p 140
The example given was this: in Matt 25:14 Jesus in his parable says "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them" (NIV)

"Entrusted" here is translated from the Greek word paradidomi and the greek word has a broad range of meaning:
(a)to hand over something to someone
(b)To betray
©to commend or commit)
(d)to pass on traditional instruction
(e)to grant someone the opportunity to do something;to allow or permit.

Now here's the tricky part; Just because the greek word "paradidomi" is used, can we then interpret the parable to say that to "entrust" in the NIV also means to "betray"? No we can't. So how then should we conclude what the real meaning of the word "paradidomi" means in this context? Well, context! In this case, the context of the passage doesn't allow "to betray" as a definition of the greek word.

Hope that helped.
Let me then talk about your theology of healing: you say that disease and sickness are not a part of God's will, but will you agree that God has control over it so it's more appropriate to say that God "allowed" someone to be have cancer?

Then let's bring it to the practical aspect of things: So you believe that every Christian has the holy spirit, so what if a Christian has cancer (any many Christians do die of cancer)? If you say that Jesus died so that they may be healed from their cancer, why do so many Christians die of cancer?

Should we trust you ? after all you did to us ?
Should we trust our faith in your guidance ?
Should we open our life so you can correct us ? should we ?
Should we allow you to lead us ?
Should we allow you to enlighted us ?

a faith as big as mustard seed can move a mountain. Matthew 17:20
a faith not as big as mustard seed, cannot move the mountain.

bible oso say measure of faith Romans 12:3

UW: can i say cuz lack of faith, or perhaps another word: the measure is not fulfilled, therefore cannot move the mountain, therefore cannot rebuke the cancer ?

So you are saying when Peter jumps from the boat, peter do it out of love for Christ, and peter's love produce faith ? is that what u try to say ?

-- correction --

peter jumps from the boat, it's a word that i use to describe event when peter try to walk on the water when Jesus was walking on the water.

In the Garden of Eden, basically Adam would not die.
If you say that God is going to restore what was lost in Eden, and I presume you are meaning this to be material and physical, then basically we should not be sick over here.

Also, you seriously think cancer is only about death? You are always looking at things from the surface.

The thing is, the bible talks about the hope to come
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
So obviously, we have faith that in Heaven, God will definitely provide for us completely. If God has already done that over here, what is there to hope for?

You are always implying that God is going to provide everything right now. So then what is the point of hoping then since we have already receive everything.

The behading done by ISIS is not by God's direct will but God allowed it.
Just like God allowed Satan to make Job suffer and destroy everything Job has.

Even Jesus says explictly that
57 And as they went on the way, a certain man said unto him, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.

58 And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Meaning, it is not going to be easy following Him.

You seriously think that God cannot destroy Satan right now if He wants to?

The way you write, it is as if Man do not have any responsibility.
When Eve and Adam got tempted, most of the responsibility lies with them and not Satan.

To be honest, what you wrote in this post is just laughable. Really.
You can only write what you wrote here. If you wrote what you have written in other places, you would have been scrutinized very heavily.

Again you twist what people say. Decky wasn't saying that cancer was bad or good.
His concern was since we now have access to wholesome health, why are Christians still having cancer?
Only here. Only here.

Hmmm. Seriously, I really do not know why I am still continuing in this.
Help me please Decky.
I am pretty sure you can do that. It's pretty easy. Actually hard because someone seems to not be living in reality consistently twisting what I have said, misrepresenting me and even misinterpreting scriptures and not having any logic. He will do the same thing to you as well.

As I said only here.
If it was other place, he would have got hammered.

Yes, insulting someone is much better then the other person twisting what others say.

Honestly UW, what were you working as before. I really want to know.

So then what is the point of hoping then since we have already receive everything.

I have heard many preacher shared (actually both Protestant and Charismatics) about faith and the impression is that GOD always want to create "roller coaster effect" of waiting of GOD's time.

e.g. somebody pray for a boat to cross the river, but GOD sent a crocodile. Halleluyah the person cross the river in 1 piece but... difficult, nervous, afraid, mixed feelings sure got one .

e.g. one preacher has his house contract expired, let's say in 3 months, but the preacher don't have money for new contract. In indonesia, a house contract is a payment 12 months or 24 months in advance. e.g. a PJ house cost RM2000 monthly, in indonesia get ready to pay RM40k upfront for 2 years contract... no joke... malaysia so nice 

but GOD told him to trust in GOD, nervous..nervous..nervous.. yes suddenly somehow the preacher managed to resolve the problem

--- my question:
why nervous ? my humaninty excuse ? i trust GOD, i love GOD, i have faith and i oso nervous...

can enlight ? tqvm UW

Hello

Well, we *can* agree to disagree on this, but it's an important principle that we need to establish before going on with many scriptural argument. I do understand that it might not be very clear to you because the textbook I'm using takes about 300 pages to establish a very basic understanding of the principles of interpreting the Bible. The best I can do is to point you towards the two books I recommended to you earlier.

"All these are included because When Jesus came, he did all there is. Healing, providing, protecting, Delivering, etc. That is Salvation manifested here on Earth unto Eternal Life in Heaven.
In the Old Testament, God demonstrated He have no problem blessing Abraham, Joseph, Job, David with abundance. So we can safely say, God has no problem with prosperity. If anyone have problem with this, you have problem against God blessing them. "

Yes, no doubt that when Jesus came, he healed the sick and he cast out demons, and my argument is not that healing is impossible today. Remember, what you originally said is that you believe that when Jesus died on the cross, he did it not only for our sins, but for our physical well being on this temporary earth. Also, note the problem in saying that "God blessed Abraham, therefore God can bless me equally too", you can't do that without examining the context of those blessings. Abraham was God's chosen patriach to carry out his great plan of salvation, God promised Abraham countless offsprings, are you going to say that God promises that ALL of us will have countless children as well? God gave Moses the power to perform wonders like splitting the red sea, does it mean that we as Christians can part oceans as well?

But first, I think it's best if I lay out my theology of sickness so that you can understand me with more clarity:
1. Diseases and sicknesses are symptoms of a fallen world. Who's fault is it that we live in a fallen world? Us, humanity. We sinned against God when he created us in his image, we pointed the middle finger at him when He deserved our worship.

Now, I'm training to become a healthcare professional, so I'm gonna use an analogy that I see fitting for this:

When you have a bacterial infection, your immune system sometimes raises the temperature of your body by resetting the hypothalamic thermostat in your brain so that the raised temperature can combat the infection. Now, the fever to you is a bad thing right? So what do you do? You take Panadol (paracetamol) tablets that lower your temperature. It cures the fever, but it doesn't kill the bacteria!
What does that have to do with this? Well, because diseases and sickness are most likely a result of a fallen world, and when Jesus did his ministry here on earth, he healed people and what he was doing was being like "panadol" in the case of a bacterial infection: he was dealing with the effects of sin. It also shows us the compassion of Jesus to the sick and the marginalized. But remember, we're talking about what his death and resurrection accomplished here, not what Jesus did during his time on earth.

The whole Bible has a common theme running from Genesis to Revelations, and a big indicator of what this is in Genesis 3:15, where God lays out the promise to destroy the "snake". And everything that unfolds after that is the build up to how God was going to gloriously defeating evil: By sending His only begotten son to die on the cross so that we may have life.

See, sin is the "infection", and God is his great love for us "Healed" us by taking away our sin on the cross! THAT is the point of the cross, to deal with the underlying problem in our humanity. And that also eventually means that diseases and sickness will pass away, but an essential part of this plan of God is that it's not over. Christ will come back in the last days and he will utterly crush satan and restore creation to it's original state (that's when there is no more sickness and no more suffering). But when Christ died, he died so that dead sinners (Eph 2) can be made alive in Christ!

Therefore, to say that Christ died so that we can have problem free lives is akin to saying that Christ died so that we will be in heaven RIGHT NOW (which we're not).

"Now that Christ came, he is restoring us to what was lost in Eden"

Yes! you yourself said it! He is "restoring" 'and  "restored" are two different things. We are not living on Eden YET. And because we aren't living in the "new jerusalem" (cf Revelations), we cannot expect to be without sickness or death.
Now for the bolded part of your quote:

I think we are in agreement in some parts here but here' what you need to see:

God is sovereign means that he is in control. Was he in control when ISIS was beheading people? Yes he was. Was he in control when Peter, his own disciple, was hung upside down on a cross? Yes he was. Was he in control when the romans beheaded Paul? Yes he was. Is he in control when you get diagnosed with diabetes? Yes he is. Is he in control when your whole family dies in a tragic aircraft crash? Yes he is.

To say that God isn't in control is to imply that God is NOT omnipotent. Even the open theists, who believe that it is impossible for God to know everything believe that he is in control because of his omnipotence.

But you agree with this because you say " God has ordain that it is that's person time to go. All the days of our live is written in God's Book. (Psalm 139:16 )
When it's time, it's time. God can use any way to usher us into Eternal Life, even if the devil wanted to do evil, He can turn it to good. "

EXACTLY! That is just how powerful God is and how the devil can't do anything to "surprise" him. We are told in the Bible that it was the doing of evil men to crucify the Messiah, yet God was so much more in control over the situation that he used this to gloriously demonstrate his great love for us. There are countless examples in the Bible whereby evil acts of men or the devil is used by God and allowed to happen so that God will reveal his glory even more!

That is what is meant when I say that we can trust God in our cancer! If we get cured, praise God! If we die, praise God! Because He knows best!

Think of Nick Vujicic: If you told him that true christianity = Christians who are physically healthy people, he would laugh at you: He prayed for God to give him limbs, but to no avail! And yet God uses him with his condition (we call it a curse because it's a disease) and blesses others with it! God uses Nick's impairment for the furtherance of his kingdom to places that no ordinary missionary would be allowed to go to. I might not agree with everything Nick has to say, but his whole life is an evidence as to why God's priorities isn't physical healing NOW for EVERYONE.

And he's not the only example. There are plenty of people who are diseased and sick, yet God uses them to accomplish his purpose.

So no, Jesus didn't die so that we may have "our best life now" or so that we will recover from any diseases that we are facing. He died because he wants to deal with the most serious problem with the human race: our sinful hearts. Yes, all these bad things will come to past, but not now. Yes, Jesus healed during his ministry on earth, but he didn't DIE so that the whole world may be physically healed.

Also, look at 1 Timothy 5:23 It's just a short statement Paul is saying to his beloved Timothy (Paul's spiritual son): Don't just drink water, drink some wine for your frequent stomach ailments. Notice how Paul, the "super apostle", doesn't say "In the name of Jesus I command your stomach problems to vanish". Why is that?

How to know GOD loves me ?

Of course you should know... the Cross ?

ok fair enough to start, how to increase my knowledge, so my faith can increase as well ?
e.g. faith that malaysia is in the hand of the LORD
e.g. faith of mustard seed size can move then mountain

There is a hidden agenda that i want to use my faith to move the mountain for my own purpose, therefore i asked this question.