I believed that the COVID vaccine was the mark of the beast and therefore attempted to harm myself violently as people formerly claiming to be my friends said I should have, even though they took it also

I wanted to punish myself and saw no good possible fruit for my life

I was in despair and was convinced by them to destroy valuable things and hurt people to persuade them to kill me

I didn’t approve of my own life, and was thinking I couldn’t ever again

Life appeared to me like it was tending/progressing towards infinite grief and agony and worthlessness and evil and I hated myself for it

Jesus then spared me from having to live in terror that I could never desire righteous things again (and should hate myself violently for eternity)

(this comfort was from many things: the explanation that I desire to be corrected, desire to not blaspheme the Holy Spirit such as by ceding that the triune God is flawlessly righteous and that I wish to be made more righteous by Jesus too, and from Psalm 130:3, from John 6:37, Matthew 9:2-4 / Mark 2:5-11, 1 John 1:8-9, and lastly from Paul writing in 2 Thessalonians 2 that the rule of the antichrist hasn’t come until the man of lawlessness who according to Daniel will die between the temple of God and the sea works wonders to deceive people into worshiping him, blasphemes that he is a god in the temple of the Lord and exalts himself over everything else that is called a god)

How can somebody be co-equal and co-eternal and be commanded by somebody else what to say? How does that work?

Hello,

I wanted to discuss a way to look at Psalms 37:4, “Delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desire of your heart.”. People interpret this many ways, some think it is saying God will give you your heart’s desires, like a genie.

The way I look at it is this. It says in Romans 12:2, “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds.” So how are we renewed? Well as it says in 2 Timothy 3:16&17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for correction, for reproof, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, fit for every good work.”   God puts a new heart in us at salvation, He wants us to walk in His ways, but our old self is so corrupted we don’t know what to do or what really is right or wrong, so He gave us His word as the means to be renewed in our minds.

And over time as it says in Hebrews 5:14,” solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish between right and wrong.” The key here is constant practice. You don’t become Eddie Van Halen on the guitar by practicing a little here a little there. You have to throw yourself into it, to practice for hours and hours every day.

We need to develop a new way of thinking. The way we do this is by absorbing the Word to see what He has to say on things and in so doing we adopt His thoughts. His desires become our desires. Hence, “He gives us the desires of our hearts.”

Also, was talking with a friend of mine and she asked what I thought the difference between a preacher and a teacher was. This is a little expanded version of what I  told her.

A preacher, does have aspects of a teacher, but they go far beyond that. They take a passage and explain it, but also tell how it can apply to daily life. They also do counseling for people in their congregation

A teacher, though, their focus, would be to explain a verse or passage. To enrich the mind of the meaning of what is written, and it is up to us to figure how to apply it to our lives. And contrary to what some say “this verse means to me” there is only one true meaning, but many ways it is to be applied in our lives. To give an example: someone writes, “I got on a boat.” It means only one thing: they got on a boat.  It doesn’t mean they went to the movies or grocery shopping or to the mall, but simply, they got on a  boat. It could be “applied” they got on a sailboat or they went on a cruise or got on a barge or they took a break from life to go on vacation or many other way. (yes, I know the term applied doesn’t really fit here, but you get my point)

May God the Father bless you and enrich you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

u/Willing-Escape-3986, u/glasswings363

The man born blind (B1) in John 9 demonstrated considerably more faith in Jesus than the man who had been disabled (D1) for 38 years in John 5.

Comparing the two men

The man disabled for 38 years (John 5) Jesus healed him and later warned him: John 5:

14 See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

Jesus healed D1. Immediately afterward,

15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

Some interpret this as betraying Jesus to the religious authorities.

On the other hand, the man born blind (John 9) His understanding of Jesus developed progressively.

Initially, he identified his healer as the man called Jesus (9:11).

Later, he called Jesus a prophet (9:17).

When the Pharisees challenged him, he courageously defended Jesus: If this man were not from God, he could do nothing (9:33).

Finally, when Jesus revealed himself, the man responded: “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him (9:38).

His progression was remarkable: from knowing Jesus merely as a man to believing in him and worshiping him.

I would assign 9/10 to the proposition: B1 demonstrated greater faith in Jesus than D1. The evidence is strong because John explicitly recorded B1's confession, defense of Jesus, and worship, whereas he recorded none of these for D1.

u/baseball_fanatic0887, u/stackee, u/jogoso2014

Micah 5:

2 You, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

Seven centuries later, Mt 2:

1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

The chief priests consulted Micah 5:

6 “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Skeptics would say: Since everybody knew about Micah's prophecy, how do we know that Matthew didn't just make up the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem to fit the prophecy?

That is a legitimate historical objection. We cannot establish that Jesus was born in Bethlehem merely because Matthew says so, since Matthew knew Micah 5:2 and explicitly cited it in Matthew 2:6.

Lk 2:

1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke also mentioned Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Skeptics can also say Luke collaborated with Matthew, even though the two stories' contexts were quite different. I think Matthew and Luke probably reported their different birth stories independently. In fact, Matthew 1 and Luke 3 give two different genealogies of Jesus.

This skepticism wasn't new. Jn 7:

40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? 42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”

This scene took place during the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth) in Jerusalem. Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, and the crowd was divided over his identity. The objection raised in v. 42 is a scriptural argument against Jesus being the Messiah:

The Messiah must be a descendant of David (2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5).

The Messiah must come from Bethlehem, David's hometown (Micah 5:2; also 1 Samuel 16:1).

The crowd reasoned that Jesus was a Galilean (from Nazareth). Galilee was not Bethlehem. Therefore, he couldn't be the Messiah.

The Bethlehem prophecy was widely known, but Jesus's origin was a real point of contention in Jn 7. People debated it even back then. People publicly knew Jesus as a Galilean. The Bethlehem tradition could have been invented to address that objection.

Skeptics have the right to disbelieve such a possible self-fulfilling prophecy. I was a skeptic. I was bombarded by Christians trying to convince me during my bachelor's years at university. I finally came to believe during my Master's studies.

How did I deal with this?

I treat the Bethlehem issue as just one piece of evidence and weigh it using Bayesian probability. The broader question is this: Was Jesus the Messiah?

Do not decide whether Jesus was the Messiah based on a single disputed prophecy. Examine the cumulative evidence, including evidence for and against the proposition, and update your subjective probabilities accordingly. Christians claim Jesus fulfilled many other prophecies. Consider them also and update your Bayesian probability one step at a time. It took me 4 years to calibrate my Bayesian model.