Holy Ghost
All posts tagged Holy Ghost
2Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
With USA banks defaulting it is assuring to know God’s Bank will never default.
“That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” (2 Timothy 1:14)
‘The good thing that Paul referred to surely involves God’s “gift” that young Timothy was given as he entered the ministry. All gifts include the gift of “power, and of love, and of a sound mind” that God has given to all of us (2 Timothy 1:7). The Holy Spirit deposited that gift in us, and we are expected to guard it through the same Holy Spirit.
The action and responsibility are ours. The means by which we obey is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, who entered our bodies at the time of our salvation (1 Corinthians 6:19). That unique down payment of the triune Godhead (Ephesians 1:14) made it possible for us to keep the good with which He entrusted us. The breadth of God’s gift to us is beyond imagining, but there are a few insights that may help us understand His bounty.
In the most broad perspective, we are given “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 13:11). That gift requires that we be given “the mind of Christ” so that we may grasp these great spiritual truths (1 Corinthians 2:16). The deposit that God placed with us is not a leap in IQ or mental ability. It is truly a “new man” that God has empowered to be “renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Colossians 3:10).
But this great spiritual capacity must be guarded. There is no guarantee of spiritual wisdom this side of eternity. We must beware “lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8). God has made it possible for us to gain the wisdom of holiness so “that [we] might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). HMM III’https://www.icr.org/article/13993/
1Corinthians 13:8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;
1Corinthians 14:23 If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?
1Corinthians 14:40 Let all things be done decently and in order.
1Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils
‘Why do evangelical scholars fail in their efforts to respond to Bart Ehrman? Jeff Riddle offers a lecture on applied apologetics by focusing on Bart Ehrman’s contribution to the field of modern textual criticism…’
This is a follow up story to an earlier one that sadly occurs all too often.
‘MACON, Ga. — A Georgia man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in February to sexually assaulting a girl while a missionary in Uganda.
U.S. District Judge Marc. T. Treadwell sentenced Eric Tuininga, 45, of Milledgeville last week. He was ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution and spend a lifetime on supervised release as a registered sex offender after getting out of prison.
Tuininga previously working as a minister at Immanuel’s Reformed Church in Salem.
Prosecutors have said that an American citizen had contacted the U.S. embassy in Kampala, Uganda, in June 2019 to tell officials that Tuininga was having sex with Ugandan girls as young as 14 who were under the care of the U.S.-based Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Mbale, Uganda.
Tuininga was one of the church’s ministers. Authorities said they found Tuininga had already returned to the United States, but federal agents identified the minor and kept investigating. Tuininga admitted to the conduct, with prosecutors saying he told them that the victim would often visit the church property in Mbale.
The recommended sentence for Tuininga was seven to nine years, The Telegraph of Macon reported. But Treadwell sentenced him to a decade in federal prison after hearing testimony from the victim’s caretaker and some of Tuininga’s family members. Tuininga’s defense attorney had objected to some of the evidence at sentencing and requested a sentence of five years.
“I want to recognize the true bravery displayed by the Ugandan girl for speaking out when she was assaulted by a trusted person of power from another country, courageously seeking justice across continents,” U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary said in a statement. “Law enforcement — both abroad and here at home — took on a challenging international case.”
Mark Bube, general secretary of the denomination’s committee of foreign missions, has said Tuininga’s misconduct was reported by other Orthodox Presbyterian missionaries in Uganda and that he was removed from missionary work in 2019. Bube said Tuininga was later removed entirely from ministry and excommunicated from the church based in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
Tuininga joined the church from a separate but affiliated denomination in Oregon. A website chronicling Tuininga’s work in Uganda said he began working there in 2012 after working at Immanuel’s Reformed Church in Salem.’https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-salem-minister-gets-10-173910997.html
Dr. E. F. Hills was a defender of the Words of the Living God. This link is to his defense of the woman taken in adultery https://www.textandtranslation.org/ef-hills-woman-caught-in-adultery/. Be assured you can trust your Authorized Bible as the very preserved Words of the Living God.
‘What chapter or verse of the Bible says there will be 27 books of the New Testament? Of course, none. Where does it say what the 27 books will be? Again, of course, none. How then do we know what are the 27 books of the New Testament?
When we read the New Testament, we open about two-thirds of the way through the Bible to that title page that says “New Testament” on it. The churches that received scripture were not sent such a copy. The New Testament did not come to churches with a cover page, stating, “New Testament,” and behind it 27 books.
Churches acknowledged and copied inspired books. They treated them as though they were inspired. They passed them from church to church and read then in churches. Before copies wore out, they were copied again to preserve them for the future.
The scriptural doctrine of which I speak concerning canonicity proceeds from the Bible itself. Through the inward testimony of the Spirit, regenerate, immersed church members distinguish between words which man’s wisdom teaches and those of and from the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:13-25). God gave His inspired Words to the apostles or the inspired human authors according to the plan of the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit (John 14:26, 15:26, 17:8, 14; Gal 1:11-12). True believers led by the Spirit would know the things written were the words of God (1 Corinthians 14:37). The same Holy Spirit who had regenerated, indwelt, and filled them would testify to the words.
The testimony or witness of books of the New Testament arises from the promise of words. They knew Paul’s epistles were scripture like the Old Testament (2 Peter 3:16), but they were guided to inspired words. The epistles or books were an implication of received words. The Lord gave unto them “words” and they “received them” (John 17:8; cf. 12:48, Acts 2:41, 1 Thess 2:13).
Revelation 22:18-19 read:
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
The Apostle John testifies to a completed book of Revelation. He speaks of “the words of the prophecy of this book.” He confirms a settled, completed, perfect text of words. One could only add or take away words from a book with a settled text. His instruction assumes the precision of the text and continued knowledge of it. No one could obey this command without standardized words.
God’s people will know what His Words are and receive them. That is how they knew and know the twenty-seven books. God intervenes through His Spirit in His churches to receive His Words and, therefore, His Books. History confirms this teaching. The nature of God’s Word is that when God says He will do something, He does it. His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. They believe what He says. They have.
Through the history of the Lord’s churches, they believed the biblical doctrine of canonicity or the preservation of the text and books of the New Testament. Errors were made in copies, what are most often called variants today. God did not promise to preserve copies. Believers do not receive copies. They receive “words.” They identify words. True churches assume a settled text. They have.
The Lord’s churches now call the text, the words and books, received and passed down from one generation to the next by the work of the Holy Spirit, the received, traditional, ecclesiastical, or standardized text. By “traditional,” they mean it like Paul used it in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” It is an ecclesiastical text, because churches received it. Some today call this a “confessional bibliology,” because it reflects the historical belief of churches and so written down in confessions.
Scripture is scientific. If God says it, it is true and it is knowledge. It is the pure mother’s milk without variableness or shadow of turning (1 Peter 2:2, James 1:17). Everything God says is true and is the standard for truth (John 17:17). God repudiates rejection of what He said for so-called science or for experience. We have a more sure word of prophecy (2 Peter 1:19-21).
The Lord’s churches received the text still received by His churches before the invention of the printing press. With the invention of the printing press in 1440, they printed that text in the 16th century. They continued to receive it for centuries. These people translated from it into other languages. They preached sermons from it in churches and wrote commentaries and other books from it or based upon it. We have all of this record.
No one should add to or take away from the settled text of the New Testament. This contradicts the teaching of the New Testament about itself. No one should assume and then believe God’s Words were lost and in need of restoration. This violates scripture. This hurts the faith.
Professing believers today do not know the New Testament by science. They do not know it by probability. God’s people do not know it by rules of textual criticism. They do not know it by intelligibility. The people of God know it by the testimony of the Holy Spirit through history or through the preceding centuries through the Lord’s churches. They should reject any other teaching or way. These are heretical ways that distort or veer from the already received and established scriptural bibliology.https://kentbrandenburg.com/2022/06/22/how-do-we-know-what-the-new-testament-is/
“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:13-14)
‘From very ancient times it has been the custom to confirm and guarantee an agreed-on purchase by sealing the contract with a seal that could only be broken by the buyer when he was ready to take possession of his purchase.
The marvelous transaction seen by John at God’s throne in heaven was in reference to this practice. There, only the Lamb is found worthy to open the seven-sealed scroll on which is recorded the title to the whole creation. “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the [scroll], and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Revelation 5:9). The purchase price had been paid on Calvary, and the resurrected Lamb had come to claim His possession.
And we are part of that possession! The price has been paid for our redemption from sin’s bondage, but we have not yet entered on the inheritance which our great Redeemer has promised us. In the meantime, our individual title deed, as it were, has been sealed by none other than the Holy Spirit. He is not only the seal, but also the “earnest”—that is, the down payment, the earnest money—who guarantees the total “redemption of the purchased possession.”
His personal presence in our lives is our assurance that the full promise will be fulfilled, and we are urged to “grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). He “hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:22).’https://www.icr.org/article/12910/?utm_source=phplist9517&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=August+21+-+Sealed+by+the+Holy+Spirit
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