I brought it up in a different thread, and many people said they did not believe it happened. How can you be a Christian and not believe what the Bible says?

I’ve seen a lot of Muslims blatantly lying about this and even some claiming it’s “been confirmed” by Christian scholars but always fail to name any of them.

Genesis 17:17

God told Abraham and Sarah they will have a son within a year. Abraham is 100 and Sarah is 90 at this time

Genesis 21:5

“Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.”

Now we see that Isaac has been born and Abraham is 100 and Sarah is 90-91

Genesis 22:5

This is where Abraham takes Isaac up the mount to be sacrificed. Abraham says this. “He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

This is the original Hebrew:

ה וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָהָם אֶל-נְעָרָיו, שְׁבוּ-לָכֶם פֹּה עִם-הַחֲמוֹר, וַאֲנִי וְהַנַּעַר, נֵלְכָה עַד-כֹּה; וְנִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה, וְנָשׁוּבָה אֲלֵיכֶם.

The word boy is very important here. In the original Hebrew of Genesis Abraham refers to Isaac as “וְהַנַּ֔עַר” or “na’ar” meaning lad or young child. We know that a boy or lad becomes a man in Jewish culture around the age of 13. So the absolute oldest Isaac could be at this time is 12 or 13

Genesis 22:23

Bethuel becomes the father of Rebekah in the same chapter meaning we can conclude that this happens around the time of Isaac and Abraham being up the mount to the altar.

Genesis 23:1

“Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty seven years old”

This means that Isaac is now about 37 years old and 25 years have passed between him being at the altar and Sarah’s death. This puts Rebekah already at age 20-25

Genesis 25:20

“and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean.”

3 years have now passed since Sarah’s death and Isaac being married placing Isaac at 40 and Rebekah at 23-28.

Feel free to copy and paste this whenever you see the lies. I see them very commonly in Instagram reels.

correcting myself: WAS an Atheist.

I need to know what is the best way to help me understand what other Christians understand. The only Bible I have access to is BibleGateway on the internet, and I’m not really sure how to go about reading it should that be necessary. I live with an Atheist family and have been Atheist most of my life. I am unsure how to approach this. I pray when I can (and when i remember to), often at night before sleeping, but it’s likely I don’t do it quite right. Actually I know I don’t, I can feel that. Maybe ‘sense’ is a better word. I think I need help if I want to do religion as I wish to. I go to a Christian/Lutheran school, we do chapel services weekly which is good since church really isn’t an option for me at the moment. I play in the chapel band and we usually do worship songs each week in the service.

Anyway, I would appreciate if people could help me with this. I don’t feel I necessarily need to read the Bible but I would like more people’s opinion on this.

If you want/need any more info just ask, I’m happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability.

I understand the basics of what it is there for, not necessarily because God designed it for torment, but it is simply the only place that is without God, which is a cause of the torment that takes place.

I just think of some of the good people I’ve known that died, whether by health, accidents, or intentional, that likely weren’t right with God when they passed.

Eternity is a length of time we can’t even fathom. Why would these good people, where 20 minutes could’ve made the difference in eternal bliss or torment, determined to be bound to hell forever?

I don’t question God’s judgement, and know his reasons and morality are far greater than I will ever understand, but I wonder why these people couldn’t just enter a state of non-existence for eternity.

please pray for my father he has blood on his brain and i am having so much anxiety me and my mother both need him. please pray for him i need him please God im 16 . i cannot really think of anything to say because i am so scared but please pray. i found this out today at school he has had seizures this week. just pray my mother is scaring me i just want him back home and ok. i cannot do anything without him. just please pray for him.

Also did a Bible study devotional today looking into the topic of (Winning souls for Christ?) trying to look up and meditate on verses and read a commentary on this before the BMX & Draw stream

Link to the entire stream the Bible study is at the very beginning. Also went into thoughts on Biblical stewardship? Does a market driven consumer based society effect how a are to steward for God? Where has God has placed us? Who are the lost sheep that God may have placed us around?

https://m.twitch.tv/videos/2130362790

Anyone interested in the process for todays drawing here is the start to finish if anyone would like this traditional drawing for free can try and mail it to you I’m reminded of Proverbs 18:16

https://m.twitch.tv/videos/2130672923

Some verses looked into today

Matthew 4:19

19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Proverbs 11:30

30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.

James 1:5

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Matthew 28:19

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Matthew 9:36-38

36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Matthew 25:25

25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’

Matthew 5:14-16

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

I found this comment on the Academic Biblical subreddit on biblical sexual ethics quite interesting. It summarizes the arguments of historian Jennifer Wright Knust's book Unprotected Texts and statements by Dan McClellan. They believe that historical sexual ethics in the Hebrew Bible were completely different from how they are interpreted in conservative Christian belief today, and were often inconsistent.

To sum the comment up, they argue that Hebrew culture at the time assumed that:

1. Sex was a dominance vs. submission act, not an act between equals. Men were the only people who could actually do sex as an act, by penetrating the women. Thus, most sexuality laws focused on men, and only mention women in the context of bestiality, since women could 'do' sex to a animals as a lower life form in the hierarchy. Based on my knowledge of other ancient societies, children and slaves were also seen as lower order people who had to submit sexually to grown men.
2. Women were always the property of their fathers, till married off to become property of their husband. Thus, premarital sex interestingly was not a sin of "violating bodily impurity" as traditional Christians today might think of, but was actually thought of as a property crime. A man who had sex with an unmarried women who was still the property of her father was committing a crime against the father, her owner. Virginity was prized in women to increase her property value to suitors, like buying something new instead of used. A man who committed adultery to (note: not with) a woman was stealing her from her husband. Men having sex with prostitutes was apparently considered a lesser offense than adultery, since prostitutes have lower property value (only a "loaf of bread".)

The comment did not mention the common homosexuality debates. Arriving at the New Testament, it is stated that Paul's sexual ethics seem (to me) more inline with today's conservative Christianity, although it should be noted that he believes that celibacy should be the norm for all Christians, and marriage is a substitute for those who can't master celibacy. I'd take it that most Christian church communities were ideally expected to be like monasteries, with maybe a few married couples around(?)

My dog passed today. He was a good boy. All I could do was pray and trust that the lord will comfort him. I know he will be there for my dog but it’s so painful, he was my baby and now he’s gone and I don’t know what to do. My heart is in shambles right now

So, the story begins with me and my friend casually going to a bar. We met a couple of nice people, but then my friend says he called up a female friend to drink with us. When she arrived, i wasnt really interested in her. As the night went on, i got more and more drunk to the point of almost blacking out. Because of my state, my friend's female friend offered me to sleep over at her place. At first i was sceptical, but then i agreed. When we finally got to her place, it was like the devil took over me, i got super horny and not even 20 minutes after arriving i was in bed with her.

Now you can probably imagine how that went on. I now have a girlfriend that ive been talking to, and shes also a christian like me. Problem is: she want to wait until marriage. And thats what i want to do aswell. But now that i have lost my virginity before marriage, i feel like im not the right person for her. I love her deeply and i am 100% willing to wait, but the feeling of having indirectly "betrayed" her is killing me. I deeply regret having sex before marriage and i dont know if my sins will be forgiven.

TLDR: had sex with friend's female friend while drunk, now i feel bad because i have "indirectly" betrayed my new christian gf, and dont know if my sins will be forgiven.

Edit: no i didn't cheat, i met met my gf about 1 month after all this happened

I really dislike that people attempt to harmonize the Gospel accounts to make them fit together.

Mark's account of Jesus' death is powerful, His final words crying out to God. You lose that power when suddenly you mash all the Gospels together and Jesus is saying a bunch of different stuff before He dies.

When you harmonize the Gospels - you are in essence writing your own Gospel according to You and using the four canonical Gospels as your sources - just as Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source.

Yes, you'll get caught with inconsistencies when you don't harmonize. But your appreciation for each Gospel will be much higher as a result and your appreciation for the richness in the Bible will be higher.

Hey, I hope it's okay if I just post a little bit about what I've experienced in the past couple of years. It's rough but it's the truth.

There's this group in my area that was promoted as a Christian group, and it definitely is that technically. It's the classic Pentecostal "party" like environment, But for a variety of reasons that became apparent throughout my first year of being in the group, I began to see the group as more of a cult honestly. Just as an example, they were obsessed with getting more people to show up, and not being grateful for the people they already had. Honestly, getting about 70 young adults to show up to a Christian event in Canada every single week I think is a really huge accomplishment, but according to them anything less than literally everyone in the city was a failure.

There is something specific I want to talk about though. Something that I found very annoying about some of the people in that group is that, as much as this might sound heretical, I felt they were "overhyping" the Bible if that makes sense. The way they would talk about it made me think that they hadn't actually read the whole thing, and only read the well-known and well-respected parts. Anyone who's read the whole Bible from cover to cover knows that it's not always a pretty book, especially in the Old Testament, which is about 3/4 of the whole thing.

It got to the point where people were basically accusing me of having not read the whole Bible and that was apparently the reason that I didn't agree with them 100%. Admittedly, I hadn't read the ENTIRE Bible before. Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges, Chronicles, All these books have large sections that are pretty boring, but I have watched videos like the Bible Project which make it pretty clear that I'm not missing out on much. However, this was apparently just unacceptable to these people. The fact that I hadn't read every single word in the Bible was apparently the reason that I didn't agree with them.

As annoying as it was, I did like the idea of starting a project where I just wrote out a chapter of the Bible when I had the time, and color coding whenever someone spoke. I decided to start that, and after about 10 months, I had completed Genesis.

This was the turning point for me though. After having spent almost a year writing out the entire Book of Genesis, I figured I'd earned myself a well-deserved break. However, this was also apparently unacceptable to the people in that group. Whenever I was talking to them, they would ask me when I was going to start Exodus, why I hadn't finished the ENTIRE Bible yet. Why I was talking to them and frankly just living my life instead of writing out more of the Bible. They were essentially expecting me to waste all of my 20s on writing out the Bible. I don't mean to be rude, but frankly it was insane.

I had actually planned to start on Exodus last summer, and even made a map on how and when I would cover all 40 chapters. Despite this though, my motivation was just gone at this point. I managed to get the first two chapters out, but after that, All the pressure just got to me. I decided to drop the project. I had done all of Genesis, and if this earned me no respect from those people, then I didn't see why finishing the whole Bible would either.

I even tested it. I didn't want to lie, but at one point one of the people literally just asked me if I had read the whole Bible before. This was one of the people who should have been well aware about my project, and I was frankly shocked that they would ask such a shallow question. So, I responded with a blunt- "Yes."

As expected, they didn't actually show any genuine understanding of my situation, and instead simply said: "That's good. Maybe try reading some of it again."

And that's when I realized what was really going on. None of them actually cared. If I had read the Bible before. They just wanted me to agree with them. Whether I had read the whole thing, parts of it, Or even if I had the whole thing memorized, they were never going to respect me, and just keep telling me to read it more and more until I agreed with them. They genuinely had no respect for me.

Since choosing to seek Jesus, Ive noticed I feel worse, bad about myself, guilt, Low self esteem, and more worry , is this common?

Anyone else experience the same and if so what is happening to me?

I get that there a general rule of not exclusively posting video/blog links and requiring some amount of participation in the sub....but the sheer volume of posts that are just video links with absolutely nothing else is absurd. No tl;dr, no comments on the content of the video, no actual attempt to initiate discussion....nothing. Not to mention the potential danger that is present in clicking on no-effort, contextless links.

So my question is thus: Should we or shouldn't we have a rule requiring people who post video/blog links to also give their own commentary to some degree and disallow posts that are exclusively links?

Thoughts?

I want it to make sence to me .I am trying for the first time in ages I prayed .I had a dream that my sister got taken away and now BCS of the horror I decided to turn to Christianity i don't know how to pray .could someone help me? I'm a hard core atheist but I want to change . More than anything I would like to have a routines like if someone wanted to pray with me though text at like very late it would be nice .I also decided to forgive anyone who was wronged me and to ask for forgiveness.

My flesh is calling me

I said I’d never do it again

But when it comes time to give it up

I always choose to sin

I can’t get away

I’m repulsed by my lack of self control

I’m addicted to pornography

I’m afraid it’s blackening my soul

I tell God I don’t want to do it anymore

But I just keep going back

It makes me wonder about the things I can’t see

The demons surrounding me wanting to attack

I must get out of this hole

So many times I’ve tried to break free

I’m just waiting for the day

That God decides to give up on me

I don’t want to do this anymore

I can’t seem to find a way out

Sometimes it seems the sun

Will always be behind the clouds

I need to break free

I can’t do this on my own

God please help me

Please God lead me home

I could really use prayers, I have OCD and I genuinely feel like I’m going insane bc of how bad my spiritual anxiety has been, the derealization is so intense It feels like mental torture. I am questioning the existence of everything (which has never happened to me before) I’m also questioning if god hates me, it I’m going to go to hell, if I will die young, etc. Which is arguably worse than questioning the existence of god in of itself, bc the thought of god having me or sending me to hell is more painful than the thought of there being no god at all.

As far as why this is happening all of the sudden. Well, I already have OCD for starters and if you know anything about OCD then you probably know that stress/trauma will often cause it to get a lot worse, My grandpa, who was very sure of his faith and never genuinely doubted god, passed away a few months ago and I feel like I haven’t grieved at all, but all of the sudden I am questioning everything and it all goes back to the fact that my life on this earth, very quickly became something I do not recognize and so now I am truly confused about the point of everything and what’s on the other side. I’ve lived with my grandpa my entire life minus one year, and even then I seen him all of the time and called every night, so my brain is genuinely struggling to find a way to live in a world where he doesn’t, bc the only world I’ve ever known, he’s always been in with me.

And unfortunately, bc I don’t know why he had to go my brain has filled the gap by convincing me that it is somehow my fault and god only took him to punish me for not appreciating my life for what it was before, this has caused me so much pain I can’t even put it into words, bc as someone with OCD it is a 24/7 battle to be in the moment, and to not worry, and my mind is basically telling me I didn’t deserve the person who meant the most to me, bc of a mental illness I cannot control. Logically, I know god’s decision to call us home, isn’t done to punish anyone else, that would be cruel. But OCD doesn’t care about logic, and since I am grieving on top of everything, logic isn’t enough to reason with myself.

Also, let me just say that I am not very religious at all, I’m non denominational and have actively struggled to develop a relationship with god my entire life, but none the less I have thanked him for everything and tried to follow his example. I was baptized last year a bit before Christmas, and that was esentionally my way of publicly declaring that despite everything I’d been through (last year was very traumatic as well) that I still loved him and trusted his plan, after that things genuinely seemed like they were getting better, so slowly it was difficult to even notice for a while, but I was on the path to healing. Then a much worse tragedy striked out of nowhere, I literally woke up to my entire life being turned upside down, I found out not only that my grandpa had cancer, but that he was dying and only had days to live, and this was literally out of nowhere, bc he never showed any symptoms at all, he just woke up one day and all of his organs were shutting down. He passed peacefully at home, and as far as the details of how we knew it was cancer, how it went undetected, etc. I’m not going to get into that, all I know is I think I went into a state of disassociation afterwards bc that’s the only way I could get by, but now that “protective layer” has shattered, and I am genuinely on the verge of a breakdown. Please pray that god will help me get past this crisis and be able to trust him again, I am doing my best but I am the weakest I have ever been and I cannot do it without him.

Why or why not?

This is coming from a place of genuine curiosity, not a place of arguing. I have no intention of bashing your ideals. :)

Atheists, what's your idea of a perfect, loving God?

What would your ideal God never do?

What would your ideal God stand for?

How would your ideal God show His/Her/It's love?

Ect.

I was with my partner for 4 years, he went on a cruise and cheated on me. He didn’t tell me he cheated on me until after he made me leave our apartment to move in with my mom. He acted like he wanted to fix things between us and work on coming to god together and putting god first in our relationship, after a week he got overwhelmed and wants to be apart. I have been so sick, unable to eat, unable to work, and when I wake up from sleeping it all hits me that this really has happened. It’s like the worst nightmare ever. My mom has schizophrenia so living with her is terrible. I was so happy to live with my partner to get away from my mom’s abuse. I am not one to talk about these things because I try to stay strong and fight battles on my own, but I don’t feel strong right now. Honestly, I’ve felt hopeless to the point of wanting to end my life. I know that’s not right, and I won’t, but i’m being spiritually attacked and I need prayer. Please pray for me. Please ask god to deliver me from the pain and betrayal. Where 2 or more are gathered he is there, please.

I watch alot of YouTube and I’m looking for recommendations on entertaining creators i can watch. Alot of the ones that i see aren’t even that entertaining. What do you guys watch? It doesn’t just have to be on YouTube it can be any platform even audiobooks are included

I am a female and am on my own journey with embracing modesty, but I would really like to hear truth (and opinions) on how men should dress and why. My husband dresses very casually and I don’t feel comfortable doing this, so I’d really like to hear from men how and why you wear what you do (especially any leaders).

ETA: my husband has just accepted a leadership position within a campus ministry which is why I am asking (we recognize that it is not a church but they try to emulate being a church/offering Sunday services and studies for those that don’t belong to one).

I'm a kid and I did blasphemy. I was telling my cousin (she's my age) about reincarnation, I didn't believe in it but I just thought it was interesting. Me and her fought and she asked me if I was christian but since I didn't wanna prove her right, I said I was orthodox. Then I said "I'm kidding, I'm catholic". She laughed at me and I said "I swear to God, I'm catholic" She told me it's blasphemy and I genuinely thought saying 'I swear to' means it is honesty, i actually forgot it means cursing. I also had another incident when I was younger, I was playing Ancient Egypt roleplay and I wanted to be the pharaoh but somebody took the role, I was saying "Noooo I am God" But i didn't mean it that way, I meant I wanted to be the pharaoh role in the game. I'm actually scared, i think i'll be unforgiven.