Anti-Anti's Modern Prosperendum

ChatGPT Summary of an earlier conversation: ~~Condensed synthesis (organized by the claim being made)~~ Claim. The world copies Christian virtues while severing them from Christ, producing an attractive but fragile morality. Proof. Scripture predicts copy-without-power (Rom 1; 2 Tim 3:5); experience shows collapse under sustained cost. Difference. Grace-rooted identity in Christ, Spirit-empowered endurance, an eternal horizon, and enemy-love mark what mimicry cannot sustain. Method. Publicly tie deeds to Christ’s gospel, practice costly mercy, and teach discernment so the root is as visible as the fruit - thereby restoring the “burning coals” effect that convicts and invites repentance. ~~Thorough summary~~ Problem the doc tackles. You argue that modern culture selectively imitates Christian virtues (kindness, charity, civility) while rejecting Christ as their source. After Christ, it became easier for society to detach “morality” from obedience to God and reuse it for secular ends—pro...

Hebrews 10:26-31 (NLT) Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies. For anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us. For we know the one who said, "I will take revenge. I will pay them back."  He also said, "The LORD will judge his own people." It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. ~~~ This is a fearful passage which some have used to great effect to discourage believers into continui...

It's wrong to stumble your Christian sibling. If she thinks that smoking is sinful, don't smoke in front of her. If he thinks that a demonic practice is held in the local butcher's shop, don't eat meat in front of him, because his conscience will be hardened, and you will have stumbled your brother. That's from the the Bible, in Romans. It's been said from the pulpit that you cannot force feed a Christian to cause growth. You cannot replicate your convictions in your sibling due to this principle. But that saying has grown too wildly out of proportion and taken on new meanings in the fervent telling. We can and should tell our Christian sibling about the benefits of capturing every thought and forcing it to obey Christ! And we can do at least as much as you allow with a therapist, to track down the cause. Just don't be like the naturalist therapist and try to hide the guilt somewhere invisible. Remove the cause, and the effect will go away. We know this. We ...

Consider Psalm 21:8-13. It's very interesting how the World keeps harping on about what we shouldn't say or think, and those things are directly related to God's praise in this Bible passage. It threatens direct harm. It speaks of the children of God's enemies in ways that we have been taught is wrong. So, think about it and wonder what you have believed from the World's teaching which seemed good but is actually opposed to right thinking as revealed in God's Word to us. Our enemies are not our friends, like the World is trying to coerce us into believing. And that coercion is very persuasive, because our Master Jesus told us to love our enemies. But His love burns their heads like hot coals. It's straightforward love to us, though. If we cross the line from doing truly kind things to the World and begin to think of them as our friends or as people we have to win to Christ by compromising the slightest goodness, then we've misunderstood Paul's method...

The people of the World have various methods of living. One, which I paint with the wide brush of "Stoics", sometimes crops up in books, and they mimic some of Christ's attributes. I've noticed it throughout cultures and philosophies of living. The example here takes on a laid-back appearance until they've had enough with whatever is around them, and then they claim that they're full up of that nonsense and lash out. The idea is that they have ultimate control and are rationally responding at the very end of the filling up of the cup of wickedness. Of course, that's what Christ is doing right now, and when He returns, His wrath will be intense and definitive, but He'll have waited with absolute patience in this way. Only when evil has done everything it can do will He make a total end of the World and remake it to rule over Himself for a thousand years. And while that's another conversation, consider for a moment how Christ is the Fountain of Youth...

 We've been made to be repulsed by goodness! If you don't believe Jesus was raised from the dead *in accordance with the Scriptures*, then you're not saved!  If you are friends with your unsaved *family members*, then you are acting like God's enemy. If you commune with the constantly sinning sibling in Christ, then you are sinning, and you are both hurting each other by it. We've been made to be repulsed by God's Word in many ways. Believe Him, and you will slowly change your point of view, learn why these things are good, and come to a viewpoint of strength against falsehood. Wouldn't you like that? There is a ripping apart of communion between communities - that's part of what holiness is, but do we despise it and call it wicked in our minds? Don't let the unbeliever into your gatherings, real Christians in our same Master and Savior, the actual - Jesus of Nazareth, God's Christ, Who is also the one Gods ("Elohim" is plural, you know...

 There's an undercurrent, a blanket expectation, that if someone says something in front of you that's the least bit negative, that its meant to be a grating release of their emotions or something perceived as worthless. If they say it directly to you, this undercurrent drives an instant reaction of defensiveness, because it feels like an attack. But what if it's said with an expectation of objective consideration, even without the pressure of attack to drive it into the open? What if it's only of moderate concern by the speaker? I've heard people say that nobody takes things objectively, but that seems to just be another lesson to keep people from doing so. Analysis can be fatiguing and troubling to the soul, but this kind of communication with each other is a love rarely given, which is a shame. Even if it's hard, a little explanation about intentionality could open the line to communicate very - just highly! - useful information to us when we need it the most...

It's not that God won't listen to those who aren't faithful enough. God doesn't take direction from anybody! He is ABLE to help those who are faithful - read that, "trust HIM". We are not worthy of trust, He is. He is interacting with all of humanity as much as we allow Him to. We are sick and delusional. He is coaxing us with gentle persistence. Even those who are being saved would not be if He didn't mark us out from the beginning and arrange things so we would go to Him!

Here's a strategy to resolve tension between Sin-by-Sin Loss-of-Salvation and easy-believism, and the outgrowth of that tension in more modern times between perceptions of how to preach the gospel and how to meet together. Tell them the truth at the outset, because God brings people to Himself in every case, so it's not us whose demeanor matters concerning salvation. It seems like it matters, because demeanor was a large part of the presentation layer of the earlier problem of Sin-by-Sin hatefulness. Adding in the World's recent push to unify, and love seems to be wrapped up in extreme politeness and in sacrificial giving; it's definitely a hard stance, though, to tell someone the actual gospel - we are alive and they are dead, we know God and they don't, we have the answer for eternal life and they will suffer consciously for a lot longer than their present lives on Earth, and the dividing line is believing 4 things and doing 1 thing in accordance with the Scriptur...