Dikaios1517

About to do some back-porch hammock reading for one of my seminary classes. #Reformed #Christian #Presbyterian #catholic

The Zionist and the Kinist are alike undone by the biblical answer to a single question: Who are those who may rightly be counted as children of Abraham? The answer is, all who share the same faith that Abraham had are his legitimate offspring, which includes faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the promised Christ that Abraham trusted God would provide. (Galatians 3, especially verses 7, 16, and 29. "And if you are Christ's, THEN you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." (Gal. 3:29) The inverse would also be true: If you are NOT Christ's, then you are NOT Abraham's offspring, and are not heirs. This undoes the Zionist, because it means that so-called Israel of today is no people of God whatsoever, except those who rest and trust in Christ. Therefore, they have no claim on the promises of God made to Abraham. Only the Church does. This likewise undoes the kinist, because it means that everyone in Christ are to be considered "kin" in the only way that matters, by sharing the same faith as Abraham, united to one another through unity with Christ. #Reformed #Christian #catholic

Additional correct answers: I did. Saving me, among the rest of God's elect, from the just penalty for sin is the mission that necessitated the cross. God did. In and through the actions of the Romans, Pilate, and the Jews was God's providential hand, orchestrating it all for his glory and our good. (Acts 4:27 & 28) nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqdtgwhlaw2dsdm45c8t6wzslw5qyt5r8waxjrs86llj272ledghgqy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uq3qamnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wd4hk6tcqypp5vvfs2gs9n3afexa00yxfjzq5sxg0yg09zng0llvunlt5jntg20vlgzl

What was my impetus for returning to finish my seminary education? There were several contributing factors, but this is certainly one of them: > "At the time of writing, the OPC's list of vacant pulpits has twenty-nine openings–about one-tenth of all OPC congregations and the highest number in several decades... Our brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church in America have calculated a need for 220 new ministerial candidates _annually_ over the next ten years... Twenty percent of the pulpits in the United Reformed Church are vacant. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church, with over 600 congregations, reports that nearly 50 percent of its ministers plan to retire in the next five years." - New Horizons Magazine, July 2025. Article by David S Veldkamp, titled 'The Laborers Are Few: Addressing Needs in the OPC and Beyond' This is not good for maintaining the purity of the church. Desperation for ministers may cause churches to settle for men who are not firmly rooted in Scripture and the Reformed system of doctrine, as summarized in the Reformed confessions and catechisms. Where once presbyteries would not allow exceptions to the doctrinal standards, they may begin to look the other way, to get a long vacant pulpit filled, because there just aren't any better candidates available. Without solid men willing to step up and answer the call, this situation could be a recipe for some previously faithful Reformed denominations to slip toward liberalism, which some could argue is already happening as we speak. #Reformed #Christian #catholic

Ok, I think I am liking this version best. Some folks liked the horizontal, rather than angled, keys. They bugged me more and more as I looked at them, though. I also felt like having the drop-shadow on "is only a key-pair away" was a bit too busy, and removing it makes "FREEDOM" pop even more, which is what I am going for. nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpde8f55w86vrhaeqmd955y4rraw8aunzxgxstsj7eyzgntyev2xtqy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qgswaehxw309ahx7um5wghx6mmd9uqzqythfgmpm9ujlpydkc0t8h40h5ehqj46ve689hdc9xvn6pjc533lr6uhjm #Bitcoin #Nostr

Another alternative. We'll call this one "C." nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpde8f55w86vrhaeqmd955y4rraw8aunzxgxstsj7eyzgntyev2xtqydhwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnzwf5kw6r5vfhkcapwdejhgtcpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7qpq7cvm7rkkswp5tqt48cu3le3r2xk2wghhgcmgp0rrry89qc4vrhyswh3xem #Bitcoin #Nostr

Ok #Bitcoin and #Nostr friends. Which do you like better? A. B.

Love and God's law are not antithetical. They are synonymous. > And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. - 2 John 1:6 The first table of God's moral law: > "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." - Matthew 22:33-38 (Jesus quoting Deuteronomy 6:5) What does that look like? > And God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before me. > "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. > "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. > "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." - Exodus 20:1-11 The second table of God's moral law: > And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." - Matthew 22:39-40 And what does that look like? > "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. > "You shall not murder. > "You shall not commit adultery. > "You shall not steal. > "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. > "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's." - Exodus 20:12-17

Still the best client on iOS in my opinion. nostr:nevent1qqsx73ul988ahutfz6ej5e3qy5wx6veac7wp2wh6jpfwq03hpr4dq3sppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgsfhc97plq8j4yzxv33v98yu8hunu5tpkeesqg7lmk0qhl9wrja6vcrqsqqqqqpyz6xmv

To expand on this a bit, one of the particular passages used for why Christians "must" support the current state masquerading as "Israel" is Genesis 12:2-3, in which God says to Abram, before his name was changed to Abraham: > "I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Therefore they see a danger in cursing Israel, since they are presumably Abraham's descendants, who inherit the promises made to him, and those who curse them will themselves be cursed. This, of course, ignores two important principles: 1. Inclusion in God's covenant with Abraham has ALWAYS been on the basis of sharing the same faith Abraham had, and not by birthright. Consider Ishmael and Esau as pointed out by Paul in Romans 9 and consider Christ's words to the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 3:8-9: > "Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones." While there is definitely a generational inheritance aspect to the covenant of God, it is NOT an automatic and universal inheritance that disregards faith, and especially since messiah has come, it is not without submission to and faith in Jesus Christ. 2. Those unfaithful who were descended from Abraham by blood were specifically called by Christ "children of your father, the devil" in contrast to their claim of being children of Abraham. We see this very plainly in Jesus' teaching in John 8. Here he says to "those Jews who believed him" (verse 31): > "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Shortly thereafter, in verse 39, some unbelieving Jews answered him saying, “Abraham is our father," as though that should be the end of the matter. What is Jesus answer to this? He tells them they are no children of Abraham, and they prove it by their actions. > "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this." He goes farther, telling them who their true father is in verse 44: > "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do." So, the Jews who reject Christ, like the ones who put him to death, have no rightful claim to be called "children of Abraham," or heirs of the promises made to him. Rather, they are children of the devil, according to Christ himself, whom are later called "the synagogue of Satan" in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. True Israel, God's covenant people, is synonymous with the Christian church, firmly holding to the teaching of the Apostles and the Prophets, and none other. The rest are no sons of Abraham whatsoever, but are of their father, the devil. nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpde8f55w86vrhaeqmd955y4rraw8aunzxgxstsj7eyzgntyev2xtqyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsqgyhxpltury3j5xrsg83tj2ets4n5mswtvgjcqztsd8w2hjk22gsl54rtzu7

Dispensationalism, that's why. nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzp3l2mncdqdv476qsq0gq2vnxw2w4fzpygns838vq65umdpuzretzqyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnddakj7qgwwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkctcqyz2d7sgk9lqma4yv5e6540fuep4mrs8620rfgket2uv4kee2v57yk0e39pu Dispensationalism is a way of interpreting the Bible that sees (among other things) the promises God made to Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, and 17 as properly belonging only to the Jews as an ethnic people, and therefore they are seen as God's true covenant people, while the New Testament Church is seen as an historical parenthesis. God will therefore eventually take up fulfilling his promises to his true covenant people, the Jews, once he is finished with his plan for the Church. This teaching is directly contradictory to the teaching of the Apostles, who expressly applied the promises made to Abraham to the New Testament Church. See Acts 2:39 as a repetition of God's promise in Genesis 17:7-8, but expanded to include "all who are far off," that is Gentiles who would come to faith in the Messiah. Likewise, Paul tells the church in Rome that they are children of Abraham by sharing in the same faith that Abraham had in Romans 4, especially verses 9-17. Paul repeats this teaching even more explicitly in Galatians 3:5-9, where he says: > "Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith--just as Abraham "believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith." The final nail in the coffin of the Dispensationalist's improper hermeneutic, in my opinion, is found in Romans 9, though. There Paul describes the nature of the relation of the Gentiles who are coming to faith in Jesus to those Jews who apostatize by rejecting him. The description is that of an olive tree, where the natural branches that reject Christ are cut off, while the wild branches (Gentiles) are grafted in. Into what? Into "Israel," as he calls it in verse 26. Gentiles who come to faith are grafted into Israel, God's covenant people, and Jews who reject Jesus are cut off. They no longer have any claim on the promises made to Abraham and no right to call themselves God's people whatsoever. In order to regain that claim, they must come to faith in the promised messiah, Jesus Christ.

Hebrew done for the day. Aced my vocab quiz, too. 💪 Next up some study time, then Westminster Standards, and ending the day with Theology 5: Apologetics and Ethics. Then teaching my church's youth group about why God ordained money. And yes, we will be talking about #Bitcoin in the coming weeks. Busy day. #Reformed #Christian #catholic

"And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo! his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him." Sang this hymn on Sunday and it hit a bit different after the events of the last week. #Christian #Reformed #catholic

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." - Tertullian

Visiting Seattle and I am reminded constantly of why I hate visiting Seattle.

Found in Seattle. No wonder violence against the political right is seen as justifiable to the left.

Evil is real.