Pletho is explaining the biblical doctrine known as "the authority of the believer".

Excerpt:

They are "to usward who believe." In the former reference, we emphasized the first two, pointing out that all the demonstration of the omnipotence of God in Christ pointed manward. We shall now lay stress upon the latter two: "to usward who believe." It is not enough that the Divine Fulness outpours unstinted supplies; there must be a receptive heart and attitude on our part. A bottle may be submerged in the waters of a fountain. 'But, if the cork is unremoved, the holder may wait indefinitely, and at last carry it away empty. In accord with this simile, multitudes of truly spiritual believers are, as it were, immersed in the omnipotence of God; it presses them on every side. There is a longing for its experience, and a belief that it should be theirs, and a readiness to receive, these things being the witness of their spirits to the truth which the Holy Ghost has unfolded in the Word. Yet, because their minds have been "holden" as they have read the Word, the simplicity and the glory of this truth have not dawned upon them. Do we not need, indeed, continually to pray with deep heart-humility that "the eyes of our mind may be enlightened"?

excerpt from:
http://www.worldinvisible.com/librar...thority-07.htm

If anyone would like to know more to guard against spiritual warfare then read all 10 chapters here:

http://www.worldinvisible.com/librar...uthority-c.htm

In this situation, it was more useful to make the point that one must be able to correctly divide the word or accept the authority of somebody that can divide the word (He said this, really! Of course, it would be impossible to tell how good a job the teacher is doing and everybody cries that they are the ones who are doing it right, though none of them quite do it the same way. But nevermind, abandoning reason is a virtue that will stand you in good stead.) before one can truly understand it.

Don't worry, I'm sure that in other situations it'll be more useful to emphasize that god's love and salvation is available to all. This wasn't a wrong answer, it just didn't fit as conveniently as the other option did in this situation.

With experience, you'll learn how to pick the most useful parts of the word for any given argument. When you've mastered that, you'll learn how to divide the word for yourself, giving even more variety for the tricky spots that you might find yourself. The upside to this is that if anybody disagrees, it's because they cannot divide the word as you can. Because when you're arrogant enough to believe that the bible as interpreted by you is the word of god, with implications as you see fit, then who the hell can argue with you?

Hope this helps.

On the internet it may be hard to spot a man qualified to explain the word of God to you but God tells you who the right religious leaders are. He gives the qualifications for deacons in the NT. So its possible for people to seek a good church.

If you examine the character of the church leadership and they pass then you have a viable church or teacher.

On top of that the bible says that the word itself is always true. So look for someone who sticks to scripture instead of paraphrasing it.

Well I guess you really didn't read the post very well. God wants all men to be saved, I agree 100%, but will all men be saved? Will all men recieve the word? Nope, is the answer. After someone shares the word with another and they keep rejecting it or debating and arguing about it, with clearly NO INTEREST to learn but only interest to debate, the word specifically has directions on what to do.

One of the principles in the word is NOT to cast your pearls before swine. Meaning a swine eats anything you give it, it does not distinguish between good and bad, it just eats.

These type of people may even hear the word you speak but they do not respect it, they do not believe it is any different than anything else they have heard. This is exactly what goes on with the majority of atheist here.

So I am inclined by the word to catagorize them as people who are not hungry, not interested in really learning the truth ect....

I am to actually avoid them as best as possible until they become MORE RECEPTIVE to the word, which I personally highly doubt will happen, but God knoweth.

So I am within my full rights as a believer to say exactly what I said, if a person has no respect for the word then they by their lack of respect cut their ownselves off from the word.

One of the biggest things God stands against is the pride of man, which is rampant here in this forum, everyone here for the most part worships their own ego, their own mind as if what they think is above and beyond God's thoughts, God's word. There is no way that an attitude and mindset like that could ever possible recieve the truth of God's word.

Pletho

typically narcissist... Pletho believes that if people disagree with his posts, they are not interested in learning. It can't possibly be that people think HE is the problem.

Respect is earned. Pletho sets up a nice fail fail situation. You see... if people don't show the proper resepect for the word, then they are not deserving.. blah blah blah. And they don't show the proper respect because... they don't believe. They won't believe and comprehend the word because they don't show the proper respect....

He's basically said that if you don't already believe... you'll never understand and believe.

And he wonders why he is such a horrible apologist. He basically already believes no one who doesn't already believe can do so.

You see... since people don't believe Pletho they must not be really interested.

The second part is clearly a big fail since Pletho does absolutely nothing to avoid them. He's posting in a forum dominated by atheists who think he's ridiculous. Clearly he's trying very hard to avoid them.

Once again... a person needs a reason to respect the word. People will only respect the word like you insist if they are already believers. By your nonsensical standards, for people to get God they have to already believe in god. The word is supposed to bring people to God. But according to you, this is not true because it won't be comprehended unless you're already a believer. I apologize that I'm repeating myself, but your logic is so piss-poor that I feel like it has to be spoon fed to you.

Tee hee. Do you honestly believe you don't have one of the biggest egos and most pride on this forum. I love how you rattle on about how only you can understand God's word... all those millions of christians and scholars who disagree with you are idiots who can't figure out the truth like you have... and everyone else has a huge ego. Its when you write things like this that I'm most convinced you're a parody of a zealot because its almost too ironic to be real.

And once again... atheists don't believe that they are thinking above God... because they don't believe in God. When you say stuff like that it just looks ignorant. You might as well accuse others of believing they could deliver twice as many presents to all the children of the world as Santa Claus.

SHIIIP I totally don't believe now but I used to - Freeroll!!!!

Wow, no kidding. I've been baptized. I've publicly professed, in front of hundreds of people, that I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

I'M IN, PLETHO!

ditto.... I was baptized, took confirmation classes, was an acolyte in my church, etc.

That means I get all the benefits yet I can still laugh at Pletho!

As long as you have CONFESSED in your heart that Jesus Christ is your lord, and you have believed that God raised him from the dead, then you will have eternal life, even if you decide not to believe anymore. Its irreversable.

It does not have to be done in front of anyone at all, and baptism has nothing to do with it at all either at least not the water type of baptism.

When you confess Jesus Christ as your lord and savior from the heart and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you are spiritually baptized from the inside out, unlike water baptism which is on the outside and which represented the greater that was to come after and be available after the ressurection of Christ from the dead.

Congratulations if you have actually met these qualifications and if you haven't the only one that needs to know that you have or are going to is God and you, no one else needs to know at all.

Pletho

I think you've added a condition that doesn't belong. I'll see if you can figure it out.

Romans 10:9,10 read it and you figure it out!

Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

I'm pretty sure he makes up a lot of this as he goes along.

I'm pretty sure its reversible.

Oh, that's right. You believe all that bull**** Paul writes. Nevermind.

I'm quite certain Jesus Christ never added the qualification that we needed to believe he was raised from the dead.

It's also eerily coincidental that the farther removed the authors get from Jesus' death, the more they talk of a physical resurrection.

So Jesus Chist never spoke of his future ressurection from the dead?

You don't? Why? Are you stuck only in the gospels and the old testament?

Maybe you must fit into this catagory of people that Peter speaks about.

2Pe 3:16 As also in all [his] (Pauls) epistles, speaking in them (his Pauls epistles) of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as [they do] also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

He almost certainly did not. He also never claimed to be the divine son of god. None of that matters though, because you believe the canonical texts are revealed truth. Thus, nothing else written about him matters and literary and historical analysis of those texts is also unimportant. You also probably think that the Gospels were written by Jesus' disciples who witnessed the events.

You're good at dividing the word, why don't you try reading the gospels and writing down every event and/or Jesus quote that appears in all 4?

What makes you think I'm "stuck" anywhere? The Gospels and OT are filled with a ton of bull**** too.

You seem unable to comprehend that the Bible is just a book written by and for man. It's a great book, but it's freaking millennia old! Some stuff just doesn't matter anymore. It's irrelevant.

No they are still relevant today. They are one of the ancient paths to happiness.

An interview of geneticist psychiatrist C. Robert Cloninger:

Most recently, positive psychologists had finally shifted the emphasis from disease and aberration to health and happiness—but in all their talk of flow and bliss and gratitude, Cloninger couldn’t find a coherent view of human nature. What caused happiness?

“Three things,” he announced after poring over his TCI results, brain scans and case studies. “Three things give us genuine, lasting satisfaction or well-being: kindness, an attitude hopeful of accomplishing things and solving problems, and a growing awareness of what lies beyond the individual self.” People who tested high in all three capacities experienced more positive emotions than their friends, were rarely angry and had a resilient sense of well-being. Wealth, power and fame were irrelevant.

Cloninger conducted sophisticated brain-imaging studies that showed normal response patterns to be pro-social, based on telling the truth and cooperating with others. So antisocial responses weren’t natural and inevitable expressions of the human psyche after all, he realized. They were simply defensive reactions used when people felt fearful or threatened.

He was even more surprised to find that experiencing lots of negative emotions—sadness, anger, anxiety—didn’t matter nearly as much as everyone thought. What did matter was how many positive emotions people experienced. “How happy people are is a better predictor than how unhappy they are,” he explains. “As long as you have something that gives you meaning and hope, you can go through hell.”

Cloninger saw three capacities in people with a consistent sense of well-being. He labeled them “cooperativeness,” “self-directedness” and “self-transcendence” and, using his genetics background, calculated that they were about 50 percent heritable. In other words, we can have about 50 percent control over how happy we are by using our brains to strengthen certain character traits: cooperativeness (tolerance, compassion and working in the service of others); self-directedness (responsibility, resourcefulness and the ability to let go of competitive struggle); and self-transcendence (intuition, judiciousness and spirituality).

Spirituality? That word wasn’t used much at Wash. U. But self-transcendence, which Cloninger had initially included in his character inventory only for fear of omitting anything, seemed to be the core of joy. Spirituality, he was now convinced, was the missing ingredient in 20th-century psychiatry. - end of excerpt


http://www.stlmag.com/media/St-Louis...-of-Happiness/

Typical splenda non sequitur.

I say the Bible is a great book, but filled with irrelevant bull****. Splenda says spirituality is the core of joy.

wtf?

Your off your rocker if you think that claim will hold any water because what I have stated is the truth and it is in the word.

He did claim to be the son of God when pursuaded by the high priest, because he had to according to the old testament law, and he also talked about his future ressurection.

So your barking up the wrong tree with your unbelief and lack of respect and belief in the bible, go peddle that to someone who doesn't know the word.

Pletho

You are definately intitled to your own beliefs and opinions, as am I, and I say your wrong, like always.

Hey Pletho.... can you state what you mean by people have the improper lack of respect for the word? I have a feeling that you are using words different then other people.

At the same time, please explain what respect people should have for the Bible if they don't believe its god's word. Since, no one believe its god's word at first... having proper respect for it can't be all that important to gleaning out of it what is in there...otherwise NO ONE would ever be moved by it.

The Bible has to earn respect. It doesn't just get it automatically.

I have done all of those things so im in, see you up there. Does this mean when i have sex outside of marriage and people say i wont get into heaven unless i ask for forgiveness for my sins, i can just say no, pletho said im in and it's irreversible so i can sin in all kinds of sick ways. What if i blasphemy the holy spirit repeatedly once a day for the rest of my life, am i still in?

The problem is you don't know anything about the word that isn't explicitly stated in it's text. Therefore you are incapable of putting any of it into context regarding when it was written, where it was written, who wrote it, or which parts of it represent the ideology of its authors and/or compilers rather than historical documentation.

So you can keep repeating that you know the word, but as you do so you are documenting the fact that you know very little about it.