Published October 7, 2018
Does God want to keep people ignorant? No! In fact, God is the source of all true knowledge, and he wants to share his knowledge with us. In this message God is revealed as the Giver of knowledge.
“God the Giver of Knowledge” by Messenger Church of God released under a cc-by-nc-nd Creative Commons License:
Does God lie? Did Jesus Christ speak in parables to deceive people?
A reader asked for my comment, writing to me, “I know of someone who said that Christ deceived. He was referring to the… parable of the sower and the seed. [He inferred] that Christ used the parables to deceive people so they wouldn’t understand.” The reader went on to say that some who think of themselves as Christians justify lying if one’s motive is to achieve a “good end,” for example, “to get the abortion law altered” so there would be fewer abortions.”
Should we lie? Should we do evil that good may come?
Continue readingQuestion: I have read the article, “Are ‘Many’ or ‘Few’ Called in this Age?”. One part has me confused. It is Matthew 13:15: “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (KJV).
I realize they could have seen but their hearts were dull, callous, insensible, their ears hard of hearing, and their eyes closed so they couldn’t see. That part I do understand. The part I don’t understand is the last part: “…lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them.” Doesn’t that mean that their ears and eyes could be opened, which would lead them to understand with their heart?
If they were converted, would that mean that they repented and applied God’s law and obeyed Him, and He would heal them? If it isn’t referring to that, then I don’t understand what he was referring to. It sounds like He didn’t want them to understand or change. Would that mean that at times God doesn’t want someone to understand?
I don’t understand. I hope you can explain it for me. Thanks so much. Continue reading
For 6000 years the pages of the history of mankind have been soaked with blood. The weapons of war continue to grow in destructive power. And the wars themselves continue to exhibit often shocking, wanton violence and depravity. All efforts towards peace engineered by human beings have failed, and will fail. The only real hope for permanent peace among nations is Divine intervention, as long ago prophesied in the pages of the Bible. The good news is, peace will happen, in God’s time. Continue reading
Have you ever stopped to think why God – an eternal Being who existed before time began (as we count time) – would become flesh and blood? Does that not seem a bit peculiar, when you think about it, that the very Creator, the Being whose power sustains the entire vast Universe, would be changed into a mere human, infinitely weaker and limited by comparison? Continue reading