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In Matthew 13, Jesus reveals that it is God's will that some people understand and others be confused:
11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of
heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be
given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have,
even what they have will be taken from them. 13 ...
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To answer your first question, yes, the total Christian population is growing, by about 1.5% per year. This number comes from one of several excellent studies of Christian populations, a 2013 report published by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. (full report)
This particular study focuses on the growth ...
answered Jan 20 '16 at 14:38
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The Mystery of the Temple's 'Molten Metals'
Two recent apologists told the story, apparently independently, of molten gold seeping between the temple`s foundation stones during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Both implied the source was Josephus, but neither provided references. Unfortunately, both had theological motivations for adding these details to ...
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Is an English translation of the letter publicly available, and where can I find it?
If you are talking about finding it online, you aren't going to have any luck. These letters, as far as I know, are not available to read online.
However, if you are willing to spend some money, an English book compilation of the letters by George Mastrantonis can be ...
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I've found two sources online for the Latin text, but unfortunately nothing in English. The Latin is available in Gousset's Les actes de la province ecclésiastique de Reims, page 233, as well as Hefele's Conciliengeschichte, volume IV, page 187. The first of these includes a very brief introduction in French, while the second has more extensive commentary ...
answered Jan 13 '16 at 13:33
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Is there any quiz or tool that identifies the denomination which is closest to my personal beliefs?
Absolutely, but the true problem here is that there are so many denominations and subsets of those denominations.
In the State of California, a new denomination is recognized by the state almost every day!
Go To Quiz is just one example:
Which Christian ...
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Why God allows ambiguities and what He does to help us
Most denominations hold that the Holy Spirit inspires not only the Biblical book authors but also
the Individual Bible reader, and/or
the Church Councils (producing canon, creeds, documents), and/or
the Church teaching authority (such as the Catholic magisterium, producing guidelines)
so that ...
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It's not free, and it's not complete, but The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation is the closest thing to a complete set of the writings of the church fathers that I've seen in English. It includes over 120 volumes of writings, though many of these relate to the post-Nicene period. It's frequently cited by other works, like the Ancient Christian ...
answered Jan 23 '17 at 5:29
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Much to my surprise, when I keyed in the word ‘equilibrium’ into a Christian web site I frequently use, it came up with an article about ‘punctuated equilibrium’: https://www.gotquestions.org/punctuated-equilibrium.html
Another article I found was on DNA – not that you will find anything in the Bible specific to ‘deoxyribonucleic acid’. The article ...
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From the Wikipedia article on the subject:
Though Wesley favoured celibacy rather than marital bond, he married very unhappily at the age of 48 to a widow, Mary Vazeille, described as "a well-to-do widow and mother of four children." The couple had no children. Vazeille left him 15 years later. John Singleton writes:
"By 1758 she had left ...
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The writings of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe are now available in English, published by Nerbini International. See the official web site of the MI: http://mi-international.org.
In the U.S. the two-volume set is available through Marytown Press. See http://marytown.com
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A very readable overview of Christian history may be found in Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley.
A deeper dive into more recent history is Eerdman's Handbook to Christianity in America.
For a good overview of the common beliefs shared by a majority of Christian groups, try Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
For a somewhat polemical take on ...
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This appears to be what you are after here:
http://biblemegasite.com/outline-niv1984.html
As well as click through links (by book and then section) through to the NIV 1984 version hosted at studylight.org, it has links that compare the changes in the newer version, and even a link to an audio version hosted at bible.is; although what Zondervan would have ...
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I have been working on some software which converts between different versification systems. As part of that, I have a file listing the various differences: transformations.data. There is no single "Jewish" translation, but I currently have included the NJPS. The JPS or Masoretic text probably have some differences elsewhere.
There is also a long JSON file ...
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The Nestle-Aland/UBS text is standard. This is an edited text which shows what the editors think the original text was most likely to be based on the evidence they have researched. The NA and UBS names refer to two editions of the same base text. They have occasional differences in punctuation or spelling, but the main difference is their apparatus. The main ...
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The books you want are the "Kyriale" and the "Graduale". The former contains the words and music for the ordinary of the mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei), and the latter contains the words and music for the variable parts of the mass (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia verse, Offertory, and Communion verse).
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You've probably found something by now, but if not, St Maximilian's writings are available online, though mostly in Polish (I found a few articles in Latin) on the website of Niepokalanow (Mary's Town), the Franciscan community founded by St Maximilian near Warsaw, Poland) http://www.niepokalanow.pl/pisma From what I gather, there are 2 volumes published in ...
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Spiritual Gifts Inventory (SGI) is a type of material that is associated with the Church Growth Movement (CGM). It combines theology with sociological methodologies, including questionnaires, in this case for identifying Spiritual Gifts. All SGI materials are based on the assumption that gifts are given once and then remain with the bearer for life, a ...
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The 23rd edition of Nestle-Aland was published in 1957, and unfortunately, Google Books often does not have preview available for books of this age. This edition is no exception, at least right now. It thus appears that used book stores are going to be your only option.
Depending on your country, the most appropriate online book shop may vary. Abe Books ...
answered Dec 29 '15 at 23:33
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The above resources are indeed excellent surveys of the issues surrounding textual criticism of the bible. A couple of extra points are worth noting:
(1) The question asks about the textual history of the Bible. The Greek manuscript families relate specifically to the New Testament. If the question includes the Old Testament that would need to be looked at ...
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Though it was historically attributed to Augustine, this letter was actually written by Fulgentius of Ruspe in the early 6th century. It appears in English in volume 95 of the series The Fathers of the Church, page 59. The introduction there notes the historical context and briefly discusses the authorship debate.
In answer to Peter's request [for a ...
answered Dec 7 '17 at 21:42
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The Englishman's Greek New Testament, available widely, has the Stephens Text of 1550 and an interlinear, literal, English translation. It is one of a few almost identical Greek texts which are commonly called the Received Text or the Textus Receptus.
This is the Greek text behind the Authorised Version (the King James Version) and is the Greek text used by ...
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One part might be that God wants to reveal hearts. A determined critic can always find a creative way to misunderstand. In politics for instance, it's surprising how creative people can be at misrepresenting, spinning, and "misunderstanding" something. God could have spent an inordinate amount of space in His Word trying to "correct" ...
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Below is a paragraph from Josephus’ ‘Antiquities of the Jews’ (18:63–64). At first I was hopeful that it would provide you with a secular, historical source to support eye-witness testimony to the resurrection of Jesus. However, it turns out that the comments in brackets may have been added by a later translator.
“At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise ...
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David Bartholomew's view is that God uses chance.
The idea that God may have actually used chance, and still be using chance, may help to dispel the negative role it often plays in current theology. 1
As mentioned in a previous article, unpredictability is an all-pervasive part of life, and it contributes much to the excitement and interest of living. ... ...
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There is the New Oxford Review, which is available online or in print. I can imagine it being described by a liberal bishop as a 'defamatory screed,' but I can find no evidence of it on the site.
The National Catholic Register (U.S.) is a kind of conservative/orthodox counterbalance to the lamentably heterodox National Catholic Reporter. Again, print ...
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The answer, in short, is that recognizing the centrality of man is far from outdated and cannot be branded as mere “anthropocentrism.” Man is qualitatively different from and, in fact, superior to all other material creatures, and this fact can be shown by a relatively easy philosophical reflection.
(I will preface my answer by saying that I understood the ...
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Hugo Grotius develops this in Defensio Fidei Catholicae de Satisfactione Christi ("Defense of the Catholic Faith on the Satisfaction of Christ"). An 1889 translation, by Frank Hugh Foster, is available on yoel.info.
On Google Books the work has no preview, so there we are limited to excerpts published in books on the topic. For example, in Atonement ...
answered Mar 29 '16 at 18:13
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