AskAnything.sg

In the Old Testament, the prophet Joel writes in Joel 2:28-32 wrote, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes”. Read Full Answer.

Depression is a painful, and difficult condition that many people go through. A short, impersonal response like this would not be the best medium to work through something as personal as this, and hence, we would suggest the person asking the question to approach someone from our church, a homegroup leader, a Deacon or perhaps and Elder to talk through the issues. Read Full Answer.

God’s intention at the Creation was for man to care for and develop the earth’s resources, including animals, in a creative and responsible way, mirroring how God created the entire universe. The sense of ‘dominion’ in Genesis 1:28, taken in context of the whole of Genesis 1 and 2, is not one of exploitation but good and wise stewardship. A Christian’s treatment of animals, and of creation for that matter should take its cues from the Creation account. Read Full Answer.

This question refers to the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. One way to explain why God accepted Abel’s offering and not Cain’s is to note that Abel brought the ‘firstborn of his flock’ (Genesis 4:4), while Cain brought just ‘an offering of the fruit of the ground’ (Genesis 4:3), implying that Abel’s offering was more costly and expressed truer and deeper devotion (Hebrews 11:4). In a sense, it is not the offering per se that is in question. Read Full Answer.

The implication of this question is that someone, or something, appointed God as “the powerful one” and charged Him with the responsibility of dealing with mankind; however, this is not what scripture teachers. Genesis 1:1 states plainly, “In the Beginning God…” Later in Isaiah 45:5 God clarifies this by noting, “I am Jehovah, and their is none else; besides me there is no God.” God has always existed, has always been, and will always be. There are 27 other verses that I located in the Bible that speak of the eternality of God. Check them out for yourself: Read Full Answer.

This is a great question. Thanks for your willingness to ask it. Generally speaking, somewhere around age 12-13 most boys begin to experience something of a sexual awakening. This involves not just thinking about sexuality and sex, but physiological changes (erections and “wet-dreams”).  Given that we don’t know anything about you it’s difficult to be specific if something is “wrong” with you. What we can say is that it is not uncommon at all for kids around your age to be conflicted about sex and their sexual identity. This may mean at times you “feel” you have feelings for someone of the opposite or even the same sex. The question that needs to be explored further is what these “feelings” mean to you. If we were to chat with you one-one this is something we would try to help you explore without condemning you for what you are trying to process. In most cases we would say that your thinking and physiological responses are not atypical (out of the norm) at your age. We’d like to encourage you to seek out someone in our church, maybe a Homegroup Leader, a Deacon or an Elder, someone you think you could trust, and have a chat with them. They’d be more than happy to help you process some of these things in a loving way.

Please refer to the post I understand that creation theory teaches that everything is circa 6,000 years old. How does it explain light from millions of years away? How do you reconcile science pointing toward an old earth and the Bible? for the answer.

Please refer to the post “Can I also not have God dwelling with me if I just have church at home, i.e. listening to sermons, praise and worship on DVD without having to go to church or be part of a home group?” for the answer.

Please refer to the post “Can I also not have God dwelling with me if I just have church at home, i.e. listening to sermons, praise and worship on DVD without having to go to church or be part of a home group?” for the answer.

This is an important question to ask, as long as we ask it with no assumptions – why did God create a situation where man could disobey Him? Why did He create anything at all?

Everything was created to ultimately serve and please God, and we were created with that purpose as well. He gave us the ability to choose to disobey Him, and this was also given to us to serve God’s purposes. Adam and Eve knew God and walk with Him in the garden where He had placed them. They could eat from any other tree in the garden. They chose in a selfish moment to do the one thing God told them not to do (Gen 2:15-17). Thus, Sin was brought into the world.

Adam and Eve did not trust God, even though He had created them. They did not treasure their relationship with Him. They thought they could do better than He. We are similiar in many ways. Do we see our proper position to God?

In the bible, Job 15:7-16 records God speaking to Job to put him in his proper place: “Are you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills? Do you listen in on God’s council? Do you have a monopoly on wisdom? What do you know that we do not know? What insights do you have that we do not have? The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, men even older than your father. Are God’s consolations not enough for you, words spoken gently to you? Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash, so that you vent your rage against God and pour out such words from your mouth?”

We must see God for who he really is. We must trust God in what he says, in His plans and promises. God is good and is sovereign over all things, thus he has chosen things for his divine purposes and for his own glory(Romans 7:7-12, Romans 8:28-29, Romans 9:21, Romans 16:25-27, 1 Thessalonians 1:3-4, 2 Timothy 2:20). It’s really amazing what God has done to bring us back to Him.

What are the “best” and “most convincing proofs” leaves a good deal of latitude for the person in answering this question. With this in mind, it is important to clarify the word “proof.” The idea of proving something to be “true” is a scientific term. To prove means to allow for replication and repeatability. When we speak of God and faith, much like history or a criminal investigation, we speak instead of evidence for belief in God and faith in Christ. Below are five examples of evidence that support the trustworthiness of the Bible. Read Full Answer.

This question touches on a passage in the New Testament where two sisters show different behaviors when they come into the presence of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42). Jesus enters a village and is invited into the house of his friends Martha and Mary. While Martha is busy being hospitable, Mary chose to sit at Jesus’ feet to listen to Him. On first glance it is easy to see why Martha was annoyed, she had been left alone to take care of her guests, however, if we look deeper into what is going on we see that at the root there is difference in what the sisters viewed as important. Mary had chosen to sit with Jesus and listen to what he had to say. Read Full Answer.

While it seems that we would be a lot better off if God could have stepped in and prevented Adam and Eve from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it sets up a relationship dynamic He did not intend to have with us. We are made in God’s image, capable of responsibility and choice, to reflect Him. We were not made to be robots or sustained in an infant state where we do not understand the consequence of our decisions. Read Full Answer.

We learn from Scripture that God is holy, just and loving. The characteristic of holiness is hard to condense into a few words but ultimately it means that God is set apart from us, He is pure and perfect; He is the creator and He has set a standard of behavior we call the moral law. To break the moral law is an affront to God and is in effect saying that we know better. Because God is holy and just He will not stand by as his commands are disobeyed, there has to be a response. We are grateful when we think acts such as murder, torture and cruetly will be met with God’s justice but are less excited when we think of acts a little closer to home such as lying, envy and greed. All sin, however, calls for justice. Read Full Answer.

The Baptist pastor, Mark Dever is known to sometimes begin his talks to college campus ministries and their students by saying, “If you call yourself a Christian but you are not a member of the church you regularly attend, I worry that you might be going to hell”. He doesn’t do that for shock value, or to somehow add something to what Christ has done for us on the Cross. He does this to show how essential and non-negotiable a healthy local church is to the life of a Christian! Read Full Answer.

Pain and suffering are a reality in this world today, but it was not what God intended from the beginning of time. God created the world good (Genesis 1-2). However, humans rebelled against God’s good and perfect rule, and as a result, God’s good creation became cursed. This is called ‘The Fall’. ‘The Fall’ is pervasive, it affects everything (Genesis 3:14-19) – the serpent is cursed, the woman is cursed, the man is cursed, the very environment is cursed. God’s perfect harmony is disrupted, and this disruption spoils humanity’s relationship with God, humanity’s relationship with creation, humanity’s relationship with one another, and even the harmony within a person’s own body. You could say that even our DNA has been affected by the fall. All disease and pain came about as a result of ‘The Fall’, ultimately. Read Full Answer.

In John 3, Nicodemus asked Jesus a similar question, “How can a man be born when he is old? (v.4)” Jesus replied, “You must be born again. The Wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (v.7-8). The word for “wind” is the same Greek word for “Spirit”. Read Full Answer.

The questions we ask of God come in a myriad of forms. For example, we may question God’s will, wisdom, actions, and outcomes in our own lives and the lives of others. We may question whether we believe in God based on our understanding of science, sociology, psychology, history, etc. In this regard, it’s important for the person attempting to answer such a question to understand the specific nature of the question and the motive(s) of the questioner. Read Full Answer.

These verses speak about God bringing bad things to pass (the King James version from the 17^th century translates some words as “evil” where modern translations use “calamity”, “disaster” or “ill”). They talk of God bringing disaster on people as His righteous judgement for their evil ways, or using a “bad circumstance” from someone’s perspective for ultimate good. It is God’s nature, role and right to punish those who sin. Read Full Answer.

It is true that the Apocrypha and Gnostic Gospels were excluded from the Bible. However, it does not follow that the Bible is a human construct. The question is why they were rejected. Broadly, there are different reasons why people reject certain books. It may be that these books do not reflect reality. For example, the Chinese reject a popular Japanese history book that glosses over the atrocities committed by the Japanese during the second world war. Read Full Answer.