Well, I am in a class for grad school and the topic right now is evangelical feminism so of course, the topic of women in ministry came up...which then DID lead to me thinking about my role here. Honestly, I still don't know where I stand on this topic. I go back and forth. It's not OK for me to be a pastor or teacher of men but it IS ok for me to be their boss in a christian school? How do men, who follow the idea that women should not be in authority over men, handle the idea of having a woman as their boss in their job?

Moving a lot lately has helped! I have sold or given away so much stuff! And I still have much to go. But my one rule is this: if we have not used it in the last 6 months it is GONE. No exceptions.

Simple (or not so simple) question: What do you believe is the role of women in ministry in the local church?

:party: We are watching the trilogy to celebrate!!!

My 12.5yo ds was the same way and slept in our bed forever. But at 12 he is very affectionate and very bonded with me and dh. I think it was worth it. Can you use the 90 minutes to get your own nap? or read a book? :D

Yeah those are on the boxes here too. :D And these pics are huge, like they take up most the box. ANd they are just sitting there out in the open at eye level with kids. I have a feeling if they do start this in the U.S. the pics will be far less graphic. I have a hard time believing the U.S. would let anything THIS graphic be put on packages. The special interest groups will go nutso.

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I wish I was a better theologian as I fear my attempt to explain it are just making this fuzzier. :tongue_smilie: Yes, God knew beforehand that they would choose poorly...that He would have to provide a means of salvation for us...and that in the end it would all be to His glory. I sometimes wonder if God had created Adam and Eve with NO capability for sinning. If we were all born one after another and no one ever sinned...no one ever did anything wrong that they needed forgiveness for, etc. How long would it take before we forgot God altogether? You cannot know what a gift salvation is until you know what you are being saved from. You would not know to worship and glorify God for His merciful gift of salvation if your life was perfect and you needed no saving. Well, I am off to take my kids to the movies. All you western hemisphere people sleep well and I will check back later. :D

No I would not abandon our teaching of them because I would not know at what point they would come to believe...I would have no way of knowing if they are part of the elect until they either were saved or died unsaved. I would teach them the truth of God until my dying breath. But ultimately it is God who saves them and I have to rely on that. I will look forward to your thoughts! :grouphug:

Yeah, this 12 hour time difference is a pain. I miss out on a lot. :D I will have to go back through and read it but off the top of my head my understanding is this... Adam and Eve were not created sinful (it was impossible because all that God created was GOOD). But they chose to sin. That let sin into the world and into mankind. Once sin is in the world it became tainted and all that is in it became tainted with sin. So God did not create a people incapable of sinning. He originally created two people who were capable of sinning or NOT sinning. Unfortunately, they chose to sin. Since then all their descendants have been born with sin in their nature. God does not create one human after another and each time try to decide if He will create them with the capability of sinning or not and each time He chooses SINNER! Once the original humans sinned that was it...we are all born with sin from there on out. So really what God did was create the original humans with the capability to choose. They chose poorly (massive understatement). They opened Pandora's box so to speak and there was no way to stuff the sinful contents back into the box. So God, who could have sat back and said "Forget it. You lose" instead provided a way for some of us to be saved from all of this. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to save ANY of us. He is under no obligation to us. He is God.

You have a different understanding of "predestined". I am predestined unto salvation.... my worship of God is out of gratitude for that. I am definitely not a robot. Sometimes I think it would easier if I were a robot because then I would not sin again. But seeing as how I do...and seeing as how sinning is a choice I make...there is no way I can be a puppet.

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I worship God because He is GOD...the creator and sovereign ruler of the universe...the author of my salvation. I worship Him because He is holy and deserving of our praise. What other reason do I need to worship Him?

Well, those who are saved should see their primary purpose on earth to be glorifying God in all they say and do. Those who are not saved would probably say something along the lines of be all you can be, make your mark, do good things, be happy, etc. One is God-focused, the other is man-focused. One is seeking reconciliation with God. The other isn't. Those are really the only two categories that exist.

Well my journey through this really started with a study of the attributes of God...some of which you have mentioned. And again, it lead to my own human pride in the end. God is good. There are "man's" definitions of "good" but the the TRUE definition of good is GOD and anything God does, says or wills. God is love. He is not just "loving"...He is LOVE...and anything He does or says or wills is loving whether or not it matches our human (and face it, rather faulty) definition of love. We say "but if God is loving He wouldn't do that" etc.etc. But can we even really trust our own definition of love? As humans we do all manner of terrible things in the name of "love". It is IMPOSSIBLE for God to do anything that is NOT good or loving. Impossible. It goes against the very nature of God. He is also righteous and just and holy. It is impossible for Him to do anything that is sinful, wrong, unfair, etc. IMPOSSIBLE. He cannot even LOOK on sin. So my first hurdle was not just saying "Oh yes, I believe God is sovereign" but actually BELIEVING it and giving up the control to Him (I am a control freak, no doubt). This meant giving up the human concocted definitions of GOOD and LOVE and using biblical definitions. That was hard for me to do because I consider myself a pretty smart person :D so the idea that I could be wrong about all that didn't sit well at first. But with this new framework in place, the Bible just opened itself up to me. When I read it through the lens of the attributes of God as biblically defined, everything fell into place. But that was the HARDEST part for me. Because I wanted a "loving God" to do what I thought a "loving God SHOULD do". What I thought. Me. A sinful human. How ridiculous that I should think God would conform Himself to the image I CREATED of Him. How arrogant of me. But WHY? Why does God elect some and not others? The bible does answer the question but you may not like the answer. It says over and over again it was for HIS PURPOSES. Now, of course, our first instinct is to recoil at that explanation. His "purpose"? You mean, because He SAYS SO? And it grates us. It goes against our ideas of fair play. We think we should get a vote, we DESERVE a better explanation than that! But no, we really don't. As a pp quoted...does the vessel have the right to question its creator? From John Piper: "From all we have seen so far, I would state the purpose like this: God's purpose is to be known and enjoyed and praised (or if you like alliteration: to be seen and savored and sung) as infinitely glorious in His free and sovereign grace. This is the purpose that governs all the works of God. He elects, predestines, calls, redeems, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies to this end and for this purpose." It is essential to a true understanding of the attributes and nature of God that election be unconditional. It is an essential part of His glory that He be unbound in choosing the beneficiaries of His mercy. He would be less glorious; indeed He would not be fully God if He were under obligation to any particular human distinctive. "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." (Romans 9:16) If He waited to see how men "will" or "run" before He showed mercy, He would be limited by them and therefore not all glorious. The all glorious God whose glory consists in His freedom to choose whomever He will cannot be determined by or obligated by anything outside Himself. To sum up my frighteningly long response :D ... we are not innocent babies being left to starve. We are sinners. And we have to understand just HOW BAD sin is. That's something else that gets candy-coated. Sin is wretched, and disgusting and awful. It's not just a few naughty things we do. Sin is the polar opposite of God. We are ENEMIES of God. The fact that He saves even ONE of His enemies is a merciful, compassionate, glorious thing. God bless you as you wrestle with this. I pray He gives you the answers you seek. :grouphug:

So it has only been a 1.5 years since I moved out of the U.S. but can you tell me if this is happening there yet.... I am standing at the cash register here in a store in Malaysia. I glance over to the cigarettes for sale. My eyes almost fell out of my head!!! Instead of the usual "don't smoke because it's bad for you" labels, there were VERY GRAPHIC pictures of all the things smoking can do to you...HORRIFYING, GRAPHIC images. I don't smoke...never have. But I would definitely have a hard time pulling a cigarette out of THAT box and smoking it. Wow. I have no idea if it is having any effect here as A LOT of Malaysians smoke. Are these boxes in the states yet? Are they planning on doing something similar?

Recently read "Little Bee" and loved it. Last night I started "The Hangman's Daughter" and it is really good so far. I did NOT like Outlander OR the Dragon Tattoo. Yuck and Double-Yuck. I loved The Help. I also liked The Book Thief and The Thirteenth Tale.

This says it better than I could: http://www.gotquestions.org/total-depravity.html :grouphug:

I actually wrote a paper about this for one of my classes...if you are bored let me know and I will send it to you. :D

Well, for me, it goes back to the idea that we "deserve" to be "picked" in the first place. We don't. None of us "deserve" it. So the fact that some get picked and some don't is not a reason for us to point an accusing finger heavenward and demand "How could you?" as if God owes us ANYTHING. He doesn't. None of us want Him, none os us choose Him. We would never choose the things of God of our own accord. If we "seek" Him it is because He gave us the desire to seek Him. That desire did not come from within. If you start with the premise that we all "deserve" in some way to be saved and the fact that some will not be saved seems "unfair" to us then we need to reexamine our premise. If NONE of us "deserve" to be saved then the fact that God chooses to save ANYONE at all is a merciful and gracious thing.

Oh Ronette! I miss you! You were so patient with all my questions and doubts and you really did a lot of the work for my brain! :D I was so hoping you would see my post because you planted some very fruitful seeds indeed.

Wow. I had forgotten all about that post. Thank you so much for linking it as it really reminds me of all the steps of this journey. There was a time even before that post two years ago that I did not get any of the the 5 points and I can see where I was at then and where I am at now. Again, thank you. To answer your question as to what has changed in me since then...it is summed up by one thing: why did God create us in the first place? What is our purpose? Once I understood the answer to that question all the pieces fell into place. The answer: We are created to glorify God. Period. All my other questions and doubts about how it just doesn't seem "fair" that God would elect some and not others and it is "mean" and what about our right to "choose"...I realized they were all coming from a very human mind-set. We want everything to "make sense" from a human mind-set and we humans (especially Americans) are all about freedom to choose and our value as human beings. We think God owes us something...we have RIGHTS darn it! He should see our worth and save us all! But we were not created for our own glory...we were created for His. In addition, we do NOT get to determine what is "good" and what is "evil". God determines that. Good is God and anything God does. If God does it, says it, wills it, then it is GOOD whether it falls into the "human" definition of good or not. My purpose in life is to glorify God in all I say and do and I often fall short of that. God did not create me because He just "knew" I would be a cool person. :D I am not a cool person. I am a sinner. I deserve NOTHING. AT. ALL. And if God chooses to save me then that is His choice and He does it to glorify Himself. But since NONE of us "deserve" salvation at all and truly do not even want to be saved...if He chooses to save some it is His choice and not due to anything in me that deserves it...not because of any inherent value I have...and if chooses not to save some, well, honestly, they don't want to be saved anyways...just like I did not want to be saved either...if God had not put that desire into my heart it never would have happened because of some clever choice I made on my own. Never. Again, for me it was a pride issue. I wanted God to fit into the definitions I had created instead of fitting myself into God's defintions. If God does it, it is GOOD whether it agrees with your own definition or not. So that is where I am at now and it IS both restful and challenging as a PP put it. But I finally get that it is not about me and THAT is the best part.:D

http://www.reformed.org/calvinism/index.html

My head is already spinning just reading a few of the the threads. I think I will be a quiet observer and just read those boards. :D

Thank you!!!!