{"id":102,"date":"2007-05-05T10:29:08","date_gmt":"2007-05-05T14:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indefenseofthefaith.org\/?p=102"},"modified":"2007-05-07T23:26:25","modified_gmt":"2007-05-08T03:26:25","slug":"dr-paul-vs-dr-phil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/?p=102","title":{"rendered":"Dr Paul vs. Dr Phil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christianity has been captured by stoicism all too often. They believed that reason was divine and that if you think the right way, things will work out for you the way you want or the way it should.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christianity has taken the idea of sanctification and adopting stoicism as the way to make things right. But the point of Christianity is that God’s Spirit will change us and make new creatures progressively.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span> <\/span>Now, there is nothing wrong with thinking and Christianity is a thoughtful religion. But we cannot know or understand properly without the Spirit of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>Acts 6:5 tells us that Stephen was chosen because he was filled with the Spirit. We must ask God to fill us will His Spirit, knowing that God has given us the Spirit of Christ in order to change us!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Romans 12 gives us many things that are hard to change, but all of this is encompassed in what Paul has shown us in Romans 6, 7, and 8 about the Spirit and the mind. Without the Spirit, we cannot change ourselves at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>Backing up”\u00a6<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span> <\/span>Romans 10:2 says – that the Jews have a zeal that is not based on Knowledge. Thus, Paul is telling the Roman Christians that the Jews are ignoramuses.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>Paul then goes from this zeal\/jealousy of the Jews and tells the Gentiles (Romans 11) that the mystery of Israel’s salvation is going to be through God making them jealous and desiring of the things that God has given to the Gentiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Romans 7 all the way up till Romans 11, Paul has been deconstructing this idea of knowledge and its link with divinity. And it reaches its climax in the Doxology at the end of Romans 11 where Paul tells the Roman Christians that no one has known the mind of the Lord and no one has been His counselor.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Therefore, we must always remember that it is by Faith, and not mere knowledge, that we are given the wisdom of God.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>What DOESN’T this mean? It doesn’t mean that we promote gain by intellectualism.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>What DOES this mean?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>“Thinking your way into change”\u009d is more Stoic than it is Christian!<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>We need God’s Spirit to Change! “\u00a6 Faith!<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>Knowing and doing God’s will is the most important sort of understanding!<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christianity has been captured by stoicism all too often. They believed that reason was divine and that if you think the right way, things will work out for you the way you want or the way it should. Christianity has taken the idea of sanctification and adopting stoicism as the way to make things right. … Continue reading Dr Paul vs. Dr Phil<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background-to-romans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indefenseofthefaith.org\/idotf\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}