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For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.Eph 2:9 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Today's Passage : Today's Passage:The Trinity Bible Verse:1 John 5:7-8 (NKJV, NASB) "7 For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one. (NKJV) * * * 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. (NASB) " Message:
First off, we need to define some very clear terminology. There is the Father, who is God. There is Christ, who is God. There is the Holy Spirit, who is God. Moreover, all Christians correctly use these three names in their worship: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19).
But this is not a statement of the “Trinity”, as the term is used in church dogma. Hopefully, this will not shock anyone, but Trinitarianism is a manmade theological concept and does not appear in the Bible. Neither the word trinity nor the concept it represents (e.g. “God is triune, having one essence but three persons”) appears in the Bible. They might be right and might be wrong, but these are the words of men, not the Word of God taken from the Bible.
The Bible verse that seemed to support it is was not written by John, but was added to his first epistle in the 15th century to bolster Church doctrine. It does not appear in any old Greek manuscript. It has been the source of so much dispute that it even has a name, the Comma Johanneum, which simply means the “Short Clause of John”. You can see what it says by comparing the two versions of 1 John 5:7-8, above. But here is the point: It was not part of John's original epistle and is not God's Word, but something added by men who believed the doctrine and rewrote the Bible so that it would seem to support their doctrine.
The reason we see it in the King James Bible is historical. In the early 1500's, the great Erasmus sought to compile an authoritative Greek text of the New Testament; and his version of 1 John was the original — that is, it did not contain the John Comma. It read like the NASB version of today. But he was pressured by religious authorities to include it, for by this time, the doctrine of the Trinity had become established dogma; and so, letting dogma and politics trump scholarship and authenticity, he included it in his third edition. For several hundred years thereafter, nearly every Bible in every language, including the Vulgate and the King James Bible, used Erasmus' Greek text as the source of its translation.
So, here is the rather weird state of the doctrine in modern Christianity. No modern Bible includes the trinity language, and no modern scholar — Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or whatever — believes the doctrine is biblical. E.g., The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism1995 edition at pp. 564-565) states: “Today, however, scholars generally agree that there is no doctrine of the Trinity as such in the New Testament . . . The NT does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity.”
And yet, the doctrine has become so established in by simple tradition that even Protestant churches will include the Trinity in their statement of faith. (This does not present any incongruity in the Catholic Church, where church tradition or doctrine may be, in certain circumstances, considered inspired.)
Meditation : Prayer : God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and Spirit of God amidst us, direct our way unto you. Make us to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you; to the end we may establish our hearts unblameable in holiness before you, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.........Amen |
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