Post
by _Steve » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:47 am
Jim,
Right. I believe that God knows the future also. I don't know how He does so. It just seems that the scriptures contain elements that require that conclusion. But it doesn't really matter to me either way. Thanks for your comments.
To all who use this forum:
I might just add, for general interest, that much of the recent dialog on this thread (and on several others) has tended to move entirely away from the topics under discussion into personal conversations between two or more individuals. I don't know if I am alone in thinking this, but I would prefer that those who want to do this use the "Private Messages" option.
My reason for saying this is that some of us have limited time for reading, and when we open a thread, intending to read an ongoing discussion on a stated topic, there is often a lot of reading to do that is unrelated to the topic, and time-consuming (and we can't know this to be the case until we have already spent the time required to read the posts). I would encourage everyone, before adding a post, to ask yourself, "Is this something that everybody who reads this forum will be interested in reading, and which will make a meaningful contribution to the stated topic, or am I just chatting with a friend?" If the latter, then the "Private Message" option is available for that kind of dialog.
Once, as I was leaving a restaurant with a Christian man, with whom I had been fellowshipping over lunch, I was approached by a disgruntled fellow-patron of the restaurant, who said, "You non-smokers don't like it when us smokers allow our smoke to invade your atmosphere in restaurants, so why should our atmosphere be invaded by your religious banter while we are eating? If we want to hear that, we can go to a church!" Apparently, he had been sitting in the booth behind me with his wife, and my conversation with my friend had been loud enough to intrude into their compartment.
Frankly, I felt a little embarrassed and rude, because I had not known that I was speaking loudly enough to be heard or to annoy anyone outside my own booth with the private concerns my friend and I were discussing. At that moment, I contemplated how annoying it is to be sitting in my car, at a red light, and someone in the next car is listening to their favorite music so loudly that everyone within a city block is forced able to enjoy it with them. When the man in the restaurant reproved me, I felt that I had violated a similar rule of ettiquette.
The forum is a public place of discussion for those interested in Christian subjects and discipleship. Although many of us know each other—or begin to feel that we do because of frequent posting here—we need to remember that, we are in a public place, and we should use it in such a way as will bless that public that chooses to frequent it. Private messages can occasionally be appropriate in the body of a thread, but when there are long strings of private postings, unrelated to anything that I or most of the others reading would have an interest in, I begin to have the embarrassed feeling that I am eavesdropping on the people in the next booth.
I hope not to make anyone feel badly with this observation. It's just that I would like to keep the quality of the dialogue up to a certain standard of general usefulness and benefit to all who take time out of their days to drop in.
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Reason: In Jesus,
Steve
