Are some people born without hope? While reading 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 NASB

  1Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our
  Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2that you not
  be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a
  spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the
  day of the Lord has come. 3Let no one in any way deceive you, for
  it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of
  lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4who opposes and
  exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that
  he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being
  God. 5Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was
  telling you these things? 6And you know what restrains him now, so
  that in his time he will be revealed. 7For the mystery of
  lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so
  until he is taken out of the way. 8Then that lawless one will be
  revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and
  bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9that is, the one
  whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power
  and signs and false wonders, 10and with all the deception of
  wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love
  of the truth so as to be saved. 11For this reason God will send
  upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is
  false, 12in order that they all may be judged who did not believe
  the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

I was struggling with these terms (the ones in bold):

1) Verse 10 may be talking about unbelievers or apostates that did not receive properly the love of the truth by xtians.

2) Verse 12 the unbelievers or apostates took pleasure in wickedness instead. Possibly right after having a taste for it. As if being born with the pleasure for wickedness.

Am I understanding that some are born with such a selfish ambition that have no obedience to Christ. No hope. No matter how much love is shown to them.

Or, they never had a chance because the Christians around did a bad job showing them true love.

I mean I'm always thinking that the people that don't love me are ones that don't talk to me or see me when I walk on the street or ride the bus. The one that said hi to me loved me. Even the one that was rude to me. I mean hate and love are the same thing right? And then [Matthew Henry][1] wrote on his commentary about 2 Thessalonians 2:5-12, "God leaves them to themselves". I think he meant to say they were hopeless.

Does 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 confirm that some are born with a nature to disobey, thus cannot be saved?

Like the narrow gate and the broad road?

In order to understand those passages, we have to take several other things into mind. Paul was writing this letter to the Thessalonians after having gotten word back from them following his first letter.

Also remember in Acts where everyone was getting together selling their possessions and living in a communal group, the reason for that was that those people expected Christ to return for them right away. Paul especially thought that Jesus return would be during his lifetime.

After years had passed and Christ had not returned as most of his disciples expected, many rumors began to circulate and among them were some which declared that Jesus had returned already.

Paul's second letter to the church in Thessalonica is a plea to not listen to those rumors. So let's break down his letter and see what we can extract from it.

  Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

Here Paul is referring to the rapture of the church as described in his first letter to them.

  That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

Here Paul is saying don't pay any attention to all these rumors.

  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

Or; don't let people fool you, remember that before Christ returns the prophesy of:

Daniel 11:31 and 32

  And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.  And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.

Must be fulfilled, (This same event is referred to in Revelation and is the beginning of the great tribulation)

  Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

This is the Antichrist.

  Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.

Don't you remember me explaining these things to you, so now you know why there is a delay.

  For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

And see it is already started, and God will let these things continue even including the coming of the Antichrist, who will even perform miracles.

So now let's take a look at where you where you have your trouble understanding.

  And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

I believe where your confusion comes, is because you need some clarification on predestination:

  Predestination is the concept that some people are predestined by God to not receive Salvation and receive eternal damnation.

Predestination is greatly misunderstood; That some will be eternally damned is not the will of God.

  Matthew 18:14  Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

Predestination is based on the fact that God is All Knowing.
Or in other words God knew even before Creation who would and who would not accept Salvation. And based on that fore knowledge during the Great Tribulation, God will allow those who you indicated to be deceived by the Antichrist, since Satan does not really have any power, to accomplish anything unless God permits it.


Does Jeremiah 8:8 imply that the scriptures were corrupted? Most Christians think the Bible has been accurately preserved over the ages, and that the textual differences that exist are largely insignificant.

But I came across this verse which makes me question whether the Old Testament really was accurately preserved:

  ‘How can you say, “We are wise,
      for we have the law of the Lord,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes
      has handled it falsely? (Jeremiah 8:8, NIV)

Note how it says lying pen not lying tongue.

It's no wonder that many people think some like this one couldn't be divinely inspired:

  There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were
  like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. (Ezekiel 23:20, NIV)

Is God saying in Jeremiah 8:8 that the scribes corrupted the scriptures? If so, are the Old Testament scriptures we have today still corrupted?

You are starting from three incorrect postulates:

Scribes are just copyists, not interpreters of the law.
The doctrine of preservation of scripture is the same as inerrancy.
Variants have semantic importance

All three of those need to be true for your statement to make sense. Unfortunately, none of them are.

1. Scribes aren't just secretaries.  They are teachers, who in this case, were corrupt

In context, Jeremiah 8 is clearly inveighing against "false" teachers of the law.  This a common theme throughout the Old Testament generally, and the prophets specifically. (It is also picked up in the New Testament for that matter - Jesus seems to be more annoyed with "religious" teachers than with sinners.)

The text says:

  “‘How can you say, “We are wise,
      for we have the law of the Lord,”
  when actually the lying pen of the scribes
      has handled it falsely?
  9 The wise will be put to shame;
      they will be dismayed and trapped.
  Since they have rejected the word of the Lord,
      what kind of wisdom do they have?

Note the antecedent of "they" is those who are saying "We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord."  Notice these same people are being said to have rejected the word of the Lord.

This is very common throughout the OT - those who are claiming to speak for God but are not. Malachi calls them out, Amos calls them out, and Jeremiah calls them out.  It was a recurring theme.

Note that scribes are not just writers of the law - they are teachers too. Especially at this time, there was a hefty oral tradition of interpretation that had added much to the Torah.

In the New Testament, Jesus makes the same charge (Matthew 23):

  13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14] [b]

  15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

  16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.

  23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Note: Some translations will even say "scribes and Pharisees" rather than "teachers of the Law and Pharisees."  The King James, for example, says:

  13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

  14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

A scribe was also a teacher of the law.  More modern translations clarify that aspect of the culture we no longer have.

It isn't the pen, it is the oral additions.

2. Preservation of Scripture != Inerrancy

There is a wide spectrum of belief about how literally one takes the Bible.

The Ezekiel verse you quote is pretty clearly metaphor, for example, clearly written as such. The Divine moment preserved, however, is the vision of a God who is restoring Israel. Ezekiel is dealing with a people who have "forgotten" the law, in that they have chased other gods. The idea of adultery to which the metaphor alludes captures very well both the problem and the divine response.

Preservation of Scripture says only that God communicates his Law to all men.  It doesn't depend on the mechanism.  Even if you could find somebody who tried to misprint the Bible, the doctrine of Preservation says that the transmission isn't the point anyway.

3. We know the "variants" in Scripture, and trust me, they are a lot less "variant" than you think.

It is true that there are over 5000 manuscript fragments from which we arrive at what we believe the "Scriptures" to be.  You can see these variations yourself by consulting a biblical apparatus.  It is true that prior to the invention of the printing press in 1453, documents were copied by hand.  It is also true that minor variations existed as a result.

It also should be understood that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were rediscovered in 1947, we found out how very, very small the differences were. Great care was taken to preserve the manuscripts.

In seminary, it was stated that no major doctrine hinges on a variant.  Many Christians would argue there are no significant differences when it comes to doctrine.

Finally, Mark Twain probably said it best:

  It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

Read the whole thing and you'll see there is no "conspiracy," there is no "power grab."  There is a reason people have been following this book for thousands of years.  It does a pretty good job of conveying who these people think God is.  Food for thought.


Mark and Romans: are these the same Rufus? In Mark 15:21 (KJV), the account reads:

  And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.

In Romans 16:13 (KJV), the account reads:

  Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.

While I understand that even in the Apostleship there were two named Judas, I was curious if there were any Apocryphal or extra-biblical accounts which could confirm or disprove that both verses speak of the same Rufus.  Bonus points if the family's conversion story is included.

The same Rufus may have been mentioned in Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians (ch. 9):

  Παρακαλῶ οὖν πάντας ὑμᾶς, πειθαρχεῖν τῷ λόγῳ τῆς δικαιοσύνης καὶ
  ἀσκεῖν πᾶσαν ὑπομονήν, ἣν καὶ εἴδατε κατ’ ὀφθαλμοὺς οὐ μόνον ἐν τοῖς
  μακαρίοις Ἰγνατίῳ καὶ Ζωσίμῳ καὶ ῾Ρούφῳ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις τοῖς ἐξ
  ὑμῶν καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ Παύλῳ καὶ τοῖς λοιποις ἀποστόλοις

  I exhort you all, therefore, to yield obedience to the word of
  righteousness, and to exercise all patience, such as ye have seen
  [set] before your eyes, not only in the case of the blessed Ignatius,
  and Zosimus, and Rufus, but also in others among yourselves, and in
  Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles.

Pseudo-Hippolytus enumerates Rufus as one of the Seventy Apostles (Luke 10), and lists him as "Bishop of Thebes".

Rufus is in commemorated in the Synaxarion of the Eastern Orthodox Church on April 8.  An entry in the Synaxarion of the Monastery of Simonos Petra on Mt. Athos (Greece) states:

  Saint Rufus may have been the son of Simon of Cyrene mentioned in
  Mark's Gospel (15:21).  In his Epistle to the Romans, Saint Paul
  writes: Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine
  (16:13).  He later became Bishop of Thebes, in Greece.

  The Synaxarion:  The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church,
  Vol. 4 (March-April), p.371

This, of course, is a modern work, but the Simonas Petras compilation is derived from a long stream of written tradition on Mt. Athos that dates back to at least 800 AD.

The latter Great Collection of The Lives of the Saints, by the Russian Sergius of Radonezh (d.1392) does not mention the connection with the Rufus of Mark, nor does Nikolai Velimirovic' Prologue.  These latter two, along with the Simonas Petra volumes, are the most comprehensive Synaxaria that have been translated into English, so from an Orthodox Christian perspective the best one could say is that the connection with the Rufus of Mark is tentative.


What does Revelation 19:12-16 mean? I've Googled multiple ways/questions to get an answer, no luck!
I know they're symbols/metaphors, but exactly what's the meaning of these symbols/metaphors?

His eyes were blazing with flames.
(Does that mean he was mad?)

Sword comes out of his mouth.
(I don't have the slightest idea of what that can possibly mean)

He was wearing five crowns.
(Does that mean he had five heads?)etc.

Resource after resource, I've yet to receive the answers I'm looking for..
I know its probably because I'm not asking the right way.
Which influenced me to make "This" web-site my last option..
I'm trying my best not to get my account blocked because of not being able to ask questions properly..
But this is my last option, I can't take it anymore..
Can anyone help me understand these scriptures?

And I don't care what denomination the answer comes from.

Starting with v11, this is the rider on the White Horse of Revelation 19.  This is clearly Jesus, in His glorified state, doing warfare on the Earth.

A primary breakdown of the basic level of symbolism could be expressed as follows:

The rider is clearly Jesus.
His White Horse would symbolize victory and triumph, as well as purity and righteousness (based on the color white--you can research Biblical meanings of colors, as well as the Biblical meaning of horses).
The eyes burning with fire could be interpreted as judgment, fury, wrath, holiness (in terms of an all-consuming fire), as well as other takes.  The general sense is that what He look at, He burns with the fire of His gaze.  Consider the Proverbs, which says that the King winnows evil with his eyes.  He actually divides good and evil as one separates wheat and chaff.  For further analysis, you could study 'fire' throughout the Scriptures with a concordance.
The NIV says "many crowns".  He is the King of Kings, the King of all Kings, and Ephesians says He has greater dominion than anyone else, both now and forever, and hence, the crowns symbolize his royalty and rule, just as any crown would any king.  He has 'many', because He is ruler of all.
He has a name written that no one knows but Himself.  This speaks of His authority, and also parallels to the Ephesians 1 name, better than any that can be given in this age and the next.  Names speak of authority, which is why people pray "in Jesus' name".
He is in a white robe, which elsewhere in Revelation symbolizes righteous deeds or acts.  All the Lord's dealings are righteous.  Garments speak of acts, and the whiteness, cleanness, and unspottedness speaks of sinlessness, in general.
It is dipped in blood.  This is the blood of His enemies which He is slaying.  This, on His white robe here, symbolizes His righteousness in executing His wrath.  This does not take away from their sinlessness.
His Name is the Word of God.  He is the Logos of John 1:1.  Again, clearly Jesus.
The armies of heaven also follow Him on similar white horses and white robes, with the same general meaning.
The sword coming out of His mouth would be the Word of God, as the Ephesians 6 calls the Sword of the Spirit the Word of God.  This is a metaphor throughout the New Testament (Hebrews 4:12, for example).
He is there ruling.
He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God, again, the reason for the blood on His robes.  Winepresses usually left people with very purple or red feet and clothes.  This "wine", however, is the blood of his enemies, as before.  Searching Biblical encyclopedias on winepresses could be beneficial, as well as End Times commentaries on the winepress of God's wrath.

These are all the basic symbolisms, although they may vary from tradition to tradition.  Most, if not all, are based within somewhere from the Word, and most, but not all, would have similar interpretations, without getting into any of the deeper meaning of the actually events taking place here.


What was the name of the Pharaoh during the time of Moses? In the Bible it never mentions Pharaoh's name but every other king/queen is mentioned by name. Did I miss it? What's his name?

Nobody knows for sure but modern speculations and depictions have centered on Ramses the II, Aka Ramses the Great.   Here is an Egyptian news paper article on the subject.

http://thecairopost.youm7.com/news/142273/culture/ramses-ii-pharaoh-of-exodus-researcher-says

"In the Bible it never mentions Pharaoh's name but every other king/queen is mentioned by name. Did I miss it? Whats his name?"

I believe that you are mixing up genres.   In the Later books of the Bible, the names of Kings, Pharaohs, and Emperors are named specifically.    In Genesis, however only The Canaanite Kings are named, and none of the Pharaohs that the patriarchs met are named.   So no it's not really surprising that the Pharaoh was not specifically named since that was not the custom of the original oral tradition of the time (That was eventually recorded by Moses).


According to Roman Catholic Doctrine, what things have the power to decrease a person's time in purgatory? Roman Catholic teaching states that many people spend a certain amount of time in purgatory after they die before going to heaven.  I remember hearing something to the effect that people who are still living have the power to decrease the amount of time a deceased person has to spend in purgatory.

So, is this true?  According to Roman Catholic teaching, can people who are still alive do things that will decrease the amount of time a deceased person has to spend in purgatory?  If so, what sorts of things can be done and how much do each of them reduce the time?  Is there an understanding of how much time one generally has to spend in purgatory in the first place?

There is no spreadsheet or calculator used to decide how long one is in purgatory. But there's no official take on the average sentence, time wise. According to the church, only God knows the exact amount of time a person must spend in purgatory before attaining a state of purity. It's assumed, however, that the severity of one's punishment will be directly proportional to the severity of the crime.

There are a few passages in the Catechism that talk about "decreasing time in purgatory:"

  1498    Through indulgences the faithful can obtain the remission of temporal punishment resulting from sin for themselves and also for the souls in Purgatory.

and

  1475    In the communion of saints, “a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. Between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things.”87 In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.

These are based on 2 Macc 12: 40-46:

  40 And they found under the coats of the slain, some of the donaries of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids to the Jews: so that all plainly saw, that for this cause they were slain. 41 Then they all blessed the just judgment of the Lord, who had discovered the things that were hidden. 42 And so betaking themselves to prayers, they besought him, that the sin which had been committed might be forgotten. But the most valiant Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin, forasmuch as they saw before their eyes what had happened, because of the sins of those that were slain. 43 And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection. 44 (For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead), 45 and because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. 46 It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.

I heard a really good saint story about this, but I cannot seem to find it. I will edit once I do.


How can Luke 9:49–50 be reconciled with the idea that Christ is the only way? I have been under the impression that Christ's teaching is very much along the way of "Christ is the only path." If so, what's going on in this passage?

  Luke 9:49–50 (KJV)
  49  And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us.
  50  And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.

How is this mysterious individual casting out devils without being a follower of Christ, and how is Jesus implying that this mysterious fellow is an ally?

In verse 49, as you have quoted it, this fellow is casting out demons in Jesus' name. As such, Jesus is still the one and only Way.

Jesus' point here is not that there is another name under heaven by which men can be saved, but rather that just because someone is 'not part of the group' doesn't mean they can't be a follower of Christ. In other words, it could be a support for the notion that Jesus is more important than the Institution that proclaims him.

Put another way, it is much like Paul's admonition in Phillippians, where he says he doesn't care whether Christ is preached out of selfish ambitions or good ones, as long as Christ is preached


What is the Lutheran doctrine of "Law and Gospel"? I was reading about Lutheran doctrine regarding the Law and Gospel, however, I'm having a hard time understanding to what the "Law" is referring.

I found this quote by Martin Luther:

  "Hence, whoever knows well this art of distinguishing between Law and Gospel, him place at the head and call him a doctor of Holy Scripture."
  Dr. Martin Luthers Sämmtliche Schriften, St. Louis ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, N.D.), vol. 9, col. 802.

It sounds like the Law and the Gospel are taken separately and both enforced equally.

Part of my confusion with this is that when I hear "Law" in relationship to the "Gospel", I think it is referring to the Old Testament laws.

Is this "Law" of ("Law and Gospel") referring to the Old Testament law?  If so, do Lutherans believe that these Old Testament laws should be enforced as equally as the rules set forth in the New Testament?

Speaking as someone who went to a lutheran seminary, let's attack these questions one at a time, shall we?

Is this "Law" of ("Law and Gospel") referring to the Old Testament law?

The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord says in Section V "Law and Gospel"...

  Anything that preaches concerning our sins and God's wrath, let it be
     done how or when it will, that is all a preaching of the Law. Again,
     the Gospel is such a preaching as shows and gives nothing else than
     grace and forgiveness in Christ, although it is true and right that
     the apostles and preachers of the Gospel (as Christ Himself also did)
     confirm the preaching of the Law, and begin it with those who do not
     yet acknowledge their sins nor are terrified at [by the sense of]
     God's wrath; as He says, John 16:8: 13] "The Holy Ghost will reprove
     the world of sin because they believe not on Me." Yea, what more
     forcible, more terrible declaration and preaching of God's wrath
     against sin is there than just the suffering and death of Christ, His
     Son? But as long as all this preaches God's wrath and terrifies men,
     it is not yet the preaching of the Gospel nor Christ's own preaching,
     but that of Moses and the Law against the impenitent. For the Gospel
     and Christ were never ordained and given for the purpose of
     terrifying and condemning, but of comforting and cheering those who
     are terrified and timid.

For Luther, the "Law" was anything that stung the conscience of its own sins against GOD and neighbor, while "Gospel" or "Grace" was anything that communicated the love and forgiveness of GOD.

If so, do Lutherans believe that these Old Testament laws should be enforced as equally as the rules set forth in the New Testament?

Lutherans believe that not all Old Testament laws should be enforced equally, but that there is a timeless truth behind each of the laws that can be applied to today's context.  For further information on this please see...

The Epitome of the Formula of Concord section VI entitled "The Third Use of the Law"...

  VI. The Third Use of the Law.

  1] Since the Law was given to men for three reasons: first, that
     thereby outward discipline might be maintained against wild,
     disobedient men [and that wild and intractable men might be
     restrained, as though by certain bars]; secondly, that men thereby
     may be led to the knowledge of their sins; thirdly, that after they
     are regenerate and [much of] the flesh notwithstanding cleaves to
     them, they might on this account have a fixed rule according to which
     they are to regulate and direct their whole life, a dissension has
     occurred between some few theologians concerning the third use of the
     Law, namely, whether it is to be urged or not upon regenerate
     Christians.

So, for Lutherans the Law has three purposes, 1) restrain evil 2) show humanity its evil and 3) as a guidebook for how Christians ought to live in grace.

I hope this helps!


In which language is the Bible most read today? In which language is the Bible most read today? In a recent discussion, we surmised that the most read language translation of the Bible would be English. I am hoping to have a more definitive answer than a probably prejudiced guess.

This type of research would be incredibly hard to get accurate data about. But we can still get a good idea of what the most used languages are.

I have taken the spreadsheet of data from the Joshua Project and put it in a Google Doc. Google Docs has some nice data processing tools!

The first set of statistics is the number of Christian adherents per language. This means the number of people who identify somehow as Christian, such as ticking the Christian box on a census. It doesn't indicate anything about how they practice their faith, if they even do. In the case of the Chinese, it is grouping together many different languages, but as most use the same written language, I think this is legitimate. The Swiss German are grouped together with Standard German. I'm not actually sure if they would use the same translations or not.

Spanish: 381 million adherents
English: 258 million
Portuguese: 195 million
Chinese: 110 million
Russian: 85 million
German: 47 million
French: 38 million
Tagalog: 38 million
Italian: 37 million
Polish: 36 million

Now these numbers will include many millions of people who never actually read a Bible. Unfortunately there's no good way to estimate that. Many people who identify as Christian are very nominal (they don't really practice in any way) while some branches of Christianity do not emphasise personal Bible reading much.

What I can present from the Joshua Project's data is the number of Evangelicals for each language. As Evangelicals do emphasise Bible reading their numbers could be closer to how many actually regularly read it. But I know that there are many non-Evangelicals who do read their Bibles! Just as there are millions of Evangelicals who don't. Four of these languages are African, and may have lower literacy rates (though to be fair that could be the same for many of the languages in the first list too). Do they balance each other out? I have no idea.

English: 86 million evangelicals
Chinese: 85 million
Portuguese: 51 million
Spanish: 47 million
Yoruba: 13 million
Igbo: 9.8 million
Korean: 9.1 million
Gikuyu: 5.1 million
Tagalog: 4.9 million
Oromo: 4.5 million

All of this is also completely ignoring the fact that most of the world's people are bilingual and may read the Bible in a language other than their primary language (especially English), especially as there are thousands of languages without a Bible translation. In which language is the Bible most read? Probably Spanish, English, Portuguese or Chinese.


How do Christians respond to and/or explain the similarities between other societies' Gods and that of Jesus God: Attis

Born of a virgin
Born on December 25th
Crucified
Dead for 3 days
Resurrected

God: Krishna

Born of a virgin
Star in the east
Performed miracles
Resurrected

God: Dionsyus

Born of a virgin
Born on December 25th
Performed miracles, including turning water into wine
Referred to as the "King of Kings"
Referred to as "Gods only begotten son"
Resurrected

God: Mithra

Born of a virgin
Born on December 25th
12 Disciples
Performed miracles
Dead for 3 days
Resurrected
Sunday is day of worship for Mithra

And the most striking and seemingly the base for all other mythologies:

God: Horus

Born on December 25th
Born of a virgin
Star in the east
Adored by 3 kings
Teach at 12
Baptized at 30
12 Disciples
Performed Miracles
Known as "Lamb of God", "The Light"
Crucified
Dead for 3 days
Resurrected

Interesting, here is a photo of what is claimed to be Horus's crucifixion:

It does seem to be some uncanny relations between these different Gods and I do consider Jesus to be a God or the God, though I understand it is a little more complex than that summation. But for the sake of clarity of the question I am just addressing Jesus as a God.

I have heard references to astrology in driving some of these coincidental factors such as the Star in the East, December 25th and even maybe Sunday as the day of praise for some Gods of history. But what about the 12 disciples, virgin birth, miracles, crucifixion, 3 day death and resurrection. These aspects of multiple Gods' stories from different societies transcend particular star patterns and celestial movements.

Is there perhaps a historical influence from older societies on the stories in the Bible or perhaps maybe there are some natural human psychological tendencies for purity (virgin birth) and guilt (crucifixion) and ego (desire for a survivor who was born from purity and made to suffer that is one of us, is human) that drives humans to tell these spiritual tales to comfort the very minds that create them.

References:
http://rishyrich.hubpages.com/hub/Parallels-between-Jesus-Horus

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=181421

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Contrad/External/crucify.html

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jksadegh/A%20Good%20Atheist%20Secularist%20Skeptical%20Book%20Collection/Parallels_between_Jesus_and_Horus_an_Egyptian_God.pdf

I will post later using this information here, but for now, I have copied the image supplied by Jayarathina Madharasan

It seems that there are actually not as many similarities as certain people on the internet would like you to believe.


According to Catholicism, who is the leader of devils? We come across many verses in  the Bible - both Old Testament and New Testament, where the name of devil is mentioned. For instance:

Is 14: 12: How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Lk 10:18 : And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven
Mat 4:10 : Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Lk 11: 15: But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils.

Satan appears to be a generic name in that Jesus himself reprimands Peter:

"But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." (Mtt 16:23)

My question, therefore is: Who, according to Catholic Church, is the leader of all devils?

According to Catholicism, who is the leader of devils?
In one or two words: Satan also called Lucifer.
This answer will be based on the Catholic traditions in regards to Satan and the nine choirs of angels.
Although it is now generally accept that there are nine choirs of angel and each choir is of angel is different and ranked accordingly.

During the Middle Ages, many schemes were proposed, some drawing on and expanding on Pseudo-Dionysius, others suggesting completely different classifications. According to medieval Christian theologians, the angels are organized into several orders, or "Angelic Choirs
Pseudo-Dionysius (On the Celestial Hierarchy) and Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica) drew on passages from the New Testament, specifically Ephesians 1:21 and Colossians 1:16, to develop a schema of three Hierarchies, Spheres or Triads of angels, with each Hierarchy containing three Orders or Choirs. Although both authors drew on the New Testament, the Biblical canon is relatively silent on the subject, and these hierarchies are considered less definitive than biblical material.
Choirs in medieval theology
St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica (1225–1274):

Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones;

Dominations, Virtues, and Powers;

Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. - Christian angelology (Wikipedia)

St Thomas Aquinas' list is by far the most widely accepted list of angelic choirs and places the Seraphic order of angel as being at the highest level of angels followed by the Cherubim, and so on. According to St Thomas:

The angels that rebelled and became demons did not lose their nature or their connatural gifts. They cast away, by their sin, the grace in which they were created. They did not cast away the beatific vision, for they never had it. Now, if we think of angelic orders as orders of angels in glory, then, of course, there are no orders of bad angels. But if we consider angelic orders as order of angelic nature simply, there are orders among the demons.

Certainly, there is a precedence among bad angels; there is a subjection of some to others.

Demons of superior nature do not enlighten inferior demons; enlightenment here could only mean the manifestation of truth with reference to God, and the fallen angels have perversely and permanently turned away from God. But demons can speak to one another, that is, they can make known their thoughts to one another, that is, they can make known their thoughts to one another, for this ability belongs to the angelic nature which the demons retain.

The nearer creatures are to God the greater is their rule over other creatures. Therefore, the good angels rule and control the demons. - Orders Among the Fallen Angels

This  stated it only makes sense that Satan was a Seraphim, for surely some of the Seraphim fell in great revolt against God. Although one can not say with certainty it is generally believed Satan was a Seraphim.

Sin of the Fallen Angels

Lucifer who became Satan, leader of the fallen angels, wished to be as God. This prideful desire was not a wish to be equal to God, for Satan knew by his natural knowledge that equality of creature with creator is utterly impossible. Besides, no creature actually desires to destroy itself, even to become something greater. On this point man sometimes deceives himself by a trick of imagination; he imagines himself to be another and greater being, and yet it is himself that is somehow this other being. But an angel has no sense-faculty of imagination to abuse in this fashion. The angelic intellect, with its clear knowledge, makes such self-deception impossible. Lucifer knew that to be equal with God, he would have to be God, and he knew perfectly that this could not be. What he wanted was to be as God; he wished to be like God in a way not suited to his nature, such as to create things by his own power, or to achieve final beatitude without God's help, or to have command over others in a way proper to God alone.

Lucifer, chief of the sinning angels, was probably the highest of all the angels. But there are some who think that Lucifer was highest only among the rebel angels. -  Angels: From the Teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas


According to dispensationalism, why will Satan follow what is written in Revelation? According to dispensationalists, many end times events are literally laid out in the book of Revelation. Specifically about the Anti-Christ and his motive. And we do know what is 666 and why it will be used for. So why should Satan follow the Bible to do everything mentioned in it? There is no need to follow the Bible and hence he acts against Jesus. Why should Satan follow the same number and same process? It is well written how Satan is going to fall. He should go for alternate way right? Like not using 666 or not revealing himself as a Anti-Christ or something?

My guess is, Satan knows God will do it, but doesn't know exactly HOW. I can tell you two examples:

1) Satan know about about Jesus passion, but he is unable to entirely stop it... Satan tries Jesus on desert 3 times, and "enter in Jude" to betray Jesus, start storms on sea, etc... Look at these verses:

  And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he
  cried out, Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou
  Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou
  art, the Holy One of God. (Mar 1:23-24)

The devil know about Jesus and the task of Jesus, but cannot do anything to stop it.

2) Look at this prophecy:

  Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the LORD; Thus saith the LORD,
  Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a
  shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of
  Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of
  God, and said, Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might
  this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes,
  but shalt not eat thereof. (2Kings 7:1-2)

and finally:

  And the people went out, and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a
  measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of
  barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. And the king
  appointed the lord on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the
  gate: and the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died, as the
  man of God had said, who spake when the king came down to him. (2Rs
  7:16-17)

How interesting! The lord on whose hand the king leaned knows about the prophecy, and it happened in the next day, and he cannot avoid it at all. So, probably will be something like that.


Is John saying that Christ is God and eternal? The Book of John says that God is the Word in the beginning.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1, NIV)

How is Jesus Christ the son to the Word?
Jesus, when he was with the Twelve Apostles, told his disciples that no one was going to the Father except through him.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:6-9, NIV)

So, are these verses trying to say that Christ is God and that he has always been since the beginning, so Mary who came later bore Christ who was before?

Question: “How is Jesus Christ the son to the Word?”

John 1:1-17  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made… He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not… But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name… And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth… And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

Jesus is not the Son of the Word; He is the Word that made all things.  He is the Word that the World knew not.  He is the Word that gave power to become the sons of God.  He is the Word that became flesh and dwelt amongst us.
Jesus Christ is the Eternally begotten of the Father, the manifest will of God the Father!

John 5:37 And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.
John 14:7  If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?


What is the Protestant view on a woman praying in the family when a man is present The Bible says at 1 Cor 11:3 (ASV)

  But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

Also Ephesian 5:23 adds

  because a husband is head of his wife just as the Christ is head of the congregation, he being a savior of this body.

However 1 Cor 11:5 says a woman should cover her head

  But every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head; for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven.

An exempt from one article of JW had this to say

  A Christian wife would not normally pray aloud in the presence of her believing husband except in unusual circumstances, such as if he has been rendered mute by an illness.

This would rule out a woman praying in whatever circumstances unless the man is infirmed.

So the question is: Is it acceptable in Protestant view for a woman (wife, sister, grown child) to pray in the household when a man present?

I'd like an explanation with backings and not a backlash on any group. Thanks.

Having consulted people with very conservative upbringing I feel confident in saying that virtually no Christian groups prohibit a woman from praying when a man is present in a private or family setting. Even the most conservative protestant groups such as Brethren only prohibit women from praying aloud in public worship. If the JWs follow this rule they are one of very few exceptions.

Even very conservative groups do not see prayer as a matter of authority. Praying when others are present does not imply that the pray-er has authority over the others present, as seen by the many exhortations to all Christians to pray in all circumstances (I.e. not just leaders), and general encouragement for children to pray.


The seriousness of sin changed? I started to have the feelings that the seriousness of the sins are changing in today's age compared to the past.

My question is: Does it also change in the God's eyes?
-or-
My Question is: Does the seriousness of sin change based on the age we live in?

I noticed that some of the sins are much easier to commit in our times then it was in the past. Does this make them less serious in the eyes of God. Do they have less affect to damage our spiritual life compared to people in the past?

For example pornography, in the past a person had to make a significant effort in order to get a material like we can find today on the internet. In that time you would consider such a person a deviant, pervert and actually he would only commit probably 1/8 of what you can get today. Even Christians from time to time take a peek because of their weakness. Does it make them the same sinners as the people famous of this behavior couple hundred years ago? Or because it's just a click away it makes them more vulnerable and because of this less responsible for the sins?

Another examples could be alcoholism, gluttony, materialism and so on...
Just because now we have easier access to it, we become more likely to commit these sins, does it also makes us bigger sinners in comparisons with people from the past?

I would prefer catholic answer of understanding sins, please.

First, as to the gradation of sin:

The Catholic Church recognizes that some sins are "worse" than others.  For instance, it divides sins into mortal sins and venial sins (CCC 1854-1855):

  1855: Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.

  Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.

As for this division between really bad sins, and less bad sins, The Church cites the distinction already evident in Scripture (1 Jn 16-17):

  If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

Furthermore, even within the "mortal sins", The Church makes further distinctions in regards to gravity: " The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft" (CCC 1858).
Mortal Sins

What makes a sin mortal?  The general rule stated above is that a mortal sin is one which destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law, turning his heart away from God.  The Church has tried to further clarify the characteristics which make a sin mortal (CCC 1857):

  For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent."

a) Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments (CCC 1858).

b) Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent (CCC 1859).  The older term "material sin" was used in circumstances where one of these two were lacking.
Has the seriousness of sin changed?

Objectively speaking, the seriousness of sin has not changed.  To kill a man is just as objectively evil as has ever been (for instance).

However, the guilt assigned to the sinner for his sins may indeed change from time to time, or be different from culture to culture; this has to do with "full knowledge" and "complete consent".

Imagine a society where watching pornography is fairly common.  Those born into this society, and who are not taught otherwise, might come to believe that watching pornography is not a sin --- or if a sin, a very minor one, like being impolite to your parents.  Such a person would clearly get the facts wrong.  But it may really be possible for such a person to come to be ignorant about the gravity of this offense.  The Church teaches that in such cases the guilt may be diminished (CCC 1860):

  Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.

But supposing that, on the contrary, there were civil laws that made it rather difficult to obtain access to pornographic materials.  Then a person couldn't claim ignorance (or at least couldn't claim full ignorance): for in trying to violate the norm he would most likely inquire as to the reason for the ban in law of the prohibited action, or at least be nebulously aware that the act in question is seen as wrong in some way, and that would awaken his conscience into action (if this person be morally mature at least to some extent).  And in any case, it could not be said that such a person acted without "deliberate intent".  But if there was free intent, then there was consent.

On the other hand, in a society which doesn't prohibit access to pornography and/or makes it readily available as an acceptable choice, the conscience of him who wishes to access pornography and who has never been taught that access to pornography is wrong might not be awakened nor disturbed to the sin he is attempting.  Nor might his conscience/reason/mind give him the opportunity to deliberate as to what he is attempting is wrong, or whether he consents to it: for instance, he might access pornography to an extent because his friends are doing it and not based on a careful analysis of his actions.

Thus, given the circumstances of time, place, culture, education, upbringing, cultural influences, our own psychological make-up, and sometimes our own passions, etc. the guilt imputed to the sinner for a particular sin may indeed be diminished.  Notice, however, that THIS IS NOT A GOOD RESULT.  The objective evil of the sin remains just as bad!  The fact that people and societies do not perceive the full nature of their actions is not a sign of health, but of decay.  It is the action of The Evil One leading people astray.  And the fact that God doesn't punish these sins as badly as they deserve has nothing to do with the how holy (or how sanctified) the particular person who commits them is --- on the contrary, it has everything to do with His Mercy and how spiritually sick the sinner is.
"A World Without Sin" (Assuming one believes all the foregoing).

One particular (evil) route towards people being free of the guilt of sin might go as follows: Corrupt society and its education so much that all individuals lose any inkling as to good and evil; then any and all of their actions will be entirely devoid of any considerations or knowledge about the divine law; and thus, the argument goes, they will be entirely free of any guilt due to sin.

This will not work, because:

a) As The Church teaches (CCC 1860), the moral law is written deeply into the hearts of men, and as such it is not easily eradicated.  The promptings of our conscience in regards to the moral law will always be there, even if severely muffled by the culture around us.  Certainly men can be taught to ignore these promptings, much like they can be taught to ignore (certain amount of) pain, but it is not a given that all men will ignore their consciences forever, and those who don't will inevitably speak up (if given an opportunity).  Yes, these men can be silenced as good men are always silenced in despotic regimes, but this silencing will have to be continuous throughout the existence of this culture.

b) Even if such cultural programme can be carried out, I don't think that the society which puts it into effect will survive in the long term.  After all, disobedience to the entirety of the moral law cannot lead to a flourishing society, but rather to unmitigated chaos.  In a society where anyone can lie in open court about the action of his neighbor, where anyone can feel free to hunt his neighbor (before kidnapping his neighbor's wife for himself), or where no authority higher than oneself is recognized --- such a society cannot last for very long.

c) As The Church teaches (CCC 1860), the "full knowledge" clause applies to unintentional ignorance.  If one intentionally makes oneself ignorant of the implications of the moral law, or if one intentionally forgoes educating oneself in these implications in order to avoid the responsibilities therefrom (as the proposal suggests), one doesn't avoid the guilt and/or penalties of sin.

c) Finally, let's look at the original assumption behind the suggestion.  The assumption behind the proposal is to avoid guilt/punishment for the sins committed and not necessarily to come closer to God and grow in holiness.  Clearly this is not a very mature motivation for a Christian!  To forgo flourishing in order to gain the pity of God in regards to our sins is analogous to the idiot who intentionally makes himself blind in order to obtain the societal benefits that are given the blind because they are at a disadvantage.
Conclusion

There is nothing I know that says that sins "lose their potency" as times goes by, or as societies become more "evolved" or "enlightened".  A sin remains as evil as ever objectively speaking.

Now, there can certainly be an appearance that some sins are less wrong today than they used to be --- and this is nothing but an optical illusion --- because (I think):

a) They are more common in our society today than they used to be --- The Evil One has certainly been making advances of late in some areas ---, and

b) People have an intuitive notion that their sin is less grave because it is now more common.  People who think so are intuitively picking up on the fact that under the new circumstances they can have less knowledge about the nature of their actions and they can have less deliberate intent to commit them.  But they are wrong in thinking that their now common sin is less grave.  It remains as grave as ever --- it remains as evil as ever.  What they are intuitively trying to grasp is that they are imputed less guilt now for their evil deed than they had been in the past because now they have some mitigating circumstances.  In other words, people confuse the gravity of the sin with the amount of responsibility they have for it.  Their responsibility for the sin may be diminished, and therefore they conclude that the gravity of the sin has diminished --- But this is incorrect.  The evil of an action and the harshness of the punishment for it are different things.


Did the early church devote themselves to prayer or to "the prayers", and if the latter, which prayers? I couldn't decide if this fit better in Hermeneutics or here, but anyways:

Acts 2:42 NIV - They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Acts 2:42 ESV - And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Acts 2:42 KJV - And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers

What would be an overview of Christian beliefs regarding whether Acts 2:42 is stating that they, that is the early church, committed themselves to generally praying together or to specific prayers?

BibleHub.com has an interlinear translation (word-by-word translation of Greek to English) of this verse. The Greek reads:

  ἦσαν δὲ προσκαρτεροῦντες τῇ διδαχῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων, καὶ τῇ κοινωνίᾳ, τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου, καὶ ταῖς προσευχαῖς.

The word by word English translation reads

  "they were moreover steadfastly continuing in the teaching of the apostles and - in fellowship the breaking of the bread and the prayers.

(emphasis added)

The word "the" in "the prayers" is the standard Greek article (in the appropriate gender, case, and number), ταῖς. One would think that the phrase should be translated "in the prayers", as the ESV has it.

On the other hand, the dash between and and in fellowship corresponds to a similar article that is not translated. A word-by-word translation of that phrase, καὶ τῇ κοινωνίᾳ, would be "and in the fellowship". Yet most translations (the ESV seems to be an exception) make that phrase "in fellowship". And indeed "in the fellowship" sounds a bit awkward to me.

The root of the problem is simply that Greek puts in definite articles before words in situations where English doesn't, and even the ESV seems to remove them sometimes. Acts 2:40, for example, contains the Greek phrase

  Σώθητε ἀπὸ τῆς γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς ταύτης

A literal, word-by-word translation is

  Be saved from the generation the perverse this

The ESV removes both articles in its translation,

  Save yourselves from this crooked generation

Thus it appears that the phrasing "the prayers" in Acts 2:42 is simply a choice by the translators to translate the Greek literally in this instance, rather than a reference by the author to specific prayers.


Who is the young man mentioned in Mark 14:51? In Mark 14:51-52, there is this reference to a man:

  51 A young man, wearing only a linen cloth, was following Jesus, and the people also grabbed him. 52 But the cloth he was wearing came off, and he ran away naked.

Who is this guy? Why is he mentioned? Does he have anything to do with the current situation?

This is one of only a very few incidents in the Gospel of Mark that does not appear anywhere else in the other three Gospels.  Some commentators have speculated, based on that, that the young man was Mark, referring to himself in the third person much as John did.  But that's just speculation; as far as I know there are no other passages that refer to our unfortunate anonymous disciple.


Are Christians not permitted to have sex with wife when she's on her period? Acts 15:29 and 21:25 carry over four requirements from the old testament to apply to gentile Christians - one of which is abstaining from sexual immorality.  In Leviticus 20:18, it makes a big deal about having sex with a woman while she's on her period.

  If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people. (ESV)

However, Leviticus 15:24 makes it sound more like a ceremonial issue than a sexual immorality issue (which in that case may be a requirement which has passed away under the new covenant).

  And if any man lies with her and her menstrual impurity comes upon him, he shall be unclean seven days, and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean (ESV)

So the question is, does the Bible prohibit sex during menstruation between a man and his wife?

There is no external law that binds the Christian.

  1 Corinthians 6:12 "All things are lawful to me," but not all things
  do profit. "All things are lawful to me," but I will not be mastered
  by anything.

  Romans 7:4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have been put to death to the Law through the body of Christ, for you to belong to another, to the One having been raised out from the dead, so that we should bear fruit to God.

  Galatians 2:19 For through the Law I died to the Law that I might live to God.

So it is just a matter of sound judgement of what is appropriate and what benefits by the Holy Spirit in you. It is called by many names:

Law of Christ ( Galatians 6:2 )
Law of the Spirit ( Romans 8:2 )
My laws ( Hebrews 8:10, 10:16 )
Law of Faith ( Rom 3:27 )
Law of Liberty ( James 1:25 )

All aspects of the same truth pertaining to Christ's nature inside us partaken through heart transformation by the indwelling Holy Spirit also Known as Sanctification ( 2 Thes 2:13-14 )

  Galatians 5:6 ...All that matters is faith, expressed through love....

  We are now not under the law anymore, but instead we live by faith.
  And here is a shocker, something that will no doubt shut the mouths of
  those who still try to be justified by obeying the law. Lets look at 2
  verses first:

  Gal 3:12 And the law is not of faith…

  and also

  Rom 14:23b … for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

  Can you see what it says when you combine these 2 verses?

  Can you see it??? Since the law
  is not of faith, and since anything that is not of faith is sin, then
  it means that those who try to be justified by their own good works
  and try to live up to some moral code (the law) are actually living in
  sin!!

  From Christ the End of the Law

  Living by the Law is Separation

  The law presupposes the separate self to obey it. The fact that we see
  the law outside us as something we have to attain to, something which
  we are not now but should or ought to be, is our perpetual admission
  that we are lawbreakers and in separation from God. In this
  separation, we can only hear the law as if it is coming from outside
  us and therefore we are apart from it, so that we are bound to both
  the demands of the law and to the separateness in which to do them.

  This separate outer law demands that we live up to the reality that we
  are the image of God. That is an impossibility, because we are only an
  image, and not God Himself. Only God can be God. An image does not
  create or sustain itself, but is dependent on the object of which it
  is an image. We are images that have come out of the breath of God,
  and so we have some measure of life and will in ourselves – for we are
  persons in His image! As persons, we have all been tempted to try to
  become God ourselves by trying to be like Him, whether knowingly or
  unknowingly. It is the most absurd thought that ever came into the
  temporal universe. Still, we have all tried it. Like Lucifer, we have
  all said, “I will be like the Most High.” (Is 14:14).

  Nevertheless, the very attempt to emulate God, even if out of a
  supposed good motive – to do “good” – is the point of separation from
  God, because no separate will can work in Him. A will that says, “I
  will be like Him,” is already separated unto itself and not to God,
  because no created being can be like Him. He is Himself and there is
  no other. However, He has created us that through Christ in us we
  would be the visible expression of which He is the invisible reality,
  so that our lives are what they are supposed to be when we are one
  with God. Something that is one with something has no need to become
  or change into something else – to “be like” something, because it
  already IS a perfect expression of that with which it is “one.” It
  just is itself, and thinks and wills as one with its source. As a
  branch of a vine lives only from the sap from the vine, and therefore
  bears the fruit of the vine through its organic oneness with the vine,
  in the same exact way we bear the fruit of Christ since we are one
  with Him and are living branches on His vine.

  From Fred Pruitt

Further resources to study this are:

The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church
101 Lies Taught In Church Every Sunday
Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices
The Story Behind Galatians - Frank Viola
Grace & Law - Natural Church


Do Mormons in European countries also sing patriotic American songs? The answer to this question says about the hymnbook used by the LDS church in USA that:

  The patriotic songs in the hymnbook include America the Beautiful, My
  Country, 'Tis of Thee, The Star-Spangled Banner, and strangely enough
  God Save the King.

  Mormons have a unique feeling of US patriotism because they believe
  God founded the country to provide a free place for him to restore his
  church (the LDS church).

In those European countries, where English is not the native language (such as Germany and Russia), do Mormons sing translated versions of these American patriotic songs?

Or do they perhaps use their own local patriotic songs, or no patriotic songs at all?

Latter-day Saints in other countries do not typically sing United States patriotic songs.

The full LDS hymnbook is currently published in 38 languages. The English hymnbook has 341 hymns, including four patriotic songs:

America the Beautiful (USA)
My Country, ’Tis of Thee (USA)
The Star-Spangled Banner (USA)
God Save the King (United Kingdom)

For a short time, the Church also published national anthem inserts for the English hymnbook, labeled as hymn 342:

O Canada (Canada)
Advance Australia Fair (Australia)
God Defend New Zealand (New Zealand)

Hymnbooks in other languages have around 200 hymns from the current English hymnbook, plus a few additional hymns that are optionally chosen by the translators. None of them have United States patriotic songs; however, a few have local patriotic songs:

Finnish: "Finlandia-hymni" (Finlandia) and "Siunaa ja varjele meitä" (Bless and Protect Us)
Italian: "Va, pensiero sull’ali dorate" (Fly, Thought, on Wings of Gold / Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, from an opera by Verdi)
Norwegian: "Gud signe vårt dyre fedreland" (God Bless Our Precious Homeland)
Samoan: "Lo Matou Atua e, Matou te Fa‘afetai" (Our God, We Raise to Thee, a generic patriotic song not specifically Samoan)
Thai: "เพลงชาติ" (Thai National Anthem) and "สรรเสริญพระบารมี" (Praise to the King / The King’s Anthem)

At the back of the English hymnbook, this guidance is given:

  A few patriotic songs have been included in the hymnbook; with priesthood approval, local national anthems may be added. Members may stand for national anthems in Church meetings according to local custom and priesthood direction ("Using the Hymnbook," Hymns, 381).

Local leaders are able to decide which anthems or patriotic songs are appropriate for Church meetings where they live.

Although Latter-day Saints around the world hold the United States in high esteem – that the United States was uniquely set apart for the latter-day restoration of the gospel, and that the New Jerusalem will be built on the American continent – they are encouraged to honor the law and be actively involved in strengthening their community wherever they live.


Why were ousia and hypostasis synonymous in the Nicene Creed? Why were ousia and hypostasis synonymous in the Nicene Creed?
In the original 325 A.D. Nicene Creed, an anathema is included which has ousia and hypostasis as synonymous. In this case, the Trinity is one hypostasis ( = homoousios).

And in the Holy Spirit.
But as for those who say, There was when He was not,
and, Before being born He was not,
and that He came into existence out of nothing,
or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance (ὑποστάσεως ἢ οὐσιάς)
or created,
or is subject to alteration or change these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.

Source:
https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm
It seems also the meaning of υποστασις in Hebrews 1:3.

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (υποστασις) (ESV). The ASV has "substance".

However, in later centuries hypostasis began referring to the "person", not the "nature" or "being" of the Trinity. Why did such change in definition occur? It would be helpful to address the  semantical development of υποστασις on how it changed from "substance" (nature/essence) to "person".

The Church confesses is that God is three Persons (hypostasis) in one Essence (ousia).

Source:
https://www.google.com.ph/amp/s/exploringthedepthsofthedivine.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/god-as-trinity-orthodox-trinitarianism/amp/

This response has been extracted from a longer article of mine on the subject (linked at the end) , hence the discontinuous numbering of its sections.
1. Ousía in Greek philosophical discourse
Deriving then from the verb "to be", as we can see in [4] ousía enters the Greek philosophical discourse with Plato, who uses it to mean the primary, fundamental kind of being, ("prōtē ousíā", pl. "prôtai ousíai"), with Aristotle afterwards using it with the same meaning. It is crucial to note that, for both Plato and Aristotle, ousía does not enter the discourse as a definition but as a question to be answered: what is the primary, fundamental kind of being? What is prōtē ousíā?
While ousía means the same for both Plato and Aristotle as a question, they provide completely different answers to that question. Plato's answer is well known: the Form, which exists in a transcendent world of Forms, is prōtē ousíā, the primary, real being, of which the particular objects in the sensible world are just shadows. Against this Platonic background, Aristotle then provides his own answer in two works, Categories and Metaphysics, in which, notably, he provides different answers.
Categories, part 5 [6]

Primary ousía is the individual, particular, concrete entity, of which species and accidents can be predicated without it being predicable of or attributable to anything else. This is actually stated in negative terms: “what is neither in a subject nor said of a subject”, i.e. the particular subject itself or "hypokeimenon" [7], literally “that which underlies or lies beneath” the universals (first of all species and genus) in which it falls and the accidents which inhere in it.

Secondary ousía ("deutérā ousíā", pl. "deúterai ousíai") is the species (first of all) and the genus to which the particular subject belongs.

Metaphysics, book VII/Zeta [8]

Primary ousía is the essence of the particular entity, which is its form, while the particular entity, the composite of form and matter, is ousía in a derivative sense. (The Aristotelian expression that the Latins translated as "essentia" is "to ti ên einai", "the what it was to be", although sometimes he uses the shorter expression "to ti esti", "the what it is".)

Species and genus are not ousía.

A question arises at this point: Is for Aristotle the form of a particular entity a particular or a universal? This, in conjunction with his statement in Z.13 that no universal is ousía, is the most disputed issue regarding Aristotle's Metaphysics, and has given rise to a whole field of Aristotelian exegesis, in which the main lines are [9] [10]:

Forms are not universal, and each particular entity has its own form which resides in that entity, so that all individuals of a given species have forms which are identical to one another but numerically different.

Forms are universal, and Z.13 actually does not exclude them as ousía.

Since the second line is basically a reversion to Platonism, IMO it is extremely implausible that it may reflect Aristotle's personal position.
Summarizing the answers that Aristotle gives to the question "What is primary ousía?":

Categories: the particular entity or "hypokeimenon", the subject which underlies all predicates and cannot be predicated of anything else.

Metaphysics: the essence of the particular entity, which is its form, which may be understood in a particular or a universal sense.

2. Hypostasis, the original cognate of substantia
Etymologically [1] [2],
hypostasis = hypó ("under") + stásis ("a standing" = (hístēmi ("to stand") + -sis, verbal noun suffix)) = "that which stands under"
is a direct cognate of [3] [4] [5] [6]:
substantia = sub ("under") + stans ("standing", present active participle of stō ("stand")) = "that which stands under".
According to [7], the first recorded use of hypostasis as "substance" was in the book "On the cause of plants" by Aristotle's successor Theophrastus (c. 371 - c. 287 BC), while the term may have been introduced in the philosophical discourse either by the Stoic Poseidonius (c. 135 BC - c. 51 BC) according to some, or by the Epicurean Demetrius Lacon (fl. late 2nd century BC) according to others, in both cases with the meaning of objective or concrete existence or reality. Thus, real entities were said to "have hypostasis", whereas merely apparent or imaginary entities did not.
Recalling at this point that both the Stoic and the Epicurean philosophical schools were materialistic, the first conceiving the all-pervading Logos as a subtle fiery aether and the second conceiving reality as consisting just of atoms and void, it is clear that, to the extent that they used the term ousía, they would not have used it in the sense of form understood as universal or even in the sense of form at all, but in the sense of the individual, particular, concrete entity, the "hypokeimenon", “that which underlies or lies beneath”, which clearly overlaps with the meaning of hypostasis. Therefore, it is clear that for both Stoics and Epicureans the terms ousía and hypostasis were synonyms, but that was due to the specific sense in which both schools understood ousía.
Introducing now the Latins, who were now becoming interested in philosophy, into the picture:
Since, per linguistic design, substantia = hypostasis,
and, per Stoic and Epicurean understanding of ousía, hypostasis = ousía,
then, for the Latin-speaking Stoic- and Epicurean-dominated culture, substantia = ousía.
This was precisely the case of Tertullian, who was heavily influenced by Stoic metaphysics and coined the formula "tres Personae, una Substantia" early in the III century, after which substantia came to mean, among Latin-speaking Christians, the single infinite spirit that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have in common, which is the meaning of ousía in the Nicene sense, as we will see next.
5. The "one ousía" answer to Arianism, its modalistic and tritheistic risks, and Nicaea's "one hypostasis" as prevention of the second.
Since Arians denied that the Son and the Father were one, they had to interpret Jesus' words "I and the Father are one." (Jn 10:30) in the sense of only moral oneness and not ontological oneness. To counter that eisegesis, the orthodox sought for the right word to add to Jn 10:30 to convey unequivocally the sense of ontological oneness: "I and the Father are one"... what?
We arrive at the same question from four key statements by Jesus of his divinity that were not mentioned in the previous section: the 4 times in which He explicitely applied to Himself the divine Name in the first person revealed in Ex 3:14: "Ehyeh", "Ego Eimí", I Am": Jn 8:24,28,58 & 13:19. If each of the Father and the Son names Himself "Ego Eimí", "I Am", then Each is a distinct "I" but Both are the same... what?
The natural answer to that question was the term ousía, which derived precisely from the verb "eimí", "to be". So, the initial orthodox answer to the Arian challenge was: the Father and the Son are one ousía and two prósōpa, one being and two persons. Now, each term in that answer, ousía and prósōpon, was at risk of misinterpretation resulting in another heresy.
The risk of misinterpretation of ousía came from the fact that the philosophical stage at the beginning of the IV century was very different from that of around 70 AD when the Letter to the Hebrews was written. Platonism had come back with Plotinus (204-270) and Porphyry (234-305), and with it the notions of forms and universals and therefore the issue of the exact meaning of ousía. Let us recall from section 1 that ousía had entered the philosophical discourse, some 700 years before Nicaea, not as a definition but as a question to be answered, and for which Aristotle had provided two different answers, one in the Categories and another in the Metaphysics, the second of which could in turn be interpreted in two different ways:
C: the individual, particular, concrete subject or "hypokeimenon", “that which underlies or lies beneath”;
M1: the essence or form, understood as particular;
M2: the essence or form, understood as universal.
Each of these senses of ousía led to a different sense of the statement that the Father and the Son were "homoousious", "of the same ousía":
C: They were the same particular, concrete subject.
M1: They had the same essence or form, understood as particular.
M2: They had the same essence or form, understood as universal.
It is easy to see that, while sense C amounts to modalism, sense M2 amounts to tritheism, since the case would be the same as stating that three horses have the same essence or form. It was probably to prevent the risk of understanding ousía as a universal of which there were multiple instances, or equivalently, of understanding the expression "of the same ousía" in the sense of only qualitative identity instead of numerical identity, that the Nicaea fathers added hypostasis - which, as we saw in section 2, had the meaning of objective or concrete existence or reality - as synonym of ousía, anathematizing those who asserted that the Son of God "is of another hypostasis or ousía" [1] [2]. Since substantia was originally the cognate and equivalent of hypostasis, making hypostasis equivalent to ousía (M1) reinforced the Western understanding of substantia as the Latin equivalent of ousía (M1) that had begun with Tertullian.
Whereas the addition of hypostasis as synonym of ousía effectively prevented the M2 sense of ousía as universal, which leads to tritheism, it in effect promoted the C sense - which is evident from the etymological equivalence of hypostasis, literally "that which stands under", with hypokeimenon - which leads to modalism.
Which takes us precisely to the risk of misinterpretation of prósōpon, which came from the fact that it meant "face", "mask" or "character in a theatrical play" [3]. Thus modalists could claim that they were in complete agreement with the definition of Nicaea.
6. The three Hypostases formula: appearance, toleration by St. Athanasius and resistance by St. Jerome.
As noted in section 3, the use of hypostasis as synonym of ousía, so that the Father and the Son were said to be "of the same hypostasis", was inconsistent with the sense of hypostasis in Heb 1:3, since that passage necessarily implies - from the very notion of "charaktēr" as impressed image or copy, reproduction, representation - that the Son is or has a numerically different hypostasis from that of the Father, irrespective of what hypostasis may mean.
It was not this consideration, however, what motivated orthodox theologians to advocate formulating trinitarian doctrine in terms of three hypostases, but the realization that using all the terms that can convey a sense of objective reality - i.e. hypostasis and ousía - to denote the common being of the Father and the Son amounted to leaving the door open for modalists to claim that they were in full agreement with the dogmatic definitions of the Church.
The notion of three Hypostases had been introduced in Christian theology by Origen and had been used also by his former student St. Dionysius of Alexandria. Its first documented use after Nicaea was by (also Alexandrian) St. Athanasius, in his work "In Illud Omnia", written probably c. 335 [1] [2]:
"For the fact of those venerable living creatures [Isa 6:3; Rev 4:8] offering their praises three times, saying 'Holy, Holy, Holy,' proves that the three Hypostases are perfect, just as in saying 'Lord,' they declare the one Ousía."
After that, the expression was not used again by St. Athanasius, in deference to the anathema of Nicaea [1], but was used by non-Nicene bishops, e.g. in the Dedication creed of the council of Antioch of 341 and in a letter by the homoiousian bishop George of Laodicea in 359. But by the time of the Council of Alexandria of 362, presided by St. Athanasius, the expression was already being used by people holding homoousian orthodoxy, as attested by the letter to the Church in Antioch written by that Council, known as "Tomus ad Antiochenos" [3] [4], which acknowledged that both expressions, "three hypostases" and "one hypostasis", could used in a sense consistent with homoousian orthodoxy.
In stark contrast with St. Athanasius in the Council of Alexandria of 362, St. Jerome, in his epistle 15 to Pope St. Damasus, written in 376 or 377 [5] [6] [7], manifests his deep trouble with the use of the formula "three hypostases".
7. The three Hypostases formula: proposal by St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa and increasingly official Church adoption since 382.
After Nicaea, the first orthodox theologian to propose a notion of hypostasis distinct from that of ousía in a published work was St. Basil of Caesarea (330-379), and he does it in his epistles 214 (375) to Count Terentius [1] and 236 (376) to Amphilochius [2]. In both letters, the main motive for using hypostasis as synonym of Person is that, if the orthodox keep speaking of one hypostasis, they set the stage for the Arians to accuse them of Sabellianism (modalism).
St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394) devotes his epistle 35 (c. 380) addressed to his brother Peter - which is often referred to as St. Basil's epistle 38 to his brother Gregory - to the difference between ousía and hypostasis. St. Gregory starts by distinguishing between the common or general and the particular, and provides a definition of hypostasis [3].
In 381, i.e. around one year after Gregory's letter to Peter, the second Ecumenical Council convened in Constantinople, and the next year, i.e 382, a synod of bishops assembled in that city and sent a Synodical Letter to Pope Damasus and other Western bishops, which is the first official (though not ecumenical) Church document speaking of three Hypostases [4]:
Letter from the Constantinople Synod of 382 to Pope Damasus
What we have undergone — persecutions, afflictions, imperial threats, cruelty from officials, and whatever other trial at the hands of heretics — we have put up with for the sake of the gospel faith established by the 318 fathers at Nicaea in Bithynia. You, we and all who are not bent on subverting the word of the true faith should give this creed our approval. It is the most ancient and is consistent with our baptism. It tells us how to believe in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: believing also, of course, that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have a single Godhead and power and substance, a dignity deserving the same honour and a co-eternal sovereignty, in three most perfect Hypostases, or three perfect Persons. So there is no place for Sabellius’s diseased theory in which the hypostases are confused and thus their proper characteristics destroyed.
End of quote from the Constantinople Synod of 382.
In 431 the third Ecumenical Council convened in Ephesus. The third letter of St. Cyril of Alexandria to Nestorius, which was read at the council and included in the proceedings, spoke of the Hypostases of the Word and of the Holy Spirit [5]:
St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his 3rd letter to Nestorius
All the expressions, therefore, that occur in the gospels are to be referred to one Person, the one enfleshed Hypostasis of the Word.
For even though the Spirit exists in his own Hypostasis and is thought of on his own, as being Spirit and not as Son, even so He is not alien to the Son.
End of quote from St. Cyril.
In 451 the fourth Ecumenical Council convened in Chalcedon and proclaimed a Christological definition which contains all the terms considered so far: ousía, prosopon, hypostasis, and nature [6] [7].
Finally, in 553 the fifth Ecumenical Council convened in Constantinople and proclaimed a series of trinitarian and Christological definitions, the first of which explicitely identifies ousía with physis and hypostasis with prosopon [7].
References
Section 1
[4] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BF%E1%BD%90%CF%83%CE%AF%CE%B1
[5] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%83%CE%AF%CE%B1
[6] Studtmann, Paul, "Aristotle's Categories", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/aristotle-categories/
[7] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hupokeimenon
[8] Cohen, S. Marc, "Aristotle's Metaphysics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/
[9] Loux, Michael J., "Primary Ousia: an essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics Z and H", Cornell University Press, 2008.
https://books.google.com/books?id=1DOIpuLnrnIC
[10] Cohen, S. Marc, "Z.13: Substances and Universals", 2008.
https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/433/Z13Lecture.pdf
Section 2
[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BD%91%CF%80%CF%8C
[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AC%CF%83%CE%B9%CF%82
[3] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/substantia
[4] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sub#Latin
[5] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stans#Latin
[6] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sto#Latin
[7] Ute Possekel, "Evidence of Greek philosophical concepts in the writings of Ephrem the Syrian", Peeters Publishers, Louvain, 1999.
https://books.google.com/books?id=rZ3gGQuJUS4C
Section 5
[1] http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm
[2] http://www.fourthcentury.com/urkunde-24/
[3] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CF%81%CF%8C%CF%83%CF%89%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BD
Section 6
[1] Thomas G. Weinandy, Athanasius: A Theological Introduction, Ashgate Publishing, 2007.
https://books.google.com/books?id=SGOpA_MjSUgC
[2] https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/in-illud-omnia.asp?pg=7
[3] Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, Oct 28, 2004.
https://books.google.com/books?id=iT4VDAAAQBAJ
[4] http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2818.htm
[5] The Letters of Saint Jerome, Aeterna Press, 2016.
https://books.google.com/books?id=iTwIDAAAQBAJ
[6] http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001015.htm
[7] http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/main/jerome/jerome_ep_15_tres_hypostases.shtml
For the quoted passage, I used this Latin text to improve the accuracy of the English translation in the previous two references.
Section 7
[1] https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp
[2] https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp?pg=39
[3] https://www.scribd.com/document/212698195/Letter-35
[4] http://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum02.htm
[5] http://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum03.htm
[6] Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, The acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Liverpool University Press, 2005.
https://books.google.com/books?id=6IUaOOT1G3UC
[7] Pavouris, Raphael (2001), The condemnation of the Christology of the three chapters in its historical and doctrinal context: the assessment and judgement of Emperor Justinian and the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553). PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1503/
Article from which the above has been extracted:
http://ousiakaihypostasis.blogspot.com


What is the religious significance of Christmas lights? What is the religious significance of the modern practice to decorate the outside of the house and front yard with strings of light?  Is it entirely secular?

Well, there certainly isn't anything in the Bible about it, for the simple reason that there isn't anything in the Bible about celebrating Christmas in the first place.  (Not to mention electricity!)  However, hanging or holding up lanterns to provide festive illumination after dark for festivals or celebrations is an ancient custom in many cultures, dating back to Old Testament days.  See the the Parable of the Ten Virgins for just one example.


Why did God tell Moses to make a bronze serpent on a stick? In Numbers 21:4-9, Moses makes a bronze serpent on a stick to heal the Hebrews' snake bites, as per God's instructions. They don't worship it, but they are to look at it in order to live. Isn't this sort of like an idol, or a graven image? Or could it be a reference to something learned from Egypt, like possible Hermetic disciplines?

Also, is it related to the image of a serpent coiled around a staff, seen commonly today in the medical field?

I think in order to answer this question, a short detour needs to be taken to John's Gospel, because in it Jesus Christ himself refers to this incident with Moses and the bronze serpent.  In John 3:14-15, Jesus tells Nicodemus, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

Then, Jesus continues by noting that out of love God sent His Son into the world to save it, not to condemn it (John 3:16-17).  Jesus then says, though, that the world was already condemned: "Whoever believes in him [i.e. the Son, Jesus Christ] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3:18).

The point in Jesus' discussion with Nicodemus is that he came into the world to save a world that was already condemned, and that this salvation comes through him being "lifted up."  The world, and us in it, are "condemned already" due to the sin of Adam and Eve, and Jesus saves us through his death on the cross (i.e. he was "lifted up").  All who look on Christ in faith receive this redemption from death; those who do not are not condemned by Christ, because they were already condemned due to sin.

So, getting back to Moses and the bronze serpent in the book of Numbers.  To put some context around it, the people of Israel had been in slavery in Egypt.  Through Moses, the Lord has delivered them up out of slavery, redeeming them from their captivity.  He is now leading them to the land He has promised them.  Yet, the people continually rebel against the Lord.  They finally "spoke against God and against Moses," accusing them of bringing the people out to the wilderness to die.  Then, they call the manna which the Lord had been sending them "worthless."  Thus, they despise the Lord's grace and mercy in delivering them out of captivity (cf. Numbers 21:4-5).

Therefore, the Lord gives them what their sins deserve: death.  He sends "fiery serpents" to them, which bite the people and kill them.  Sin came into the world through the serpent, Satan, and now here in Numbers the people are suffering the consequences of sin, namely death; they are "condemned already" (Numbers 21:6-7).

However, the Lord provides a means to save the people.  He has Moses make a bronze serpent, the symbol of death, and raise it up on a pole.  All who look on it will live (Numbers 21:8-9).

Jesus connects this event with his own crucifixion.  He is raised up on the cross to die for our sins.  He dies on the symbol of death, apparently "bitten" by the serpent Satan, dying the death we deserve.  Yet, through this symbol of death we have life; everyone who looks on the cross of Christ in faith will live, even though we have been bitten by the serpent and are therefore sinners (cf. Numbers 21:9).

That's a lot of words to say basically that Christ interprets the event in Numbers in light of what he came to do; he came to die by being raised up on the cross in order to save people who were "condemned already" by the serpent Satan and the sin he brought into the world.  So, what happens in Numbers points forward to what Christ was coming to do on the cross for all people.

Indeed, Christ came to save not only us, but also his entire creation.  He died and rose to save a world that was "condemned already," restoring it to the perfection in which he had originally created it (cf. John 1:1ff). This will come on the "Last Day" with his return and the resurrection.


How do proponents of sola fide explain Titus 1:16? Evangelicals believe that faith alone establishes your salvation.  How do they resolve Titus 1:16?

  They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

While I understand that evangelicals don't directly recommend doing abominable, disobedient and reprobating good work - they also generally don't believe that you can lose your salvation, which this passage seems to imply.

Laying the Groundwork

The Transformation of Salvation

It is important to note that, according to the Bible, the following things occur at the moment of salvation by faith alone:

We, who were once dead, are made alive in Christ:

  When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.  (Colossians 2:13)

We, who were once in the dominion of darkness, are brought into the kingdom of Jesus

  For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.  (Colossians 1:13-14)

We, who were once alienated from God, hostile to God (or enemies of God) have now become the children of God by virtue of a new birth:

  And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds" (Colossians 1:21)

  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  (John 1:12-13)

We, who were one sinful, are now a holy nation, made righteous and renewed in our spirits:

  But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.  (1 Peter 2:9)

  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified [declared righteous] as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.  (Romans 3:23-24)

  Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.  (Colossians 3:9-10)

The Impact of the Transformation

So, at the moment of salvation, a very significant transformation has occurred.  We are changed at the very core of our beings so that our desires have changed and our spirits are now alive.  Indeed, we have the Holy Spirit Himself indwelling us:

  Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)

What this results in is a drastic change in desires.  Someone who has truly put their faith in Christ should have new desires, and their salvation should naturally result in a change in their actions.

So, you should see the impact of their faith in the works that they do, but it is not a salvation by works.  Put another way, we believe that salvation is by faith alone, but a genuine faith will inevitably result in a change in actions and behavior.  If you observe no change in desires or actions, then it is cause to doubt the genuineness of the faith.

Titus 1:16

From an evangelical perspective, the verse you cited is not speaking about those who truly believe in Christ, but whose actions have failed to change.  Rather, it is speaking of those whose faith is not genuine and whose actions reveal this to be true.  Jesus Himself indicated that "by their fruits you will know them" in Matthew 7:16.

Conclusion

So, if you observe someone professing faith in Christ who is doing abominable things without shame or repentance, we should not conclude that this is someone who has truly put his or her faith in Christ, been brought out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, made a new creation, forgiven, cleansed, made righteous, made alive and indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, but who is failing to reflect in any way the life of a Christian.  Rather we should conclude that no change has really taken place and, as a result, no true faith has been exercised.