Some Ouachita Baptist University staff are opposing a new policy, starting next academic year, requiring all University faculty and staff to sign a Statement of Affirmation and commit to upholding the school's stances on faith, sexuality and gender. baptistpress.com/resource-li…

NEW - Pope Leo XIV says "there is no such thing as a holy war," rejecting any religious justification for conflicts around the world: "Only peace is holy."

Hey @MikeWingerii, I’ll try to do my best and to do it rather simply. The key scriptural text (for me anyway) is Matthew 28:18-20. It is commonly translated into English like the ESV does here: [18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” But the command to “make disciples” is just the single Greek verb μαθητεύσατε (mathēteusate). It just means “disciple” or “instruct” or “teach.” Who are we to do that to? “All the nations.” So who are they? Now, yes, I know that because of the next clause involving baptism, μαθητεύσατε (mathēteusate) is typically taken to mean something that we are to do to INDIVIDUALS in all nations. And no, it is not wrong to see that as PART of the command Jesus gives. But it IS WRONG to think that discipling individuals in all nations is ALL Jesus is commanding. “But how can you teach an entire nation?” …asks the fool. Easy! With preaching, with books, with art, with plays and education, and all the ways that you communicate with people. But most directly, you teach nations with laws, with recognized officials holidays (Christmas and Easter, for example), righteous judgments in courts, proclamations (props to the late Queen Elizabeth and her Christmas addresses), and other acts of public righteousness. The full scope of Jesus’s command is the full grammatical scope of what his sentence means. Christians are to teach and admonish both individuals and governments. This is why (for example) the disciples in Acts were teaching in the Temple, which was a GOVERNMENT building for the Jewish nation, not merely individual synagogues throughout the countryside. This is also why Acts has a strange concentration on the evangelization of government officials (from the Ethiopian eunuch to Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus). This is also why Paul notes in Romans 13:4 that the magistrate who bears the sword is “the servant of God,” rather than some official of the world, outside the kingdom of God, with an independent sphere of authority who — though well advised to independently save his individual soul — has no duties to God as an official of his nation in the day to day affairs of his governing. In truth, all ministers owe an allegiance to the LORD God of Heaven and earth, who became a man, purchased us with his blood, rose from the grave, and ascended to Heaven. In other words, when Jesus says “all authority in heaven and on earth” in Matthew 28:18, he really means “all authority.”

The reason the Scofield and Darby Pretrib rapture has not happened, is because the Pretrib rapture doctrine is unbiblical. Week after week, month after month, decade after decade, and now centuries. And no rapture. It's time to read the bible and believe what it says.