Kolten Turner Discussion Questions

1. Old Testament Narrative: When Moses and the Israelites are wondering in the wilderness for forty years, God displays just how good he is to them. First, He delivered them from the hands of slavery and began their journey into the promised land. Because they were so ungrateful, unfaithful, and disobedient, God allowed them to experience the desert longer than he ever intended them to. Even in his judgement, God still guarded the camp by placing a cloud over it and when He moved, they would move. He always provided food and water, whether they were worthy of it or not. This entire narrative that Moses leads us through is a perfect example of our lives and how God interacts with us. We are unfaithful, ungrateful, and disobedient, but He never is.

2. New Testament Narrative: When Jesus is confronted with the woman who was caught in the act of adultery, God's compassion, mercy, and grace are shown exceptionally well. This woman is about to be put to death by stoning, but Jesus rebukes her accusers by saying, "Ye without sin, cast the first stone." This is a perfect example of how God reveals to us in times of disobedience just how sinful we are and why we need him. He is always prompting us to look inwardly before we go on to accuse anyone else of anything unrighteous. He says not to judge, but we can confront sinful nature that is apparent within fellow believers. However, He teaches us to look at ourselves before others because we likely have sin that isn't taken care of ourselves.

1. Page 231 Question: The Trinity is God. Therefore, if we deny the Trinity, we are essentially denying who God is. The Bible clearly states that God is three-fold, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, it is not explicit as to how they correlate with each other. That's why it wasn't until hundreds of years after Jesus' death, that we have the Trinity really set in stone in our core beliefs. We cannot truly know God without the Trinity. On the other hand, we cannot truly know the Trinity. That is, we cannot fully understand it with our human brains. We as humans can't physically comprehend the idea of one "being" also being two other "beings" at the same time and still being 100% of each of them. It doesn't make sense. I don't believe that God wants everything to make sense to us. That's why we have faith. I believe He purposefully withholds some information from us so that we can put our faith and trust in Him. If we knew everything about him, we would have no need for faith. However, I believe because He withholds information that we are allowed to grow closer to Him. We are able to search out his Identity and how that aligns with ours. No person can ever know the true essence of the of Trinity, but we also don't need to. Too many people get caught up in the theology of certain accusations and forget that we serve a living God who wants active relationship with us.

Hi Kolten, will you please add a picture to your profile for this forum?

Admin wrote:Hi Kolten, will you please add a picture to your profile for this forum?

Yesir

Ooh, classy!

Kolten Turner wrote:1. Old Testament Narrative: When Moses and the Israelites are wondering in the wilderness for forty years, God displays just how good he is to them. First, He delivered them from the hands of slavery and began their journey into the promised land. Because they were so ungrateful, unfaithful, and disobedient, God allowed them to experience the desert longer than he ever intended them to. Even in his judgement, God still guarded the camp by placing a cloud over it and when He moved, they would move. He always provided food and water, whether they were worthy of it or not. This entire narrative that Moses leads us through is a perfect example of our lives and how God interacts with us. We are unfaithful, ungrateful, and disobedient, but He never is.

This is so true! The story of Israel in the wilderness is a terrific example of who God is. I love how the overall narrative displays God's love, faithfulness and redemptive heart towards men, and still there are even loads of subtle and intriguing aspects of God's character. One example is found in Exodus 32:9 when God declares Israel "a stiff-necked people" this is a nickname that He uses for Israel multiple times. In this name there is definitely truth in identifying their reluctance to turn and perhaps even showing some of the Lord's frustration. There is an endearing quality to giving such a nickname to a people, sort of like how guys might give accurate but not so glamorous nicknames to one another. This lovingly honest trait of giving nicknames to His followers is repeated in the ministry of Jesus when He names James and John the "sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17). We see the accuracy of this name in Luke 9:54 when they ask Jesus if they should call down fire on an unwelcoming town. Whenever I think of this I have to ask the question, what sort of brutally honest nickname does God have for me?