Far be it for this humbler poster to judge the esteemed forum of Christianity.

Thus, I leave the future to judge your great efforts.

God speed, fellow Christlovers

It seems that Captain John Underhill had little hestitation in using the old stories of the Israelite genocide against the Canaanites to justify a near-extermination of Indians. Something doesn't add up about that. The Bible is said to be a book of peace, yet a man who if he were in a different uniform in the 1940s could have been justifiably called genocidal uses the same books to justify a genocide? I dislike Calvinism on principle, it tends to lead to theocratic ideals, but to see this guy take the same Bible people use and paint as a book of peace to justify massacring 400 innocent civilians by burning them in their houses, too much of a coward to look those women and children in the eye to do it, is disturbing. I consider the Bible to be a book of peace and understanding. How'd John Underhill turn it into an excuse to massacre Indians?

Why did God require a blood sacrifice to atone for sins? Both animals in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New; why did blood have to be shed to make up for sin?

I'm having a conversation with someone who's asking about this and I realized I have no idea. Why would a loving God require bloodshed?

Saints are not made by miracles. Nor are they made by huge heroic battles or painful public martyrdom. Yes, some saints have found these things on their path, but it did not make them saints.

A person becomes a saint by praying, by reading Scripture, by frequenting the Sacraments. These are the normal things we do every day as Christians. It is no secret, but a reality we sometimes like to ignore. We cannot seek the glorious, the supernatural, because even the Lord chooses the mundane, coming to us as a babe born next to the slop of pigs and donkeys.

In this is found greater beauty than in the spectacular. In this, we find God.

I would like to know more about fasting. What have people studied or experienced about the subject? Thank you

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27)

I've been reading the Book of Exodus tonight, and when I came to this passage the above verse from Luke came rushing into my mind:

Say therefore to the people of Israel, `I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment, and I will take you for my people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.' (Ex 6:6-8)

One would have to be spiritually blind it seems not to see the promise of Christ there, the promise of redemption whereby we are released from the bondage of slavery, whereby with outstretched arms (THE CROSS!!!) we are drawn to Him, and He becomes our God, and we become His people.

And this promise, that He shall be our God and we His people, is echoed again in the promise of a new covenant, a promise not only of Christ but of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit made possible by Christ:

"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, `Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jer 31:31-34)

Through the Holy Spirit, who seals the new covenant made in Christ's Blood, we have the Law inscribed upon our hearts. In Christ the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled because through Christ they are fully alive in our own hearts.

All Scriptures point to Christ, and all Scriptures, as inspired by the Holy Spirit, prepare our own hearts for a deeper encounter with Christ. All of Psalm 119 is this promise of the Holy Spirit, it is the promise of Jeremiah 31, it is the promise that with our whole hearts we may know and love the law of God as it is fulfilled in Christ Jesus. We deprive ourselves so greatly when we forsake the Sacred Scriptures, when we set them aside and cast them as irrelevant. We forsake Scripture, the law of God, and increase our own restlessness, since we place ourselves in a battle with God, instead of accepting all that He wishes to give to us, even when we don't like it. How hard my own heart is! Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love; according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! (Ps 51:1-2) May I never forget the lessons You are teaching me.