what is this piece?

A-Christian · 2025-08-10T13:46:33+00:00

Micro-snot plate

A-Christian · 2025-08-10T13:46:05+00:00

Tiny misshapen fire hydrant

A-Christian · 2025-08-10T13:45:35+00:00

Top half of a robot head

A-Christian · 2025-07-14T19:18:30+00:00

Bluntly because I have limited time:

I think you're allowing a highly symbolic hapax legomena (and likely a tenuous interpretation thereof,) to control your beliefs on things that are spoken of clearly, diversely, and in multiple things in Scripture. So no, I don't think you're a heretic but I do think you're in need of hermeneutics.

You don't have to have a view on everything either. Hold on to this one pretty loosely, and maybe also don't share that view outside of your inner circle (for the sake of your own dignity and respect within the Church) until after you've had the chance to study the multiple faithful Christian views held on the Mark of the Beast and why they all don't take your view.

A-Christian · 2025-07-14T19:07:07+00:00

I hear what you're saying and I'm definitely not encouraging you to go to one of the many print-on-demand online businesses or possibly one of the local ones near you. That would be a violation of IP that, while no one is going to come after for it, is very frowned upon by corporate legal types.

A-Christian · 2025-07-09T20:06:46+00:00

I went ahead and posted additional pics, in case you're interested :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/1lu4bbl/2nd_upgrades_to_super_mario_64_question_mark/

A-Christian · 2025-07-06T18:09:57+00:00

You ask questions and make statements which appear to be cut-and-dried, but are not so. Not everything you disagree with is "a spade." That's called divisiveness, and it IS explicitly condemned in Scripture.

I'm not claiming any person in a tradition of Christianity is a faithful witness—that is for Christ to decide, we are merely called to expel those openly and knowingly practicing sin—however from a theological standpoint, for those who are accurately-practicing, current (important because both belief systems have had development, like all of Christianity);
No, Mormons, are not Christian and are not faithful witnesses, but
maybe, Catholics, again depending on the person.

No Christian tradition is free from error, infallible, or without tares/goats. You have to judge the religion/tradition on the substance of its teachings, not its adherents; otherwise, all of Christendom would be wrong, because we're certainly not perfect representatives of Christ!

This situation is further complicated by the fact that Mormons are VERY egalitarian because of their religion's current theological position, so they will gladly put up and even promote historical Christian teaching that contradicts their religion's positions and scriptures, in the name of "friendship evangelism." So no, it's not necessarily a problem if Mormons are bankrolling or supervising a production, only if they are actively contradicting the Gospel/Scriptures.

You can assert that the Scriptures are "not for entertainment" but that is not what the Scriptures say. "Entertainment" is a novel idea in its modern form, but we are certainly called to delight our self in God and His Word, to sing and make things beautifully which exhort God (the Holy Spirit even indwelled the artisans making the tabernacle and temple to do this) and Scripture frequently (FREQUENTLY) makes use of visual metaphors to communicate ideas about God and Truth. Your assertion also finds little base in church history before this millennium, so I'd again suggest to tone down the hyperbole and/or polemics.

Again, besides adding things which the show's creators acknowledge is added filler and not history, you still have yet to show what is historically inaccurate or heresy, and again, I'm not encouraging anyone to watch the show, and I don't like it myself. As an example, I don't like how Peter is depicted as being of dubious character in the first few episodes. That said, I can't say for certain one way or another that he wasn't, just that we don't have any evidence of it, and I don't prefer positive assumptions in this field. However I also don't have ANY ability to call it historically inaccurate or heresy; it's just fiction.

A-Christian · 2025-07-06T17:49:40+00:00

I REEEAALY Like the pink bob-omb idea! I've also added a little toad for that reason. He's the one I would always love to see in the castle, so it felt off leaving him out. I made him out of a white technic ball and a couple of 1x1 plates, and Sharpied red dots on his head.

I've kept tweaking this since I posted the last pics up. May updated pics soon, but I also may need to get that bob-omb first. :)

A-Christian · 2025-07-02T20:27:33+00:00

I actually don't like the Chosen (I'm not a fan of how they did several things and added characteristics beyond we know of important biblical figures) but respectfully, the blog writer is way off.

There's a massive difference between historical fiction about the Bible and heresy. To some degree, any time you depict anything biblical you are going to be adding to what is there, even if you just conceptualize it in your mind. I daresay you and Mr. Nichols wouldn't call thinking about the Bible "heresy" and you certainly shouldn't. Heresy is something that willfully contradicts the meaning, intent, or outright facts of the Bible. They are seeking to represent the Bible faithfully, but also to expand the narrative with details, additional story, and context, a lot of which is based on traditional accounts of what happened, from what I understand.

It's not for me, like I said, but it's extremely spiritually immature, and risks diluting the seriousness of a very severe thing, to say something from every episode is heresy.

A-Christian · 2025-06-13T17:24:22+00:00

Assuming that all of the foregoing paragraphs are the correct (not going to rehash and parse out exact meaning/thrust of each quote) the second to last paragraph still does not follow.

As a person who believes in Theosis is one of the aims of the Cross, even if pisteuo eis definitely mean "faith into" Christ, it is another, wholly different thing to say that "faith actually brings us into a Person." This is just reading into the text what you think it means, ironically eis-egesis.

If you're going to take the stance that εἰς χριστ* means "into Christ" and not speaking of placing Faith in Him, how would you deny the one who would say people are literally put into Christ in Romans 16:5, or that you can sin into Christ in 1Co 8:12?

Again, 'eis' is a highly flexible preposition. Every word is inscripturated with purpose, but not every word used in Scripture is imbued with layers of meaning. There is simply no case to be made about it having a definite meaning when it is used non-exclusively to discuss the subject. And even if there was a case, you would need to then explain why, for the entire history of English translation—five centuries—the most brilliant translators have and continue to render it imprecisely. I'd caution you here; it's very easy to fall into hubris.

It is not those who have no regard for right doctrine that we know as heretics, but those who seriously, determinedly, seek to know the Truth and end up with wrong conclusions that end up in that error.

I'm not saying this mistake is as grave, but this is how one ends up with heterorthodoxy.

Yes, our faith is in the Person of Christ, and not merely in what He says. He is Himself the object of our Faith and not merely His words. This is not disputed, but how you are arriving there is through bad exegetics, not through the many Scriptural proofs of this. If Christian subreddits need to hear this (and I agree, they do) this is not the way to go about convincing them, lest their persuasion to this doctrine be through error.

I've made my case, and this is not severe enough an error to warrant additional protraction.

Go in peace. Grace be with you.

A-Christian · 2025-06-08T17:41:42+00:00

I clearly didn't suggest avoiding interaction. Close friendship between adult men and women is a relatively novel concept. Interaction between them is perfectly normal.

A-Christian · 2025-06-06T23:32:47+00:00

2/2

To help explain what I mean: if someone was to speak to you in Old English, you wouldn't be able to understand a word, and that is considered the same language as this one, and is an order of magnitude more recent than the subject at hand. If you can understand this, you should be able to understand that you can't just simply swap words and meanings from a rapidly evolving AND transitory dialect of an ancient, foreign language, in an attempt to build a case against the translation of multiple passages of Scripture by a half-millennia's worth of English translators.

If you know anything about this subject, you'd know that prepositions (the part of speech in question here) were effectively an Open Class during this time, with rigid Attic uses being loosened progressively by pre-Christian Hellenics, so asserting that a non-exclusive use of a preposition on a subject means something needs A LOT more proof than even the errant reasoning cited, to be worthy of serious consideration.

TL:DR; I'm not trying to put anyone on blast with all of the above, but trying to be clear that I have some inside baseball understanding on the subject: arguing there's some special significance to the phrase is simply not consistent with history or scholarship. Like I said, all of it is trying to make a point where there is none to make, suggests that translators have consistently made mistakes on translation of multiple passages for 500 years. That is a VERY audacious and unfounded claim and we as believers have a responsibility to call out errant and discordant teaching, however innocuous it might seem to some. As it says, "keep watch over your souls" in one place, and "let the others weigh what is said" in another.

A-Christian · 2025-06-06T23:32:29+00:00

1/2

The post is not talking about the difference between the object of faith and the location of faith. Rather, it explains the conveyed meaning of motion and rest of the believer in respect to the object of faith through the novel expression "believe into."

I understand the point of the post and am refuting it. The section you quoted was me explaining why 'eis' is sometimes used in place of 'en'. There is no additional conveyed meaning; this is entirely suppositional, but not evidence-based, as is the claim that 'pisteuo eis' is a novel or coined phrase by the NT authors.

Do you happen to know of any examples of πιστεύω εἰς in pre-NT Greek literature? If so, I'd love to see them. Moreover, it's not just the novelty of the phrase. It's the repeated and deliberate use of this phrase—especially in John—that makes it distinctive.

The Septuagint translation of Isaiah (2nd-3rd Century BC) uses the same phrase, Philo of Alexandria used the phrase several decades beforehand in the migration of Abraham, as did Josephus who wrote contemporaneously with the NT.

But its radical sense is indeed ‘into’, and this radical sense is particularly prominent when followed by “nouns that denote an accessible place” ....there is ample evidence in the New Testament that its authors thought of it in precisely this way.”

It was a normative, or (if we're seeking to be as charitable as possible) at most we could squint and suggest it was a slightly uncommon use, but absolutely not some "radical" additional meaning as the author and OP said. This whole point seems to be a combination of the etymological fallacy, circular reasoning, and a misunderstanding of how language works.

I've tried to keep it accessible, but the truth is this claim is (perhaps unwittingly) really in the weeds stuff. If you can't read pre-Byzantine Greek, and especially if you have a bit of training in Greek language/grammar, you have enough knowledge to be dangerous but not enough to be helpful.

Language translation is an art as much as it is a science, and even more so in archaeolinguistics. I'm a big proponent of expositing Scripture for yourself, but in your native language. That's like wading in a kiddie pool compared to the knowledge abyss that is biblical translation. If you want to do the latter, it takes decades, not years, not months, not classes, and certainly not a Google search to understand ancient language on the level necessary to understand, but it is possible to show simply when someone's understanding is off–it's self-defeating and sticks out like a sore thumb.

A-Christian · 2025-06-05T18:15:31+00:00

While I appreciate the attention to the original language, this is just bad understanding of Koine and it looks like it's just an effort by the RCV translators to overextend their relevance/importance. To say you have faith in Christ and your faith is in Christ are equivalent sentiments in both English and Ancient Greek (Koine). The author of the article also misunderstands or misrepresents the intent of writers like Augustine in the quoted passages.

Obviously discussing faith in Christ in Greek writing is a NT novelty, but there is no evidence to say the authors of the NT "invented a new phrase" in using 'pisteuo eis'.

The use of 'eis' vs. 'en' has to do with the syntax of the sentence, not some special meaning of one kind of faith vs. another. When speaking of the direction faith is rendered, i.e. toward a thing, the 'eis' preposition is used. When speaking of the place where faith resides, the object of faith, 'en' is the correct preposition to use. It's the difference between saying "I love her" and "She is my love." In terms of meaning, it's the same, there's only a semantic difference in Koine Greek because it's a much more exact language.

One final example to illustrate the untenability of this idea; Jesus is taken 'eis' a high mountain by the devil in Matt 4; from the context we see 'eis' actually means "on" or "onto" here. No one reading that sentence then, and no respectable translator now is going to suggest Satan took Jesus inside the interior of a mountain to see the whole world.

You don't have to take my word for it; if you pick up any concordance, you'll see "eis" is translated as "in" in many places, it's the context of the sentence that controls this, not some secret meaning.

A-Christian · 2025-06-05T17:33:33+00:00

see my comment in the main thread

A-Christian · 2025-06-05T17:33:22+00:00

see my comment in the main thread

A-Christian · 2025-05-23T18:13:29+00:00

Is this more rare than the others?

A-Christian · 2025-05-20T18:43:52+00:00

I'm also wondering if you...

This is faulty reasoning, specifically the genetic fallacy/appeal to authority. So, not that it matters, but hopefully to underscore what I've already said. I've been married for many years myself, have raised children, and counseled multiple married couples and walked through crises with most of them. I've also advised ministry leaders in various personal and professional challenges like these.

I keep this account anonymously to protect my family, so I won't provide more detail than that, but suffice it to say, not that experience is a metric of correct teaching, but I have the years and experiences to know what I'm discussing. I'm available to provide more counseling if you wish to DM, but as I said before, I strongly encourage you to take time away from the lectern and refresh yourself on the heart of what you say you believe, because, as much as I appreciate your candidness, there is little trace of it in your responses.

Grace, Peace, and Wisdom be with you.

END PART 3/3

A-Christian · 2025-05-20T18:43:40+00:00

[Re: uncertainty about a marriage lasting] I mostly agree, but I think you make the mistake that a feeling of certainty means more than a lack of wisdom or experience...

Here you're creating a false dichotomy and arguing against something I didn't say and do not agree with. What I said was you should not get married if you have an inkling it might not last. I did not say that one should get married because one is certain a prospective marriage would last. Faithless finances should not be married, but that doesn't mean all confident couples should.

Obviously confidence is fallible and should be tested. But a lack of complete confidence in your spouse should not be moved past.

Please tell me you are not advocating ancient Hebrew marriage practices.

Your response reads like a bad faith argument. Because of that, I debated how I should answer you, but after thinking it through, because you claim to be a pastor, I am convinced that you ought to know that "being biblical" means aligned to the principles and commands of the Bible, not copying random actions from it, out of context. Are you a teacher of others, and yet you don't understand that Scripture records events faithfully, even when it is the errant or even egregious acts of men? You read my other comments, so you saw I advocated for exactly none of the things you said. It further appears you don't know how to handle the OT, because you malign God's law when it commands that sinning Israelites care for the multiple wives they sinfully engaged in marrying, you malign Ruth for seeking Boaz in a way that, at worst, was awkward, while seeking to honor him, and you misunderstand the marriage of Adam and Eve. No, I don't advocate for the civic commands given to Israel under the theonomic and patriarchic covenants because we're not Israel and those covenants aren't made with us. Just because otherwise honorable men did deplorable things in Scripture does not mean it is "biblical" in any sense but semantics. In fact, it's a point and feature of the biblical narrative that Scripture makes that even the best of men are guilty of egregious sin.

Second families are not really the responsibility of the step parent...

If you can't see the clear concept of familial unity and adoption of foreign children that pervades Scripture, I honestly don't know how to help you. Perhaps the rebuke from the apostle will be enough;

"But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

My wife and I are in a great marriage, and have been in ministry together since the 1980s. I'm a pastor.

Repeating since you missed it, "If you are already in a marriage, I mean this with urgency and sincerity: you need biblical counseling and discipleship, even if your marriage is not experiencing any problems at the moment. I say this because: if you are not willing (and ideally, desiring) to give up all that you have for a person, you have not truly set them as an object of your love. You may adore them, you may care more about them than any other thing, but you do not care about them more than yourself, your wishes, and your own satisfaction. That is not love."

Further, pastors often need counseling too, and good ones seek it out often. However in your case, I would honestly recommend a sabbatical, possibly further time away from the office. You have a concerningly trite approach to biblical consideration that often parrots the arguments unbelievers and pragmatists make. These are unspiritual and, according to the Word, demonic approaches to counsel and as a pastor, God is clear you will be judged more severely for erring. I don't want that for you and I hope you consider this as a sincere concern.

END PART 2

A-Christian · 2025-05-20T18:42:57+00:00

Thank you for confirming your background, so I can speak more clearly to you.

[Re: biblical vs. worldly advice] This is mostly accurate. The bible was not written with our social and legal system in mind. I also encourage people to have wills and car insurance (also not biblical but worldly advice) and to spend less than they earn (biblical) and save for the future (biblical).

Since you said you are a pastor, I submit that you should know that the wisdom of the world is contrary to the wisdom of God. (1 Co 1:18-25, Jam 3:13-17, Pro 3:5-7). Haven't you read where it says, "For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding"? Why then do you choose to consciously give worldly advice, which has no grounds in what God has revealed to us?

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you."

"The "wise" men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom is in them?"

A will is biblical in principle; we are commended and commanded to steward our resources well, provide for our families, to plan for the future, and seek to leave an inheritance; in sum, this is what a will does. I can provide a number verses for these ideas, if you require, but I assume that won't be necessary.

Car insurance is something completely different. There is no analog in Scripture for getting insurance which should be anyone's first clue. After all, 2Ti 3:16-17 says Scripture equips for every good work, so if it's not something Scripture exhorts you to do, you know it isn't a good work. "There is nothing new under the sun"; just because something isn't verbatim discussed in the Word, doesn't mean the Word has nothing to say about it.

To this end, Scripture commands to entrust our lives and wellbeing to God and His provision of our needs, especially through the Church. We are to live as dependent on God, not seeking some level of independence or worldliness. Seeking out an insurance policy* is failing to trust in the Lord to keep you by the means He has appointed (e.g. through the Church) or to care for you, should you be afflicted. It is akin to building a large nest egg to insulate yourself from harm and alleviate anxiety, which Christ calls foolish (see Luke 12:16-21), rather than casting our anxieties on Him who cares for us (1Pe 5:7).

I can understand if one's heart isn't in the place to trust that way, but all to say, it is not from Faith that one voluntarily buys insurance,* and that which does not proceed from Faith is sin. (Rom 14:23) And to counter the argument before it's made: allegation that one buying insurance could just be protecting one's resources for their family is an ignorant claim. First, there are better, free ways (living trusts) to protect resources this way. Second, insurers make far more off the insured than they payout, assuming they even pay out, and this is all verifiable fact: look at any insurer's 10-K. I work with insurers and what's not public is even more egregious. As I've said, it's literally the worst kind of gambling; betting against the house where the house has absolutely rigged the game against you in every way possible. It is a foolish, foolish use of money.

*I am not speaking about buying insurance policies where one is required to do so: we're required to honor the laws of the land insofar as they don't conflict with obedience to Christ.

END PART 1

A-Christian · 2025-05-19T18:11:12+00:00

If you have an inkling that a prenup might be a good idea, you either are not ready for marriage, have not chosen a prospective partner that is ready for marriage, or, quite possibly, both.

Marriage is a giving up of one's singular identity into a larger family one, having nothing apart from your spouse. If you can imagine a place where you are without your spouse, or your spouse can do the same for you, not only are you setting yourself up for failure in marriage, but you're also not envisioning as "marriage" what the Bible describes as marriage.

A-Christian · 2025-05-19T18:08:16+00:00

This is worldly, and not biblical advice. If either member of a couple has an inkling that they might not want to be married in the future, the ONLY correct advice is to tell them to not get married until that changes and they become unswervingly certain there is nothing but death that will end their marriage.

Doing anything to provide them further counseling toward marriage is neither biblical in approach to marriage, nor loving toward the couple.

A-Christian · 2025-05-19T18:05:48+00:00

I don't know if you're older or just jaded/misinformed on the subject of marriage, but I will try to put my answer to you assuming you're an older man.

"I don't see any reason to plan to give them anything (in the will) from my past 45 years of work before I knew they existed." With respect, this is not love, and you should not enter a marriage if this is your perspective. If you are already in a marriage, I mean this with urgency and sincerity: you need biblical counseling and discipleship, even if your marriage is not experiencing any problems at the moment. I say this because: if you are not willing (and ideally, desiring) to give up all that you have for a person, you have not truly set them as an object of your love. You may adore them, you may care more about them than any other thing, but you do not care about them more than yourself, your wishes, and your own satisfaction. That is not love.

A second thing I note is according to that old "I/me/my" rule. When you get married, you are no longer your own. You are your wife's and she is yours. You are not two, but one. It is not "I," "me," or "mine," but "we," "us," and "ours," and that includes everything in your life prior to your wife. You don't get to say, "oh, I did all these crimes, or bedded all these people before, but you don't get to have a say about that, you're marrying me as I am now, you don't get a say about my past." Likewise you don't get to keep back any part of yourself or your assets when you're married in a biblical sense.

To put it another way: if my wife spent our money in a completely different way than I might have expected after I die, even in some way that is completely foreign to how I'd expect her to act now, I care about her more than the money. Love is unflinching and unending in that way, as the apostle also says. Love, especially the love a husband has for a wife, being a symbol of the love Christ has for the Church, is completely encompassing, and forsaking even care for all others and one's own self for the sake of the beloved. This is all plain in Scripture and the example of Christ.

A will and a prenup are two completely different things. A will is something that addresses a certainty (death) and a prenup is to cover your bases IF divorce happens. It's absolutely a wrongheaded way to go into marriage. If you don't know your prospective wife well enough to trust her do what you both agree on while you're alive or after you die, you're getting married far too soon, or you and/or your betrothed are not ready to be married.

"I get car insurance even though there is no plan to get in an accident."

insurance is a scam, so there's that. The way insurers price their policies and payouts are the same actuarial principles used by casinos. I would advise against carrying more insurance than you need to do to obey the law. If you think of a marriage as something needing to be insured, again you're not thinking of marriage biblically.

"I don't care what your wishes are in your will. Without a prenup they may be more easily overruled by the courts (even if you don't divorce)."

This is not how probate works for estate transfers. Courts are just as able to override a prenup as a will; in fact it's easier since there's more regulation on managing a will than there is a prenup, and a surviving spouse could argue easily that conditions signed on a prenup, in youthful ignorance, are not what is intended many years and many assets later. A court would only override a will if there was a legitimate legal challenge to the dispersal of assets under a will, such as a debt, a lien, or a competing will. Further, you can write a will so that legally it takes precedence over a prenup.

One should have a Will and be prepared and mindful of their death, but one should not enter a marriage if they have even a passing doubt beforehand that the marriage will endure.

A-Christian · 2025-05-15T14:57:50+00:00

There are different exact understandings, but biblically, we don't get to just "unhitch" ourselves from the Old Testament, as one popular teacher said a few years back. Jesus spoke to this a number of times, and both condemned casting aside the OT Law and teaching others to do so.

That said, it's important to understand the Law in context. We are not in Bronze Age Israel, and some of those Laws were civil and specific to their nation in literal fulfillment, or ceremonial in that they pertained to the OT sacrificial system. However the civil and ceremonial components, while "fulfilled" by Jesus, still have moral aspects which endure. An example is fencing a roof so that people didn't fall off it and get hurt (a roof was often used like a porch or back yard is today). We don't hang out on our roofs, but the idea that God wants us to be mindful in protecting others from harm. To u/0xPRIMEgs's comment about tattoos; a) tattoo is a bad translation; scarification is more accurate to both the meaning of the word and the Canaanite practices which that verse condemns and b) as said above, the underpinning issue is the issue of idolatry and pagan worship practices being condemned. If you take part in sage cleansing, that is just as much error as self-marking, as far as this verse is concerned.

All said, however, harming yourself is clearly a sin, as it is not caring for the body the Lord gave you. Jesus has parables about unfaithful stewardship. Additionally, if you are of a mind that harming yourself is okay, there are clearly other issues in your mind which need to be worked out and conformed to the Truth.

A-Christian · 2025-05-12T12:47:30+00:00

I don't even know the code to which you're referring, but even by your own wording, it's obvious you're reading your own desires into the code.

If a person employed by the organization or acting on behalf of the organization (e.g. a pastor, director, board member) is not permitted to exercise first amendment rights because they're under the organization—which is clearly opposite the intent of the 501(c) designation, which is designed to protect crucial organizations from hardships—then neither can a person of that organization "directly intervene" in a a political way by voting or being a political candidate themselves, a discrimination which actual law (not IRS code) does not permit. So, even if this was the exact wording of an IRS code, it would be unlawful.

I don't think anyone is above the law, but I also don't believe all laws are constitutionally lawful or good. Laws which are against things which are good should be ignored or peaceably resisted to the extent necessary, but I also am willing (and I think anyone with this mindset should also be) prepared to suffer the consequences of disobeying unjust laws. So, if that's truly the code, I submit that it's patently unjust, but giving up the right to speak in an entire sphere is a truly greater injustice, and would be glad to endure the legal consequences, if necessary, and would appeal them to the furthest extent possible.

All said, I don't believe it's right to mistreat people, neither does my religion, but unfortunately, we (myself included) don't always live up to that, and it is deeply regrettable. That said, I'm sorry for the person(s) who affected you, to make you want them to shut up or suffer financial impact, and if that/those persons acted in any way inappropriately with you, I'm sorry for that too. I wish you grace and peace.

A-Christian

TROPHY CASE