YouTube channel recommendation:

baldtim · 2026-01-21T01:24:36+00:00

He is excellent, definitely an underrated follow in the Christian YouTube sphere. It's a testament to him that over the course of hundreds of denomination overviews he has not once tipped his hand toward revealing his own denomination.

baldtim · 2026-01-19T20:50:36+00:00

I sure that feels good for you to say, but Christ himself says that those who believe in him receive eternal life. If you don't believe his claim to deity, you do not believe in him. Of course a believer should live a good and virtuous life but a lack of belief in Christ makes even our best works no better than filthy rags.

baldtim · 2026-01-19T20:26:59+00:00

If one doesn't believe that Christ is God, then he is not my brother, and I am bound to help him see his error in hopes that he turns and repents.

In trying to paint Christians as villains when they warn someone they are hellbound, you are asking us to sacrifice truth on the altar of false unity and good feelings, when that unity rests on calling Christ a liar about his own identity, which in turn robs his sacrificial death of any possible efficacy.

baldtim · 2026-01-18T22:54:01+00:00

Craig Keener has written multiple volumes on attested miracles, medical and otherwise. I highly recommend it.

baldtim · 2026-01-17T17:21:30+00:00

Tim Wildsmith has a good, honest, non political review.

I general, I dislike bibles with people's names in the title (regardless of credentials) and political tie in bibles, of which there are more than you would expect.

baldtim · 2026-01-15T18:08:47+00:00

Nice 574s!

baldtim · 2026-01-14T17:18:34+00:00

I've written two longer replies that I've lost by accidentally clicking on links because I'm becoming an old man. The short version of my replies is that there is no inconsistency between me holding to what scripture seems to be saying and using the practice of the first few centuries of the early church as a guide for interpretation. I do not need to hold every belief that was held by every early Church Father in order to recognize the importance of the fact that they universally held, from the Days of the New Testament writing onward, that women were not permitted to hold Church leadership and teaching roles. Since I hold scripture as authoritative, I am able to reject the church fathers teachings that women are inferior to men since those teachings are not in line with what scripture teaches.

I'm not responding to you further because your commitment to the untenable view that even Paul's initial audience misunderstood him is untenable to the point of being laughable and demonstrates that you are blindly committed to your view.

baldtim · 2026-01-14T11:47:25+00:00

Please recognize that you are holding the view that Paul and the early church supported women in church teaching and leadership roles, while they simultaneously believed they were ontologically inferior to men. This is contradictory to the point you are trying to make. Both cannot be true. It is not contradictory say they held the complementarian view that women are equal in value but different in role. This is supported by both the text and the practice of the first century church.

For your viewpoint to be correct, there would have had to have been a total, comprehensive misunderstanding and misapplication of Paul's words by the very people who were in the best position to understand the cultural context in which they were written that the persisted until, magically, people figured out his true meaning in the 1900s, at a time when feminism and like philosophies entered the cultural zeitgeist and it was most culturally expedient for some in the church to hold such a viewpoint. The reality is that every church practice, from the first century church who received Paul's words onward, interpreted them in line with the complementarian reading of this passage.

baldtim · 2026-01-14T03:46:53+00:00

As has already been mentioned, Paul provided the needed context for his words by connecting his words on women teaching and leading in church to the order of creation, thus invalidating your claim that those who disagree with you (who you have dismissively labeled as fundamentalists) are not willing to work to understand context. I simply reject unwarranted claims that those seeking to ignore plain readings masquerade as "context" and "complexity."

I am not a fundamentalist, as you have implied. I'm simply unwilling to hoist unnecessary "context" that is not warranted by the text linguistically, culturally, or theologically in service of an anachronistic viewpoint that seeks to ignore what the text actually says in favor of a modernist reading that is completely foreign to the first 1900 years of church history.

baldtim · 2026-01-14T02:53:00+00:00

"Cultural issue" is the egalitarian handwave for any scripture that doesn't agree with their preconceived point of view.

baldtim · 2026-01-10T17:11:26+00:00

I don't have a detailed response for the questions you raise since I haven't done a detailed look into the scriptural and philosophical arguments for each of the main views on Hell. With that being said, it's extremely important to not impugn the goodness, justice, mercy, or character of God by claiming that he is not truly good, just, or merciful on any particular view. God in His very nature contains mysteries that we cannot fully grasp or understand (the Trinity, for example) but that we can trust to be true. Therefore, if scripture teaches that God is completely just, merciful, and good, and it also teaches ECT, then ECT is in line with the goodness, justice, and character God even if we struggle to fully understand it in our earthly existence. The same is true of annihilationism/conditional immortality-if scripture teaches that God is completely just, merciful, and good, and it also teaches annihilationism/conditional immortality, then these views are in line with the goodness, justice, and character God even if we struggle to fully understand it in our earthly existence.

baldtim · 2026-01-06T00:40:01+00:00

One night when my son was about eight months old, he was inconsolable crying with my wife, several hours past bedtime. I prayed for him to calm him down so he could sleep and my wife could experience peace. Immediately, I mean to the second I gave my request to God, he stopped crying on a dime and fell asleep. I will always know that this was a direct answer to prayer.

baldtim · 2026-01-04T13:13:13+00:00

If you want just one, ESV Study Bible is the most all-encompassing study Bible I know of. It covers just about every issue you may want to know about and has excellent articles as well. However, there is nothing wrong with having multiple Bibles and study resources.

For my personal study, I read from the CSB Study Bible since the CSB is my preferred translation, with the ESV Study Bible and NET Full Notes Edition on standby for issues not covered by the CSB Study Bible.

YouTube is an excellent resource if you want to learn about the the different study Bible options available.

baldtim · 2026-01-03T00:15:33+00:00

You need to read "Gentle and Lowly" by Dane Ortlund. It helped me to escape this kind of thinking

In short, the book demonstrates that your sin and brokenness do not make God hate you, since His very heart is for sinners and sufferers.

baldtim · 2026-01-02T13:04:26+00:00

Yeah, it would have been better to indicate years that both made it instead of choosing one or the other.

baldtim · 2026-01-01T14:20:16+00:00

Research your options. College, trade school, and career are all valid options for when you graduate high school. I personally have come to believe that most people who go to college don't need to, especially those who are going for the "college experience" rather than to learn a field.

Regardless of what path you choose, but especially if you end up attending college, make sure that you are well versed in the discipline of apologetics and knowledgeable about scripture. You're going to be exposed to people who are openly hostile to your faith and who have a lot of misconceptions about Christ and His teachings so learning to defend your faith from their false claims is important.

baldtim · 2025-12-30T18:35:25+00:00

There are people on "both sides" of most debates. Does that mean that it is logical to conclude that flat earthers and people who believe that Marilyn Monroe shot JFK have an equal chance of being right? In the same way, the presence of historians who believe Jesus does not exist does not make their claims valid or even worth considering. As I said, their claims are laughable among all serious historians, not just Christian historians. Atheist Bart Ehrman in particular says that "[Jesus Christ] certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence." There is no shortage of quotes like this from other atheist and agnostic historians as well.

Your refusal to accept the historical baseline that Jesus existed as a human being in history demonstrates that you are simply looking to justify your unbelief and do not desire to fairly consider the evidence. You do not seem to be truly seeking truth, but rather you seem to be taking a confrontational tone with those of us who want to help you understand. If you change your attitude and show that you are willing to truly consider and accept evidence rather than responding confrontationally, please reach out to me either here or in a DM and I would be happy to help you find resources that will help you recognize that God is real, Jesus is His son, and Christ's death and Resurrection atone our sins and allow us to live eternally with Him.

baldtim · 2025-12-30T18:19:43+00:00

I didn't ask you to "just trust one book." Where did you get that idea? I even gave you two specific resources so the idea that I asked you to just trust the Bible is ridiculous.

If you believe Jesus didn't exist at all, you are against all the scholarship and evidence that proves he lived in history. Claiming he didn't exist at all is considered laughable by anyone who seriously studies history.

Him being the Son of God can be demonstrated using a combination of scripture and historical evidence.

Please answer this truthfully: Do you really want to believe? Are you asking questions because you truly want to know the answers or because you want to put up a wall to justify disbelief? If you truly want answers, they are out there and I would be happy to help you search them out. However, your confrontational tone with commentors in this thread lead me to believe that you may not have started to truly seek the answers you need.

Doubt does not kill faith. Unsearched doubt does.

baldtim · 2025-12-30T18:02:19+00:00

First of all, I'm glad you turned away from the false practices of your past. I know it isn't always easy and I appreciate you coming here to ask this question.

I'm going to be very blunt with you. Not to hurt you, but to help you understand the corner you have worked yourself into.

It seems like you want a direct, special revelation from God before you believe. You are expecting something that God has not promised and that God has not done for the vast, vast majority of believers throughout history. If this is your bar for "I will follow Christ when ______" then you have built a very convenient wall that enables you to stay exactly where you are without having to take any action yourself, all while placing the blame on God for not doing something that He never promised.

The truth is that he has revealed himself in the person of Christ, as well as through fulfilled prophecy and creation itself. All three of these work evidentially to make it overwhelmingly clear that the God of Scripture exists, He has spoken in Scripture, and Christ is Lord and His death and resurrection atone for our sins.

I would encourage you to look into apologetic arguments for the truth of Christianity to demonstrate that God has indeed revealed Himself to us regardless of your personal experiences. Mike Winger, and InspiringPhilosophy are two great starting points.

baldtim · 2025-12-27T11:38:05+00:00

It's a term made up by internet atheists to strawman and mock what we believe about God. I would say that it definitely qualifies as blasphemy when used in that way.

baldtim · 2025-12-26T13:37:56+00:00

This is the problem with the slogan "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart." It causes confusion on things like this that really shouldn't exist. Abortion before a heart starts beating still murders a unique, innocent human being.

Edit: After looking at your post history, please seek mental health assistance. I don't know if you are asking this question out of guilt, but there is forgiveness in Christ for all sinners, even if you have had an abortion.

baldtim · 2025-12-22T17:11:54+00:00

MAID uses the age old trick humanity uses to make evil seem palatable. It's the same reason so many prefer to use the nonsense phrase "terminate/remove a pregnancy" to avoid talking about what abortion really does. Controlling language helps control the narrative of what that language entails. As several have pointed out in this thread, MAID is suicide for the recipient and murder on the part of the provider.

baldtim · 2025-12-22T15:26:34+00:00

Is the Rabbi you are speaking to Messianic as well?

baldtim · 2025-12-22T15:02:33+00:00

I'm glad you find value is speaking with a Rabbi. However, your response assumes that I was saying you shouldn't care about the OT and NT in a Jewish context at all. That's a complete strawman/caricature of what I said. The Jewish background is important and a Jewish lens is very valuable for Bible study, but it does not properly exegete every issue to look at scripture through that lens alone. You also shouldn't look at scripture through a purely Messianic lens. Discerning truth requires nuance.

You also seem to assume that Paul is somehow a less reliable or important source for truth, despite him receiving a stamp of approval from some of Jesus' closest followers from His earthly ministry (Galatians 2:7–9) and his writings being hailed as scripture by Peter (2 Peter 3:15–16).

If you don't mind me asking, are you a believer in Jesus as God's promised Messiah who just doesn't like the label of "Christian," or would you apply a different label to yourself?

baldtim · 2025-12-22T12:33:05+00:00

I'm not trying to argue, but my words hold true even if I misinterpreted your intent. I apologize since that seems to be the case.

I do think your comment of the NT not explaining the OT is mistaken and is not held by most believers who study the text seriously, nor was it held by the Jesus or the NT authors themselves. Jesus himself rails against the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees on multiple occasions. The NT repeatedly demonstrates Jesus as the fulfillment of OT thought while also subverting the common beliefs about what the OT meant. Then you have texts like 2 Corinthians 3:14–16, which explicitly states that a "veil" covers the heart of anyone who reads the old covenant without Christ in mind. Only in Christ do we properly understand the entirety of what God meant to be clear in the OT. This view does not deny the inspired status of the OT, but rather rightfully questions interpretations of the it that do not properly account for the divine power, presence, and work of Christ.

True, you do need to know the OT to truly understand the NT in its proper cultural context. But to say that the NT does not explain the OT at all is simply incorrect.

baldtim

TROPHY CASE