Did God perhaps use Islam to be a judgment on the Byzantines? I do not mean to say that Islam is somehow divinely inspired, but rather that God caused its rise or at least allowed it to serve his purpose of judging the Byzantines as he used the Assyrians and Babylonians to winnie the pooh up Israel. Notice how Islam was never able to ever penetrate deep into Europe, even despite all the odds at Tours and Vienna, Europe was always saved from Islamic threat. Iberia was maybe the worst casualty but that was reconquested and all the Muslims and Jews kicked out. Then Spain and Portugal went on to bring Christianity to the Americas and India. Yet Constantinople and the whole Byzantine Empire got raped by Islamic invaders and renamed Istanbul. Perhaps Islam is still around now to serve as a judgement against the modern day west and all its degeneracy lately.
I know this is all speculative and I cannot know the mind of God, but is this the most likely reason Islam exists?
The Byzantines began to falter spiritually. Byzantium unironically fell because of disunity caused by the rise of neo-paganism.
Sebastian Cooper
I was thinking the same about the French Revolution being a punishment against France for allying with the Ottoman Empire and Protestants in the Thirty Years War. In both situations, we can't know if that was really the case, though.
John Barnes
I can see it. It is along the same lines of how God allows homosexuals to be a judgement upon the Catholic Church. I suppose we never know what we may face, and we should always remain completely devoted to Him.
Charles Martel stopped Islam from taking over Europe, and Southern France was also targeted.
Noah Gutierrez
The rise of neo-paganism in Byzantium is widely ignored. The funny thing is that the neo-pagans who fled Byzantium after the fall were welcomed in the west with open arms bringing their philosophies and schools with them. This is called the Renaissance in the west. Ironically enough, the eastern church got away from what came next, secularism, anti-church revolutions and the era of Enlightenment, by being under the Ottomans. God's plan is always long term.
For crying out loud, no! Stop trying to insert idiotic narratives into history! This is pretty much a fancier version of divining entrails, post hoc superstitious nonsense filled with cherrypicking facts and dates, mangling timelines, ignoring what isn't convenient to your story, and generally making a mockery to objective history. God's plans are his own, and will be revealed at Judgement Day. Before then, refrain from your idiotic comments, lest you dishonor the Lord, and tempt unbelief.
This pagan bullshit is literally the reason for many of the persecutions of the roman empire against christians, and the rise of radical Islam within the past half-century, so it grinds my gears a lot to hear my fellow christians invoke it.
Russia is another story as they weren't fully catechized when Constantinople fell. As a result, Constantinople had to send more missios in the 15th century to catechize them and fix their mess up there (monks had become no more that magicians and fortune tellers to name one), which they imprison and torture for 70 years. This was the mission of St Maximus the Greek. Unfortunately, Russia didn't escape western influence, securalism and anti-church revolutions after all starting with the reforms of Peter the Great in the 17th century.
If this is superstitious, then the entire bulk of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and all of the prophets who pronounced judgement on Israel are superstitious too. They said that the Babylonians and Assyrians (and then later others, like Hellenization) and destruction of their temple by miscreants were God's instruments of judgement. That God had a direct hand in all of history.
Both God's judgements and his blessings work through tangible and historical realities. Even the plagues that came down on Egypt possibly originated in the Santorini eruption, where the miracle of God is in how he timed and utilized it's effects.
As for Muslims, I actually tend to refer to them as a plague of locusts, in inbred human form. Never really examined just how much Byzantium had it coming, but it should be just as true then as it is now.
Bentley Gray
The inspired prophecies of the Bible are exceptional and if you actually held it in any prominence you should and would know this.
He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD. —Psalm 147:19-20
Evan Kelly
Byzantium and Rome (including up to this current day with the Vatican) are just more recent manifestations of the Tower of Babel, so of course God judged them. I don't know how many times God has to point out that he wants us decentralized and scattered about the earth for us to finally get the picture, but here we are. It has nothing to do with whether Catholicism or Orthodoxy is correct, it's just that decentralization is a very effective survival strategy to ensure the gates of hell never prevail over the church, so of course God's gonna be hostile to overly powerful centers of Christianity. God took the same approach when preserving all the NT documents, preferring to have plentiful slightly differing copies that could all be used to recover an authoritative manuscript from, instead of relying on a single centralized source to survive untarnished. Anyways, Russia might suffer the same fate in the future as well if it continues trying to make itself the "New Rome".
Josiah Diaz
What's with God judging the EO church?
Adam Long
Sad
Christianity would never have survived the Gnostic heresies let alone the Arian heresy if Christianity was shattered from the very beginning.
I bet you also think sodomites can get into heaven. Repent!
Easton Brooks
nice try, but there's a reason that decentralization is the chosen strategy in anything networking/computation related, because then a single node can't take down the whole network. Arianism is a perfect example of decentralization working as intended, because if we were all under some mega authority that fell to Arianism, Christianity as we know it would've been extinct. The fact that you think that was an example in your favor, and that decentralization "shatters" Christianity, shows how little you understand the concept. Do you reject the NT manuscripts as well?
Colton Watson
Orthodoxy isn’t centralised.
Chase Turner
Than why do you repeat their lies? And obviously Arianism didn't work in it's decentralized plan because it was defeated by Christianity. Hence why Arianism was defeated…that is until Prots ruined everything and brought it back.
The fact is, decentralized Christianity does not and will never work. It wouldn't stand a chance agianst Islam during the crusade era. It's barely holding ground now and is vastly loseing agianst the apostolic traditions.
Brayden Stewart
exactly, which is why it works.
You clearly still don't seem to understand what decentralization is. Here, learn more about it before making more silly statements like "Arianism didn't work because it was decentralized": en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization
a virus like Arianism isn't it's own separate system, it's an attack on an existing system, therefore it shares the organizational traits of the system it's attacking. Decentralization is what gives the host system a fighting chance to actually fend off the attack.
Christopher Clark
also, Protestantism was bad because they altered doctrines and reinterpreted scriptures a billion different ways, not because they didn't share a centralized organizational structure.
Joseph Young
That's ridiculous. I shouldn't have to tell you that Jesus changed all of that. Otherwise, his Great Commission is invalid, where he specifically extends God's word to all nations.
All apostolic letters addressed to Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, etc.. would be invalid, and not really "God's word" in your scheme, because Israel is "exceptional".
Even the Ascended Jesus Christ himself holds no value in your scheme, in the seven letters to the Churches of Asia, during John's revelation.>>803302
Carson Diaz
changed all of what? the fact that decentralization is an effective strategy for all networked systems? what are you even talking about? none of what you said makes any sense in response to a basic mathematical property.
Ayden Nguyen
Why are you adding to me this other "decentralization" debate? I don't care about it. I'm just talking to what looks like a Judaizer who thinks God's word only came to Israel, when Christ clearly expanded his providence.
Connor Perez
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My Christian friends, people of the book, I encourage you to watch the movie. :) It will transform you!
Kayden Torres
Straw man. Also the spiritual nation of Israel is in Christ Jesus. Now stop elevating your fallible reasoning to things beyond what the inspired word says. Stop coming up with fake analogies and pretending it's somehow the same thing as something literally contained in the Bible, and its prophecies, which are exceptional.
And you made a devious, evil false accusation by twisting my words around when I'm talking about how Scripture is exceptional. Really, how dare you. Evil slanderer.
Jackson Davis
Yes, Christ spoke Latin and Mary was from a Greek area.
It’s no coincidence God sent His Son to where He did.
Alexander Martin
You specifically said Israel was exceptional. Not prophecy. At least that's how it was worded. The conversation was about how you think God didn't work the same way with other nations (like Byzantium, in the OP's case). But now you say you meant "spiritual Israel", which adds even more confusion. Which is it? Because if you meant spiritual Israel, then you had no reason to criticize anyone in the first place. The general conversation was about God bringing judgement on other nations where the church was at. THAT is spiritual Israel, by your own standards. So why the contention here?
There's nothing "elevated" about my "fallible reasoning". It's just plain, simple reasoning. I make nothing out of it other than what it is. All I'm asking now is that you be clear with what you even mean by Israel.
Now if you want to only maintain that prophecy was exceptional, I agree with you. At least in the form of prophecy it took back then. But providence and the working of the Spirit isn't exceptional to Israel. You don't need prophets to see the hand of God working in history. In fact, it should come much easier for a Christian to recognize that. We're actually MORE blessed with God's power than Israel ever was. Yet you're running under the assumption that Israel was the one with the exceptional presence of God. Peter himself proclaimed the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy as being the age of the Church. At Pentecost when he said, "In the last days, God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.'" Jesus himself said "Amen I tell you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it." It isn't Israel's sense of God's presence that's exceptional. It's the Church's.
I'm not elevating anything other than I keep seeing God working. I'm not doing anything other than calling him the King of the Universe, "that all things in heaven and earth" are in his power, and he has complete providence. I'm not doing anything other than saying the Church is under his special care, both in blessings, and in sometimes "having our lampstands taken away", as he warned multiple times. I'm sorry for you if you somehow focus on Israel as the exceptional one in these things. But it's not true.
David Sanders
Not him, but…
I've seen retards of every stripe go "we are more richer/respected/succesful in war/fertile/evangelical/persecuted/poor/chaste/opressed/etc., so that proves we are right"
I've seen prots, muslims, orthodox, catholics, JW's, fedoras, etc. pull that reasoning, so no, figuring out doctrinal orthodoxy from happenings at, and up to, your specific point in time is kinda stupid.
This is just more evil slander!! Absolutely ridiculous and mind baffling how you can sit there and claim this, as if nobody can read the original post!
This is absolutely evil! Read the post again! Stop lying! I never said that!!!!
Dominic Green
Yes I did because those were and are state church empires. Definitely not part of Israel or the elect. Furthermore, I specifically said that prophecy is delimited to Scripture, and to try to make up your own prophecies is just elevating your own words to the level of scripture. Which is exactly what many people have done.
Because there are people elevating their personal reasoning to the level of sacred scripture as if that's all scripture was as well.
If you had ever read the prophecies of the OT such as Isaiah you'd already have a clue that Israel is a way to reference God's elect, see for example Isaiah 42, 44 and 45 and what it says.
Or if you just read Galatians 4
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. — Galatians 3:16
But you know what, I shouldn't have to spoonfeed you just so you won't come against me with these highly demeaning slanders. I've been talking about prophecy being exceptional, and that is what I've been talking about in the first place. The people is God is saved believers in Jesus Christ, and he is the heir of all those things and also Israel being spoken to in Psalms 147 which I quoted. That's why I quoted Psalm 147. The word of God is to the people of God and therefore you don't substitute false non-prophecies for that.
But I never even said that though. What?? I said the prophecies of the Bible are exceptional in my post.
???? Dude where are you getting this? Where did I use those two words together? I said the prophecies of the Bible are exceptional.
Like I said here:
Thomas Rodriguez
I honestly don't understand how you can sit there and keep perpetuating this lie with such brazen lying arrogance. You basically repeated the same exact lie four times in your post after I explicitly denied saying it. And all for the point of creating a totally untrue strawman and to distract now from any meaningful conversation that might be made.
Jason Myers
Did God perhaps use the jews to be a judgement on Jesus?
Camden Williams
No
Tyler Stewart
The same answer to Op's question.
Hunter Bell
I think God frequently uses Islam to bop people who need it *looks at western Europe*
Wyatt Ortiz
I do too. God uses evil to do good all the time. He used The Babylonians to teach Israel a lesson in the OT. Now He is using Islam to teach the West a lesson here in the New Covenant.
He willingly gave himself up, though.The same can't be said of the Byzantines.
Jayden Johnson
I don't think God would do something like that. Remember all of the innocent people, who were murdered by Muslims. God wouldn't create a punishment that would punish more good people.
Logan Robinson
Was he always willing to go get himself killed though?
