u/Upper_Actuator8865

About 2 years ago, my friend was cleaning my bathroom and accidentally mixed some cleaning chemicals that probably shouldn't have been mixed.
I ended up sleeping in the apartment that night, and I remember my nose and chest feeling like they were burned afterward.
Ever since then, l've had a strange reaction to strong chemical smells, especially bleach. If I'm around a lot of it (for example, walking through a restaurant while they're cleaning), my chest gets extremely tight and it honestly feels like I can't breathe or like I'm going to die. The episode usually lasts around 2 hours and then gradually goes away. Smaller amounts don't seem to bother me much.
The bigger issue now is apartments. My girlfriend and I just got a brand-new apartment, and whenever I'm there my nose burns when I breathe in and my chest feels irritated and tight (not as severe as with bleach, but definitely noticeable). I'm wondering if it's because it's a new build with fresh paint, flooring, adhesives, or VOCs.
I also have a hiatal hernia, so I'm not sure if that's making the chest symptoms worse or if it's unrelated
I'm still living in my old apartment for now, but my lease is ending soon and I'll have to move into the new one. I'm worried this is going to have a significant impact on my health.
I know I should see a doctor, but I'm wondering if they can even do anything about a chemical burn in my nose or chest? Has anyone experienced something similar to this?

About 2 years ago, my friend was cleaning my bathroom and accidentally mixed some cleaning chemicals that probably shouldn't have been mixed. I ended up sleeping in the apartment that night, and I remember my nose and chest feeling like they were burned afterward.
Ever since then, I've had a strange reaction to strong chemical smells, especially bleach. If I'm around a lot of it (for example, walking through a restaurant while they're cleaning), my chest gets extremely tight and it honestly feels like I can't breathe or like I'm going to die. The episode usually lasts around 2 hours and then gradually goes away. Smaller amounts don't seem to bother me much.
The bigger issue now is apartments. My girlfriend and I just got a brand-new apartment, and whenever I'm there my nose burns when I breathe in and my chest feels irritated and tight (not as severe as with bleach, but definitely noticeable). I'm wondering if it's because it's a new build with fresh paint, flooring, adhesives, or VOCs.
I also have a hiatal hernia, so I'm not sure if that's making the chest symptoms worse or if it's unrelated.
I'm still living in my old apartment for now, but my lease is ending soon and I'll have to move into the new one. I'm worried this is going to have a significant impact on my health.
I know I should see a doctor, but I'm wondering if they can even do anything about a chemical burn in my nose or chest?

I’ve been reading through the Epistle of Barnabas and wanted to hear what others think. It’s an early Christian writing, dated by most scholars to between 70 and 130 AD, which puts it right alongside the later parts of the New Testament and long before the Council of Nicaea. What jumped out at me is how high its view of Christ already is. It keeps treating Jesus as the Lord who was around at creation and later came in the flesh. Here are the passages that stood out, all from Bart Ehrman’s Loeb Classical Library translation (Vol. II, 2003).

Chapter 5 — it says the Son was already the Lord of the whole world at creation, and that Genesis was spoken to him:
“Consider this, my brothers: if the Lord allowed himself to suffer for our sake, even though he was the Lord of the entire world, the one to whom God said at the foundation of the world, ‘Let us make a human according to our image and likeness,’ how then did he allow himself to suffer by the hand of humans? Learn this!”

a few lines later:

“Therefore, the Son of God came in the flesh for this reason, that he might total up all the sins of those who persecuted his prophets to death.”

So the one God speaks to at the very beginning, “Let us make a human” is the same one who later “came in the flesh.” That’s the Son already there at creation from this texts interpretation of those verses.

Chapter 6 — here it says straight out that the “Let us make humans” of Genesis was spoken by God to his Son:

“For the Scripture speaks about us when he says to his Son, ‘Let us make humans according to our image and likeness, and let them rule over the wild beasts of the land and the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea.’ Once the Lord saw our beautiful form, he said ‘Increase and multiply and fill the earth.’ He said these things to the Son.”

(Note: chapter 5 and chapter 6 are quoting the same verse, Genesis 1:26 Ehrman translated it “a human” in one place and “humans” in the other.)

Then there’s the “new creation” passage, where the Lord who remade the world is the one who shows up in the flesh:

“And the Lord says, ‘See! I am making the final things like the first.’ This is why the prophet proclaimed, ‘Enter into a land flowing with milk and honey, and rule over it.’ See, then, that we have been formed anew, just as he again says in another prophet, ‘See, says the Lord, I will remove from these people their hearts of stone’ (that is to say, from those whom the Spirit of the Lord foresaw) ‘and cast into them hearts of flesh.’ For he was about to be revealed in the flesh and to dwell among us.”

The Lord who made the first creation is the same Lord who “was about to be revealed in the flesh and to dwell among us.” That’s God himself coming to live with us from the writers view?

Chapter 7 — Christ gets called the Lord and the judge of the living and the dead:

“And so, if the Son of God suffered, that by being beaten he might give us life (even though he is the Lord and is about to judge the living and the dead), we should believe that the Son of God could not suffer unless it was for our sakes.”

And:

“He himself was about to offer the vessel of the Spirit as a sacrifice for our own sins, that the type might also be fulfilled that was set forth in Isaac, when he was offered on the altar.”

Being “the Lord” and the one who will “judge the living and the dead” are God’s roles, and here they’re given to the Son in this text.

Chapter 12 — this part says directly that Jesus is more than just a descendant of David, using Psalm 110:

“See Jesus, not as son of man but as Son of God, manifest here in the flesh as a type. And so, since they are about to say that the Christ is the son of David, David himself speaks a prophecy in reverential awe, understanding the error of the sinners, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right side until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”’ And again Isaiah says the following: ‘The Lord said to Christ my Lord, I have grasped his right hand that the nations will obey him, and I will shatter the power of kings.’ See how David calls him Lord; he does not call him son.”

It’s the same point Jesus makes in the Gospels if Christ were only David’s human descendant, David wouldn’t call him “my Lord.” The text uses that as proof Jesus is the Son of God, not just a man.

Am I reading this right, or is there a lower interpretation I’m missing? Would love to hear from people who’ve spent time in the Apostolic Fathers and know more than me I’m not a scholar! I’m obviously reading this from a Christian perspective, so I don’t want to write my own interpretation on the text.

From an outsider looking in and seeing the increasing pushback against the idea that Latter-day Saints are Christians especially online, I’m curious:
Why do many LDS members want to be identified as Christian?
In Joseph Smith’s 1838 First Vision account, he wrote:
“I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt.”

If Joseph Smith taught that God told him the existing Christian churches were wrong, their creeds were an abomination, and their professors were corrupt, why would Latter-day Saints want to be grouped together with those same churches?
So basically from JS:
The LDS Church is the only true form of Christianity because it is the restored Church, and therefore other Christian groups are in error.

I’ve also noticed a strong emphasis in recent years on moving away from the term “Mormon” and placing greater focus on the name of Jesus Christ in public outreach.
What makes this especially confusing to me is that for much of LDS history, mainstream Christianity was often portrayed in very negative terms.
In the temple endowment ceremony, performed in LDS temples until it was revised in 1990, there was a scene depicting a Christian minister literally taking payment from Lucifer to preach. The dialogue went:
Lucifer: “Have you been to college and received training for the ministry?”
Sectarian Minister: “Certainly! A man cannot preach unless he has been trained for the ministry.”
Lucifer: “Do you preach the orthodox religion?”
Sectarian Minister: “Yes, that is what I preach.”
Lucifer: “If you will preach your orthodox religion to these people, and convert them, I will pay you well.”
Sectarian Minister: “I will do my best.”
The minister then preaches a description of God as being:
“without body, parts, or passions; who sits enthroned in the heavens; who is the same yesterday, today, and forever; whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”
This is essentially a caricature of classical Christian theology and creedal Christianity. Adam rejects the teaching, and later Peter exposes the minister’s true employer:
“Do you know who that man is? He is Satan.”
In other words, for well over a century, faithful Latter-day Saints sat in their holiest ceremony and watched orthodox Christianity represented by a minister who was hired by Lucifer and identified by Peter as serving Satan. That portion of the ceremony was removed in the 1990 revision.

Given Joseph Smith’s statements about Christian creeds, the doctrine of a Great Apostasy, the rejection of the Trinity, and historical portrayals of orthodox Christianity as corrupted or even satanic, why do many Latter-day Saints today seek recognition as part of Orthodox Christianity rather than as a distinct religion that emerged from Christian roots?

I feel like this is going against what earlier things have been taught.

I came across a passage from Tertullian in Prescription Against Heretics where he writes:

“In the Lord’s apostles we possess our authority; for even they did not of themselves choose to introduce anything, but faithfully delivered to the nations (of mankind) the doctrine which they had received from Christ. If, therefore, even ‘an angel from heaven should preach any other gospel’ (than theirs), he would be called accursed by us. The Holy Ghost had even then foreseen that there would be in a certain virgin (called) Philumene an angel of deceit, ‘transformed into an angel of light,’ by whose miracles and illusions Apelles was led (when) he introduced his new heresy.”

I have two historical questions:

Do any writings survive from Apelles or Philumene that describe the angelic encounter/revelation or encounters themselves? Or is our knowledge of these experiences entirely dependent on hostile sources such as Tertullian?

Did early Christian writers ever apply Galatians 1:8 (“even if we or an angel from heaven should preach another gospel”) or 2 Corinthians 11:14 (“Satan disguises himself as an angel of light”) against later religious movements that claimed angelic revelation, such as Manichaeism? If so, what are the earliest examples?

I see this verse used against religions today and
I’m interested in the historical use of these passages in anti-heretical literature, like how the church fathers used it. Thank you!

Can someone help me understand the history of Jehovah's Witness failed predictions and how critics apply verses like Matthew 24:27-30 against the idea of an invisible return?
I'm trying to understand this accurately and I'm confused on the timeline.
From what I understand, Charles Taze Russell taught that Jesus returned invisibly in 1874, and that 1914 would bring the end of human governments/world events. Then after 1914, the interpretation changed into Jesus beginning His invisible heavenly reign in 1914 instead.
What exactly changed between Russell and Rutherford? What do Jehovah's Witnesses believe today about Jesus' return/ invisible presence?
Matthew 24:26-27:
"So, if they say to you, 'Look, he is in the wilderness, do not go out; if they say, 'Look, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."
Matthew 24:30:
"Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."