I hope you become confortable with the use of logic wihout being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion.
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When Paul went to the Jew first, it was not because it seemed that Israel might yet accept Christ and His kingdom, but simply because God would leave Israel no excuse for rejecting Messiah. Paul confirmed Peter's message, and mightily contended with the Jews everywhere that 'Jesus is the Christ.' And miracles accompanied this confirmation testimony--greater miracles, indeed, than Peter himself had wrought. But, unlike Peter, Paul never offered the kingdom to Israel. His ministry among them was not to turn the nation to Christ, but to save any from among them who might believe, receiving salvation by grace, and to leave the rest without excuse. Thus God was concluding Israel in unbelief and, even at that early date, mightily using Paul to proclaim grace to the Gentiles.
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It is the nature of aphoristic thinking to be always in a state of concluding; a bid to have the final word is inherent in all powerful phrase-making.
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Almost a century has passed since Japan first entered the world community by concluding a treaty of amity with the United States of America in 1854.
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It is well to remember that a Martian observing his first baseball game would be quite correct in concluding that the last two words of the National Anthem are: PLAY BALL!
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In the world of knowledge, the essential Form of Good is the limit of our inquiries, and can barely be perceived; but, when perceived, we cannot help concluding that it is in every case the source of all that is bright and beautiful --in the visible world giving birth to light and its master, and in the intellectual world dispensing, immediately and with full authority, truth and reason --and that whosoever would act wisely, either in private or in public, must set this Form of Good before his eyes.
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With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.
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