I have decided to post this in general comments because so many people have been responding to my discussions on Calvinism that I can't keep track of who I am posting to. I keep getting them mixed up. The discussions are on my beliefs against anything of Calvinistic teachings but especially their belief that: "predestination refers to God's eternal and unchangeable decree that determines the salvation of some individuals and the damnation of others. That individuals are still responsible for their choices and actions. At the same time, Calvinists also teach that God has predestined others to damnation, rejecting them and leaving them to their sinful nature. This reprobation is not a result of God actively causing their sin, but rather a passive decision to not intervene or save them." *
In other words, no free will.
Unless I am misunderstanding the last sentence, my God, the true one which is taught in the KJB, would not be unfair and cruel as to create souls He intends to throw in hell when their life is over without any conviction of the Holy Spirit to respond to. To decide they are reprobate before they are born, to me is unfair and cruel.
I feel that there may be some error in your logic when it comes to God's "cruelty". Think of it this way, all of us are damned to hell. This is the result of the curse that came upon us. So, by your logic, God is universally cruel, which is actually quite fair considering the circumstances.
However, He did give us a way out. We can either be saved by works or by grace. Grace is actually the unfair part, (if you consider a free gift of salvation unfair). Grace is an unwarranted mercy that was bestowed on some for salvation to escape the path to hell.
God's sovereignty, just like his mercy, is full/complete/perfect. If God were to be susceptible to changes of opinion about some vs others based on what we do, then that would imply imperfection in God. God cannot change his mind. Change would imply limited sovereignty and a striving to achieve something that currently is not real. For instance, I stop at red lights because something outside of myself could kill me. I eat because something outside of myself must sustain me. My motivations lead to changes in me because of outside pressure. God doesn't have outside needs. He is one in the same always and forever.
I AM. Therefore, his sovereignty is absolute. That is why predestination is so solid a concept. If God is sovereign, he already knew beforehand who would be called to salvation.
I know my God is a greatly loving God, that's why I don't believe His predestination is for souls pretain to His prophecies that He predestined to happen before the end. Things like His church and the end times and Him becoming man for the salvation of souls with a free will to accept Him or not. Good works has nothing to do with salvation, but a soul believing in Jesus, asking for forgiveness and surrendering their life to Him is. Then good works, that count to God, will come from a humble, selfless heart. Since God doesn't presdestinate souls He wouldn't be changing His opinion. (I'm not sure I understood your meaning here.) His salvation is there for anyone who wants it.There is a difference between God's forknowledge, knowing who will accept His forgiveness or not or deciding before hand if they will or will not accept Him with no choice of their own.
I admit I don't understand why you believe that because God is Sovereign this proves predestination of souls. I hope you can explain a little bit further. Another question I have is what is the point of accepting the sacrifice and victory of Jesus if it counts for nothing towards our salvation? I think Calvinistic believe that God draws the elect to Him so they will live like a christian but why bother? Why witness if it isn't going to make any difference? Just live like the devil and go to heaven anyway because God said you would before you even existed. Are the elect are forced by God to behave themselves while on earth? I hope you don't think I'm being sarcastic I'm not, these are legitmitate questions. I hope I have understood what you have said. If not. I apologize. Please let me know. God Bless. :)
You make good points and I'd like to expand on them. First, it is my belief that good works should be completely removed from the equation. My position is that Jesus came to make the dead live, not necessarily to make the mean nicer. We know this because after being saved, may disciples including Peter faltered in their behaviors and operated in pre-salvation tendencies.
Now, to expand upon the idea of free will, this is also a topic that most people confuse. The answer is that God can be sovereign, people can still maintain their "sense" of free will, and predestination can hold. The reason this is so is because humans operate on a timeline. We see life as a series of events dictated by measured change. God the father, the ultimate judge, does not operate in time. Therefore, outside of time he has no measured change. The best analogy I can give is to imagine God the father being the sun and civilization as the earth, orbiting the sun. From Gods perspective, he can remain unchanging and radiate his essence through the circular timeline of creation without ever being away from it. So, God is ever present at the same moment Jesus died on the cross as he is at the end of the world...always. We are just floating along watching what is already happening unfold before us. Every event is a simultaneous forever present.
How could Jesus redeem the world in one single event for people 2000 years later? Simple, every moment to God the father is always in the present tense. When we die, I believe we will experience all things simultaneously. Therefore, as Romans 9 through 11 speak of the elect and predestination, the point is that since God knows all things, our past present and future, then in effect we are implicitly predestined. However, to us, we come to that reality along a timeline.
Armenianism, the opposite of Calvanism fails because it implies that human choice can limit God. If God has limits, then he is imperfect and it all collapses.
I can't find your postings on Matthew. I thought I saw part 8 on a page 14 but now I can't find it. Could you please give me exact instructions to find them? Did you post them somewhere in general? There are lots of page 14s on this forum so that's why I need the exact instructions and maybe you could start me off with part 1?
By the time you receive this, Part 1 of the Matthew Studies will probably be found on Page 20. The way to get to page 20 is to scroll down to the bottom of the page to where it says, "Next Discussion Page." You may have to click on that a couple of times to get to page 20. Please know that Part 1 will not remain on Page 20 for too long.
Below are the pages you will find these studies:
(Page 20) - Part 1 through Part 7
(Page 19) - Part 8
(Page 18) - Part 9 through Part 13
(Page 17) - Part 14 through Part 18
(Page 16) - Part 20 through Part 24
(Page 14) - Part 25 and Part 27
(Page 13) - Part 28 through Part 37
(Page 11) - Part 19 and Part 26
Again, please know that these pages will shift down over time. If I might suggest to you, once you find Part 1, I would copy and paste it onto a separate Word document, and then copy Page 2, Page 3, and so on until you have copied and save all 37 Parts. This will make them easier to find since the pages I have given you are going to keep on shifting with more things being continuously added to Page 1, causing everything else to shift further away.
I'm sorry my last comment was grumpy and blunt. I won't be like that in the future if we decide to discuss another topic. What I meant was I didn't want to go on with this discussion. From now on I need to refrain from doing postings if I'm grumpy, or maybe I should say fatigued. I just look forward to being on here so it's hard not to get on.
Also, if you recall I asked you to send me only a COUPLE of verses comparing the Texus Receptus with the KJB.
YOU suggested doing a complete NT comparison and I asked you if you were sure because you said it would take a lot of time and work. You agreed it would but you did said you would do it anyway. I'm sure there are others who would like you to continue as I would, but that's up to you. Please do what you feel you can.
One other thing I'd like to clear up: a time in our discussions I was telling you the authors of the MEBs said their purpose for publishing these versions was to just put the JKB in modern English and you asked why. You also asked why they compared the KJB to write their versions and you also asked why God didn't just use the bibles already written before the KJB 1611. Do you remember? That is the reason I sent you a copy of the history of the NIV; that it would answer these questions for you and I did mentioned that in the posting. I was surprised when you said you didn't read it since it would answer your questions. But, of course, that was up to you. Whether you used the NIV or not really didn't have anything to do with why I sent it to you.
I would like to go to a different topic, maybe one we agree on, but we do seem to want to continue to answer each other, so I'll leave it up to you to respond to this posting with more questions, comments and so on.
I love you brother Jesse. Just FYI, I grew up with 4 bothers, 2 older and 2 younger and a sister. We did disagree at times but we have always loved each other. God Bless :)
Thank you very much for the kind reply. No need for apology. We all get grumpy and fatigued from time to time. Grumpy and fatigued are both fleshly terms and sometimes we let our flesh get the best of us. It happens to us all. It's something we cannot avoid. At this time, I choose not to ask any more questions.
I am happy to hear that you found the studies I posted on Matthew. I have finished going through Mark and will start posting them tonight. I will be posting them as a "New Comment" so you won't see them in your email. As I did with Matthew, I am going to title the Mark studies as Biblical Greek Perspectives, so that is how you will find them.
Blessings to you, and I hope you have a great evening!
Thank you for your kind understanding and I am glad we have finished our discussion.
I am going to find all your postings on: "Biblical Greek Perspectives" and copy them to my word program so they will be easier to read and find, as you suggested. I really do appreciate the time and work you are putting into do this for a lot of us here, I'm sure.
I will probably have questions to ask and comments to make if that is okay with you. If you would rather not, because it will kind of be like a new discussion I will just enjoy reading and studying them without questions and comments. I don't mind , however you'd like to do it. Just let me know.
I am always open to questions and comments on anything I post, so if you have questions, please ask. That's one of the nice things about having an open forum!
I have decided to post this in general comments because so many people have been responding to my discussions on Calvinism that I can't keep track of who I am posting to. I keep getting them mixed up. The discussions are on my beliefs against anything of Calvinistic teachings but especially their belief that: "predestination refers to God's eternal and unchangeable decree that determines the salvation of some individuals and the damnation of others. That individuals are still responsible for their choices and actions. At the same time, Calvinists also teach that God has predestined others to damnation, rejecting them and leaving them to their sinful nature. This reprobation is not a result of God actively causing their sin, but rather a passive decision to not intervene or save them." *
In other words, no free will.
Unless I am misunderstanding the last sentence, my God, the true one which is taught in the KJB, would not be unfair and cruel as to create souls He intends to throw in hell when their life is over without any conviction of the Holy Spirit to respond to. To decide they are reprobate before they are born, to me is unfair and cruel.
I feel that there may be some error in your logic when it comes to God's "cruelty". Think of it this way, all of us are damned to hell. This is the result of the curse that came upon us. So, by your logic, God is universally cruel, which is actually quite fair considering the circumstances.
However, He did give us a way out. We can either be saved by works or by grace. Grace is actually the unfair part, (if you consider a free gift of salvation unfair). Grace is an unwarranted mercy that was bestowed on some for salvation to escape the path to hell.
God's sovereignty, just like his mercy, is full/complete/perfect. If God were to be susceptible to changes of opinion about some vs others based on what we do, then that would imply imperfection in God. God cannot change his mind. Change would imply limited sovereignty and a striving to achieve something that currently is not real. For instance, I stop at red lights because something outside of myself could kill me. I eat because something outside of myself must sustain me. My motivations lead to changes in me because of outside pressure. God doesn't have outside needs. He is one in the same always and forever.
I AM. Therefore, his sovereignty is absolute. That is why predestination is so solid a concept. If God is sovereign, he already knew beforehand who would be called to salvation.
I know my God is a greatly loving God, that's why I don't believe His predestination is for souls pretain to His prophecies that He predestined to happen before the end. Things like His church and the end times and Him becoming man for the salvation of souls with a free will to accept Him or not. Good works has nothing to do with salvation, but a soul believing in Jesus, asking for forgiveness and surrendering their life to Him is. Then good works, that count to God, will come from a humble, selfless heart. Since God doesn't presdestinate souls He wouldn't be changing His opinion. (I'm not sure I understood your meaning here.) His salvation is there for anyone who wants it.There is a difference between God's forknowledge, knowing who will accept His forgiveness or not or deciding before hand if they will or will not accept Him with no choice of their own.
I admit I don't understand why you believe that because God is Sovereign this proves predestination of souls. I hope you can explain a little bit further. Another question I have is what is the point of accepting the sacrifice and victory of Jesus if it counts for nothing towards our salvation? I think Calvinistic believe that God draws the elect to Him so they will live like a christian but why bother? Why witness if it isn't going to make any difference? Just live like the devil and go to heaven anyway because God said you would before you even existed. Are the elect are forced by God to behave themselves while on earth? I hope you don't think I'm being sarcastic I'm not, these are legitmitate questions. I hope I have understood what you have said. If not. I apologize. Please let me know. God Bless. :)
You make good points and I'd like to expand on them. First, it is my belief that good works should be completely removed from the equation. My position is that Jesus came to make the dead live, not necessarily to make the mean nicer. We know this because after being saved, may disciples including Peter faltered in their behaviors and operated in pre-salvation tendencies.
Now, to expand upon the idea of free will, this is also a topic that most people confuse. The answer is that God can be sovereign, people can still maintain their "sense" of free will, and predestination can hold. The reason this is so is because humans operate on a timeline. We see life as a series of events dictated by measured change. God the father, the ultimate judge, does not operate in time. Therefore, outside of time he has no measured change. The best analogy I can give is to imagine God the father being the sun and civilization as the earth, orbiting the sun. From Gods perspective, he can remain unchanging and radiate his essence through the circular timeline of creation without ever being away from it. So, God is ever present at the same moment Jesus died on the cross as he is at the end of the world...always. We are just floating along watching what is already happening unfold before us. Every event is a simultaneous forever present.
How could Jesus redeem the world in one single event for people 2000 years later? Simple, every moment to God the father is always in the present tense. When we die, I believe we will experience all things simultaneously. Therefore, as Romans 9 through 11 speak of the elect and predestination, the point is that since God knows all things, our past present and future, then in effect we are implicitly predestined. However, to us, we come to that reality along a timeline.
Armenianism, the opposite of Calvanism fails because it implies that human choice can limit God. If God has limits, then he is imperfect and it all collapses.
I can't find your postings on Matthew. I thought I saw part 8 on a page 14 but now I can't find it. Could you please give me exact instructions to find them? Did you post them somewhere in general? There are lots of page 14s on this forum so that's why I need the exact instructions and maybe you could start me off with part 1?
I hope all is well with you. God Bless :)
By the time you receive this, Part 1 of the Matthew Studies will probably be found on Page 20. The way to get to page 20 is to scroll down to the bottom of the page to where it says, "Next Discussion Page." You may have to click on that a couple of times to get to page 20. Please know that Part 1 will not remain on Page 20 for too long.
Below are the pages you will find these studies:
(Page 20) - Part 1 through Part 7
(Page 19) - Part 8
(Page 18) - Part 9 through Part 13
(Page 17) - Part 14 through Part 18
(Page 16) - Part 20 through Part 24
(Page 14) - Part 25 and Part 27
(Page 13) - Part 28 through Part 37
(Page 11) - Part 19 and Part 26
Again, please know that these pages will shift down over time. If I might suggest to you, once you find Part 1, I would copy and paste it onto a separate Word document, and then copy Page 2, Page 3, and so on until you have copied and save all 37 Parts. This will make them easier to find since the pages I have given you are going to keep on shifting with more things being continuously added to Page 1, causing everything else to shift further away.
I hope this helps. God Bless!!!
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[Comment Removed]
[Comment Removed]
I'm sorry my last comment was grumpy and blunt. I won't be like that in the future if we decide to discuss another topic. What I meant was I didn't want to go on with this discussion. From now on I need to refrain from doing postings if I'm grumpy, or maybe I should say fatigued. I just look forward to being on here so it's hard not to get on.
Also, if you recall I asked you to send me only a COUPLE of verses comparing the Texus Receptus with the KJB.
YOU suggested doing a complete NT comparison and I asked you if you were sure because you said it would take a lot of time and work. You agreed it would but you did said you would do it anyway. I'm sure there are others who would like you to continue as I would, but that's up to you. Please do what you feel you can.
One other thing I'd like to clear up: a time in our discussions I was telling you the authors of the MEBs said their purpose for publishing these versions was to just put the JKB in modern English and you asked why. You also asked why they compared the KJB to write their versions and you also asked why God didn't just use the bibles already written before the KJB 1611. Do you remember? That is the reason I sent you a copy of the history of the NIV; that it would answer these questions for you and I did mentioned that in the posting. I was surprised when you said you didn't read it since it would answer your questions. But, of course, that was up to you. Whether you used the NIV or not really didn't have anything to do with why I sent it to you.
I would like to go to a different topic, maybe one we agree on, but we do seem to want to continue to answer each other, so I'll leave it up to you to respond to this posting with more questions, comments and so on.
I love you brother Jesse. Just FYI, I grew up with 4 bothers, 2 older and 2 younger and a sister. We did disagree at times but we have always loved each other. God Bless :)
Thank you very much for the kind reply. No need for apology. We all get grumpy and fatigued from time to time. Grumpy and fatigued are both fleshly terms and sometimes we let our flesh get the best of us. It happens to us all. It's something we cannot avoid. At this time, I choose not to ask any more questions.
I am happy to hear that you found the studies I posted on Matthew. I have finished going through Mark and will start posting them tonight. I will be posting them as a "New Comment" so you won't see them in your email. As I did with Matthew, I am going to title the Mark studies as Biblical Greek Perspectives, so that is how you will find them.
Blessings to you, and I hope you have a great evening!
Thank you for your kind understanding and I am glad we have finished our discussion.
I am going to find all your postings on: "Biblical Greek Perspectives" and copy them to my word program so they will be easier to read and find, as you suggested. I really do appreciate the time and work you are putting into do this for a lot of us here, I'm sure.
I will probably have questions to ask and comments to make if that is okay with you. If you would rather not, because it will kind of be like a new discussion I will just enjoy reading and studying them without questions and comments. I don't mind , however you'd like to do it. Just let me know.
God Bless you in your postings. God Bless :)
I am always open to questions and comments on anything I post, so if you have questions, please ask. That's one of the nice things about having an open forum!
Blessings!
I agree.
Some teachings makes God out to be a serial killer when they insist God CHOOSES some to be lost rather than God KNOWS who will be lost.
With that view, you are predestinated by luck, Not God's foreknowledge.
God bless.
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