Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
January 25, 2008
ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.
My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.
I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.
It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.
I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.
Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."
Another true statement, but not indicating that he doesn't have assurance. He displays the correct mindset of Christians. That is, do NOT rely on the plain meaning of OSAS. God has plans for us and commands us to obey Him. That does not stop at the point of belief. Paul affirms that perseverance must happen, but does not get into the theology of the mechanism here.
FK: Sometimes, yes. A hardship can be a discipline from God, or it could be God allowing satan to act for other reasons. Sometimes it is reasonably easy to tell the difference, but sometimes not.***
I don’t see it. Do you have examples?
Sure, take the two we just talked about recently, AIDS and 9/11. COULD those have been God's wrath against certain people? Yes, "possibly", but we can't know for sure. There is a precedent with Sodom and Gomorrah, but again we can't declare it one way or the other. An easier example would be like me stealing a $5 item from work with no chance of being caught. Then I get caught and they fire me. I would consider it highly likely that it was because of God as a discipline.
[Re: Matt 10:22] The verse says that those who remain until the end will be saved. Cause and effect. If 1) endure, then 2) saved. Not vice versa.
This verse is simply a true statement and uses "saved" in the future tense. I thought Catholics agree that the Bible also uses "save" in the present tense. That would be before any enduring is done. (You are arguing that one can lose his salvation, meaning he already had it.) So, we have to be careful about which sense of "save" we are talking about. Therefore, in the totality of scriptures, my contention that those who are saved WILL endure is just as reasonable.
***FK: Sometimes, yes. A hardship can be a discipline from God, or it could be God allowing satan to act for other reasons. Sometimes it is reasonably easy to tell the difference, but sometimes not.***
I don’t see it. Do you have examples?***
Um, Job?
I have no problem with Peter being a leader. He was probably the oldest and he is portrayed as a leader. Also, Christ showed that he was a part of the inner-INNER circle if there was such a thing. One example being Christ inviting Peter to the Transfiguration. I just don't believe that God's Church is built on the "rock" of Peter. God's Church is built on the cornerstone, who is Christ. We both have our verses and I just ask myself which make more sense. Who is the head of the Church, Peter or Christ? That answers it in my mind.
Yep! Go Billikens! (Whatever a Billiken is. I've heard different stories. Some kind of good luck charm I guess. :)
Fr. Pfleger is an example of those that, as they leave (one way or another) are being replaced by spiritual and religious Catholics.
That is good to hear. I have never seen a Catholic priest the likes of him! :)
Um, Job?
I guess it doesn't get any easier than that. :) Good one, Irish.
Enjoy your vacation!
***But I thought that the Reformed teach that only true believers can be happy with the Word of God.
I’ve never heard of that, but it only makes sense that if there is such a thing as false belief there must also be false happiness. Whoever is saying what you said must be talking about a true happiness coming from a Godly happiness. Surely sin, for example, can result in temporary false happiness.***
But the WCF Chapter 7; IV says that:
From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.
Therefore unless the Reformed God changes the sinner, and the WCF says that we are made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to do all evil, nobody who is not saved can be happy with the Word of God, so your point appears lost.
***With all due respect, sir, this is rather weak. If you have the Holy Spirit indwelling and guiding you, why would you need the exhortations of men?
It is ONE method of communication. Holy Spirit COULD handle it all by Himself, but God chose to also communicate with us through the scriptures. The scriptures are also an excellent witnessing tool to those who do not yet have Holy Spirit.***
That is true, yet the Reformed say that the Holy Spirit does provide all guidance (a rather Manicheaen variation), so therefore Scripture, as well as the exhortations of men, should become irrelevant. Since men understand imperfectly and pass on imperfect information, shouldn’t one rely on the perfect guidance of the Reformed Holy Spirit?
******FK: Sometimes, yes. A hardship can be a discipline from God, or it could be God allowing satan to act for other reasons. Sometimes it is reasonably easy to tell the difference, but sometimes not.***
I don’t see it. Do you have examples?***
Um, Job?***
Hmmm. Job was a righteous man who was a shining example of religious and pious faith.
Job
Chapter 1
1
In the land of Uz 1 there was a blameless and upright man named Job, who feared God and avoided evil.
2
2 Seven sons and three daughters were born to him;
3
3 and he had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she-asses, and a great number of work animals, so that he was greater than any of the men of the East.
4
His sons used to take turns giving feasts, sending invitations to their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
5
And when each feast had run its course, Job would send for them and sanctify them, rising early and offering holocausts for every one of them. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned and blasphemed God in their hearts.” This Job did habitually.
How did Job get put through the wringer?
6
One day, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan also came among them.
7
And the LORD said to Satan, “Whence do you come?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “From roaming the earth and patrolling it.”
8
And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job, and that there is no one on earth like him, blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil?”
9
But Satan answered the LORD and said, “Is it for nothing that Job is God-fearing?
10
Have you not surrounded him and his family and all that he has with your protection? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock are spread over the land.
11
But now put forth your hand and touch anything that he has, and surely he will blaspheme you to your face.”
12
And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand upon his person.” So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
Job didn’t get punished because he was sinful; he got punished because he was good. On a bet between two supernatural beings, like the Greek or Norse gods wagering between them on the outcome of maltreating mortals.
So therefore God would be allowing satan to maltreat Job for other reasons. What reasons do you think?
***He was probably the oldest and he is portrayed as a leader. Also, Christ showed that he was a part of the inner-INNER circle if there was such a thing. One example being Christ inviting Peter to the Transfiguration. I just don’t believe that God’s Church is built on the “rock” of Peter. God’s Church is built on the cornerstone, who is Christ. We both have our verses and I just ask myself which make more sense. Who is the head of the Church, Peter or Christ? That answers it in my mind.***
Christ is the Head of the Church. There has never been any debate about it by Catholics. We refer to the Pope as the Servant of the Servants of God.
Go with God, my friend, and may He watch over you and keep you and bring you back to us in good time.
Have a wonderful, safe trip with the family. Return ready for battle.
Godspeed.
That is the reformed interpretation of the Bible. You left out a significant part of my post which said:
Since you would say that those who fall away were never in, how can they be brought in again?
But now you are changing your story: you are no longer claiming they wree never in, but are saying they do fall away—temporarily! Theology on-on-the-fly.
The NT says God will not let those who are His be snatched away from Him. That, of course, applies to those who die in repentance. God will claim those souls forever.
Ping, sorry.
That’s the neat thing about becoming one’s own Pope. If you don’t like something, reinterpret it (or lose it completely) and hey presto!!! a brand new theology.
Many Protestant theologies that I’ve debated hang on a single or handful of verse and exist in opposition to other verse; James and Revelation barely escaped Luther’s axe. No wonder Luther added “alone” to Romans 3:28 to create the brand new theme of “faith alone”, no wonder he cunningly reinterpreted “works of law” to “good works”.
If one reads Romans 3:28 as:
For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
it reads a whole lot different than Luther’s version of:
For we consider that a person is justified by faith alone apart from good works.
and it creates the justification of a whole new heretical doctrine.
No wonder Luther hated James and Maccabees 1 and 2 so much - they support the Catholic doctrines regarding purgatory and good works.
I appreciate the consideration. Yet, I would rather Mark disagree with me than present myself on false pretense to be "allied" with him. I believe what I say. If there is any alliance between us it is based on our core beliefs.
Well, if you throw out everything that follows from your interpretation of a single verse, then I can't imagine there being much of anything left of the Bible for you
I am not saying there were no floods, or even catastrophic tectonic events (such as the Atlas mountains spanning Africa and Spain breaking and flooding the Mediterranean region, or the range spanning Asian Minor and Europe at Bosporus breaking and creating the Black Sea.
These cataclysmic events were huge and could have been described for all practical purposes as involving the whole world of the ancient peoples of the region.
I was saying that it never happened because God regretted having made man. That is contrary to an omniscient God.
How did you determine that your interpretation of Gen. 6:6 is the correct one?
Being omniscient and perfect means never having to say He is sorry.
Does everything just collapse into the red letters in the Gospels, for example?
Jesus is how God wants us to know Him. The ineffable and incomprehensible God became one of us, so that we can see Him, relate to Him and imitate Him. Yes, Christ is the very standard of what God is, within our perception and understanding. So, yes, everything that's in red letters is our guide against which we interpret the rest of the scriptures. Unless we find the same Christ in them, it is not from God.
Luke 17:26-27...Jesus Himself says that the flood, obviously from God since Jesus did not say anything against what scripture taught, came and destroyed them all. Jesus agrees that God kills, yet you do not
Jesus doesn't mention God in Luke 17, or in Mar 24, for that matter. But, on this account, let me ask you: do you believe slavery is morally justified? The Bible does. How can it be immoral to buy another human being if the Bible considers it morally just?
There is no doubt that the OT and Paul approve of slavery. But if you can find Jesus teaching that slavery is God ordained, and morally right, I will no longer call myself a Christian.
The only way Jesus could teach meaningfully to the Jews was through the OT, and what they believe, and that included the Flood, Jonah, Exodus, and other myths the Jews believed in. If He had told them otherwise they would have walked away from Him.
These myths became part of the Christian beliefs by extension, since Christianity could not divorce itself from the OT, these myths became part of the religion of the Gentiles. But they teach nothing Jesus taught.
If you deny all these things for lack of physical evidence to your satisfaction, then what is your physical evidence for Jesus and what He did? You're a Christian so you believe it, but where is your physical evidence
I believe in what Jesus is said to have taught; the idea. Fact is, there is no direct physical or historical evidence of Jesus or His birth or His resurrection whatsoever. For someone who got the attention of the highest authorities of Israel and Romans, there is not a word written about Him, save for forged Josephus' "testimony" years later.
That's why we call it faith, FK. We believe in it without physical or historical evidence and for all we know it could be a delusion, but I can tell you that if we all became Christ-like in this life we would have an earth that resembled heaven, a true paradise, where no one would be afraid, or killed or tortured, where everyone would help another, and where happiness would make sorrow obsolete. We have that CAPACITY, FK. And I believe in that.
And that could not have come from the nature (the world), because there is no love or mercy or compassion in the ways of the nature. They are something not of this world, but we are capable of if not by nature then by grace.
In my latest post I am asking how do we explain our disdain for slavery when the Bible treats it as something morally justified. The fact that Protestants carry the burden of slavery on their historical backs and now reject it (officially at least), I wonder how do they justify that if one is to believer everything in the Bible.
I am also at a loss how can African-Americans, for example, belong to Protestants and Baptist assemblies if not by the method you describe above—reinterpret it or lose it completely and redefine the "canon" and pretend the offensive part never existed so that one can claim total belief in the "Bible" (which is whatever one makes it).
No wonder Luther added “alone” to Romans 3:28 to create the brand new theme of “faith alone”, no wonder he cunningly reinterpreted “works of law” to “good works”.
he term "law" was used loosely in those days. For instance, St. Paul says that Jesus was born (or actually made) by a woman (he doesn't mention the Holy Spirit) "according to the law." What does he mean by that? By what law? Natural law? In other words, normal pregnancy and birth? Certainly it doesn't sound like anything miraculous.
So, in order to attenuate some of the biblical passages some versions of the Bible simply change words. Thus the NIV doesn't call "slaves" slaves but "servants."
For something that is supposed to be pristine, great many people found it necessary to add "corrections" to their own copies. And since we don't have but copies of copies of copies, our best concordance of how the early Christians understood the Bible is through the Patristic writings of the Apostolic and Church Fathers. That's why Christ left us His Church, so we don't have to re-invent the Bible.
Therefore unless the Reformed God changes the sinner, and the WCF says that we are made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to do all evil, nobody who is not saved can be happy with the Word of God, so your point appears lost.
False believers can have false happiness in a false God. I think we need to be clear on what you mean by "Word of God". As a stand alone, I would take that for Christ Himself because of the capitalization. My (NIV) Bible makes a distinction between "word" and "Word". But in Luke 8:13 I think it is talking about the Gospel. So I think the idea is that some hear the Gospel and say "that's great, it sounds wonderful, I am so happy". But they don't really understand because God hasn't revealed the real truth to them.
We all know lost people who appear to be very happy in their lives and would say so if asked. I don't think the WCF misses that reality. The lost who say they are happy with/in the Gospel don't REALLY know what the Gospel is or means. They are deluded, with a false happiness.
FK: It is ONE method of communication. Holy Spirit COULD handle it all by Himself, but God chose to also communicate with us through the scriptures. The scriptures are also an excellent witnessing tool to those who do not yet have Holy Spirit.***
That is true, yet the Reformed say that the Holy Spirit does provide all guidance (a rather Manicheaen variation), so therefore Scripture, as well as the exhortations of men, should become irrelevant. Since men understand imperfectly and pass on imperfect information, shouldn’t one rely on the perfect guidance of the Reformed Holy Spirit?
The Bible says the Holy Spirit does teach us "all things", but He uses different tools to do that. Before I had read the Bible all the way through I never woke up one morning quoting a verse I had never read. Holy Spirit LED me to read it. Now, He CAN certainly put the essence of a teaching into the mind of a believer, that has happened to me, and as a reminder we always have the scripture we can refer to and memorize.
Wrong. That is something men made up. The Bible doesn't say anything about "tools" or different methods. In fact, it says nothing of how the HS does that.
John 14:26 says that the Spirit, whom the Father will send, will teach "you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you"
Here, again, Jesus is addressing specifically his disciples, specifically those that have actually witnessed Him in Person, not every Tom, Dick and Harriette. He speaks of the Spirit bringing to their remembrance (nor revelation!) everything He has ever spoken to them.
This doesn't apply to everyone. The only tools are the disciples who will bring faith to others through their word (cf John 17:20). In other words, the Church and its clergy.
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