Please notice what I said in my #2715. It explains what I was trying to tell that Romanist. A willingness to search the Scriptures means nothing. According to John 5:39-40, it doesn’t even indicate that a person is saved. And it goes without saying that a willingness to search the Scriptures is no guarantee that a person will wind up with a correct understanding of those Scriptures.
The RCs whom I have met seem to be completely devoid of the Spirit of regeneration. They are profoundly unreceptive to the Truth, even when they occasionally seem to get close. As a matter of fact, they seem to spend all of their time in the Satanic traps which God has ordained for the realm of His Word.
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Although Protestants realize this when they encounter Romanists who play endless proof-texting games with us, they sometimes forget its warning value for Protestants.
Because of the deceitfulness of the heart, confessing allegiance to the Scriptures will not even save a sinner. For precisely the same awful reason, confessing Sola Scriptura will not even save a sinner.
I am persuaded that some Protestants are wrongly complacent about what I would call their “Sola Scripturaism.” Based on what I have discovered about sin and Satan, based on what I have noticed about fallen sinners’ sheer religiosity, I am afraid that there are more tares in the Protestant movement than most Protestants would dream possible.
This is why it is so worrisome to me when I run across Protestants who confess Sola Scriptura (or even Sola Gratia) but who only trust their Bible teachers’ interpretations of those Scriptures (until they have a falling out with them, perhaps!). I am specifically alarmed when I run across someone who always and only gets his interpretive position from commentators. According to 1 John 2:27, that is inconsistent with regeneration.
Maybe such a person is just a “carnal Christian.” But maybe he is no Christian at all.
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This is what really concerns me about the easy-believism movements. The problem of the tares has become unknowably bad in such movements. The fact that they confess the “Solas” means nothing if they aren’t really converted after all.
True. In #2715, you wrote:
"Phony Bereanism has to do with .... “searching” in the maniacal, dishonest way ..."
And the dishonest way is not to search the Scriptures to "see if these things are so", but instead to search the Scriptures to prove "these things are not so, if they conflict with preconceived notions or indoctrinations in which one feels emotionally / socially comfortable.
"Ah wuz borned a DemacRAT. Mah daddy wuz a DemacRAT, mah grandaddy wuz a DemacRAT, mah hole fambly is DemacRATS, and thet's guud e-nuff fur mae." LOL
"I am persuaded that some Protestants are wrongly complacent about what I would call their “Sola Scripturaism.” ... I am specifically alarmed when I run across someone who always and only gets his interpretive position from commentators. According to 1 John 2:27, that is inconsistent with regeneration."
Agreed. "Always and only" being the operative words.
"This is what really concerns me about the easy-believism movements. The problem of the tares has become unknowably bad in such movements."
Want proof? Watch the flack I'd get for saying this publically in just about any church congregation of today:
My definition of the real Promise Keepers motto: "Unity OVER Truth".