As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
By Jordan Standridge. Reposted from The Cripplegate.
Rhett and Link, former CRU missionaries who have become famous through YouTube, have recently joined the chorus of “former Christians” who feel the need to share their “faith deconstruction” stories for all to hear. They are now agnostic.
By Sam Horn. Read Part 1.
The gospel is also the record of God fulfilling His purposes and promises in four specific ways. By means of the gospel, God has fulfilled an ancient promise made to our first parents in the presence of their mortal enemy, Satan. Though this enemy bruised the heel of Jesus at the cross, the resurrection was the cosmic proclamation of Christ’s victory over our ancient foe.
The Lordship Salvation Issue is surely one of those many topics where the less I say the better. Nevertheless, I do want to say something (with some sense of trepidation).
Most of my friends are non-Lordship Salvation. Many are far more informed than I am. In many ways I’m over my head, and would rather avoid division – if for nothing else to avoid embarrassing myself. So in the few discussions I’ve had, I’ve tended not to say much.
Let every person do their own study and come to their own conclusion.
“Twice recently I have heard about those who teach that faith is a work. One variation is simply that: faith is a work, and so we cannot encourage or exhort people to believe. The second variation is: faith is the first work a person does after regeneration.” - Matt Postiff (See also Part 2)
“…while the phrase, ‘Now, all you have to do is…’ aims to highlight the vital truth that redemption is complete in Christ, I believe it actually serves as an unhelpful—and, at times, even dangerous—Christian catchphrase.” - Facts & Trends
Few doctrines divide God’s people like the doctrine of election. Since both the word, “election” in its various forms, plus the concept using different words is found repeatedly in the Bible, some explanation must be offered. It cannot simply be ignored.
Although there are various shades of interpretation, in the end, it boils down to two possibilities. Either election means God chose His people without reference to anything He saw in man (unconditional election), or God chose people based upon something He saw or foresaw within them (conditional election).
“Paul says something far more often: He uses the phrase “in Christ” 165 times.” - C.Today
In this excerpt from his classic Lectures in Systematic Theology, Henry Thiessen explains the concept of prevenient grace:1
I first encountered the term “High Calvinism” when I read Lewis Chafer’s systematic theology. This term is a bit old-fashioned now, of course. If someone is a “High Calvinist,” it means he’s very Reformed in his soteriology. This surely described R.C. Sproul!
Discussion