Locoponydirtman said: ]I think all that research, and scholarship is wonderful. Its just not available to the vast majority of believers, and in many ways its just not necessary.
Blik responds: Please reconsider that based on that our church today is not a power that God's ways would give it. Ideas and ways of the occult have crept in. None of our holidays are from scripture direction. There isn't even agreement about how to be saved, how does faith and works apply. Did Christ get rid of the ten commandments? Arguing about it isn't helping. What WOULD help is going back to when the disagreement started and finding out what the issues were then.
A wipe clean job needs to be done, and research WOULD help.
No, not really. What in have found is that all that is actually quite clearly written in the Bible and that answering those foolish arguments is a matter of a simple contextual reading of the scriptures. Here is a prime example. Every one wants to argue what makes or gets a person saved? Well, the answer is given right in the text in simple language;
But what does it say? “The word is near you , in your mouth and in your heart ”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “W hoever believes in Him will not be disappointed .”
ROMANS 10:8-11 NASB
It don't get much more plain than this.
So some would say what purpose does baptism serve? Which seems like a complex question until you look at the text. So what did Jesus say when he was baptized, that is arguably the most important baptism ever.
But Jesus answering said to him, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
MATTHEW 3:15 NASB
Also numerous other scriptures give us the full answer.
1corinthians 12:13
1 Peter 3:22
Acts 10:48 and 22:16
Colossians 2:12
Galatians 3:27
Mark 16:16
Romans 6: 1-18
So what purpose does being baptized serve? It's an important part of the salvation experience, " believe and be baptized and you will be saved, if you don't believe you are condemned." So it's part of believing, it full fills all righteousness, joins us to the body of believers so that we are one in Christ, it washes away sin, it is how we are buried with Christ in his death, it's how we put on Christ.
Its very clear in the text. Even I can understand it, and I'm no smarter than anyone else. In fact I'm quite simple about all these things. I attended college 1 day. It didn't take me long to figure out that I wasn't cut out for all that stuff. But I can figure out this Bible stuff.