How important is context when reading the Bible?

And...before my words are twisted, I do not claim non-Reformed people are unsaved.

I doubt that some ANTI-reformed people are unsaved, though..those who hate Reformed people.

I have plenty of non-Reformed people that I know are saved, as well as I can know any human being is saved.

By the way, notice that Roger is claiming that I am unsaved, because those who hate the brethren are unsaved. He is doing it in a subtle way, but that is what he is claiming.

Anyways, it is futile to continue discussing anything with him.

As I have said, it is absurd to claim that a man with a heart of stone can wring faith and repentance from it, and God needs to give the person a heart of flesh for this to occur. That is, in essence, all Reformed theology is about...the radical corruption of man from the Fall necessitates it. There is no reservoir of goodness that can produce such repentance and faith.

THIS IS ROMAN CATHOLIC DOCTRINE.

Read Romans 8. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Read Romans 3. There's a grand explanation by Paul regarding the radical corruption of man.

Ezekiel speaks elegantly about the heart of stone/heart of flesh problem.

Roger claims the language is figurative. OF COURSE IT IS, but figurative language MEANS SOMETHING.

His attempt is to twist God's word to deny the radical corruption that occurred, and the utter helplessness that all unsaved men are under. This utter helplessness requires regeneration, to be made alive again.

Read Ephesians 2, by the way..some have even tried to claim that the heart of stone only applied to Israel. LOL.

Ephesians was written to GENTILES.

By the way, I won't be surprised if I do get banned. Free-willers dominate evangelical Christendom. They don't like their views being questioned, even on a forum where there are numerous individuals denying the Trinity and the deity of Christ. Reformed theology finds worse persecution than outright heretics who color way outside the lines of orthodoxy.

By the way, my view on man's radical corruption, due to the Fall, isn't even the subject of this thread.

However, here is a document that explains the radical corruption of mankind, and why man needs to be regenerated before he can produce the fruits of faith and repentance.

It refers to numerous Scriptures that support my conviction in this matter.

There is a separate thread which discusses this topic, related to irresistible grace, and that would be a more appropriate place for this discussion.

By the way, you should take your own advice regarding your Scripture.

You are saying one thing while doing another, claiming that others are not saved based on their view of soteriology.

What type of people say one thing, but do another? Hint: starts with an H.

who are you talking to?

no one is responding?

and neither am I...it's just that for someone who does not care about the opinion of someone they disagree with, well, four posts in a row telling us how much you don't care?

well ok then LOL!

What good news do we find if God only saves the elect? You have zero clue. You act as if all mankind is deserved of being saved. Unreal.

Jim....I like you and nothing you say will offend me or seem too harsh.....Some on this site push and embrace what Calvin peddled over the bible.....

The question is, what does the Bible teach?

Like I have said, I never even heard Calvin's name until after my Arminian pastor said that what I believed was "Calvinism".

Augustine was before Calvin, and Paul was before Augustine. All of them are consistent.

It is easy to label Reformed theology as "Calvinism" in an attempt to malign it or claim that it is cultic. Unfortunately, my fellow Reformed brothers have taken the label upon themselves. I wouldn't have done that if I was them.

The fundamental issue is, can a heart of stone produce faith and repentance from its' own resources? That's the fundamental issue. My conviction is, no, it cannot. This heart of stone needs to be taken out, and a heart of flesh needs to be in place, before faith and repentance can flow from the man.

Their claim is, no, the heart of stone can produce faith and repentance, because it isn't really corrupted by the Fall, therefore it can produce faith and repentance, and THEN God gives them the heart of flesh.

This is what the whole discussion boils down to.

Does a person deny the radical corruption caused by the Fall, or not?

By the way, just so folks know, radical corruption (total depravity) doesn't claim that all men are so corrupted that they cannot practice civic virtue. The teaching is that all unconverted mankind does not have God as the center of their universe, therefore they cannot produce any spiritual fruit. They are like rogue planets who are straying off away from their sun, and are spiritually cold and dead as a result. Due to societal laws and the remaining image of God, and the restraining grace of God, mankind is held in check in terms of their expression of their underlying corruption at some level. Romans 1 displays this, when it says that God "gave them over" to their lusts, allowing them to exhibit more clearly than they would have done so, otherwise. God restrains the sinful lusts of mankind by his grace, but we see it exhibited more clearly in incidences like the ISIS burning of the Jordanian pilot and other brutalities they and others have committed.

So, it is pretty easy to use John Calvin and propaganda about him to discredit this view, but the reality of the situation is that those who hold the free-willer position don't have a coherent metanarrative of Scripture because they are denying the radical corruption of the Fall, and that is the starting place for their theology...that and their own humanistic presuppositions about how God must exhibit his love and justness.

Some free-willers even claim that mankind is not under God's wrath and condemnation, which is plainly untrue. All a person has to do is read Romans 1-3 and ALL of John 3 at the face value.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. However, that doesn't preach, according to their watered-down gospel.

Additionally, their theology fails to give glory to God for salvation. It becomes all about their decision. In the non-Reformed churches I belonged to, I never even heard the phrase "soli Deo gloria", or "to God be the glory.

And, if someone came to faith, they were honored rather than God, like a pregnant woman who has given birth. I don't think the praise was rendered to God for saving them, but rather to them for reaching some milestone by their own effort.

I believe this shows the fruits of bad theology and a lack of focus on God for delivering them.

How did Israel get out of Egypt?

Hello @UnitedWithChrist, I don't like context because it makes it so much harder to make the Bible say what I want it to say Context can take most of the wind out of a good, self-created presupposition, and what fun is that?

Take atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair for example, she said that she became an atheist, in part, because even the Bible says, "there is no God" (Psalm 14:1), and she is correct (as long as context doesn't get in her way, that is), because it does say that, several times in fact.

~Deut

LOL..it's amazing that she tried that trick.



I guess she suffered the results of her rebellion, though, eh? I wonder if she cried out to God for deliverance at the last moment.

We may never know! Hey, maybe she'll try a Matthew 7:22, "Hail Mary", before the Lord at the Great White Throne

Nah......

~Deut

Well, God can save anyone.

I can remember watching videos about her. I felt like slapping her

She was one nasty woman.

One of her sons came to faith, though. Sometimes a negative example pushes children totally in the other direction, and can serve as the means for one's salvation. Praise God for his salvation!

Here's a video about him:

Roger does that to those who disagree with him. He isn’t man enough to say we’re unsaved, but in thinly veiled posts, he says just that. But he doesn’t have the guts to come straight out and say it.

It's true, God can save anyone (I am proof of that fact ).

I remember watching her show too, though it was so dark that I could only watch it for short periods at a time (except for the time that she went over all of the various holdings of the Mormon Church, which I found to be jaw-dropping).

She was nasty, and dark

Thanks for sharing the video about her son. He's the one she used in court to get prayer officially removed from our public schools, right?

Thanks!

~Deut

Yes.