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  • The Gospel of Jesus Christ

    Heard of "The Gospel"? Want to know more?

    There is salvation in no other, for there is not another name under heaven having been given among men, by which it behooves us to be saved."

Bible Study How We Know We Are Christians.

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JAG ..

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Belief in Christianity comes from preaching the gospel and the supernatural
power of the Holy Spirit in the human heart to convince the human person
that Christianity is the truth, and NOT from our belief in evidences or dependence
on the scientific method to prove to us that Christianity is the truth.

"The Holy Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."
Romans 8:16

How do we know that we are God's children? Answer: The Holy Spirit tells us that we are.

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"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes" Romans 1:16

What is the power of God for salvation? Answer: the gospel

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"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God
so that you may know that you have eternal life."
1 John 5:13

How do we know we have eternal life? Answer: Because of the contents
of the epistle of 1 john . . .

. . . and NOT because we read a work on Christian Apologetics (though
it can be an interesting blessing to read works like that eg. William Lane
Craig's Reasonable Faith which is a major work on Christian Apologetics.)


William Lane Craig, quoting Henry Dodwell, says this:
"Dodwell argues that matters of religious faith lie outside the determination of reason.
God could not possibly have intended that reason should be the faculty to lead us to
faith, for faith cannot hang indefinitely in suspense while reason cautiously weighs
and reweighs arguments. The Scriptures teach, on the contrary, that the way to
God is by means of the heart, not by means of the intellect. Faith is the gift of the
Holy Spirit." __William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, page 35

Then Craig says a few pages later, "I think that Dodwell . . . [is] correct that, fundamentally,
the way we know Christianity is true is by the self-authenticating witness of God's Holy
Spirit. Now what do I mean by that? I mean that the experience of the Holy Spirit is
veridical [truthful] and unmistakable . . . for him who has it; that such a person does
not need supplementary arguments or evidence in order to know with confidence that
he is in fact experiencing the Spirit of God . . ."__William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith,
page 43

So clearly William Lane Craig, one of America's most popular and influential Christian
Apologist, agrees with Henry Dodwell. Then earlier on page 39, Craig says that he agrees
with Plantinga that belief in God is "both rational and warranted wholly apart from an
evidental foundations for belief."

Says William Lane Craig:
"Alvin Plantinga has launched a sustained attack on theological rationalism.
Plantinga maintains that belief in God and in the central doctrines of
Christianity is both rational and warranted wholly apart from any evidential
foundations for belief."__William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, page 39
 
How do we know that we are God's children? Answer: The Holy Spirit tells us that we are.

This is absolutely correct!!!

He tells us lots of things, but essentially they all add up to being loved by Him as His children. But we don't really make it that simple, do we? We use words like 'Theological rationalism', which is what? Is being a child of the Lord have anything to do with something like 'Theological rationalism'?

The Lord never talks to me with words like that. His intelligence is so far beyond mine, but it shows up by making the complicated extremely simple, not by taking the simple and making it complicated. Men wanting to puff themselves up do that. It is as simple as the Holy Spirit telling us we are the children of God.

So I like the heart of the message in the OP, but the follow up in just men puffing themselves up. And look, we see JAG quote William Lane Craig, who quotes Henry Dodwell who says "God could not possibly have intended that reason should be the faculty to lead us to faith"

Really? What about Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord, "Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow"

My friends, if you come and reason with the Lord, telling Him what you think and listening to what He thinks, are you not going to realize you are like a child to Him, but like His child to Him? What do you hear when you talk to Him?

I am amazed when I talk to the Lord. I usually start by stating some opinion or thought on an issue, and He kindly responds pointing out a better way of looking at it, and sometime He starts by saying "My son". Oh, more often He starts by just using my name, but He always finds a way to correct me as a Father to a son. And sometimes He add a bit up humor.

I remember looking at a camera posted above the freeway to watch traffic. I said to Him. "Look the eye in the sky", to which He instantly responded, "That's not the eye in the sky!" with a bit of humor in His voice.

Another time He started telling me that He was "Holy". I responded, "Ok, we know your are Holy, but doesn't that sound a bit pious?" He responded, "Karl, I didn't say I was Holy, I said I was holey - I have holes in my hands." and He went on to give me a teaching about how He holds everything together with His hands so the holes in His hand represent something that should need to be there. If we all believed in Him, miracles wouldn't need to be there. His dying and rising again was a miracle, that resulted in holes in His hands, the same hands the hold ever thing together. He is a holie God, but only because we don't believe like we should.

So reasoning with Him, is a way to acquiring faith, because faith comes from hearing. But I am not sure I would call reasoning with Him, "Theological rationalism"? It is more like a conversation between a Father and a son.
 
How do we know...............by having faith in Christ alone through God's grace that we are indwelled with the Holy Spirit the moment of Spiritual rebirth who teaches us all things God wants us to learn.
 
I like it!

Pop quiz: how do other people know we are Christians?

John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

There is an old song we use to sing back in the 70's called "They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love". You can look up the lyrics on line as this is what it truly means to be a Christian.
 
Yes Ma'am! (And that's a song I don't need to look up, we even sometimes sang that within the stained glass windowed sanctuary, in the 70's)
 
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