BSE i often 'spit words out' to find the answers i am looking for... some of us are not blessed with a great use of language and i am one of them...
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Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
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Taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
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Depending upon the Holy Spirit for all you do?
Read through the following study by Tenchi for more on this topic
https://christianforums.net/threads/without-the-holy-spirit-we-can-do-nothing.109419/
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How are famous preachers sometimes effected by sin?
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
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Paul was not saved by faith
- Thread starter BigSodaExposer
- Start date
BSE i often 'spit words out' to find the answers i am looking for... some of us are not blessed with a great use of language and i am one of them...
BigSodaExposer
Member
Well not so much unfair as it was lets say...different....from the standard process. But as you pointed out God does what he wants to. He exalts who he wants and humbles who he wants. Look at Pharoah and Nebuchadnezzar. Brought them up just so his power and judgement could be displayed in them.
But you usually DO think before you speak. And that is something I have come to know you for.
BSE i often 'spit words out' to find the answers i am looking for... some of us are not blessed with a great use of language and i am one of them...
BigSodaExposer
Member
I know ex
I know exactly what you mean Reba.
BSE i often 'spit words out' to find the answers i am looking for... some of us are not blessed with a great use of language and i am one of them...
I know exactly what you mean Reba.
smaller
Member
We sin whenever we have evil thoughts. To say that the tempter has no part in that is not true whatsoever.
Man is simply not a stand alone agent. Saul gives us a very accurate picture of a blind man, slave to the power of Satan.
As do ALL who sin.
When Satan's temptations are given into or within us via thought form, they are OUR temptations to deal with at that point.
That does not eliminate the source of temptation being of Satan, internally, to begin with. And so is the fate of every slave who does not know their enemy and how he works.
Saul went on the road to Damascus as any other blinded slave of Satan does, even moreso in his killing intentions.
With Saul it's just as much an observation of his ENEMY being struck and not just Saul himself. But also of Sauls internal captor.
And even in the directive that was provided to Paul by Jesus, it was to empower the same matter. To turn people from Satan's power.
BigSodaExposer
Member
Unrighteousness does begin in the mind. Hence take every thought into captivity for Christ 2 Corinthians 10:5 Also Mathew 5:28 Jesus says whoever looks on a woman with lust commit adultery in his heart. The bible refers to the heart like the mind in that it feels. As a scientist I do believe it is in the mind that emotions occur. I could be wrong. Maybe the actual heart organ is involved with neural processes. But for me personally it makes more sense to refer to the mind as the feeler and not the heart. That seems too old school for todays world.
smaller
Member
Indeed. We often fail to consider the power of Satan that rages currently against the world and all it's inhabitants.
It was a matter of spiritual showing, that SCALES literally fell from Saul's blinded eyes. Signifying his condition until that happened.
But on the other hand we should be also aware that what comes upon the world as a whole is unto the finality of judgments against SATAN and his minions.
Gods Word and Spirit saves us.
The same Word and Spirit also enrages and empowers the opposing powers.
An interesting battle to say the least. And it WILL have an ending. Fortunately we know Who The Victor can only Be.
ezrider
Member
Paul would absolutely be one I would consider to be saved by Faith and by Faith alone. Paul was a student of the scriptures and he acted upon those beliefs. Paul did not know Jesus after the man in the flesh. He was not taught at the feet of the master himself. He did not sit down at meat and break bread with with Jesus. And yet Paul in his encounter knew that is was the Spirit of the Christ that spoke with him.
The Disciples on the other hand, the very same disciples that walked with Jesus and talked with Jesus, who ate with him and drank with him. The same disciples that witnessed the very miracles that Jesus performed; these disciples after Jesus had risen, had walked with Him and Talked with Him, He showed them all things in the scriptures concerning Himself; And they knew Him not. Go and read Luke 24 for yourself.
The Disciples on the other hand, the very same disciples that walked with Jesus and talked with Jesus, who ate with him and drank with him. The same disciples that witnessed the very miracles that Jesus performed; these disciples after Jesus had risen, had walked with Him and Talked with Him, He showed them all things in the scriptures concerning Himself; And they knew Him not. Go and read Luke 24 for yourself.
The question is what he was chosen FOR. IT was not for salvation, as your post suggests. He was chosen to take the Word to Gentiles. Acts 9:15.
We know from Scripture WHO God chooses to save: those who believe, per 1 Cor 1:21. And 2 Thess 2:13 says basically the same thing.
Deborah13
Member
Saul, the Pharisee, was approached by God in a very OT manner, much like the experiences of Moses and the prophets.
Some truth comes in.
Election and predestination are probably the most twisted and most misunderstood doctrines today.They both are for believers ONLY, and that gets lost in this "Chosen" to believe theology that is rampant these days.
Mike S
Member
I believe we all have God's grace upon us, in the form of prevenient grace, the divine grace that precedes human decision, the grace that keeps us from becoming so hard-hearted that we can't eventually respond to God's call. God meets us at the point of our needs, which makes the circumstances of our justification different for all of us. We all 'work out our own salvation with fear an trembling.'
very well written. I'm very much moved by your statement.
How do you explain those who don't respond if God's grace is upon us that keeps us from becoming so hard-hearted.
Mike S
Member
God's Grace is constantly with us, constantly calling us to respond, yet we have free will. It is possible to be so determinedly hostile to God that we reject HIs Grace.
I know the concept of prevenient grace is a bit of Arminian theology that not everyone accepts.
smaller
Member
The only 'lesser Grace,' the real meaning of prevenient Grace, is within the people engaged with sharing and dispensing it.
US
Mike S
Member
No, prevenient Grace is not a "lesser" Grace.
It looks to me like you don't believe in free will, in which case, you'll never accept the idea of prevenient Grace. The alternative theological position is irresistible Grace, a Calvinist theology rather than an Arminian theology.
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Yes, I fully agree.
I thought your comment seemed more Calvinistic than Arminian. As in irresistible grace. But I do agree that God has given mankind the freedom to believe or reject.
smaller
Member
We all carry constructs and concepts that have been handled by others prior. I think you alluded to being determinist, with a slant to prevenient grace from the Arminian side of the ledgers. Not an issue to me. People can believe whatever they want because that's what they believe. I'm glad I don't have power over anyone's mind and equally glad in reverse.
No on the freewill part.
Limited will for sure on all counts but Gods Will by standard logical comparisons. The theological reality is that we all take Gods Eternal Characteristics, mercy/love/grace/forgiveness/judgments, etc with our personal tendencies to throttle such concepts back/tone them down, turn them up as we respectively/subjectively engage them. In the amen's or the nay's of the handlers as to how they are emphasized or diminished various theological camps spring up. Every camp or even every person 'believes' they have the only definitive guidelines. As it pertains to those who engage, in their own minds, that's what they think, so for each, that's the way it is. I don't ever expect my subjective sight to be anything exactly like anyone else's. Why should it be? There are no demands made on any of us to see exactly as anyone else. That's impossible due to the reality of our subjective natures. And that's entirely OK to some extents. That's our individual and unique natures. This is all GOD given. It makes present reality interesting at every angle of sight. Paul makes ample allowances for subjective differences. Why we try to beat each others to pieces trying to form a subjective cohesive puzzle is the only strange thing. None of us have a perfect construct to begin with. Eventually some see such things as subjective traps that were constructed by some other guy, equally subjective, just as imperfect, only seeing in part. I personally don't care to be trapped by anything. It's not in our basic nature to be slaves to imperfection, yet we are so presently. We are meant for Gods Perfect Freedom, which has no bounds or limitations. This is part of why we go on and press in. We are formed into the subjective on the way to Eternity without end. Our subjectivity presses us ever onward. Or as Paul said, we groan in desire to clothe ourselves with our eternal habitation.
Theology is an expression of that groaning.
As it pertains to Gods Eternal Attributes though perhaps none of it is that way? The reality of His Characteristics are without beginning or ending. By our present nature in limitations we have a hard time moving into them in full and in fact we DON'T. We engage these matters by our own limitations to engage,understand and explain them. Why is that even needed when there is no beginning or ending to them? Such things are without limits. We have limits. It is only done to understand in the finite subjective of ourselves in our current state. His Divine Characteristics are so far beyond our capacity. They are without beginning or end. Yet we always seek to box it all up and make tidy little packages of concepts and positions of The Divine which by His Nature aren't that way. We can say Saul was 'this' or Paul was 'that' and try to explain it, but where it always gets out of hand is when we try to understand the Expressions of God because those are GAME CHANGERS. A Bigger Player on the board of Life. Did Saul move his own subjective life piece or DID THE HAND OF GOD? For me that answer will be obvious. God Himself chose Paul to 'express' matters of The Divine to us, that we would ENGAGE them. His Light cleared the board of Saul, changed him to Paul, and EXPRESSED through him.
There is no cause to make limits in either direction on things that have no beginning or ending. Why do we even try? We can accept such things as they are. We know such concepts even in math to a limited extent, where the square root of Pi has no end to the digits. We know there is no end to those digits. They just go on and on and on. It's a basic concept in math called 'infinity.' Matters of The Divine are matters that are not meant to have a beginning or an ending. They are infinite in BOTH directions. We are, as it could be said, in a presently subjective in time demonstration of an endless stream that has no beginning or ending. A subjective digit to digit, point to point matter where the string of such points never had a beginning or will have an ending.
When God Directs His Will, as in the case of Saul, we can speculate what it was or why it happened, did Saul have 'this' or 'that?' The Divine Directive of overpowering magnitude that is 'experienced' by few was factually the GAME CHANGER. Saul was perhaps made and directed by God in every bit of his life, even in his blinded complicity in killing. We ask ourselves, at least if we're normal, why God doesn't just save everyone like that? He certainly could. Or even more, why wasn't/isn't everyone born like Jesus? It would have saved the world a lot of trouble. Paul deals with some of these concepts very interestingly, for our sights, in many places in the text. How Paul engages these matters is the bulk of his writings. Our subjective and subjected by God present reality leads to a myriad of subjective conclusions and little more than that. Paul does a perfect job in explaining the hows and whys, particularly when we engage the reality of our own factual subjective limitations as he presents them. Some will ask, like I ask almost daily, WHY don't I see more, experience more, be more effective? It usually comes back to what Paul shows us about WHY. It's very interesting theological territory. It's also unpleasant territory because we have to face that fact that we are subjective and limited. No one really cares to hear that. There are some interesting whys on these matters from Paul. IF we desire to see more, to have more light, some will be led to look at WHY we don't.
Paul's reasonings, I think we all believe, are Divine in nature. They certainly didn't originate or come about from much of anything of Saul. Yet the bulk of what Paul saw and was led to see came from what was already written in the O.T. He just didn't see them prior. Upon the shedding of MORE DIVINE LIGHT, Paul saw vastly differently. And once Paul SAW by the Holy Spirit's engagement within him, he too throttled up many matters. So again, if we're normal, we ask why he or blinded Israel didn't see them better prior? And we always come back to our own subjective limitations. We DO find out it was never really in our capacity to see anything unless we're led in to see. And even then, we don't and never will in our present state, see it all. Paul again shows us this saying he only saw in part and as through glass, darkly. Even in Paul's sight of seeing only in part, he shows us that there always remains more to be seen by all of us til we ALL have His Perfect Sight in Christ by The Life of Christ Himself in us. The 'end goal' as many would say. I might say the end goal that had no beginning or ending. It's a one way street. We can only 'get' Perfection by Perfection. We certainly don't originate it. Perfection has to be GIVEN to us. That is the Promise of the Gospel. No one I've ever read or exchanged with really even knows what Perfection is or consists of in the Divine Sense. Nor do I. I am limited by my present factual status as NOT perfect. I know none will ever be Perfect by my hand either. Or by their own hand. That's crazy talk. Unfortunately a lot of theological groups think that way. "IF only we ALL believed like (whatever), THEN it would all be Perfect." Uh, no. It wouldn't be. That's just another lie on a board filled with lies. We are all imperfect, seeing in part.
The present results of subjective sights are thoroughly interesting to say the least. Quite entirely diverse. In that is a picture of creation itself, as wonderful and diverse as it is displayed before us. We're strangely and wonderfully made, emph. on strangely...;) I don't think it's a bad thing to question everything. To test everything. To challenge everything. And to do so continually in the press for more light. None of us are the same as where we started. None of us will be the same at the end of our lives. It's how we're built and what we're made for. Everything we presently understand moves on tomorrow and is different in the ever changing stream of subjectivity.
What's past is past. What Mr. Calvin or Arminius saw is past. What either man saw was certainly not perfect. Nor is our sight of them or of Saul or Paul, Perfect. IF and when we do arrive at Perfect Sight, which MUST be given to us, THEN we will ALL see Perfectly.
Til then, we're all holding an ever changing point in time partial sight view, whatever such views are. To beat ourselves with the sights we got from some other imperfect guy? Nah. I'll admit my sights are always faulty, subjective and less than perfect only because that true.
I like true. How bout you?...;)
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