Can self professed ‘Christians’ who reject the Scripture be saved? (people, accept)
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Believing the Bible in the way fundamentalists do hasn't one thing to do with a covental relationship with God. Yet all of you tell us that if we aren't mentally convinced of the inerrancy of Scripture it isn't possible to have a COVENTAL relationship with Him. Please provide us chapter and verse that says that. And you can leave out II Timothy 3:16 because fundamentalists ADD their own meaning to those very clear words.[/b]
Gotta love this...
Make a judgmental claim.... Issue a challenge and then put constraints on how the question is answered.
I think as a mature believer, you should be conceived of the general inerrancy of Scripture - because you should believe God is responsible for all Scripture (2 Pet. 1:20-21). If you a younger believer - you may not be there yet. It's not a matter of proof, but a matter of faith.
No one who rejects the free gift of salvation can be saved. I have never met a Christian who says they reject the Holy Spirit. The whole argument here that you must choose either Bible, or the Spirit is nonsense.
When they CONTRADICT one another you definitely need to choose one or the other. Pretending you do not see any contradictions is just denial and self-deception that silly mantras like "God's way are not our ways" do NOT justify.
Just in case you missed it. The Bible does not match old beliefs that were around when the Bible was written, like the earh being on pillars, etc.
Job 26:7
“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, andhangeth the earth upon nothing.”
Expat, Job 26:7 is used by many to claim that the Bible presents a scientific cosmological view, but right after verse 7 is a reference to a disk shaped earth in Job 26:10. The word חוּג - chug means circle and does not mean sphere or ball. If Job had intended to say that the earth was a sphere he could have used the word דּוּר - dur which means 'ball' as in Isaiah 22:18.
He then goes on to mention the pillars of heaven trembling in Job 26:11.
Later on, in Job 38:4-6 God Himself speaks of the earth being laid on foundation, having its bases sunk and its cornerstone laid.
Psalm 104:5 says the earth is set on its foundations never to be tottered.
2 Samuel 22:16 says the foundations of the world are laid bare at the rebuke of the Lord.
1 Samuel 2:8 refers to the pillars of the earth on which God has set the earth.
Psalm 75:3 says that God has firmly set the earth's pillars.
In the context of those verses of the earth being set on pillars and having a foundation, Job 26:7 cannot be understood as referring to a spherical earth in space as it actually is, but probably is a negative claim that the earth is not resting on the back of a turtle or some other object as depicted in other religions.
The Old Testament reflects the cosmological view of the Hebrews which was pretty much the common view of the peoples of the ancient near east. And God was okay with that.
If you will, listen to this 22 minute video which is part of a lecture by Old Testament scholar Dr. Michael Heiser in which he explains the view of the cosmos held by the Israelites.
Make a judgmental claim.... Issue a challenge and then put constraints on how the question is answered.
I think as a mature believer, you should be conceived of the general inerrancy of Scripture - because you should believe God is responsible for all Scripture (2 Pet. 1:20-21). If you a younger believer - you may not be there yet. It's not a matter of proof, but a matter of faith.
God being responsible for all Scripture--if you mean by responsible that God controls/plans/executes everything that happens according to God's design--is not the same as inerrancy. Two different concepts.
For most NF Christians, it seems we see the awareness that Scripture contains the opinions and perspectives of men about God as the mature view. I do.
I see, for example, the desire of the Merlin-The-Magician finger-snapping of Creation into existence in six days as the childlike view. The reality of the unfolding of the universe is far more wondrous and makes one realize how little we truly do know. That is an adult view.
We know he no longer communicates in person, physically in the flesh, so our ears cannot hear his words
We know he no longer communicates via writing his word on stone tablets using his finger
We know he no longer communicates allowing a donkey to re-iterate his will
We know he communicates to us, all three persons in one, via his [written] word aka the Bible.
We cannot heed to his will without knowing his word. Written or Audio. Audio is for later, Jesus is no longer here present on earth.
We cannot know him at all except thru the sole means he's provided us.
A means wasn't available to our forefathers,(or in limited writings of the OT) they had him in the flesh.
You cannot know him, know his will, know his requirements to belong to him, in any other way.
It is thru his word, present or written that he unfolds the Holy Spirit to us which works inside us making us believe.
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Once again you claim the whole from the part; in other words, because His Word can be discerned (with the help of the Spirit) in the Bible you say that the whole thing IS His Word and that does not follow. You did not ask WHY psum believed that passage, but it was because THAT passage was confirmed by the Spirit that psum knows through actually encountering that Spirit that matches the description Jesus gave and exemplified. You are just as misleading in this as in your denial that people "make an idol of the Bible" because the Bible is just paper and ink and no one would do that. You should go back to high school Plato about ideas. When YOU say "the Bible," are you talking about a particular physical book, or are you talking about the IDEA of a book that is comprised of certain books, chapters and verses which is accepted by most of Christianity as authoritative? Worshipping Ba'al was not a matter of actual worship of one of many stone or wooden images, but the IDEA of a god that had certain powers and requirements.
Try to keep this straight in your mind. People DO claim that the Bible AS IDEA IS THE WORD and THAT supplants Jesus. Idolatry.
Once again you claim the whole from the part; in other words, because His Word can be discerned (with the help of the Spirit) in the Bible you say that the whole thing IS His Word and that does not follow. You did not ask WHY psum believed that passage, but it was because THAT passage was confirmed by the Spirit that psum knows through actually encountering that Spirit that matches the description Jesus gave and exemplified. You are just as misleading in this as in your denial that people "make an idol of the Bible" because the Bible is just paper and ink and no one would do that. You should go back to high school Plato about ideas. When YOU say "the Bible," are you talking about a particular physical book, or are you talking about the IDEA of a book that is comprised of certain books, chapters and verses which is accepted by most of Christianity as authoritative? Worshipping Ba'al was not a matter of actual worship of one of many stone or wooden images, but the IDEA of a god that had certain powers and requirements.
Try to keep this straight in your mind. People DO claim that the Bible AS IDEA IS THE WORD and THAT supplants Jesus. Idolatry.
I am not able to comprehend what you are saying for whatever reason. I'll try again later to see if it is because I've gotten less sleep than usual. I understand there is some kind of reubuttal there but see no scripture and are not sure yet, what you are trying to convey
Make a judgmental claim.... Issue a challenge and then put constraints on how the question is answered.
I think as a mature believer, you should be conceived of the general inerrancy of Scripture - because you should believe God is responsible for all Scripture (2 Pet. 1:20-21). If you a younger believer - you may not be there yet. It's not a matter of proof, but a matter of faith.
No, DrRob, I am a very old believer--saved at sixteen into a fundamental, racist, Baptist Church in Biloxi, MS.
Served in Vietnam as a 20 year old prior to 1970. Came home to go to a Southern Baptist College where my best friend and I used to discuss the issues for us if we asked out a gorgeous black girl on campus. We both decided against it because we were sure the local townies would beat the crap out of us, and maybe her too if they caught us together.
But for the most part that college taught the stuff about the Bible for which you appear to have a contractual obligation with. Our president was a past president for Gideons International.
But God has given me the opportunity to grow--just as He has you. Perhaps you are to young in the faith to understand without growth their is no life.
I do NOT believe in biblical inerrancy but I do believe it infallible in terms of FAITH and PRACTICE. Inerrantists think they are the same. But the only way you can keep them the same is to create stories when Scripture contradicts itself.
Now Mike555 has taken a step down the path toward being a more thinking fundamentalist. He understands some OT "science" was simply God speaking to people through their own cosmetological viewpoints. That's why God could say some things and one time and different things at others--so He could speak to people in their own time. He and I still will have disagreements about INTERPRETATION of some verses--but he has moved toward a better understanding of God's purpose with the OT (it's not a science book) and I have to respect that move in him. It takes courage to move that direction and if he is surrounded by a lot of people that say the Bible IS a science book, then he's taking some heat for it. The idea that God did or did not write a science book has nothing whatsoever to do with a covenantal relationship with God Himself.
That's what Jesus did in Matthew 5. Yes, He said not one jot nor tittle of Scripture will pass away, but then followed it up with six areas where the Jews' current interpretation was completely off. If you believe Jesus to be the full and complete God in Heaven to whom He compared Himself, (I and the Father are one-John 10:30), then you should be able to appreciate that He did not revere Scriptural understanding in the same way Pharisees then, or fundamentalists now, do.
Faith is about commitment to GOD, not commitment to the Bible. It's about a COVENANT relationship, not a contractual one. A covenant relationship is about a relationship between people or between a person and God. The entire NT is about that. But overemphasizing Scripture certainly appears to be a CONTRACT, as in "I understand God to say this, and if I keep His contract, defend the contract, place all my confidence in the contract, God will reward me."
Except the Bible is replete with situations where God's followers DIDN'T FOLLOW THE OT CONTRACT TO THE LETTER!!!! Yet God treated them more than fairly. It was only when they broke COVENTAL relationships that those who broke them suffered any kind of penalty. The Bible is great but it convicts us and in no way saves us:
Quote:
And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
II Cor. 3:6
Where does the Bible tell you that it is up to you to defend it? How does that come close to even matching Jesus' command that if "a man compel you to go with him a mile, go with him two?"
Defending Scripture says nothing about one's covenantal relationship with God. In fact, it appears to many of us to impede it.
Once again you claim the whole from the part; in other words, because His Word can be discerned (with the help of the Spirit) in the Bible you say that the whole thing IS His Word and that does not follow. You did not ask WHY psum believed that passage, but it was because THAT passage was confirmed by the Spirit that psum knows through actually encountering that Spirit that matches the description Jesus gave and exemplified. You are just as misleading in this as in your denial that people "make an idol of the Bible" because the Bible is just paper and ink and no one would do that. You should go back to high school Plato about ideas. When YOU say "the Bible," are you talking about a particular physical book, or are you talking about the IDEA of a book that is comprised of certain books, chapters and verses which is accepted by most of Christianity as authoritative? Worshipping Ba'al was not a matter of actual worship of one of many stone or wooden images, but the IDEA of a god that had certain powers and requirements.
Try to keep this straight in your mind. People DO claim that the Bible AS IDEA IS THE WORD and THAT supplants Jesus. Idolatry.
Christ according to the scriptures is the head of the church, so it goes without saying that Christ is the final authority on all things. Now your bible also tells us that Christ is in us. Throughout the ages the knowledge of this was hidden, but not intenionally by God but by unbelief on our part. Christ in us is a glorious mystery when discovered, because God is found in the very last place we would seek him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body.
The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
May i suggest that scripture for the best part is for convincing the unbeliever that Christ the power of God is in all. So close that he can be felt by all if they seek after him to find him.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
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