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Text of the page (random words):
statements are exaggerations to make a point pluck out your eye was a way of saying personal holiness ought to be worth any sacrifice the statement easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle was a way of saying that those who trust in their riches will have a difficult time transferring that trust to god and hating father and mother was a way of saying that jesus needs to be the supreme love in our lives far above even our familial love so what s my point in all of this the verse above quoted from psalm 14 was hyperbole none is righteous no not one no one understands no one seeks for god are we really supposed to believe that there is literally not a single righteous person on the earth are we to believe in all of human history there has never been a person who sought after god or desired him the calvinist insists we must otherwise their theology falls flat i would say that reason and scripture together prove this notion that no one has ever sought god is patently false countless jews under the old testament sought and loved god yeah but they were the elect the calvinist will say well there were also many gentiles known widely as god fearers and god worshipers who chose to leave their false religions and gods to worship the one true god such were the ethiopian eunuch whom philip found reading scripture in his chariot and the roman centurion to whom peter was sent by a vision these were gentiles non elect individuals who sought god so what is psalm 14 and consequently romans 3 trying to say that sin is rampant and wide spread and that everyone needs god in fact if we will be honest with the context of romans 3 we will find that paul s ultimate argument is that jews and gentiles are equally in need of god s salvation in fact the verse immediately preceding paul s quotation of psalm 14 is this what then are we jews any better off no not at all for we have already charged that all both jews and greeks are under sin romans 3 9 sorry calvinists romans 3 and psalm 14 are using hyperbole to illustrate that every person needs salvation because every person is sinful not that man is unable to seek god or to respond to the gospel message once again taking the simple obvious meaning of the text thwarts your doctrine categories bible tags arminianism calvinism once saved always saved reformed theology total depravity total inability why calvinism is wrong if you go they will come november 26 2012 jeffrossman 1 comment my wife and i recently made a commitment to be more intentional and proactive in ministry we decided to make a weekly commitment to go somewhere so far it s been a local park and try to find at least one person with whom to share christ the first week we met junior he grew up as a jehovah s witness but hadn t been to church in years we invited him to our church and to our life group and encouraged him to seek the lord for himself and told him that god had an awesome plan for him though i believe he was encouraged and though i know i planted a seed he has not come to church or our life group the next week we went back to the same park this time with an infant and a two year old in tow this made things more challenging we didn t get a chance to share jesus specifically with anyone but we met a lady and her granddaughter who come to the park often and we felt we may have made a connection that would pay off in the future this last week we weren t able to make it out to the park but we met someone at church who had come for the first time so we decided to invite him out to lunch he never showed i chronicle all of this to show that quite frankly i don t feel our efforts have been particularly fruitful honestly its been a bit discouraging of course as an optimistic young preacher i assumed that the second i opened my mouth the heavens would open and the audible voice of god would boom out this is my servant hear him none of that happened then there was this morning as i am leaving my house to go to work my next door neighbor was rolling out her trash to the curb kinda weird because trash day is tomorrow anyway i say hello and start getting into my car all of a sudden she s knocking on my window she proceeds to tell me that her husband is in the hospital having problems with his heart and since she knows we are christians they are catholic she asks us to remember him in our prayers i say let s pray right now so we grab hands and i pray the prayer of faith for her husband when i look up there are tears in her eyes and she thanks me profusely tomorrow lauren and i will knock on her door and follow up maybe she ll even come to life group here s my point in all of this and it s something i ve experienced in the past but somehow forgot when we begin to step out in faith when we leave the comforts of our couches and homes to try and advance the kingdom of god god sees even though it seemed that i was not having much of an effect i was out there trying my best doing my part then lo and behold god brings someone to me there s a reality that the more willing we are the more we will be used i remember the story of philip he started a city wide revival in samaria then for some strange reason the holy spirit led him away from the revival out into the wilderness to minister to one man that man turned to christ and believed and philip baptized him then something weird happened philip vanished and appeared a few miles away in the city of azotus preaching the gospel as freaky as this incident may be i think it tells us something about philip and about god s attitude toward us when we are obedient think about this man first he is a faithful member of the jerusalem church which lands him a position serving tables for widows then when persecution hits he flees the city preaching jesus as he goes then he gets to samaria and god moves powerfully and many in the city turn to jesus then when god tells him to leave and go preach to one man philip obeys without question here s a story of a faithful and committed christian determined to advance the kingdom wherever he goes even willing to leave the revival he started to preach to a single man who needed jesus i think god saw the faithfulness of philip and said now here s a man i can use no need for him to waste time walking to the next town i ll just beam him up similarly i think that when god sees our faithfulness he will give us opportunities we would never have otherwise had how often do we have people literally knocking on our door asking for our ministry i know it doesn t happen too often to me maybe its because i am only now gathering up the courage to step outside of myself and make a difference for jesus what are you doing for the kingdom of god these days categories life ministry tags acts 8 church comfort zone evangelism ministry philip why calvinism is wrong pt 3 grammar november 15 2012 jeffrossman leave a comment for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of god not a result of works so that no one may boast ephesians 2 8 9 this is one the great verses of the bible in many ways this is our spiritual emancipation proclamation it tells us that we are no longer obligated to earn god s favor but that only through faith may we be accepted in him what freedom however those pesky calvinists have to come in and ruin it they interpret this verse differently than most and it is all based on their understanding of the grammar in this verse their whole understanding hinges on one word in the verse believe it or not that one word is it no really when you come to that part of the passage which says it is the gift of god calvinists will tell you that you ve misunderstood the passage all along let s parse this verse out shall we for by grace you have been saved this is the main proposition of the passage the statement which guides the rest of the context this defining concept that you have been saved by grace is the cornerstone of our understanding for the rest of the passage until this basic premise is understood none of the rest of the passage may be understood grace in its most basic definition means simply a gift thus our salvation is a gift not earned but simply received or accepted through faith secondly this whole process occurs through faith that is this transaction which we call salvation occurs through our faith our believing god the giver extends this gift of salvation to us the receivers and we accept the gift through faith it s the next part that gets tricky well it s tricky for the calvinists to the rest of us the plain meaning works just fine and this is not your own doing it is the gift of god we must define here what this and it are referring to that is when it says this is not your own doing we must ask what is not your own doing and when it says it is the gift of god we must ask what is the gift of god for the typical christian who prefers not to over complicate or over explain things we understand immediately that the this and the it refer to salvation thus the verse may be rendered as follows for it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this salvation is not from yourselves salvation is the gift of god but the calvinists disagree they say that the this and the it refer to faith thus the verse should read for it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this faith is not from yourselves faith is the gift of god clever though it may be this kind of grammatical chicanery serves only to obfuscate its syntactical perspicuity okay i was showing off there but it actually had a purpose if you understood that sentence good for you but for the rest of you all i said was that they made something that is simple complicated i made that simple sentence complicated by using a thesaurus the calvinists make this verse complicated by using grammar the idea that it is faith itself which is the gift of god is a concept which is foreign to the rest of scripture thus if this is the true meaning of this verse then it at best becomes one of those troubling verses we would prefer not to talk about like the verse about baptizing for the dead however if interpreted rightly it fits in perfectly with the rest of paul s yea the whole bible s teachings about salvation as a free gift not obtained through works take the following verses as examples galatians 2 16 21 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in jesus christ so we also have believed in christ jesus in order to be justified by faith in christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law no one will be justified i do not nullify the grace of god for if righteousness were through the law then christ died for no purpose romans 3 20 24 for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin but now the righteousness of god has been manifested apart from the law although the law and the prophets bear witness to it the righteousness of god through faith in jesus christ for all who believe for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in christ jesus thus the clear and sensible interpretation of ephesians 2 8 9 is the correct one following in the clear theology of paul that salvation not faith is the free gift of god and not received by works categories bible tags arminianism bible calvinism ephesians 2 8 theology sin nature or divine nature part 2 august 30 2012 jeffrossman leave a comment in my previous blog i showed that for christians our continuing sinful desires are attributable not to a sinful nature but an unrenewed mind that is we do not have two equal forces within us battling for control one that desires evil the other good instead we have the righteousness of christ in all its perfection but a mind that is struggling to catch up with the spiritual reality of our righteousness i am aware that many will still struggle with this concept but i urge you to take seriously the scriptures which clearly show our freedom from sin primarily in romans 6 if you continue to believe in your heart that you are still a captive of sin then you will continue to live as if this is true it reminds me of a memorable scene from shawshank redemption one of my favorite movies the movie is about a group of prisoners in shawshank penitentiary in a pivotal scene the character red played by morgan freeman says the following these walls are funny first you hate em then you get used to em enough time passes it gets so you depend on em that s institutionalized there are a lot of institutionalized christians out there they ve become so used to the walls and bars that keep them imprisoned that they can t imagine life without them even though jesus sacrifice has broken the chains that kept us bound and flung open the prison doors that kept us restrained many of us have chosen to remain in our prison cells sleeping in confinement rather than living in the freedom that has been purchased for us yet there is a continuing struggle to get our thoughts into perfect alignment with the spiritual reality that already is as the previous analogy indicates the problem is not that we are in need of freedom the problem is that we need to recognize that we are already free let s delve a little deeper into this for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do galatians 5 17 some see this verse as evidence of a dual nature within us there is our sin nature i e flesh and the divine nature i e the spirit in fact this concept is so embedded in many people s minds that there are even some translations namely the nlt that use the words sinful nature here instead of flesh however the word flesh here is not referring to a sinful nature but simply sinful desires thus our sinful desires are in contradiction to the desires of the spirit of god who lives in us really the pivotal verse in this passage is the one that comes before this one but i say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh galatians 5 16 if there were two equal but opposing natures in us then there would be no hope of ever truly overcoming the desires of the sin nature yet here paul gives a very simple solution walk by the spirit that is direct your life guide your steps give yourself wholly to the divine nature which now exists in you and it will utterly conquer any sinful desire in you this brings up another point many assume that their sinful desires are evidence of a continuing sinful nature many feel that if there was no continuing sinful nature then those struggles would not exist though this may sound surprising i believe this struggle is quite possibly the best evidence that your nature has in fact changed when you were a sinner there was no struggle at all when you sinn...