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What did Paul preach to the Corinthians?

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G

guuila

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Through faith.

Just faith in anything? I'm assuming you're talking about faith in Christ. Again I ask you - how did they know about Christ? Were they sent a prophet?

You cannot compare God's pleasure when we put our faith in Him with God's pleasure in creation. A genuine response of trust is pleasing but one that is programmed cannot be so. Do you not think God has the wherewithall to create humans with genuine libertarian free will? Isn't that a judgement on God's intelligence?

Your opinion has been noted.

Isn't it about time that you dealt with Romans 9:30-32?

Done. Great verses!

You make it sound so optional. Is it? If it isn't then you are edging towards Arminianism.

I honestly have no idea what kind of argument you're making here.
 
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OzSpen

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Just faith in anything? I'm assuming you're talking about faith in Christ. Again I ask you - how did they know about Christ? Were they sent a prophet?
'Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ' (Rom 10:17). How did they hear about this 'word of Christ'?
 
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OzSpen

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I'm not sure what you're saying.
Why not? You know my position on the atonement. When Jesus did not die for all reprobates (your view), how can there be justice for all reprobates in your understanding?
 
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OzSpen

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It's continually paid by reprobates, by their own accord, in hell, eternally.
At least I'm discussing God's justice or injustice in making atonement/salvation available only for a segment of reprobates and not for the rest.
 
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Hammster

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Why not? You know my position on the atonement. When Jesus did not die for all reprobates (your view), how can there be justice for all reprobates in your understanding?

I understand your position. I just didn't understand your comment.

There's justice for reprobates because they are paying for their sins.
 
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Charis kai Dunamis

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Why not? You know my position on the atonement. When Jesus did not die for all reprobates (your view), how can there be justice for all reprobates in your understanding?

Eternal mitagated wrath, poured out on the reprobate in eternal conscious torment. A finite being cannot provide an infinite propitiation required to satisfy an infinite punishment (unlike Jesus Christ, who offered Himself up once for eternity). Therefore, they must endure an everlasting punishment, poured out in part. This is the only means of true justice apart from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
 
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Epiphoskei

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At least I'm discussing God's justice or injustice in making atonement/salvation available only for a segment of reprobates and not for the rest.

Except you're not.

When a man sins, it is just that he is damned. It cannot be caused to be unjust by the absence or presence of a way of satisfying justice other than one's own damnation. It is just for anyone who sins to be damned, and it is unjust for anyone who does not sin to be damned, without qualification.
 
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janxharris

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He didn't preach to them. And where it does mention preaching, it doesn't say that he did so to unbeliever.

FreeGrace2 has already pointed out that Paul wanted to preach to unbelievers:

Romans 15:20
It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.​

(http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-5/#post64503468)

That you persist in asserting that Paul never preached the gospel to unbelievers is baffling. However, I shall oblige. Examples include Philip (and that of various Christians), Peter, John, and Paul). All scriptures are from Acts.

Chapter 8, verses 4 & 5
Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there.​

Did they only encounter believers? Obviously not.

Ibid., verses 9-13
Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city (of Samaria) and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
Ibid., v. 25
After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.​

Ibid., v. 40
Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.​

Chapter 10:42
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.​

Peter confirms that what he preached was to all and sundry, for Jesus had told him to do so to 'all the people'.

Chapter 11, vv. 19-21
Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.​

Ch.13:2-5
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.​

Ibid., v.32 (Saul to the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch)
“We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors​

Ch.14:1-7
At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, where they continued to preach the gospel.
A great number believed, but not all. It says in verse 7 that they continued to preach the gospel.

Ch.15:7 (The Council of Jerusalem)
After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.​

Ibid., v.36
Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”​

When Paul ministered to believers, he specifies that that is indeed the case.
Now, do you accept that Paul (and others) preached the gospel to unbelievers?

This is all irrelevant, though. You still haven't shown that unbelievers were his audience in relation to chapter 15.

Paul questions the integrity of the Corinthian believers and points out that there is sexual perversion (incest), irreverence of the Lord's Supper, and a denial of the resurrection of the dead among them. His recapitulation of the gospel is entirely consistent with such concerns. Paul directly addresses those that may not be true believers:

1Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.​

So, sure, Paul accounted for unbelievers in his letter. He speaks directly to them. It is they that would most benefit from a restatement of the gospel.

Your problem is that Paul says in his letter that the gospel he preaches (v.11 '...we preach...') is the gospel '...you believed'. You have already said that there is only one gospel and that it is not modified. You were then forced to say that Paul did not preach this gospel to unbelievers because it would mean that unbelievers would be included in those whose sins Jesus died for. But, clearly, Paul did preach this gospel to unbelievers.
 
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janxharris

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Paul could not have been addressing the unbelieving Jews in the synagogue. He had just exercised his apostolic authority and pronounced them "unworthy of eternal life" (13:46).

Does context mean anything to you?

Acts 13 occurs in Antioch in Pisidia but Acts 14 is in Iconium, Lystra and Derbe.
 
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janxharris

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I'm going to start with this one, because you've deployed this phrase throughout your response as if it were a killer rebuttal to anything I've said. I will confess it's hard for me to follow your train of thought here, because saying "Paul said 'this is what we preach'" in defense of your direct quote problem, your direct quote clusivity problem, your indirect quote clusivity problem, or your universalism problem strikes me as a tremendous non-sequitur.

When Paul wrote "this is what we preach," I take him at face value as saying that what he wrote to the Corinthians is identical in meaning and substance as what he spoke to them at the outset.

But as we have known since the Greek philosophers, something of the same substance may take many forms. In language, grammatical, syntactical, and metasyntactical conventions are these forms. They are modified when context demands it. I have supplied you with replete examples of situations where indirect quotes change the person and clusivity of a statement without modifying its meaning or substance. You have basically not interacted with these examples.

It does seem that you are suggesting that Paul would only ever say 'Christ died for our sins' if he has already established his audience to be only believers. That would constitutes a modified gospel - a different wording for unbelievers. Paul never explicitly deals with this. He never says that preachers must guard against it. Instead, he says 'this is what we preach'. And we know that Paul preached to unbelievers (http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-38/#post64536113)

Paul, in his letter, considers the possibility that there might be some who do not genuinely believe (vv.1,2).

You have foundationally not proven that the words "Christ died for our sins" are a direct quote, and even if it were, you don't have the context of this direct quote. If there were so much as a single exclusive "our" used previously in his entire sermon - and I have given you one example of how particular redemption might have been preached using an exclusive "our" - your entire argument is groundless.

Paul has mislead us then. As I have already said, Paul says in his letter, '...this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.' I don't know how to make it any clearer.

You call that a mention of unbelievers? "By this Gospel you are saved." Are the unregenerate not tautologically unsaved by the Gospel?

?

Being frank, what seems to be going on here is this. You're an Arminian. When you read the Bible, you color in the details from your beliefs about what the Apostles believed. When you hear that Paul said "Christ died for our sins" evangelistically, you imagine what he was saying, and what he was doing. You hear a warm intonation in "our" that sounds inclusive of the audience.

Obviously, for you, it is absolutely critical that no preacher should ever imply that unbelievers are included in such a statement as 'Christ died for our sins'. Paul did not share your concerns. Paul does not guard against that which you so relentlessly and vehemently guard against.

You see him motion across the room to everyone. You feel that this is what happened, and you load the passage with that feeling, and demand that Calvinists integrate that passage, overflowing with your Arminian intonations which were originally alien to the text, into their theology. Of course, the passage is already accepted in our theology. The passage just doesn't have any of those Arminian intonations.

When I hear that Paul preached this, if I accept the direct quote theory (which I don't have any reason to accept, as of yet), I naturally hear him speak as an emissary to an alien people. When he says "we," he speaks of himself and his his people. He waves across the room and says something like "repent from your sins and believe, and you also will be saved together with us." Of course this is just as unfounded as your assumptions, but then again, I'm not making absurd demands that you explain why Paul, if he wanted to argue for a general atonement, didn't do that, but instead said "Christ died for our sins." Ours, as in not yours if you don't believe. Any objection you can make to what I just wrote, I can throw back at this entire thread.

Again, I am confused by your wording.

Paul most definitely allows, indeed facilitates, us to believe that Christ died for our sins. It is something provided for all men without exception. That is good news. All he asks is that we put our trust in him.

If you were to preach the gospel then you might be forced to tell your audience that Christ did not die for some of them. That would never go down well and cannot be considered good news.
 
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janxharris

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Just faith in anything? I'm assuming you're talking about faith in Christ. Again I ask you - how did they know about Christ? Were they sent a prophet?

Faith in Christ. Nothing is impossible with God.

Is the man born a nano-second too early to have heard of Christ condemned to eternal damnation because of that fact? Please explain.

Your opinion has been noted.

I did ask a question.

Done. Great verses!

And you still have not dealt with it.

I honestly have no idea what kind of argument you're making here.

You:
Nobody ever said "God believes for us." This is typical straw man argumentation from synergists. God's grace is the causal agent behind our faith. There is a difference. But for some reason you'd rather YOU be the causal agent behind your faith, not God's grace. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Is it optional? If it isn't then it is forced. It is, in effect, forced programming.
 
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janxharris

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