Can Calvinists explain this verse?

[Thursday]

Those who do God's will? Are those who obey His command to repent and believe in Christ.
Acts 17
30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” 33 So Paul departed from among them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Your pitting Christ's words against Christ's words and only exposing your ignorance, not any truth different from what Jesus tells us in John 5, you are adding on to what He said, baiting His own words against Himself.
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Your changing the meaning of these other passages to be against what Christ says in John 5, when they are in total agreement. If you build your house on the ROCK, your building on the foundation of Christ whom you believe in. Those who believe in christ are born of God and do keep His commandments, this is the NC in action.
Hebrews 8
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

The OC ministry of condemnation is gone, yet you still believe in it, all the do this and do that or you are cursed to hellfire.

You are twisting scripture to fit your personal dogma.

I provided scripture, you provided man made dogma to attempt to explain why scripture doesn't mean what it says.

 

[Dale]

3 Do two walk together
unless they have agreed to do so?

True, they wont walk together.
Why did so many of Christ's disciples depart from Him?

John 6
Many Disciples Turn Away
60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”

61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. 65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. 67 Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”

68 But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

God granted that they would believe in Christ.

Verses like Romans 8 tell us those who are in the flesh can not please God and are at enmity with God, so they wont be desiring to remain with Christ and certainly wont be walking with Christ.

How we get there is to be born again, and become a spiritual minded man, that is God grants us to know Christ the Truth, He does that by making us born of Him, so we have peace and mercy and blessing from God. Then they willingly walk together.

But that is His choice, not our own to born again. John 1:10-13

These words would not be in God's word if these concepts were of no importance.

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

SDowney,


I notice that you are quoting verses from the Gospels in support of predestination. I see a problem in using the Gospels in this way. Predestination is totally dependent on the doctrine of Original Sin. Yet there is no mention of Original Sin in the four Gospels. This is one of the ways that we know that the Gospels are not in agreement with the Calvinist notion of predestination.

 

[Rubiks]

You can try to deflect by criticizing Calvinism, but it won't help.

I have a chosen profession. Did I chose the profession? Did it choose me? Did we choose each other?

Whenever something is chosen, something is acted upon. Chosen/elect are biblical words, and they mean something. Trying to change them to fit a theology is bad form.

The dichotomy between free will and predestination reflects post-enlightenment thinking. The mindset of 1st century Christianity and Judaism would have no problem with both free will and predestination being true.

 

[Hammster]

The dichotomy between free will and predestination reflects post-enlightenment thinking. The mindset of 1st century Christianity and Judaism would have no problem with both free will and predestination being true.

I have no problem with them both being true as long as there's a realistic understanding of how man's will is limited by his nature.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

The dichotomy between free will and predestination reflects post-enlightenment thinking. The mindset of 1st century Christianity and Judaism would have no problem with both free will and predestination being true.

Calvinists don't believe men are robots. Sinful men are free to do what sinful men do: sin.

 

[twin1954]

I understand that some get to hear the gospel and some don't. That still does not explain how those cities could not have repented if they were not elect.

Why do you think Jesus said it would be more tolerable for them on the day of judgement?

The verses that I bolted and underlined answer both of your questions. Go back and read them carefully.

God's electing love in no way relieves man of his responsibility to both believe and obey God. The Lord Jesus tells us plainly in the vers s immediately following your reference thanking the Father for hiding these truths from some and revealing then to others. Moreover He says clearly that no man knows the Father except those whom He chooses to reveal Him to.

If Arminians would actually read the Scriptures with their brain engaged, comparing Scripture with Scripture in it's context, their proof texting taking snippets to be all that is needed would end.

 

[twin1954]

The dichotomy between free will and predestination reflects post-enlightenment thinking. The mindset of 1st century Christianity and Judaism would have no problem with both free will and predestination being true.

The 1st century " Christians" had so perverted the truths of the Scripture that the Apostles wrote scathingly of them.

Therefore using the 1st century as a crutch is moot

 

[Si_monfaith]

Matthew 11:21 (NRSV) “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

According to Jesus, if Tyre and Sidon were shown miracles, they would have repented, proving who is and isn't "elect" is not fixed.

If they were elect in the Calvinist sense, they would be saved. They were not. If they were not elect in the Calvinist sense, no miracles would convince them. Jesus says otherwise.

Corazon & Bethsaida are not elected by Lord.

Tyre & Sidon are. But their salvation is delayed not denied.

 

[Si_monfaith]

Christ did not go there to preach, so they were not elect, regardless of how they would have reacted to Jesus's message. How many have come and gone and not heard. Now if Christ says He will draw all men to Himself, yet people live and die not hearing the gospel, how then can what Christ says be understood as he will draw all men to be each and every single living person all over the earth are drawn. Obviously, some are not drawn because they are not elect to be saved.

And consider Christ saying this in Luke 10, after talking about Tyre and Sidon.

21 In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 22 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

23 Then He turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; 24 for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.”

Since Lord says they might have repented, it means the people of Tyre & Sidon are elect but they would get their opportunity to hear just as mentioned in 1 Pet 3: 19, 20.

 

[Rubiks]

The 1st century " Christians" had so perverted the truths of the Scripture that the Apostles wrote scathingly of them.

Therefore using the 1st century as a crutch is moot

I'm not arguing the first Christians believed X, therefore X. I'm simply contrasting the way of thinking between ancient cultures and modern, post-enlightenment cultures.

 

[Rubiks]

Since Lord says they might have repented, it means the people of Tyre & Sidon are elect but they would get their opportunity to hear just as mentioned in 1 Pet 3: 19, 20.

I disagree. The fact that they did not repent means they were not elect.

 

[Si_monfaith]

I disagree. The fact that they did not repent means they were not elect.

Lord says they would have repented long back. Possibility existed.

If one is not elected, he can't repent.