The Gospel that Reconciles You, Me, and the Whole World unto God

[Mark Quayle]

Are all family members satisfied with the discussion being shut down that way?
(I apologize for the assumption, but remember the situation... growing up "Christian")
No questions allowed. Questions are for unbelievers.

No, but I do understand what you mean. It's not a shoutdown, but a fun way to describe the difference between what we do and what God does.

But, yes, to some degree that overbearing method was employed in our upbringing, but not by our parents. My parents, and some of our other teachers at the missionary kids school, taught Bible Bible Bible. I thank God for that. My dad never argued with anything we were taught, as far as I remember, not even against the worst of it; instead, he would just comment, "What the Bible says, is..." The youngest among the nine of us kids is now 57 years old (the oldest, 75) and we all have our own views, and our own opinions, our own theologies. None of us quite agrees with the rest of us, nor have we ever had a problem with expressing disagreement between us. What we have found is that much of the disagreement revolves around meanings and uses of terms.

We all are adamant that Salvation is entirely by grace through faith, the gift of God, though none of the rest take it as far as I do. Only one other would call himself Reformed, but he would not go so far as to claim monergism for more than just regeneration, while I take monergism as far as I can see! (though I do understand the difference between monergism in salvation vs monergism in the results of having been saved.)

One rather important disagreement, between my oldest brother (a pastor and informal Bible Institute teacher) and me, just for one example, is the use of parables. We can also find ourselves getting a little hot under the collar too, concerning just what constitutes predestination. But we love each other no end. And our disagreements always have an undercurrent of humor in admitting none of us can take ourselves too seriously. Another of my brothers even admits that the Bible too often sounds like a believer can lose his salvation, for him to strictly say otherwise, (and no, I haven't tried to shout him down!)