Tiny little Kids learn how to share the Gospel.

[The Liturgist]

Where in the Bible does It say to repent of sin?

What did I say sin was in my post?

 

[Kees Boer]

What did I say sin was in my post?

You were the one, who emphasized sin. You even gave the Greek word Harmatia, which is correct.

 

[d taylor]

You can’t negate a verse you don’t like, such as Matthew 28:19 or James 2:26 , by posting another verse. That’s eisegesis. Rather, all of these verses have to be taken into account exegetically.

I negate (or do not address) verses like Mathew and James because they are not addressing receiving God's free gift of Eternal Life.

 

[d taylor]

That is an action they have to consciously engage in. I believe salvation is possible even for those people who lack the intellectual ability to trust or believe in anything, for example, someone born with extreme cognitive deficits or an infant. Why do you insist on a soteriology that excludes such people from salvation by requiring intellectual assent?

Jesus has taken away the sin of the world if a child dies in child birth before they can understand how to receive God's free gift of Eternal Life. They are either given this life as they have not reached an age to be able to believe.

Or all people (children and mentally impaired people) may be raised to live during the tribulation, out a life where they can with out any hindrance of age or mental ability affecting their ability to either trust in Jesus or not trust in Jesus.

The Rapture and the Age of Accountability – Grace Evangelical Society

faithalone.org

 

[Kees Boer]

I negate (or do not address) verses like Mathew and James because they are not addressing receiving God's free gift of Eternal Life.

I'm replying to the "Lithurgist." If we see that the Bible doesn't contradict Itself, a verse like James 2:26 won't contradict John 3:16, because if It did, God would be lying somewhere. Jesus Himself answered Scripture with Scripture, during the temptation in the Judean wilderness. That's not wrong obviously. We would need to look in the context of any Passage to see what It is talking about. James 2 for instance is not talking about how to receive eternal life. The context there is testimony. Even so, in James 2, the two examples are Abraham who obeyed in sacrificing Isaac and Rahab the prostitute. Obviously, It doesn't teach that one has to be good to go to heaven...

 

[The Liturgist]

I negate (or do not address) verses like Mathew and James because they are not addressing receiving God's free gift of Eternal Life.

And you do realize that is eisegesis?

 

[The Liturgist]

Jesus has taken away the sin of the world if a child dies in child birth before they can understand how to receive God's free gift of Eternal Life. They are either given this life as they have not reached an age to be able to believe.

Or all people (children and mentally impaired people) may be raised to live during the tribulation, out a life where they can with out any hindrance of age or mental ability affecting their ability to either trust in Jesus or not trust in Jesus.

The Rapture and the Age of Accountability – Grace Evangelical Society

faithalone.org

Or alternatively rather than adhering to an eschatology that was unknown before the 19th century, we can embrace a model of salvation, the traditional sacramental model, which unlike the one you propose does not require active intellectual assent, and which also contrary to what you claimed does not actually make baptism a condition for salvation but rather provides it as a literal font of regenerative grace, and which is truly God’s free gift, provided to anyone who would want it and not dependent on works or works-righteousness.

 

[The Liturgist]

I'm replying to the "Lithurgist." If we see that the Bible doesn't contradict Itself, a verse like James 2:26 won't contradict John 3:16, because if It did, God would be lying somewhere. Jesus Himself answered Scripture with Scripture, during the temptation in the Judean wilderness. That's not wrong obviously. We would need to look in the context of any Passage to see what It is talking about. James 2 for instance is not talking about how to receive eternal life. The context there is testimony. Even so, in James 2, the two examples are Abraham who obeyed in sacrificing Isaac and Rahab the prostitute. Obviously, It doesn't teach that one has to be good to go to heaven...

Absolutely, we cannot interpret scripture in isolation or with eisegesis. Thus James 2:26 does not contradict John 3:16. Generally the traditional Protestant exegesis of James 2:26 is that through the grace received by faith, the elect become capable of good works and doing good works is evidence of a living faith.

 

[d taylor]

And you do realize that is eisegesis?

Then show me in those verses where receiving eternal life is addressed and that i read into these verses the idea that eternal life is not addressed

James is addressing works of a believer. Stating that if a believer does not work at growing his faith his faith will die. Just like any person who is doing a skill, say playing the flute. Unless this person practices, they will not improve and even eventually lose what they have gained and more than likely. One day they will have no interest in playing the flute. The Book of James nowhere states that if a person's faith dies they either were not a believer or lost their Eternal Life, dead faith not not equate to a believer losing their Eternal Life and going back to an unbeliever state without Eternal Life.

Matthew is addressing making disciples from believers. a person does not become a disciple and then eventually become a believer. A person first becomes a believer and then eventually through proper teaching and obedience they may become a disciple. Again this has nothing to do with Eternal Life.

 

[d taylor]

Or alternatively rather than adhering to an eschatology that was unknown before the 19th century, we can embrace a model of salvation, the traditional sacramental model, which unlike the one you propose does not require active intellectual assent, and which also contrary to what you claimed does not actually make baptism a condition for salvation but rather provides it as a literal font of regenerative grace, and which is truly God’s free gift, provided to anyone who would want it and not dependent on works or works-righteousness.

Show me that model ( sacramental model) in The Gospel of John. To get to a sacramental model, verses have to plucked out of their context and applied to other verses from other context and combined together to make this salvation plan. Which becomes a salvation process that happens over a persons years of life, that they may work toward this salvation.

It is not something (Eternal Life) that is received in a moment of time, by an unbeliever. Making this unbeliever a believer in as long as it takes to understand God's promised and to come to realize the only object of a person's faith is The Messiah. So that they may simply trust in The Messiah for Eternal Life.

 

[The Liturgist]

Then show me in those verses where receiving eternal life is addressed and that i read into these verses the idea that eternal life is not addressed

James is addressing works of a believer. Stating that if a believer does not work at growing his faith his faith will die.

Wrong. What the Epistle of St. James the Just literally says is as follows:

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Thus, it does not say, as you suggest, that faith without works will result in death (indeed I know of no one else in the history of the Christian church who interprets that pericope in that manner). Rather, it draws an analogy between a dead body, which is without a spirit, and a dead faith, which is without works, and states explicitly that we are justified by works, and not by faith alone.

Ergo, your argument that salvation only requires an intellectual belief is incompatible with the Epistle of James, which gives you two choices, either change your argument or change the canon of Scripture. There are some people who deny the canonicity of the Epistle of James because it precludes salvation on the basis of nuda fide (sola fide is actually more nuanced than made out to be; it has an unfortunate name, owing to Martin Luther I would argue and his dynamic equivalence-based translation of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, but sola fide does require works in two respects, those being the sacramental actions which communicate divine grace, and the good works such as almsgiving and helping the poor, the acts of love and charity which St. Paul also stresses so much, which are the vital signs of a living faith.

Just like any person who is doing a skill, say playing the flute. Unless this person practices, they will not improve and even eventually lose what they have gained and more than likely. One day they will have no interest in playing the flute. The Book of James nowhere states that if a person's faith dies they either were not a believer or lost their Eternal Life, dead faith not not equate to a believer losing their Eternal Life and going back to an unbeliever state without Eternal Life.

This is incorrect; it literally says “Man is justified by faith, and not by works only,” and regarding whether or not someone is a believer or not, points out that even the demons believe. It states that faith without works is not beneficial.

The problem is clearly that your argument takes James 2:26 without context and attempts to interpret it without regard to the rest of the Epistle or the rest of the New Testament, and indeed sacred scripture as a whole, which is to say, it represents eisegesis.

Matthew is addressing making disciples from believers. a person does not become a disciple and then eventually become a believer. A person first becomes a believer and then eventually through proper teaching and obedience they may become a disciple. Again this has nothing to do with Eternal Life.

A living faith in Jesus Christ as defined in James makes one a disciple of Him. This is why Christians have historically identified as disciples from the beginning, and why we use the term Apostle to refer to the eleven true disciples and St. Matthias, and the Seventy and St. Paul, who took on leadership after the death of our Lord. It is for this reason that the Apostles baptized people who converted to Christianity, baptizing entire households, and why in the Nicene Creed, which is part of the ChristianForums Statement of Faith, it says “We confess one baptism for the remission of sins.”

 

[The Liturgist]

Show me that model ( sacramental model) in The Gospel of John. To get to a sacramental model, verses have to plucked out of their context and applied to other verses from other context and combined together to make this salvation plan.

Hold on a second - are you actually trying to justify eisegesis as a legitimate hermeneutic? Because the way scripture is properly interpreted is that the texts of scripture must be read in their entirety and interpreted in the context of the entire Bible, which is what the early Church, and Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and even John Nelson Darby did, in order to interpret scripture (I would argue Darby drew incorrect conclusions, but he certainly tried his best to engage in a proper exegesis, and I admire his moral character even if I disagree with his exegesis).

Which becomes a salvation process that happens over a persons years of life, that they may work toward this salvation.

It is not something (Eternal Life) that is received in a moment of time, by an unbeliever. Making this unbeliever a believer in as long as it takes to understand God's promised and to come to realize the only object of a person's faith is The Messiah. So that they may simply trust in The Messiah for Eternal Life.

Forgive me but I need to ask you to rephrase this paragraph, because it looks like you have a typographic error (specifically it looks like there is a missing word or a severe grammatical error in the sentence “Making this unbeliever a believer in as long as it takes to understand God's promised and to come to realize the only object of a person's faith is The Messiah,” which prevents me from understanding precisely what you are trying to say.

Also I am not sure what you mean by “Which becomes a salvation process that happens over a persons years of life, that they may work toward this salvation” - this sentence is a fragment, and it is unclear to me if you are saying that is the case, or challenging that assertion.

If you have access to Microsoft Word, the built in grammar utility is extremely good at identifying fragments, the use of a passive voice (which I am frequently guilty of) and other grammatical errors.

 

[The Liturgist]

James 2 for instance is not talking about how to receive eternal life. The context there is testimony.

How do you figure? Because it specifically asserts that we are justified by faith and not by works alone. Justification is soteriologically essential.

On a less contentious note, because I did not anticipate when joining this thread the debate that would ensue over soteriology, I was hoping you might share the specifics of the instructions you provide to the children and also your background and training in missionary work. One of my two mission parishes is operating in a scenario wherein if we could enable children to catechize other children, that would be of great benefit.

 

[d taylor]

Wrong. What the Epistle of St. James the Just literally says is as follows:

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Thus, it does not say, as you suggest, that faith without works will result in death (indeed I know of no one else in the history of the Christian church who interprets that pericope in that manner). Rather, it draws an analogy between a dead body, which is without a spirit, and a dead faith, which is without works, and states explicitly that we are justified by works, and not by faith alone.

Ergo, your argument that salvation only requires an intellectual belief is incompatible with the Epistle of James, which gives you two choices, either change your argument or change the canon of Scripture. There are some people who deny the canonicity of the Epistle of James because it precludes salvation on the basis of nuda fide (sola fide is actually more nuanced than made out to be; it has an unfortunate name, owing to Martin Luther I would argue and his dynamic equivalence-based translation of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, but sola fide does require works in two respects, those being the sacramental actions which communicate divine grace, and the good works such as almsgiving and helping the poor, the acts of love and charity which St. Paul also stresses so much, which are the vital signs of a living faith.



This is incorrect; it literally says “Man is justified by faith, and not by works only,” and regarding whether or not someone is a believer or not, points out that even the demons believe. It states that faith without works is not beneficial.

The problem is clearly that your argument takes James 2:26 without context and attempts to interpret it without regard to the rest of the Epistle or the rest of the New Testament, and indeed sacred scripture as a whole, which is to say, it represents eisegesis.



A living faith in Jesus Christ as defined in James makes one a disciple of Him. This is why Christians have historically identified as disciples from the beginning, and why we use the term Apostle to refer to the eleven true disciples and St. Matthias, and the Seventy and St. Paul, who took on leadership after the death of our Lord. It is for this reason that the Apostles baptized people who converted to Christianity, baptizing entire households, and why in the Nicene Creed, which is part of the ChristianForums Statement of Faith, it says “We confess one baptism for the remission of sins.”

No what i wrote is not wrong.

The word save occurs five times in James (1.21; 2:14; 4:12; 5:15, 20). In none of the four uses outside of our passage is eternal salvation in view. In his epistle James uses the word save to refer to deliverance from the death-dealing consequences of sin (cf. 1:15,21). A believer whose faith is not accompanied by works will not be saved from the consequences of his sinful behavior. He or she will experience difficulties which God sends. The purpose of these difficulties is to turn the believer back to the Lord.

A Biblical example of this is Ananias and Sapphira, their faith could not save them (their physical earthly life) from God's judgment for lying to the Holy Spirit.

 

[d taylor]

Hold on a second - are you actually trying to justify eisegesis as a legitimate hermeneutic? Because the way scripture is properly interpreted is that the texts of scripture must be read in their entirety and interpreted in the context of the entire Bible, which is what the early Church, and Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and even John Nelson Darby did, in order to interpret scripture (I would argue Darby drew incorrect conclusions, but he certainly tried his best to engage in a proper exegesis, and I admire his moral character even if I disagree with his exegesis).



Forgive me but I need to ask you to rephrase this paragraph, because it looks like you have a typographic error (specifically it looks like there is a missing word or a severe grammatical error in the sentence “Making this unbeliever a believer in as long as it takes to understand God's promised and to come to realize the only object of a person's faith is The Messiah,” which prevents me from understanding precisely what you are trying to say.

Also I am not sure what you mean by “Which becomes a salvation process that happens over a persons years of life, that they may work toward this salvation” - this sentence is a fragment, and it is unclear to me if you are saying that is the case, or challenging that assertion.

If you have access to Microsoft Word, the built in grammar utility is extremely good at identifying fragments, the use of a passive voice (which I am frequently guilty of) and other grammatical errors.

Like i stated before we believe in two different God's your God requires a person to work to receive eternal life. Your God needs your help, by your obedience.

The God I believe in, offers His free gift of Eternal Life to all who will trust in The Messiah

Really there is nothing else to discuss

 

[d taylor]

Hold on a second - are you actually trying to justify eisegesis as a legitimate hermeneutic? Because the way scripture is properly interpreted is that the texts of scripture must be read in their entirety and interpreted in the context of the entire Bible, which is what the early Church, and Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and even John Nelson Darby did, in order to interpret scripture (I would argue Darby drew incorrect conclusions, but he certainly tried his best to engage in a proper exegesis, and I admire his moral character even if I disagree with his exegesis).



Forgive me but I need to ask you to rephrase this paragraph, because it looks like you have a typographic error (specifically it looks like there is a missing word or a severe grammatical error in the sentence “Making this unbeliever a believer in as long as it takes to understand God's promised and to come to realize the only object of a person's faith is The Messiah,” which prevents me from understanding precisely what you are trying to say.

Also I am not sure what you mean by “Which becomes a salvation process that happens over a persons years of life, that they may work toward this salvation” - this sentence is a fragment, and it is unclear to me if you are saying that is the case, or challenging that assertion.

If you have access to Microsoft Word, the built in grammar utility is extremely good at identifying fragments, the use of a passive voice (which I am frequently guilty of) and other grammatical errors.

Here is a really good article maybe this will help you see your misunderstandings.

Does James 2:24 Break the Broken Record Approach? – Grace Evangelical Society

 

[The Liturgist]

Here is a really good article maybe this will help you see your misunderstandings.

Does James 2:24 Break the Broken Record Approach? – Grace Evangelical Society

All I need you to do is rephrase the last post you wrote, because I was unable to understand it as three of the four sentences were grammatically speaking, fragments, and while normally I am able to understand your writing without difficulty, in this particular case it was ambiguous what you were trying to convey. Thus, linking me to an article on a third party website (which I really prefer not to view; I dislike having to click through to content not hosted on ChristianForums.com ), is unlikely to be helpful.

 

[The Liturgist]

Like i stated before we believe in two different God's your God requires a person to work to receive eternal life. Your God needs your help, by your obedience.

The God I believe in, offers His free gift of Eternal Life to all who will trust in The Messiah

Apparently there is something to discuss, because as I have said, my Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, does not require a person to work to receive eternal life, indeed no work whatsoever is required in the case of infants or the incapacitated, and He does offer His free gift of eternal life to all who trust in Him, for He is the Messiah.

Assuming you understand that God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God, and thus Jesus Christ, who is the only begotten Son and Word of God, is God Incarnate according to John 1, and that you agree with the CF.com Statement of Faith, and that you accept the same 27 books of the New Testament that I do, we clearly have the same God, since my God freely grants salvation and life everlasting to all who trust in the Messiah.

The difference of opinion appears to be in what trust in the Messiah entails.

 

[Kees Boer]

Absolutely, we cannot interpret scripture in isolation or with eisegesis. Thus James 2:26 does not contradict John 3:16. Generally the traditional Protestant exegesis of James 2:26 is that through the grace received by faith, the elect become capable of good works and doing good works is evidence of a living faith.

I wouldn't come to that conclusion. But do realize that everything includes eisegesis. You're using eisegesis, when you are interpreting what I say. For instance, you concluded, correctly so, that I'm not a robot. That's why it is important to read everything in context. This is a video that I made on James 2 about a year ago.

 

[The Liturgist]

I wouldn't come to that conclusion. But do realize that everything includes eisegesis. You're using eisegesis, when you are interpreting what I say. For instance, you concluded, correctly so, that I'm not a robot. That's why it is important to read everything in context. This is a video that I made on James 2 about a year ago.

Forgive me, but I think you are confusing the meaning of the words eisegesis and exegesis.

For example, if I were eisegeting your posts, I might well think you were a robot, or perhaps a raccoon or even a sea lion, since the process of reading everything in context is what is known as exegesis, and it represents a critical interpretation of the text as opposed to a selective interpretation of texts chosen arbitrarily and read out of context, which is eisegesis.

Ergo, it is because I critically evaluate what you write in the context of the conversarion that I know I am speaking with a fellow man and not a raccoon, sea lion and especially not a robot, since unlike raccoons and sea lions, which are remarkably intelligent animals created by God, robots, being the work of human hands, are impressively stupid (and I suspect that recent advances in AI will only result in it being buried deeper in ”the “Uncanny Valley”, for example, consider the negative audience reactions to the use of digital de-ageing of film actors).