The Bible Archive

Lift him up David and Beth in your prayers. I don’t know his
exact situation but you can feel the pain in the man as he writes the
following:

“Please pray for me as I have been in much repentance and
inner healing but have been under much attack and have strayed.  I need to truly, love accept and trust Jesus
with all my heart.  Inner healing and
deliverance are needed in my life.  Also,
please pray for Beth and that I will learn to let her go and trust god to help
her.”

Anyone who has been following the study should notice a few
things. Firstly, the method is a variation of my (now) usual method of
studying. I’m ignoring the role of the specific baptismal narratives within the
context of the letter. For instance, that huge list of questions for each
specific baptismal event in the book of Acts largely ignored the greater
question of the reason those stories were even put into Luke’s letter anyway.
My approach here has been closer to systematic theology in that I have gathered
the baptismal stories and usage and then have put them next to each other to
study them.

It’s been 6 weeks of steady Monday-morning posting by our Brother
Russ. In fact, one of those weeks he even hit us with a couple of goodies to
mix into the bag. There’s been some great commenting going on (which I have to
port over to the commenting system so don’t get upset if you don’t see that
your two cents didn’t make it over yet) and there’s been some overspill onto
other sites. I’d like to thank Brother Russ for his consistent posting,
friendly tone, diligent intelligence and reliance on Scripture. I’ve asked the
brother to stick around and God willing he’ll start something else in the
future—perhaps something I could interact more with since I was pretty much out
of commission with my new baby. Anyway, here’s the series in its entirety: Russ
seeking out something beyond Calvinism and Arminianism.

Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible
Grace, Perseverance Preservation of the Saints, Sovereignty of God and an aside
On Faith: extra thoughts on Unconditional Election.

It’s one thing to try to encourage someone to pray during tribulations
but there goes James…”Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you
encounter various trials…” Why is he saying this? Does he have some
sick fascination with tribulations? What are you talking about James?
({{James 1:2}})

In my last several posts, we began the process of looking at
each of the components of TULIPS in order to see how well this model of
salvation aligns with Scripture. In looking at Total Depravity, we agreed with
much of the traditional position though we found no Scriptural evidence for:
regeneration prior to faith; an understanding that death means spiritual
inability to act; and that the non-believer is unable to exercise faith. Thus,
we stated that a person will never seek God in their sinfulness. However,
through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, God seeks each individual making
them aware of their standing before Him. It is at this point that a person does
or does not exercise their faith in Jesus. Once they believe, they are given
life which is the presence of God through the Holy Spirit living in them. All
the benefits of salvation are immediately bestowed upon them (though final
fulfillment awaits our resurrection).

Well, Jerry and Sozo BOTH memed me. For the sake of other bloggers I will not
meme you but if you so wish you can leave a comment, take the meme and run with
it and link back to me (or not). This way the meme doesn’t outright die and can
continue to be propagated like the online virus it is. I will also include some
cool links throughout the meme to make it a bit more snazzy.

We left off in our study on baptism performing an
examination on one of the key proof-texts by supporters of baptismal salvation.
In our brief overview of that section we experimented with big fancy words: differential diagnosis. Realizing that all it meant was having all the
details and drawing different conclusions based on those details we now move
forward in our study spending a short time questioning baptisms in the book of
Acts.