RESULTS OF PREACHING GOD'S TRUTH by steve finnell
If you do not want to be hated by the world and ostracized, criticized, condemned, mocked and excoriated by friends, family, church members, and many who claimed to be Christians; then preaching and teaching God's truth is not the choice you want to make. Preaching the truth is not the pathway to acceptance by those who do not like or do not understand God's truth. No one likes to be told they are in error.
1 John 3:13 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. (NASB)
Luke 6:22 Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. (NASB)
Matthew 5:10-11 "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. (NASB)
If your goal is to be loved and accepted by all, then, preaching God's truth is not the road you should travel.
I was astonished to find your blog when you posted, randomly so it seems, on a website that I frequent. It appeared somewhat rude of you to do so, without an invitation to do so. Nevertheless, I will address just a few of the issues that I, through study of my own, have with some of the things which you support. I will not try and address these fully here, just a short couple of points. As to the inspiration of the King James version of the Bible, you point out that there is no scriptural reference to support that notion. Of course, there could not be such a thing. As I am sure that you are well aware, the Bible was written over the course of about fifteen hundred years and completed over two thousand years ago. The King James was of course completed in the sixteen hundreds, or five hundred years ago. What we can do is look at where the different versions came from and where the manuscripts strengths and weaknesses lay. I don't know much about you, but I am quite certain that you are well aware of all this, and even though I support the King James version, I won't debate further on the issue.
ReplyDeleteThe one other topic I want to address and which you seem to be quite adamant about is the necessity of baptism for the remission of sins. I myself find that scripture is the one thing that settles all questions, and the first verse that came to mind when I saw this was Acts 16:31 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and Thou shall be saved. Not, and also be baptized, or any such thing. I am in no way trying to discount the value of baptism, I just do not think it is necessary for salvation. I am reminded of the thief on the cross, who did not get baptized, or did not make any certain type of confession with his mouth. He only had faith in Jesus.
I look forward to discussion with you, if you are so inclined.
Greetings pigpen51.
DeleteI agree with you that scripture is the one thing that settles questions. The scriptures also state that the jailer was baptized that very hour. Sounds like baptism was rather important to him and Paul. To imply that Acts 16:31 is a all-encompassing description of the Great Commission is folly. There is much more to Jesus's commands then simply believing.
Now on to your comment about the thief on the cross. First it must be understood that to label him "unbaptized" is an assumption. There is no reference about his past other then he was a thief. It is possible that he was among the masses that came to be baptized by John the Baptist and his disciples for repentance and the remission of sins (Mark 1:4). He could have been baptized by the apostles during the 3 years that Jesus preached the good news. These of course are assumptions but so is the notion that he was unbaptized. But if someone wants to stake their salvation on an assumption and for the sake of argument lets assume he was never baptized.
The promise between Jesus and the thief was a personal one and can not be claimed by any one other then the person it was meant for. God has made many promises to individuals and it would be bad logic to think that anyone could put themselves into a promise not meant for them. Abraham Hannah, David, Solomon, Gideon, Peter, Paul etc. were all made promises by God but these can not be applied to the world at large. So is it with the thief's promise. The Bible is full of straight forward promises such as Acts 2 that apply to us all. The thief's promise is not one of them.
Also the case of the thief does not apply to us today, the promise was made before the Great Commission. We who are alive today are to follow the will of God in the Bible and not blindly grasp at a promise meant for someone else. We are to among other things, believe that Jesus was risen from the dead (Romans 10:9) something that the thief could not do. Also, if Jesus wanted even Pilate to be with Him in Paradise so be it. It is not for me to second guess God but to present the Gospel in a clear and honest way. So yes he was saved. If God wants to make exceptions who am I to say no. But who stakes their future on exceptions?
King Hezekiah asked for healing and God promised him fifteen more years of life (2nd Kings 20). Would you tell a dying person to put their hopes in this promise? Of course not.
I can think of many people who were saved without baptism. Abraham, Moses, David, Samuel, Enoch, Noah, Daniel etc. But none of them can be examples for us today. All ten examples of conversion after the ascension of Jesus include baptism. Baptism is part of God's plan of salvation and to say otherwise is discounting its value. (1st Peter 3:21)
I look forward to your reply.