Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!gatech!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!geneva.rutgers.edu!christian From: fibercom!lab@uunet.uu.net (Lance Beckner) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: None should perish (was Re: Williamson's Regulative Principle) Message-ID: Date: 31 Jul 89 01:56:54 GMT Sender: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu Organization: FiberCom, Inc., Roanoke, Virginia Lines: 47 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , bnr-fos!bnr-public!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) writes: > > Speaking of Acts 2:47 which says "Praising God, and having favour with > all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should > be saved.". > >Those that believed should be saved. Those that didn't, shouldn't. The > >invitation went out to all. But not all responded. > Yes, but why did they believe? Please give God, and not those who > believed, the glory! I think you misunderstand my position. I do believe that it is God bringing us to Him that saves us. The scriptures teach that we do not seek Him out on our own. Rather, we respond to His seeking us out. I give God ALL of the glory for my salvation. I take NO credit at all. My only complaint about your stand is that it implies that God DESIRES to see people perish in Hell. I find no scriptural support for that. I don't have too much trouble with Jason Gabler's statement, that God knows which people will respond. Those are the people that He works with. These people could be called the "elect". I have no problem with that. > You essentially obligated me to respond by asking me a few questions. You are right. And I wasn't implying that you shouldn't respond. The only reason that I responded again, was to clarify the issue above. Although now, I must admit that you may have budged me slightly from my original position. Ephesians 2:8,9 tells us that we are saved by grace through faith. And that (faith) is not of ourselves, but is a gift from God. So that leaves us with a question: Why would God give the gift of faith to some, but not others? I know your answer. But I don't buy the "He loves some and hates others" theory. It looks like I will have to prayerfully study this issue some more. > For all we > know, it may serve His will to have any one of us temporarily misled. This is an interesting theory. On the one hand I believe that God really WANTS us to figure out what He is trying to tell us. But on the other hand, there *IS* an awful lot of disagreement among His children as to what His word really says. I'll have to think about this. -- Lance A. Beckner "Jesus loves me, this I know, INTERNET: lab@fibercom.com for the Bible tells me so." UUCP: ...!uunet!fibercom!lab