…In the military sense, but not in the American sense. In Ephesians 6, the believer is given a toolkit of spiritual armour. Throughout Scripture, we’re given only two offensive weapons: the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6), which is the Word of God, and children which are like arrows in the hand of a warrior (Ps. 127).
Once upon a time, a dead guy who wouldn’t stay dead came along and turned my life upside down. The hounds of heaven hunted me, and now I belong to Him.
Doctrine Schmocktrine:
Okay, let’s do the details. Don’t fall asleep.
Arminian: No. (John 10:28-29; Rom. 5:12-22)
Baptism: Lookit. Let’s keep the focus right. (Mark 16:16; Gal. 3:3; 1 Pet. 3:21) First, babies don’t have the capacity to appeal to God for a clean conscience, so let’s quit making them wet and mad for no supportable reason. Second, in the original language, the word means “dunked.” If you think God chose the original words of Scripture, you’ll get dunked. Otherwise, meh, make a post-modern statement out of it.
Bride of Christ: The worldwide collection of those who have personally chosen to trust that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh of a man, and has died for their inherent incongruity with God’s nature, returning to life and reckoning His holy nature to them in exchange for their God-offending nature. (Acts 16:30-31; Rom 15:1-4; Eph. 2:1-7; 1 Tim. 2:5) Sorry to be technical, but it pays to be specific.
Calvinist: No. (1 Tim 2:4; 1 Pet. 3:9; 1 John 2:2)
Cessationist: No. I have yet to read a Scripture (or an interpretation of Scripture) that solidly requires me to be. God is not a God of boxes. That said, I don’t believe I’ve ever read an account of a genuine manifestation of the sign gifts outside of Scripture itself.
Charismatic: No. I spent too much time around the occult to fall for that. (2 Cor. 11:14; compare 2 Thess. 2:9-10; 1 Tim. 4:1;)
Churchgoer: Sometimes.
Covenant or Dispensational: Dispensational. (Ps. 51, cf. Eph ch. 1; Dan. 9:20-10:15; The entire book of Galatians; Romans ch’s 5 and 11; Revelation, the whole thing)
Creation/intelligent design/evolution: Like the Good Book says. (Gen. ch’s 1-3)
Ecumenical: No. (Matt. 24:24; 1 Tim. 1:4-7; Heb. 2:2-3; Jude;)
Emergent Church/Brian McLaren: Apparently hasn’t noticed that the United Church of Canada has already said everything McLaren and crew has, and that the UCC probably outstripped his “new and enlightened” revamping of Christianity sometime in the 1970s. I ain’t buyin’.
Eternal security: Yes. (see above)
Evangelical: Yes. (Mark 16:15; Rom. 1:16-17)
Free will: Yes. (Josh. 24:15; Isa. 30:15; Rom. 10:13)
Inerrancy/Inspiration of the Bible: Yes, in the original languages. (2 Sam. 22:31; Ps. 12:6, 18:30, 19:8-10, 119:140; 2 Tim. 3:16) Verbal plenary inspiration, not just inspiration, and not just plenary inspiration.
Infusion or imputation: Imputation. (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 3:25, 5:12-22; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2 Cor. 5:21) If you don’t know these words, it means I’m under a bunch of serious you’re-going-to-burn-forever anathemas from the Holy Roman Church for my beliefs.
Israel is: The nation of Israel. (Rom. 11, just for starters)
Jesus as God: Yes. (Matt. 1:21; John 1:1-4, 1:8-10, 10:30, 20:28)
Jesus as human: Yes. (Dan. 7:13; Matt. 12:8, 13:41, 16:27, 26:2,64–compare Ezek. 14:3, 15:2, 17:2, etc.)
Jesus as dead (as opposed to some substitute or misunderstanding): Yes. (John 19:31-34)
Jesus as resurrected: Do you have any idea how hard those Romans worked to keep the disciples from hoaxing everyone on that? Yes. Jesus came back from the dead. (Matt. 27:62-28-6; 1 Cor. 15:5-8, 12-19)
Kingdom of Heaven: Is not of this realm, nor are Christians intended to fight for it, build it, or otherwise drag it “in” to the political or cultural sphere kicking and screaming by its toes. (John 18:36, Rev. 21:1-8)
King James Version only: Actually, I’m in favour of starting a New American Standard only club. Four hundred years from now, I expect it to be taken very seriously in a nation on the other side of the ocean which no longer speaks the same dialect of English as I do.
Last-Days Revival: Are you nuts?? (2 Thess. 2:1-3; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1-8; Jude)
Millenium: It just means 1,000 years, folks. See Rev. 20:1-3 for where the term came from and what characterizes the biblical period.
Rapture of the Body of Christ: Yes. (1 Thess. 4:13-18)
Pre-, Mid- or post-trib: Pre. (1 Thess. 5:1-6, contrast Joel 2:30-31, Matt. 24:29-31, Rev. 6:12-14)
Regeneration: Is the creation of a new, God-attuned nature in a person when they are transferred from the family of Adam to the family of God. (John 3:3; Rom. 6:4; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15)
Sin: Is the inherent inability of Adam’s descendants, personally and as part of Adam’s family, to measure up to the perfection and freedom from evil that God intended for them. Also, the continuing tendency of saved sinners to fail to meet God’s perfect standards. (Lev. 24:15; Isa. 59:2; Rom. 5:12-13, 6:12-13, 23) All disobedience is sin.
Salvation: Is the immediate, complete accounting of Jesus Christ’s holiness to a sinner on the basis of Him taking God’s infinite wrath for that person’s sin. But only if they want. It’s your choice, baby. God ain’t a dictator. (Acts 16:30-31; Rom. 10:9-10; 1 Cor. 15:1-4)
Separation of church and state: Yes. (John 18:36)
Women pastors: No. (Eph. 5:22-33; 1 Tim. 2:11-12)
Women Bible teachers: Yes. (1 Tim. 5:9-10; Titus 2:4-5) Read the verses for correct context.
Just saw this. Brilliant. And I am joining your NASB club–as long as we don’t make everyone else use it.
Okay: it’s a libertarian NASB club.
But we still get to call people heretics for using other translations. Freedom of speech.
Was just reading a few of the references. Looking at the verses you use to reply to Calvinism, I can understand the first and third (opposing predestination), but which aspect of Calvinism is 1 Peter 3:9 meant to respond to?
Thanks for asking. I had to think back on why I put that there, it’s been awhile. The L (limited atonement) in Calvinism’s TULIP is sometimes phrased to mean that God is willing that some should perish, or that God doesn’t want all to come to repentance. IOW, if you’re not God’s special elect, you were created just to be damned to hell.
That’s the most crude way of looking at limited atonement, but it’s the one I was responding to in putting that verse there.
Did you ever state what denomination you are. Denomination means to be numbered with. So, are you numbered with or numbered without. More to the point, who do you fellowship with. Iron strenthens iron, as they say.
Dictionary definitions are helpful:
Denomination (Merriam-Webster Online)
1 : an act of denominating [def'n of denominating: "to give a name to; designate"]
2 : a value or size of a series of values or sizes (as of money)
3 : name, designation; especially : a general name for a category
4 : a religious organization whose congregations are united in their adherence to its beliefs and practices
“With” or “without” is a false dichotomy with no defined parameters under the terms of your question. Anyone adhering to a given organization’s beliefs is potentially without belief in other organizations’ stated creeds, but not necessarily so — depending on which asserted beliefs and practices may intersect across organizations.
Biblical Christian fellowship exists between those who trust solely in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross in atonement for sin, and His resurrection as the firstfruits from the dead. (1 Cor. 15:1-4, 1 John 5:11-13, etc)
I am new here and I am just scouring the site to see what is up with all the smart people. From this statement of Faith I can very easily see that you are a heretic and deserve eternal hell-fire for your false teachings.
Ok, no……we disagree on some of what I would deem the secondary issues but we are in accord on what the Gospel is: The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ as per the synopsis given by Paul in 1 Cor 15:1-6 or so.
Families do not have to agree on everything but we do have to agree on who our Father is and through whom we have been adopted/grafted/re-born by into this family..
God bless and keep it interesting
“From this statement of Faith I can very easily see that you are a heretic and deserve eternal hell-fire for your false teachings.”
Ha! You’re going to fit in just fine around here.
‘Struth, we’d likely disagree on certain systematic mechanics, but I’ve also learned since writing this that to Americans, “Anabaptist” means “Arminian.” Dave and I actually fall somewhere in the middle, or maybe a better way is to say, outside the stream of debate. My Reformed pals have spent extensive time analyzing me and trying to peg me down, and I have more fun making it impossible for them…