Dr. Brown Answers Your Questions (and Thoughts About Earthquakes and Immodesty; and An Atheist Gives His Perspective on the Ehrman Debate)
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Dr. Brown Answers Your Questions (and Thoughts About Earthquakes and Immodesty; and An Atheist Gives His Perspective on the Ehrman Debate)
Comments are closed.
Blessings, Dr. Brown.
I had previously made the comment that when Calvinists talk about evangelizing, what they mean is to find Christians and convert them to Calvinism. Just recently, I came across this posting and the comments below from a Calvinistic blogsphere.
http://www.reformationtheology.com/2010/04/can_anyone_relate.php#comments
Please look at it and consider the following…….
Each commenter had to read “Calvin” BEFORE they found it in the bible. But their comments are so revealing…
Comment…..”after my conversion I sought to disprove Calvinism”
A sinner who came to Christ BEFORE accepting Calvinism.
Comment….”….and the weight I had put on my shoulders to be an effective evangelist was removed.”
Yet Luke says in Acts 14:1, regarding Paul and Barnabas…..
“At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they SPOKE SO EFFECTIVELY THAT A GREAT NUMBER OF JEWS AND GENTILES BELIEVED.”
Comment….”Praise God for true witnesses of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
If “Calvinism is the gospel”, how can any one be saved PRIOR to believing the one true gospel? By WHICH gospel were they saved by (since it is obvious it wasn’t Calvinism)?
Again, how can any one be saved BEFORE even knowing anything about the “gospel” of Calvinism? Bless their hearts, but each of these accounts just rebuke the notion of “Calvinism is the gospel and nothing else” (Spurgeon). And this only continues to support my observation that Calvinists find Christians and convert them to Calvinism. And this also continues to prove that Calvinism doesn’t save, but is only taught to the saved.
And what about the Christian who understands that Jesus may certainly say that he is God, just as much as he may say that he is the light of the world, or the word of God?
Does he need to be a supporter or proponent of the Trinity doctrine?
If he is not, does he need to be converted?
Dr. Brown,
I commented with respect to something I saw on the screen before I listened to the subject matter. Please forgive me for being off subject.
About earthquakes, I am wondering if they are a symptom of increased sins in the earth, as if the land is wanting to vomit out
it’s inhabitants. (Lev 18:25)
I also wonder if they are a sign of the time when something of God is about to happen, or be born.
Ray, Converted to what? And earthquakes and other events are mentioned by Jesus in the Mt. of Olives discourse, spoken over Jerusalem, as to end time events, prior to the Passover week.
Jabez,
The part about being converted is off subject so I won’t be answering it, though I do find it interesting.
I wonder if the earthquakes and other events Jesus talks of which will be the beginning of sorrows will be increasing, and if so, why?
Since he spoke of them as being the beginning of sorrows, it seems to me that they certainly could be increasing in both occurance and intensity.
Is it because the time is near that such things will happen? Is it simply because of time, or is it that the time is because they happen? Is it that these things happen because of an increase in both the occurance of sins as well as the intensity of the sins?
If I put a frozen dinner in the oven and set the timer. When the timer goes off I think it’s time, but if I did not set the temperature
it won’t be done. It might still be frozen.
So is the time because of the condition of things or is the time simply because it’s time, and are the events simply because it’s time, or are the events of the end time connected to the condition of the times?
It seems to me that the events and the time is connected to the condition of the times.
There may come a time when the oppression of the just is so much so that judgments must come, and the generation of the world will require all the judgments of God to come before some repent, while some maybe never will repent.
Can the sins a man commits on one side of the globe affect geological events on the other side? Maybe so. I don’t know but I think it’s possible.
It seems to me that the prophetic aspect of scripture state certain passages of time related to events unwinding or winding up re: Israel, and events leading to the Return and Kingdom of God on earth: for Daniel’s then future people group. Reading Tenach prophetic judgments on the nations which opposed God’s actons, values, or people, iniquity may abound, but has for centuries. If anything there is greater countermeasure to sin since the coming of the New Covenant, the introduction of the good news Christ to the Nations, and the King’s visitation. Yet too, much is promised in the Tenach Prophets of Old (Acts 3:21).
As for causal relationship between sin and eventual consequence, since the Fall of Adam, certainly sin is judged, but, excepting the greater population on earth, there is not necessarily an increase of it. God has set the times and seasons, and the completion of the full number of those to be of Him in the Nations. This, not sin, has a formula He holds as to the fulfillment of all spoken by all Prophets, including Yeshua, in scripture.