Orm, we have come to understand that your explanations sometimes are somewhat confusing and would only add far less than my own. Coming back to things after once again reconsidering I often find myself thinking; [i]"Well that's just [u]poor[/u][/i]". In other words, I knew what I meant to say, but somehow it got completely mangled in the translation and outworking.
That's a loaded assumption is it not?
Calvinism. Fine. Am not being argumentative, perhaps didactic, something is wanting to vocalize "Unfair!" here. Bluntly, where did you grab this quote from? Again, I do recall it but cannot place which thread it is from. It's context I think is necessary if you wish to use the word
[b]they[/b] as the assumption and basis on to Calvinism ... You are making this a bit too vague and not really allowing the person who made the statement any recourse of rebuttal and\\or clarification unless he or she happens upon this posting. There may be no clarification on their part whatsoever and your assumptions absolutely correct. Something rises up that this is a very improper way of going about things, excerpting and making accusation and inference even if that is not your stated purpose, it comes across that way. Just the link and reference, the context. I would very much like to hear the owner of that statements response as applies here because it may very well help towards the direction your are aiming with all this.
Ah yes. Moving on ahead of all that pleading ...
Agreed!
Nothing more warms the heart and stirs the spirit than this brother. The great reconsidering, challenge is a great thing sans hostility and if anything to cause us all to just sweat our brains, challenge our notions and ...
[i]make better distinctions[/i] ! Very much like the way you put that.
Romans, Chapter 8 through Chapter 11 this morning. And the dwelling once again on [i]predestination[/i] and election, foreknowledge, calling ... And then come all the tremendous other words; Faith, mercy ... [i]grace[/i].
So much I could say, so much still percolating. My loosely held suspicion of divine mystery hasn't been shaken off it's moorings but even more cemented in that mystery ... Always the wiggle room nonetheless.
Ravenhill's description of Paul's great intellect came up revisiting this again as if for the very first time. And the sense was one of breaking out into an inward smile as [i]"Oh this makes perfect sense ... and I will never be able to explain it!"[/i]
That we would always read things through in their context, the [i]whole[/i] thought, from beginning to end, and that also means having to travel backwards to pick up the dialouge or discourse to at least some point of reference and then regaining back on to the train of thought until it is 'finished'.
I am exuding here in that regular rambling fashion, my apologies that brevity still escapes me. Rather than step all over the path you are laying out here regarding grace and faith and how you may be wishing to extract all this ...
[i]Who are you ...?[/i]" Says Paul.
[i]What shall we say then?"[/i]
[i]"Why have you made me like this"?[/i]
[i]"Is God unrighteous?"[/i]
[i]"Do not say in your heart...[/i]"
The branches and the root, the casting off and grafting in. [i]Be not haughty, but fear.[/i]
There is just so much pure theology answered and explained within these few chapters ... everything from the classic OSAS, to all the argument of predestination and election ... Have mentioned this before but there is something of a switch off when it comes to being a bit too scientific in dissecting the scriptures as if we could extract the very DNA from it and create our own development, a perfect understanding and explanation. The beauty of Paul's 'intellect' is that it is spiritual of course but also that he does not strip mine out the mystery of God. [i]Hard to understand[/i] as Peter spoke and the twisting thereof by the unstable ... aren't we all in some fashion? Perhaps the difference only being in the measure of admittance and honesty.
Let me cut myself off here. The word that truly jumped out at me as the great consideration of what might be meant by all the foreknowledge of God and His great mercy and grace ... where this whole idea of 'fixed' determination is suspect the way it can be couched in terms of election ...
[i]Provocation[/i].
