The Narrow Path Ministries

To reply to Nicole's initial post, I think the Calvinist would say the point is that we need to try to get the whole of God's character right as it is revealed in Scripture, which is difficult when our human nature is constantly resisting certain aspects of his nature. Even beneath our awareness I t...

I've been increasingly interested in the possibility that there is a Baptism in the Spirit which can be secondary to conversion as the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches assert. But I am totally lost as to how to pursue this experience. I'm coming from a Baptist background and have only been a bel...

Incidentally, folks, Steve dealt with this very topic late on his show today (Tue 2/15/05).

I see running through all these critiques of Calvinism the same fear that as soon as you say God chooses who will choose him that all the verses that say "whosoever will may come" etc. are breached and you have a "logical inconsistency," etc. And I can certainly appreciate that sentiment. But I wond...

"That God has determined in advance by a positive choice who will be saved, while at the same time maintaining all mankind has a free choice, is an opinion, not a proven fact, and an obvious logical inconsistency." "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and hardens whom he wants t...

Incidentally, on that last topic of how we tend to have a bias of reading ourselves into scripture where it ain't about us, there is a neat book out called "Cat & Dog Theology" that I enjoyed. A coauthor visited our church and gave a presentation. The basic idea is the dog believer says: "You feed m...

Thanks, guys, for the feedback. This is helpful. It certainly paints an elegant picture of how simply God the father wraps all things up in Jesus. And it seems right that we should be esteemed kind of as an after-thought--after we bow to Jesus, and while we are continuing to bow. It seems like so ma...

I hadn't thought of looking at it that way. It seems to square with Paul's teaching that the promises were made to Abraham and his seed, singular, who was Christ. But I think there are "election" passages which have individual saints as the subject, people who are "chosen" in him before the foundati...

I wonder if one of the things that gets inadvertently trampled on as we consider this election/freewill debate is the perspective we are considering the issue from, whether it is as from the divine, omniscient perspective of God or man's limited perspective. It seems to me the Bible speaks from eith...