Paul didn’t converse with Peter, he rebuked him.

Ummm Chris that is way out of ballance.. yes Paul confronted Peter… but Paul always respected the other Apostles…. after all they commissioned him to go to the Gentiles.

Paul was certainly under submission to the other Apostles though he was also their equal… He made a trip so that the other Apostles could check out the Gospel and he also make sure his Gospel was the same as theirs.

Galatians 1: 18Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter[a] and stayed with him fifteen days.

Paul did not just rebuke Peter… he lived with Peter for a time and I am sure that it was just a time of rebukin’.

be blessed,
iggy

There is much effort to force Ken or myself or whomever to constantly explain themselves, while I haven’t seen anything like that going on from your side.

What are you babbling about? We constantly answer every challenge in every comment. We don’t shut down comments completely, randomly delete entire posts without explanation, hide behind anonymous posts, or launch “drive by” comments. Just look at this thread. You see Timohty Bell come on here, l
aunch a challenge and Chris L. answer it extensively. So extensively that TB ran away without further comment.

Paul didn’t converse with Peter, he rebuked him.
Ah yes I forgot we aren’t Peter or Paul or any of the other bible heroes. They are in a special class by themselves. Had more of the Holy Spirit than we do. No wonder they have been canonized.

As I’ve noted before, you justify yourself by pointing to certain actions of particular prophets. Yet you ignore their actual commands concerning grace, and mercy especially towards those who call on the name of Christ.

Tim, who cares if you change your mind? Where do we see such “coversation” in the NT?

You mean like Jesus’ conversations with the Pharisees, Saducees, Jews, Samaritans, Herodians, and gentiles? Or how about the conversations we see with the epistles themselves which represent 1/2 of a conversation each. And yet, despite all these examples of conversation among and with the early church the only thing you can think of is a single incident where Paul rebukes Peter.

How to Preach Without Converting Anyone
by Charles Finney
http://judahslion.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-preach-so-no-one-will-be.html

Wow, a real generalization. I will see your “known and worked for” and raise you a “lived there and worked with”.

Monks and desert fathers. Haven’t met one.

Tim, who cares if you change your mind? Where do we see such “coversation” in the NT?
Paul didn’t converse with Peter, he rebuked him.
Ah yes I forgot we aren’t Peter or Paul or any of the other bible heroes. They are in a special class by themselves. Had more of the Holy Spirit than we do. No wonder they have been canonized.
There is much effort to force Ken or myself or whomever to constantly explain themselves, while I haven’t seen anything like that going on from your side.

I’m sorry but this is taking too much of my time. I’m dropping out and say what you want to say about me, it won’t bother me. Bye.

Its unfortunate that you give up when a simple iteration of your beliefs isn’t enough to make everyone who disagrees with you change their minds.

I understand discussion can be difficult, but if you want to do anything other than find the 5 people out there who completely agree with you and stand around going “duuuude we’re so right adn they’re so wrong” its something you have to learn to do.

Chris L, I’d say you make difficult and confusing what ought to be simple.

Actually, the simplest thing is to accept that apparent contradictions in scripture, like those involving free will and predestination, are only contradictory because, like Job learned, we aren’t big enough to know.

I took the time to give you an in-depth reply, because it seemed you were asking for one.

Just to note:

I was coming from the viewpoint that predestination and freewill did not apply to Jesus because Jesus was the Son of God and Jesus was without sin, therefore He did not need to “choose” God because He WAS God.

But if there was no choice to make for Jesus, then there was no temptation to be had in the wilderness, for he wouldn’t be tempted. If he did not have to “choose”, then there was no point in him becoming human in the first place, because your statement denies his humanity. However, if he was like Adam, as hinted by Paul, then he truly did have to choose.

At issue here isn’t my making things difficult. It is that when you take a concept from a limited subset of verses dealing with God setting events in place (predestining them), and then extract that concept of predestination to re-interpreting all other scripture which doesn’t mesh with it, you’ve taken your system and imposed it on scripture, not the other way around.

The second part of your comment, though, is interesting:

He did not die on the cross for His own sins which were non-existent.

Exactly – he had to be a perfect sacrifice – alike to all of those for which he was being substituted in his humanity, but different in that he never chose to sin. It is that difference – having the free will to depart from the path given by God but choosing not to do so – which made his sacrifice perfect in atoning for ours.

When you substitute his “God nature” for his human nature, you rob his sacrifice of its meaning. You render the path he walked meaningless – because you have rendered it impossible for him to have had the choice to sin in the first place.

I used to believe like you do, arguing for free-will like Chris L does (though not as complicated like he does) until I further studied for myself the issue.

It is not something that ‘further study’ illuminates or darkens. It is whether or not you are willing to accept apparent contradiction in scripture without forcing yourself to choose “free will” or “predestination”. You are incorrect in saying that I am “arguing for free will”. I am arguing that both “free will” and “predestination” are possible and plain in scripture, and that it wasn’t until centuries after Jesus’ death and resurrection that the foolishness of separating them came to the fore.

The verses used to support free-will don’t really support free will because people do not choose God until God gives them the faith to do so.

Baloney.

This is the exact circular logic I am referring to when I talk about systematic theology making people do stupid things with scripture – using the former to shape the latter.

I’m sorry but this is taking too much of my time. I’m dropping out and say what you want to say about me, it won’t bother me. Bye.