Statements about Specific Debates

Eternal Security Debate

The problem with the Eternal Security paradigm is that Christian Eternity was decided when the Book of Life was written. Eternal Security debates, from both sides, assume that a Chrsitian’s Eternity is determined in this lifetime rather than discovered in this lifetime.

Lordship v Grace Theologies

IMHO, nearly all concerns surrounding these topics would be satisfied if we preached a paradigm of a “wise-friend-and-King” view of Jesus. This would mean abandoning any tones of “mostly Lord-ruler” or “mostly friend” views of Jesus, which are unintended, yet consequential from both paradigms of teaching. Little teaching comes from either side concerning the wisdom of God’s commands. This debate surrounds “to should or not to should” in regard to God’s commands, rather than “to be wise or not to be wise” in obeying the good, perfect, and empowering commands from our loving ruler-Creator.

Church Government

It’s organic. If it has any tax exempt or non-tax exempt status, it may be wonderful, it may be terrible, but it’s not the Church.  · · · →

Dear Holy Rolling Evangelical Absolutists

I’m breaking up with you.

It’s hard to imagine the mind of people who are so convinced that everything they say and do is, literally, 100% from God. I tolerated it for several years, thinking you mistook superlatives (like ‘best’, ‘most’, and other words that often end in ‘-est’) for comparatives (like ‘better’, ‘more’, and other words that often end in ‘-er’). But now I can see that you actually believe this. You genuinely believe that your walk with Christ is best at “100% God, 0% you”. That may be true for you, but not for the rest of us.

Do you actually expect me to believe that your blogs are 100% God’s voice through you, not even reflecting your own style in the least? If that were true, then “God” (as you call it) is long-winded and makes many grammatical errors, but only when “God” talks through you. God does talk to us today, He has prophets, but you seem to think that Prophecy is comparable to a kind of “Holy demon possession”.  · · · →

Man: Soul, Spirit, Body

I authored this about nine years ago or so. It’s from my Doctrinal Statement. It contains some Greek, so you may need to install some fonts if letters don’t display correctly. As a language student, I opted to use a more distinguishable method of transliteration.

The “soul” (pseuchae/ψευχη) is redeemable (James 1:21) though sin lives in the “flesh”/physical body (sarx/σαρχ) (Romans 7:18-19). A spirit is not necessarily a being, it can be an emotion or atmosphere—“spirit of hate/joy [or something else positive or negative]” —(Jb 20:3, Pr 1:23, Is 4:4; 28:6, 57:15; 61:3, Hos 4:12, Rom 8:15a, 15b, 1 Cor 4:21, 2 Cor 4:13, Gal 6:1, Eph 1:17, 2 Tm 1:7, 1 Jn 4:6) “Spirit” (pneuma/πνευμα) also means “wind” in almost every sense, and is even taught in this way by Christ (John 3:8). The “soul” (pseuchae/ψευχη) is never referred to in any of these ways, but it is redeemable (as mentioned in James 1:21) and therefore eternal.

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