Featured Calvinism and Context ?

Paul was heading up the ole lets go round up and kill off those pesky Christians, correct?

 

Be honest, you also excluded Acts as "not for 2020".
That same logic makes the Gospels for 1st Century Jews (the people Jesus was talking to) and Revelation for the Future.

That leaves us splitting hairs over which parts of the letters are addressed to Jews and which are about Gentiles.
... That is not a game I want to play. (I'd rather go back to Nihilism).

 

God commands believers to preach reconciliation. To tell rebellious humanity to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Every child of God teaches this truth.
What is different is that you presuppose that preaching reconciliation means the cause is preaching and the effect is either willful reception or willful rejection.
I see the cause as God's quickening through whatever means God chooses and the effect of God's quickening is belief.

My position is taught in scripture. Your position is presupposed by your human reasoning.

Since all the Apostles taught my position, one must ask where your view came from and where it went off the rails. May I suggest the political church at Rome, many years after the Apostles.

 

The Gospel message is good news to those whom God intended to get saved by its preaching, but bad news to the lost sinners who keep on rejecting Jesus willingly!

 

You often take the time of actually presenting a counter-argument, unlike most Calvinists here who simply repeat a mantra with an exclamation point at the end. So your answers deserve full replies.

"Jesus said He chose his Apostles and they did not choose Him, right?"
Exactly, to be "apostles", not to be saved.

"Jesus sought out the Samaritan woman at the well, she did not go looking for Him, right?"
Although irrelevant, let's use that logic:
A rich young man came running to Christ and kneeled before him asking what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? The rich young man sought Christ, Christ did not go looking for him, right?

"Jesus crossed the lake to heal a demoniac in the Decapolis region and then immediately sailed back. Jesus sought the man, the man did not seek Jesus, right?"
Chist passed by the two blind men but they cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord. Christ did not seek them, they sought him, right?

In John 6, Jesus tells the grumblers to stop complaining because no one can come to Him unless the Father draws them. So the Father draws people to Jesus, right?
The next verse says And they shall be all taught of God. God draws [not drags] all men but only the ones who respond get actually drawn. The mere fact that God had sent them Christ to preach to them was the Father drawing them. The many are called but the few are chosen precisely because few yield to the drawing. Men can refuse the drawing of the Father: Hos 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. Hos 11:5 He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return.
Today Christ draws all men (Jn.12:32) but as in Hosea, they refused to return to God.

"Paul has his heart changed by Jesus on the road to Damascus, right?"
A) It doesn't say that "his heart" was "changed by Jesus". You put that in.
B) Paul could have rejected the Lord
C) Paul's conversion is a prophetic figure of the conversion of a Jewish remnant during the tribulation who will be converted when Christ reveals himself to them as Joseph did unto his brethren the second time around, and they will weep when they look upon him, as Zechariah prophesied. That Paul's conversion was a figuratively premature event he himself testified when he described it as of one born out of due time (1Co.15:8).

"In John 10 Jesus tells the unbelieving Jews that they are "not of My sheep" and that the Father gives the sheep to Him. So the Father gives believers to Jesus, right?"
Literally the equivalent of you telling a Mormon (who claims to be a Christian but rejects Biblical revelations concerning Christ such as his deity, as the Pharisees were claiming to be true Jews) "you don't believe it because you're not actually a Christian to begin with". The sheep, when we take off our theologically coloured glasses, are whoever believes the scriptures.

Lydia has her heart opened by God to respond to the words of Paul, right?
Right. Because she was yielded and the story is the Gentile counterpart of the Jews who had hardened their hearts:
Mat 13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes THEY have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Note that the Jews themselves had first closed their eyes and heart, and note that Lydia worshipped God and heard us BEFORE God opened her heart and even then it was simply to attend all the more.

In the OT, God promised to remove the Heart of Stone and replace it with a heart of flesh; to fill us with his spirit and make us want to obey his commands, right?
A) That doesn't tell you that it's not in response to people first humbling themselves before the truth of God
B) That has only been partially fulfilled in us church-age Gentiles as an alternative [yet not unforeseen of God] to the actual fulfillment in millennial Jews. That covenant is primarily still future according to Hebrews 8. The next verse in Ezekiel 36 says:
Eze 36:28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; Only I live in Quebec, not Israel, and most Christians live outside of Israel.

In Acts 2, a crowd of Jews are drawn by the miracle of the Holy Spirit working through 200 disciples in the upper room. Some mock that they are drunk and others are "pierced to the heart". Is it reasonable to conclude that the Father is the difference between the mockers and the pierced heart (like John 6 and John 10)?
Given all the above, no, it is not reasonable, in this case.

 

That is an uncharacteristically unjust generalization, and dodgy, on your part.
Also, odd, to say the least, from someone who claims that world doesn't refer to the world and all doesn't refer to all.

 

8But God commendeth his love toward [b[us[/b], in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Seems you struggle when God is particular about whom he commendeth his love toward.

Notice it doesn't say:
"But God commendeth his love toward the entire human race, in that while all humanity were still sinners, Christ died for all humanity."
That is what you desperately want God to say, so much so that you create your own self-made doctrine from that verse. However, the reader can clearly observe your error.

 

I would be addressing the elect in my church. The church is the embassy of God where we receive a message from our King. Person's who are not citizens of the Kingdom may come listen, but they are not "us." They are rebels who are listening to our King, not their king. Their king is Satan.

 

Paul doesn't need to. He's writing to the elect. They know who they are.
Barry, your argument here is weak. The reader can see the context and know you are attempting to add to the text.

 

...were...
It's the same as "we were dead in our trespasses and sins"..."but God made us alive with Christ."

The fallacy here is your excuses.

 

No where does the Bible say that Christ died for all sinners and all the ungodly. If God had said this then all humanity would be saved. You would be a universalist by your position. Are you a universalist?

 

Your post here is just foolish ranting of an ignorant person.