Christ The Calvinist

to the elect...yes.

Do you believe this power is given to all men as Pelagius?????

I don't I believe some are chosen to believe as scripture tells us.

 

LOL. This is like the argument since you believe Jesus died on the cross, and catholics do as well...you must be catholic.

 

not at all..

Do you believe as Pelagius that all men have that power in them to believe?

 

First, Scripture doesn't "tell us" some are chosen to believe...that is the result of your systematic theology.

Second, if you believe Romans 1, you must believe that all men are empowered by God to believe in what is true. The empowerment to come to Christ occurs through the work of the Spirit.

 

Do you believe Romans 1? Do you believe that satan snatches up the seed in the parable of the sower to keep man from believing?

I do not believe man has any power "in them" to believe on their own, no, so I do not agree with Pelagius on that.

 

is that a yes?

You believe as Pelagius on this one? Mind you that no other group believes this...

Not Calvinist,

Not Arminian,

Not Methodist

Not RCC....

No one that I know.....

Just asking what you believe

 

See the above answer. I dont' know how you got "so is that a yes" from my reply. You know what I believe by now. "Just asking what you believe" is not exactly being forthright.

 

Romans one is addressing Common grace. ...that is...if you are talking about what I think you are talking about.."creation". If not...please state what you mean.

 

I guess I was mislead by your post that said...

Are you saying this power goes to all men? what ability are you talking about? Are you saying that all men have the ability to believe?

 

Pelagius didn't believe in total inability/total depravity.

However, for those who do believe in total inability, the belief does not preclude the ability for all those who are presented with the gospel to have the ability to believe, in that the enabling of the Holy Spirit is given as the explaination for that ability.

 

Acts 13:48, KJV And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Acts 13:48, NKJV Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

Acts 13:48, ESV Now when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

Acts 13:48, NASB And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

 

I usually don't comment on prooftexts that have no other comments. However, the connection you are apparently seeking is not made in the verse. Although there is a positive correlation between believing and being appointed to eternal life according to Calvinist or non-Calvinist interpretation of the verses, the verses don't say they were chosen to believe.

Given the context, several other options are available.

1. Having accepted the good news for the Jews, the Gentiles believed it when it was offered to them. They were, therefore, already appointed to eternal life based upon their acceptance of Paul's teaching to the Jews. Note that Paul does not tell them the gospel again. The only thing that happens is he says, "I now turn (offer it) to the Gentiles." This makes more sense of the fact that it mentions that they "rejoiced" and "honored the word of the Lord" (the equivalent of accepting the Good News in Luke-Acts) before it mentions that they had been appointed to eternal life. The Calvinist scenario would be better supported of the alternative order of wording had been provided: And as many as had been appointed to eternal life ---> rejoiced and honored the word of the Lord-----> and then believed. But here is the actual order of what was said: "And the Gentiles rejoiced and honored the word of the Lord" ----> and as many as had been appointed to eternal life ----> believed. The connection you seek in the word order is not supported by the way Luke commented on the event.

2. Paul had just quoted the Old Testament, making an allusion to that very day, when God would bless the nations because of the disobedience of the Jews. Therefore, Luke sees God as intending to bless these very people when they believed, as opposed to simply blessing Jews. In other words, God knew about who would and wouldn't believe and spoke of the day when he would give eternal life to these very people, thereby fulfilling God's promise to do something that they "would never believe, even if someone had told you" (v. 41). The Jews' inheritance (i.e., eternal life - associated by the Jews with the coming kingdom) is given to these very Gentiles when they believe, just as God had planned, and to the disbelief of the Jews in attendance.

3. Middle voice interpretation of tasso being "as many has had ranged themselves in order for eternal life believed." Or a passive voice, with the same intent, reflecting upon the culmination of what had just happened and the resulting affect it had on some of the listeners.

The first two options make the most sense to me. But there are a few others I would provide if I had the time.

 

BaptistBob

You are simply engaging in semantic gymnastics in your post above.

 

No, you are.

Here's what it says:

"as many as were appointed to eternal life"

Here's what you were implying it said:

"as many as were appointed to believe"

Here's what I believe:

"as many as were appointed to eternal life"


My exegesis involved a discussion of both the language, word order and context. Your exegesis was nonexistent.

 

You ignore the remark to which I was responding:

My response was:

Now you are entitled to interpret this passage as you chose but it clearly states that: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Those who were chosen to eternal life believed. The elect, those chosen to eternal life, were chosen to believe. It is that simple! No semantic gymnastics required or warranted.

 

Ac 7:51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

2Ch 30:8 Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you.

Ro 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey;

whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?




as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

as many as believed, were ordained to eternal life.

 

If they were chosen to eternal life they were chosen to believe. To state otherwise is to ignore Scripture.

Your above eisegesis is faulty. You state:

You are mistaken. Paul had preached the Gospel to the Jews on the preceding sabbath. On the sabbath in question {Acts 14:44, And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.} Paul was again presenting the gospel to both Jew and Gentile [verse 45]. The Jews rejected Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Some Gentiles did not. You are assuming that all Gentiles who heard the gospel and glorified God were the elect. That is a false assumption since the Scripture only states: as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. That does not of necessity include all who heard the Gospel. You might be advised to go back and read the parable of the sower; Matthew 7:21-23 would be beneficial also.

 

You're merely posturing now. Before you were merely making assertions, but now you're posturing.

You're making my point! (Although you are wrong about the composition of the second audience, since the whole city was there at the second meeting, but not the first. Of course God-fearing Gentiles were present the first time, but not the whole city's Gentiles.) Your paragraph above is a response to my comment that Paul did not preach the gospel to them again! I even put "again" in italics so that you could not miss it.

These Gentiles already had an opinion of what Paul was saying because they had just heard him preach it to the Jews (the "brothers") immediately before. Paul makes no comment directly to them whatsoever. He merely says, "I now turn to the Gentiles."

Yep. But I'm not assuming that all the Gentiles honored the word of the Lord, but that the Gentiles were generally characterized as such. All that actually did so were putting their trust in "the word of the Lord" when it was offered to them. The Jews rejected (a general characterization), and the Gentiles accepted (a general characterization).