Recent content by David Lamb

I agree. God looks at the heart.

No, he sometimes writes things about unsaved people in the letter, but the letter is addressed to Christian believers.

But it is not a Calvinist slant to say that the epistle to the Romans is addressed to saved people. Paul says whom he is writing to: “To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through...

It doesn't "clearly say" that the Word had a beginning. It says that in the beginning, the Word existed. To say that it means that the Word had a beginning is no different to saying tat the words of Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," must somehow mean that...

As I read Ephesians 2, I find that God raising the sinner up, making the sinner alive, comes in verses 1, 5 & 6. Faith (belief) is not mentioned until verse 8. Souls dead in trespasses and sins cannot believe and repent. I certainly agree that salvation is a free gift from God.

Because, as Ephesians 2 makes clear, God makes them alive, raises them up. The reason Calvinists say such things is because they find them in the Scriptures. They didn't suddenly think to themselves, "Let's create a new doctrine, and say that God must grant sinners new life." Jesus said we...

Yes to all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, not everybody without exception.

Well, Ephesians 2 does say that the Ephesian Christians, before their conversion, had indeed been "dead in trespasses and sins." Obviously they had not been physically dead. They had been dead towards God. But that doesn't mean they were unable to sin. In verse 3, Paul writes: 3 among...

I would say that the verse doesn't just say, "God loved the world," but: ““For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (Joh 3:16 NKJV) The word "so" means "thus". So this verse is telling us how God...

That's a strange way of expressing what I believe. I believe that God grants to people the ability to believe. Sinners don't have that ability naturally. Your final sentence, "There is no amount of biblical evidence that will convince you unless you are willing to see it." could equally have...

Not according to Ephesians 2:1-10, which I won't quote again here, as I quote the passage so often. In it, Paul reminds the Ephesians Christians that before being saved, they were dead in trespasses and sins. God made them alive - they couldn't do so themselves.

So if as you say Paul meant Christians, people who had been born again, but who were thinking carnally, and they were unable to receive the things of God, how much more true is that of the sinner still dead in trespasses and sins? That was so when mankind was first created, but not since the Fall.

But saying that we are not saved by our works (which I agree with as being biblical) does not mean that we therefore have the innate ability to believe. Paul refers to unsaved sinners as "the natural man," and says: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for...

But merely knowing good and evil (even if we assume that we inherited whatever benefits Adam gained by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) doesn't mean sinners have the innate ability to repent and believe.

I agree. It wouldn't be grace if it were something that God owed.