The impotent will and sovereign will

It is saying that.

You must mean that it doesn't mean that. Because it does say it.

Have you noticed that verse 7 talks about ungodly men? It seems to me therefore that the context is not 'saints' only.

Helen/AITB

 

No, I think people understand that this was written to the saints. The attempt is to show that "all" means "all."

Doesn't follow from your premise.

You are concluding your assumption. This is circular reasoning.

This is another logical fallacy. No one here is denying the power of God, and no one here is belittling the sacrfice of the Son. So why do you say others are?

 

Jesus could stop Saddam from living but He has not done this so far today. This does not mean that He does not have the power and authority to do this act.

God desires that all people will be saved, [I Tim. 2:4] {the Greek word is 'wishes'} but this does not place Him in the position that He must use, if you will, His sovereignty to save every human being from Hell.

The Spirit attends the Word of God in the Gospel and after a person hears it, he or she is responsible toward Almighty God. No excuses will work at the Great White Throne Judgment, [Rev. 20:11] and no one will be able to blame Jesus for picking and choosing their final home of either Heaven or Hell. Why? Have a Sunday School pupil read to you again, John 3:16.

 

I Love this...can I use it sometime?

The southern usage is 'yall' or in my geographic region it would be read as follows: ministered '...drectly y'uns.'

Amen.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas </font>[/QUOTE]You know, if you are from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, it is proper to greet each other with a hearty Shalom--Y'all!!!!!

Blessings!

Archangel

 

The qualifier for the definition of "all" is usward This limits the purpose of the scripture to the elect.

Bro. Dallas

 

But Paul immediately uses the word "we," and it makes it clear. Examine ALL the uses of the word "all" in Romans and it is evident which ones refer to "all" and which ones mean "you all," because Paul expressly says so.

In the passage that is being debated, there is no limiting word found near "all."

There is no immediate connection found. If we use the principles of the rest of the NT, we see that for what you say to be true, Peter shoudl have had "all of us." He doesn't have it.

And funny... no translation that I have found translates it that way. I wonder why?

 

What is your use of Sunday School? Do you know the historical beginnings and use of Sunday School?

The church is not a christianizing assembly line, unless you are catholic.

Bro. Dallas

 

And, hey, let us ask Calvin what he thought about this verse, since you guys do take his name, eh?

This is His wondrous love towards the human race, that He desires all men to be saved, and is prepared to bring even the perishing to safety. . . . It could be asked here, if God does not want any to perish, why do so many in fact perish? My reply is that no mention is made here of the secret decree of God by which the wicked are doomed to their own ruin, but only of His loving-kindness as it is made known to us in the Gospel. There God stretches out His hand to all alike, but He only grasps those (in such a way as to lead to Himself) whom He has chosen before the foundation of the world.

John Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St Peter, trans William B Johnston (Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans, 1989 reprint), 364.


So there you have it - although Calvin drew different conclusions than Arminius did, both of them agreed that in this verse, "all" literally meant "all."

 

...then why didn't any translations translate it that way?

Was every translator of the NT less skilled in understanding Greek than you are?

Or were they all so biased that they translated the text to fit their own theology rather than to be as accurate as possible?

Which is it?

It's easy to find where 'any' means 'any' in spite of what you wrote:

Matt 11:27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and [he] to whomsoever the Son will reveal [him]

According to you, though, this verse actually says that only certain men don't know the Father without the Son revealing Him. I guess the rest do. But is that what you really believe? I doubt it!

Here's another one:

Matt 12:19 He shall &lt;2051&gt; &lt;0&gt; not &lt;3756&gt; strive &lt;2051&gt; (5692), nor &lt;3761&gt; cry &lt;2905&gt; (5692); neither &lt;3761&gt; shall any man &lt;5100&gt; hear &lt;191&gt; (5692) his &lt;846&gt; voice &lt;5456&gt; in &lt;1722&gt; the streets &lt;4113&gt;.

According to you this means certain people will not hear him in the streets. So, the rest will???

Doesn't it seem odd to you that the translators who were happy to translate the Greek word as 'certain' in many places, didn't translate it as 'certain' in the verse we are discussing? Do you now see that it doesn't always mean 'certain' in the NT, that it sometimes quite definitely means 'any'?

I already showed that 'any' doesn't always mean 'certain'.

Anyway, in spite of what you wrote, the key word here is "all". You could equally well argue that 'any' means 'any' because 'all' means 'all' as do what you did and condition the meaning of 'all' on your unproven limitation on the meaning of 'any'.

So let's look at 'all' in the NT.

The first occurrence of 'all' in the NT means 'all':

Matt 1:17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.

Or are you going to tell me Matthew really meant, "if you count certain of the generations from Abraham to Davd, David to the exit and the exile to the Christ, you get fourteen"? Why would he even say that?

Here's another one:

Matt 3:10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

According to you this means only certain trees will be cut down that do not produce good fruit.

Here's another:

Matt 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."

But according to you, the devil actually meant "I will give you certain of these things if you bow down and worship me".

It seems clear to me that 'all' often does mean 'all' in the NT.

Of course it does, because what you did was make Scripture fit your theology by saying it doesn't mean what it says. It's supposed to be the other way around though - you're supposed to make your theology fit the Bible. Not vice-versa!

I'm glad I'm not a five-point Calvinist - it would be hard to remember all the words and phrases whose meaning I have to change as I go through the Bible, to avoid having my theology challenged

Helen/AITB

[ March 26, 2003, 06:52 AM: Message edited by: AITB ]

 

You'll have to ask them. I don't know why they didn't translate it more clearly. </font>[/QUOTE]I'd say the burden of proof is on you for departing from every - and I do mean every! - English translation.

Please don't misrepresent what I said. I did not say you should do a word study on the English, nor did I say you should do a word study on the root word. </font>[/QUOTE]I know and I didn't say you did. I was checking whether what you said was true. I thought that would be a good way to proceed.

You said this:

You've now gotten much more specific and started talking about a particular form of the Greek word in 2 Peter 3:9

I didn't misrepresent you; you changed what you said.

Even in the above verse, the meaning is clearly referring to certain men - those of the way. But it would be awkward to translate it as "certain" in English, and the fact that it is a subset of men is clear from the context. </font>[/QUOTE]Exactly. It wouldn't fit to put 'certain' instead of any because the text clearly means 'any' of the men referred to and not just certain of them.

And in the context of 2 Peter 3:9 the context is all men. So Peter means any of all men.

The translators could easily have used the word 'certain' instead of 'any' if they thought it was the best translation of 2 Peter 3:9. Evidently they didn't.

The fact that it is an unusual way to translate the word rather argues against you in that it shows they deliberately didn't render it 'certain' even though that is a common meaning of it.

But that it is translated 'any', anywhere else in Scripture shows it to be a legitimate translation.

So this is where we end up: your contextual argument that in context 'any' means 'certain' in Acts 9:2 fails because the context is 'all men' in 2 Peter 3:9. And your argument that it generally means 'certain' fails because that only serves to demonstrate that the translators very deliberately didn't put 'certain' in 2 Peter 3:9, in spite of it being one meaning of that particular form of the Greek word. Therefore, neither of your arguments stand up under scrutiny.

Since these arguments fail, we are left with no reason to translate 'any' as 'certain' in 2 Peter 3:9 except that your theology forces you to put the word 'certain' in there.

Helen/AITB

 

</font>[/QUOTE]Ok, sorry; I guess I didn't read it carefully enough

Helen

 

You are reading it backwards. It says he is not willing that (who?) "any/certain/some" should perish, BUT that that (who?) all (all of who?)... </font>[/QUOTE]I don't see how you can know that unless there are things in the Greek I don't know about, which give 'any' precedence over 'all'. The structure as I see it in English is that Peter has two equivalent phrases; it's somewhat repetitive for emphasis. Peter says it negatively then positively.

You're right. Evidently they didn't. I think it's a poor translation, especially given the usage of the same exact Greek word everywhere else. You have a right to your opinion that the translators trump anything I have to say. I have no problem with that. You asked me what my interpretation was, I told you and I backed it up with references to other appearances of the same word. Take it or leave it. </font>[/QUOTE]Thank you for your answers.

I certainly know more about the way that Calvinists interpret that verse than I used to

I came to the conclusion a while ago that I'd rather say "I don't understand how these two texts go together" than "this one must mean such and such because of what the other one says". It is more important to me to say 'this is what the text says' than to have a system where I've worked out how every verse supports a particular theology. That's where I'm coming from and I don't expect that will change any time soon, although I try to be open to new information

Helen/AITB