Forgetful hearers which are non-committed Christians, are lazy or sluggish (Heb 6:12), and fainthearted (1Thes 5:14). They desire milk when they should be served solid food by the table waiters: "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. There are hears which are doers and there are Christian hears which "have become dull of hearing" Scripture tells us. (Heb 5:11) So please let the text reform your presuppositions.
Harry
Chad Richard Bresson <breusswane@...> wrote:
We've been over this before. I don't share your hyper-Calvinism.
Regeneration precedes faith. That doesn't preclude us from speaking about
"embracing the gospel." It's biblical. Paul told the Philippian jailor to
"believe on the Lord Jesus Christ". Peter told the Acts 2 crowd to "repent
and be baptized". I don't have a problem following their pattern or
speaking of salvation in terms of faith.
Further, I don't believe the text shares your viewpoint about commitment.
You're attempting to place your experience in the realm of the text. I'll
let the text define my own experience. One who is not "doing" doesn't have
faith to begin with. It's that simple. "Degrees of commitment" is not
something you find in the text. One either has commitment or he/she
doesn't.
--
Pastor Chad Richard Bresson
Clearcreek Chapel
Springboro, OH
http://breusswane.blogspot.com
On 3/25/06, H Dorrington wrote:
>
> Your words were "if one embraces the gospel" when in reality one doesn't
> have a choice to embrace the gospel, the gospel embraces the one. We are
> like Lazarus called unto him. Still do all Christians do good works all to
> the same extent? I have not seen that they do. Some are both hearers and
> doers while other hear and wrestlers. I am sure you have observe hundreds
> over the course of your time at Cedarville, hundreds of students who have
> different degrees of commitment. Some never step out of the boat, others are
> like Peter who do but when the times get rough they sink and want to climb
> back to safety, but yes there are some who continue on. (application)
>
> Who said "Give me a hundred men who love nothing but God and hate nothing
> but sin, and I will shake the whole world for Christ."? Even then it was
> rare to find 100 men who had both the understanding and the willingness of
> application to impact the world. Do we see it today or is the world that is
> shaking the church? We won't even begin to discuss the number of pastors
> who have been unfaithful to their wives while being pastors. They certainly
> are not doers in the Biblical sense but are we going to say that they are
> all unsaved?
>
> Harry
> Chad Richard Bresson
wrote:
> No one said that embracing the gospel is of our doing. If one embraces
> the
> gospel one will be a doer. One cannot embrace the gospel and not do.
> Embracing the gospel is *always* followed by doing. If there is no doing,
> there was never an embracing (hearing) to begin with.
>
> Pastor Chad Richard Bresson
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "H Dorrington"
> Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 10:11 PM
> Subject: Re: [soundofgrace] Acts 6 and deacons
>
>
> > Now that sounds arminian.
> > Our embracing the gospel is not of our doing.
> > It is not our work of our faith but our faith which is demonstrated by
> > our works. We understand and therefore we are able to respond in good
> > works. Our understanding is not the finale but the begining of the
> process
> > of application.
> >
> > Harry
> >
> > Chad Richard Bresson
> wrote:
> > Which means if one embraces the gospel one will be a doer (there's no
> > such
> > thing as embracing the gospel and *not doing*). the imperative is never
> > disconnected from the indicative.
> >
> > Pastor Chad Richard Bresson
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "H Dorrington"
> > To:
> > Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 9:43 PM
> > Subject: Re: [soundofgrace] Acts 6 and deacons
> >
> >
> >> "what James strenuously opposes is any hearing of the word that does
> not
> >> lead to doing."
> >>
> >> Amen! Yes hearing should progress to understanding which then should
> >> yield application.
> >>
> >> "Those who are forgetful hearers, according to Moo, are those who "have
> >> not truly embraced the gospel"." Wasn't it RC who said that most
> hearers are forgetful, that is why we sell copies of the sessions on CD.
> >>
> >> Harry
> >>
> >> Chad Richard Bresson
> > wrote:
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "H Dorrington"
> >>> the group James calls "my brethren
> >>
> >> "Brethren" in the NT was *always* a mixture of sheep and goats. The
> >> warning
> >> to those in the audience that claimed to be sheep, looked like sheep,
> >> talked
> >> like sheep, is to not be forgetful hearers... otherwise, their faith is
> >> dead. This is a warning against having a dead faith and and warning
> >> against
> >> having a worthless religion. Their religion (those who look into a
> >> *natural* mirror and forget what they look like vs. 23, 24) is
> worthless
> >> (vs. 26) because their doing does not back up their hearing. (Blessed,
> >> btw,
> >> is a soteriological/eschatological reality that describes those who are
> >> saved... it is not *blessed* vs. un-blessed Christians... there is no
> >> such
> >> thing as an unblessed Christian).
> >>
> >> And no, your view isn't novel. It's the one I grew up with. But it is
> >> Arminian/victorious-Christian-living/Keswickian/non-Lordship.
> >>
> >> Here's what Moo says about James 1:22ff (James, TNTC, pp. 81,82).
> Notice
> >> the words *potentially fatal*:
> >>
> >> "...it would be a fatal misunderstanding to think that James is against
> >> listening to the Word. But what James strenuously opposes is any
> hearing
> >> of
> >> the word that does not lead to doing. With this emphasis James aligns
> >> himself with a widespread Jewish belief of his day. 'Not the expounding
> >> [of
> >> the law] is the chief thing, but the doing [of it]' said a
> second-century
> >> rabbi (Simeon b. Gamaliel in Mishnah, Abot. 1:17). Paul reflects this
> >> Jewish
> >> emphasis when he writes: 'it is not the hearers of the law who are
> >> righteous
> >> before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified' (Rom.
> 2:13).
> >> And
> >> James' concern is once again firmly in line with Jesus' teaching:
> >> 'Blessed
> >> are those who hear the word of God and keep it!' (Lk. 11:28). Jesus'
> >> preaching is filled with the overwhelming, amazing wonder of God's
> >> sovereign
> >> grace reaching down to sinful men in the gospel. But equally prominent
> is
> >> Jesus' summons to radical obedience - an obedience that is the
> necessary
> >> human response to God's grace. Both factors, the gracious initiative of
> >> God
> >> and the grateful response of man, are part and parcel of the gospel.
> The
> >> Word, through which we are born into new life (v. 18) and which becomes
> >> implanted in us (v. 21), is a Word that is to be put into practice.
> Those
> >> who fail to do the word, who are hearers only, are guilty of a
> dangerous
> >> and
> >> potentially fatal self-delusion. If the gospel, by nature, contains
> both
> >> saving power and summons to obedience, those who relate to only one
> have
> >> not
> >> truly embraced the gospel. That is why James can say that people who
> only
> >> hear the word are deceiving themselves. They think that they have a
> >> relationship with God because they regularly attend church, go to Bible
> >> studies or read the Bible. But if their listening is not accompanied by
> >> obedience, their true situation before God is far different.
> 'Obedience',
> >> says Calvin, 'is the mother of true knowledge of God.'" -- Douglas Moo,
> >> James (TNTC), pp. 81,82
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Those who are forgetful hearers, according to Moo, are those who "have
> >> not
> >> truly embraced the gospel".
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Pastor Chad Richard Bresson
> >> Clearcreek Chapel
> >> Springboro, OH
> >> http://breusswane.blogspot.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> To:
> >> Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 7:42 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [soundofgrace] Acts 6 and deacons
> >>
> >>
> >>> No, the burden falls on you since you made the claim. I have already
> >>> demonstrated that the section that was included in the first chapter
> was
> >>> addressed to the group James calls "my brethren." James continues to
> >>> write
> >>> regarding the testing of their faith. Your assertion is that he is
> >>> writing
> >>> regarding the unsaved which of course have no faith. Later he
> instructs
> >>> them to ask of God if they lack wisdom, obviously not written to the
> >>> unsaved. Even later he writes to them about receiving the crown of
> life
> >>> which again is obviously written to the saved. Verse 16 again to "my
> >>> beloved brethren" which is not a term used to describe the unsaved
> even
> >>> in
> >>> Covenant Theology. Even verse 1 of chapter 2 continues to be written
> to
> >>> "My brethren."
> >>>
> >>> Since you will undoubtedly call my view novel and request commentary
> to
> >>> support that my view is correct while demonstrating the error of your
> >>> ways
> >>> I offer the following:
> >>> "(v. 25): Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and
> continueth
> >>> therein, etc. Observe here, [1.] The gospel is a law of liberty, or,
> as
> >>> Mr. Baxter expresses it, of liberation, giving us deliverance from the
> >>> Jewish law, and from sin and guilt, and wrath and death. The
> ceremonial
> >>> law was a yoke of bondage; the gospel of Christ is a law of liberty.
> >>> [2.]
> >>> It is a perfect law; nothing can be added to it. [3.] In hearing the
> >>> word,
> >>> we look into this perfect law; we consult it for counsel and
> direction;
> >>> we
> >>> look into it, that we may thence take our measures. [4.] Then only do
> we
> >>> look into the law of liberty as we should when we continue
> >>> therein -"when
> >>> we dwell in the study of it, till it turn to a spiritual life,
> engrafted
> >>> and digested in us'' (Baxter) -when we are not forgetful of it, but
> >>> practice it as our work and business, set it always before our eyes,
> and
> >>> make it the constant rule of our conversation and behaviour, and model
> >>> the temper of our minds by it." Matthew Henry
> >>>
> >>> You have failed to support your claim that the forgetful hearer is
> only
> >>> referring to the unsaved. Obviously it can't be done from the text.
> >>> Interpretation of the text leads to understanding, understanding leads
> >>> to application, being both hearers and then doers.
> >>>
> >>> Harry
> >>>
> >>> Chad Richard Bresson wrote:
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>> From: "H Dorrington"
> >>>>I do agree that there is a discussion involving the unsaved that
> follows
> >>>>in the later chapters but you have failed to demonstrate that is the
> case >>>>in the first chapter. Since you have made the claim the burden of
> proof
> >>>>fallson you.
> >>>
> >>> The burden of proof falls on you to prove the discussion switches
> >>> midstream, which would be unlike any of the NT authors.
> >>>
> >>> Pastor Chad
>
>
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