Disciples and Believers

[MennoSota]

But the question is this: Is a disciple necessarily a student?
Is a student necessarily a disciple?
And: Why? Or: Why not?

Can one become an adopted child of God without being His student or disciple?

Judas failed...

Peter denied Him thrice...

John took His Mother to his home...


Arsenios

I don't understand your attempt to drill down. I have made my point about disciples.
I get the feeling you REALLY want to work your way into God's favor so you can pat yourself on the back.

 

[Arsenios]

I don't understand your attempt to drill down. I have made my point about disciples.
I get the feeling you REALLY want to work your way into God's favor so you can pat yourself on the back.

OK -

So as a Bible-believing Christian:
Do you regard yourself as a student of Christ?
Or as a disciple of Christ?
And if both, as I would hope, what is the difference?


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

OK -

So as a Bible-believing Christian:
Do you regard yourself as a student of Christ?
Or as a disciple of Christ?
And if both, as I would hope, what is the difference?


Arsenios

I regard myself as an adopted child of God. Chosen for adoption by God's amazing grace, apart from any merit of my own doing.

 

[Arsenios]

I regard myself as an adopted child of God. Chosen for adoption by God's amazing grace, apart from any merit of my own doing.

So that being a disciple of Christ is not a part of your faith in God?

You do not regard yourself as a disciple of Christ, but as an adopted child of God instead?

Is discipleship that foreign to your understanding of being a Christian?


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

So that being a disciple of Christ is not a part of your faith in God?

You do not regard yourself as a disciple of Christ, but as an adopted child of God instead?

Is discipleship that foreign to your understanding of being a Christian?


Arsenios

Being a daughter or son of the King is my position. Because God has seated me in the heavenlies with Christ Jesus, I am motivated to obey Him and His teachings, just as I obeyed my earthly father.
Arsenios, do you not know God as your Father who lavishes His grace upon you as His child?

 

[Arsenios]

Being a daughter or son of the King is my position.
Because God has seated me in the heavenlies with Christ Jesus,
I am motivated to obey Him and His teachings,
just as I obeyed my earthly father.

For myself, I will but rejoice in mine infirmities...

Arsenios, do you not know God as your Father who lavishes His grace upon you as His child?

I prefer to side with Paul, the Chief of Sinners...


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

For myself, I will but rejoice in mine infirmities...



I prefer to side with Paul, the Chief of Sinners...


Arsenios

You mean this Paul?
Romans 8:31-39
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

[Lamb]

Can one become an adopted child of God without being His student or disciple?

Baptized babies who die are adopted children of God by grace through faith. Whatever God has taught them is by His Word. How much has that baby studied or discipled?

 

[Arsenios]

Baptized babies who die are adopted children of God by grace through faith.

Through Baptism by the Church...

fwiw, all baptized babies die - At least eventually, mind you...

Whatever God has taught them is by His Word.

Children do live in a special kind of Grace, don't they!?

How much has that baby studied or discipled?

The parents disciple the child in love in the Faith of Christ, one would hope...

Everyone's mileage will vary, as you know...

Baptized babies over 40 days old are full partakers of Holy Communion in our Church... When they raise a ruckus in Services, they are taken outside the Service until they calm down, and then are returned... So from their earliest experiences, they are seeing and learning and tasting and participating in the Orthodox manner of worship in the Church... And their Orthodox parents are taking responsibility for their education and discipleship in matters of the Faith and how to live it in Truth...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

You mean this Paul?
Romans 8:31-39
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And this one too:

1Ti 1:15
This is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners;
of whom I am chief.

I have yet to find the Bible verse that tells us to walk around holier-than-thou and too-bad-about-you...


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

And this one too:

1Ti 1:15
This is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners;
of whom I am chief.

I have yet to find the Bible verse that tells us to walk around holier-than-thou and too-bad-about-you...


Arsenios

Last I knew, all have sinned and fall short.
According to Paul it is like this:
Romans 3:21-28
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Your attempt to create a need for works, so you might prove your salvation, falls on emptiness, void of biblical support.

 

[Lamb]

Through Baptism by the Church...

fwiw, all baptized babies die - At least eventually, mind you...



Children do live in a special kind of Grace, don't they!?



The parents disciple the child in love in the Faith of Christ, one would hope...

Everyone's mileage will vary, as you know...

Baptized babies over 40 days old are full partakers of Holy Communion in our Church... When they raise a ruckus in Services, they are taken outside the Service until they calm down, and then are returned... So from their earliest experiences, they are seeing and learning and tasting and participating in the Orthodox manner of worship in the Church... And their Orthodox parents are taking responsibility for their education and discipleship in matters of the Faith and how to live it in Truth...


Arsenios

But yet there are babies who are baptized in an emergency and then die. How much do you think they were students? That is the pure heart of God's grace to save us even though we do nothing to deserve it or earn it.

 

[MennoSota]

Baptized babies who die are adopted children of God by grace through faith. Whatever God has taught them is by His Word. How much has that baby studied or discipled?

Lamm, this is your church dogma. There is no biblical teaching on this issue, only your church traditions.

 

[Wilhemena]

Lamm, this is your church dogma. There is no biblical teaching on this issue, only your church traditions.

This is what the church has taught concerning baptism. Let's not turn this into a baptismal thread, please, I implore you. The point was directed toward what Arsenios said and no one expects you to agree with it, just don't turn it into a tangent as you've done in all the other threads which is why people like me don't reply to you anymore.

 

[MennoSota]

This is what the church has taught concerning baptism. Let's not turn this into a baptismal thread, please, I implore you. The point was directed toward what Arsenios said and no one expects you to agree with it, just don't turn it into a tangent as you've done in all the other threads which is why people like me don't reply to you anymore.

That was my point. It's a church tradition, taught by a handful of churches. It's not authoritative and therefore should not be expressed as a fact.

 

[Arsenios]

But yet there are babies who are baptized in an emergency and then die. How much do you think they were students? That is the pure heart of God's grace to save us even though we do nothing to deserve it or earn it.

They are not students, these babies who died - Certainly not Bible students...
Yet they are, imnsho, much closer to God than the likes of you, me and Menno...
Living fallen in a fallen world under the rulership of death and separated from God takes its toll...
And that toll is death...

Living that way turns us further and further from God as we age from infancy...
For some of us, even before birth, as the Psalmist writes: "In sins did my mother bear me!"

And you make my point - Discipleship is unto purity of heart...

Menno's point nullifies the possibility of it through acquisition of the virtues involved in repentance from our sins...

Yet discipling is the making of disciples BY the Apostles, and entails purification of the heart...

Isaiah's call of one in the desert crying: "Make straight the Way of the Lord" is the call to purification of the heart...

This is not a call to God to purify, but to the penitent...

And John the Baptist carried this Call of God to men, not to God...

At John's death, Christ-God took it up calling out to men, not God:

"Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!"

To argue that God has to "save" men so that they THEN CAN purify their heart is anti-Biblical...

ANYONE CAN, IF they are willing, BEGIN the process of purification of the heart...

EXCEPT the demoniacly possessed - And even they can desire to do so, and can ask...

Casting out demons is part and parcel of the Christian Faith...

Then, once started, we can begin the road unto the purity of heart in which we were conceived...

And the DOING of this repentance constitutes the ASKING of God for HIM to purify your heart...

And when you are Baptized INTO Christ, He does so...

Baptism is the regaining of the Garden...

God's perfect Love does not abide in an unpurified heart...

It does not co-habit with ongoing unreported sin...

This Faith is a struggle to the end...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Lamm, this is your church dogma. There is no biblical teaching on this issue, only your church traditions.

"Except ye become as these little children, you will be unable to enter the Kingdom of Heaven..."

The Kingdom of God is not for the studious Bible reader, but for the pure in heart...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

"Blessed are the pure in heart...
For they shall see God..."

Baptism into Christ is the Washing of Regeneration...
Washing away one's sins for the New Creation one becomes...


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

"Except ye become as these little children, you will be unable to enter the Kingdom of Heaven..."

The Kingdom of God is not for the studious Bible reader, but for the pure in heart...


Arsenios

Do you always cling to words Jesus spoke to the children of Israel before his atoning sacrifice?
Perhaps you might read about Jesus reconciliation with sinners after his atoning sacrifice.
Acts 13:16-48
So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said: “Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised. Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his course, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’ “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’ And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, “‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ Therefore he says also in another psalm, “‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about: “‘Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’” As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” And 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.

 

[Arsenios]

The difference between a student and a disciple is essential to understand...

A parallel difference exists between empathy and compassion...

Compassion encompasses empathy...

Discipleship encompasses study...

A similar difference exists between a football fan's knowledge of the game...

And the knowledge of the game of the player on the field...

The player has to have more than a fan's knowledge...

Hence we find Scripture commanding us:

Jas 1:22
But be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers only,
deceiving your own selves.

And in terms of the Love of God...
May I suggest to you...
That you will not understand...
That which you do not love...

Judgementalism precludes understanding...
Most prefer: "Love is blind..."


Arsenios