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I was looking at the story of Noah, and from it came, at least to me, the teaching of the meaning of a remnant...
For God was about to chuck the whole enterprise, but Noah found favor with God...
The story of Lot was much the same story...
When the Giver of existence is turned from, the...
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
Good Grief - Did someone actually say that God loves evil unconditionally?
Romans 9:30-33
What then shall we say?
That the nations that did not pursue righteousness
attained righteousness,
the righteousness which is of faith.
But Israel pursuing the law of righteousness
did not attain the law...
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
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
eg Both learning and then doing...
So does the student learn from reading or lectures?
And does the disciple take action from instruction?
Are you saying that the student's major is his discipleship?
So if you are in a Seminary you are a student, yes?
But if you major in 1600s Puritan...
Could it be, do you suppose, that the student studies and the disciple enters into the discipline?
The student knows ABOUT the subject matter in his mind...
And the disciple knows directly by the experience of doing?
Is the one an observer and the other a doer of the Word?
It has always been a...
What then would be the difference between a disciple and a student?
A student learns what is taught and then either believes it or not...
What does a disciple do that is different?
Arsenios
Titus 3:5 He hath saved us by the bathing of new birth...
You are right - Baptism needed Christ's Baptism...
Because He was Baptized in Water, we are also Baptized in water into Him...
Had He not been Baptized in Water, then Baptism would be as you say, a mere human proclamation to a few...
We follow Christ, and Christ's Baptism in the Waters of Regeneration...
As Christ commanded his Apostles to Baptize ALL the Nations...
Which Baptism do you follow?
Arsenios
The Remembrance is by the re-LIVING of the event...
By reliving the event, we participate in it...
Which is why Christ commands: "Be ye doing this..."
And in this doing He was recognized when He had not been so prior to doing it...
With the Disciples on the Road to Emmaeus...
Arsenios
I am sorry you live in a world of slices and gulps in your thinking of God's Holy Words...
And I am sorry that in your carnal understanding, you trivialize their meaning...
Jesus is not subject to necessity - He did not NEED to die - He CHOSE to die...
You are Called to repentance from your...
That would be the carnal understanding...
Not to mention drinking His Blood!
Here is the Biblical result:
Joh 6:66
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
A well numbered verse, I should perhaps add, yes?
Arsenios
His disciples ate it the night Judas betrayed Him...
And IF you do not eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, "you have no Life in you..."
Christ's very words...
Arsenios
Christ did not say it was a parable...
The Greek emphasizes the IS in "This My Body IS..."
You do not have to believe Him...
This is a free country...
But I believe Him...
Arsenios
Forgive me! Yes - The answer is yes...
IF you return to your sins from living in repentance from them, you can lose your Salvation...
Paul wrote of this as but "fit for burning", yes?
Heb 6:8-9
But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to...
I have to confess that I got VERY spoiled in my reading - I never was a Protestant, so the books Protestants read never formed any kind of a basis in my library, and reading Orthodox Books is such a deep undertaking that when every once in a great while I do pick up a non-Orthodox Christian...