Recent content by squirrelyguy

I don't know either; I just think it's worth thinking upon. My interest in the apocrypha isn't based on a belief that it belongs in the canon, but out of a curiosity over whether those works and other ancient works (Enoch, Jubilees) might have been written under the inspiration of the Holy...

I haven't looked at contemporary scholarship's take on this, but I am assuming that the reason Metzger and others say that the first two chapters are a Christian addition is because of the description of the Son of God crowning the saints towards the end of chapter 2. Critical scholars do this...

I have color-coded the relevant passages here for comparison. If He isn't literally quoting 2 Esdras, it certainly looks like He is alluding to it and assumes His audience would be familiar with it. 2 Esdras 1:30-33 "I gathered you together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings...

I don't think that follows. You and I are tripartite beings, but we wouldn't describe ourselves as a trinity in the same way that Christian theology conceives of a trinity. I am one person, and you are one person. Christ is one person. Like you and I, Christ is tripartite (body, soul, and...

I maintain that it is appropriate for us to think of the term "Spirit of Christ" not as another name for the Holy Spirit, but as the 2nd person of the trinity. Here are two passages of Scripture that mention the Spirit of Christ: "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the...

I actually just learned that this was a popular alternative view of Romans 7 within the past year, via a lecture by Gordon Fee. He takes the view you just described and took great pains to explain why it cannot be understood any other way. I don't know if I agree with him or not, but I was...

I'm interested in hearing testimonies from anyone who has experienced breakthrough specifically after fasting. What did you fast for, and what was the outcome? What did you fast, and for how long?

The purpose of this post is to challenge the definition of "sheep" that Calvinists put forth. 1. Jesus says of the sheep in John 10, "Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers" (v. 5), and "All who ever came before Me are...

I don't have an answer as to why God wouldn't intervene in that hypothetical. But FWIW, my eschatological beliefs blend with my soteriological beliefs in a way that allows me to consider the possibility that such a person might be given the postmortem opportunity to choose Christ and be...

You are assuming that the definition of a "sheep" is someone who, in an infinite array of possible circumstances, would believe in Christ in at least one of those circumstances.

I'm not Reformed. But like I said to another poster, we aren't told why God didn't arrange things differently; but perhaps it's because the men of those cities, like the Jews of Antioch in Acts 13:46, judged themselves unworthy of eternal life. It's my best guess.

If that creates a moral conflict for you, then I don't see how opposing Molinism would resolve it for you. Under a Calvinistic scheme, doesn't God pass over (i.e. reprobate) most of humanity? In other words, He does what you claim Molinism does...God loses people because He won't do whatever...

Which answers your original question. Yes, there are people who would have repented if only God had arranged their circumstances differently.

We aren't told. Perhaps they, like the Jews of Antioch, judged themselves unworthy of eternal life (Acts 13:46)? It's just a guess.

Yes. Jesus gives us explicit examples of this. "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." (Matt. 11:21) "And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven...