By Their Spirits

Text: 1 John 4: 1-6

Translation: NKJV



Here is where the rubber meets the road. Either you believe Jesus is God, or you don't. And Christians are only supposed to believe those who profess Jesus to be God. Now, we can be led astray by those who do say that they believe; however, we who profess that Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God, incarnate in the flesh, and that the Bible is the inerrant word of God know that we are saved. According to the 6th verse, it is the Spirit of Truth that shows us this, i.e. the Holy Spirit. Soli Deo Gloria!!!! This is why I harp on the whole "unity of belief" theme a lot. If we have unity in what we believe, we can't be led astray as easily, if we don't have this unity then we are pretty well screwed in our witness as Christians, our communal life (church), and our relationship with God (self-doubt about what we believe). This is why in these verses we are given a litmus test of sorts to test people against to see if what they say has any measure of truth to it. I'll leave off here due to shortness in my personal schedule but I will leave you with this:

The more concise, systematic and logical our worldviews are, and the more unity we have on all matters doctrinal, theological, and scriptural, the better witness we present to the world, and the more Godly we may become. Remember, if we can't give the world a reason to see that we are different and for concrete reasons, they will never see the reason to convert to Christianity, because who is ever put under conviction of sin by ideas and a God that seem no different and fallen than they are.

Calvinism vs. Arminianism

Alright, I'll come out and say it- I'm a calvinist, pure and simple. Some of you might have guessed that from the links I've provided in the resources section. Anyway, here are two articles on clavinism and arminianism that I think will explain the points better than I can.
-Scribe.
Calvinism:http://spurgeon.org/~phil/dabney/5points.htm
Arminianism:http://www.apuritansmind.com/Arminianism/Arminianism.htm

Let Truth Abide In You

Text: 1John 2:24-27

Translation: NKJV

Alright, so we read through this passage and we think to ourselves, hey, wait a minute, I don't need anyone to teach me how or what to believe, ergo, I don't have to go to church, because they tell me what to believe...etc. etc. There are many variations of this conclusion, but this seems to be the most prominent. Now first off we would be wrong, why? Well, Jesus TOLD people what to believe, he didn't just sit around and let them find stuff out for themselves by osmosis from his speaking in glib, shallow words. He told them what to do, how to pray, and what to believe. John and all the authors of the other books of the New Testament that come after the gospels are expounding upon what Jesus taught and said. Specifically, as John here has "written to you concerning those who try to deceive you." (v. 26) John and other New Testament authors are expounding upon the words of Jesus and adding according to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit "abides" in them and in us, guiding us. It is important to note here that even though these books are written by men, they are inspired by the Holy Spirit abiding in them. Any serious, and long study of scripture shows that instead of there being a mishmash of ideas and thought processes, there is in fact a congruent, logical, well thought out flow to scripture. This is because the Holy Spirit abided in John and others, and abides in us today, revealing the meaning of Scripture to us. R.C. Sproul once said, (and I paraphrase),"If , after studying the scripture, you find yourself interpreting it along the lines of universally recognized heretics, then your interpretation is most likely wrong and you need to seriously consider revising it."

The Bible is the infallible word of God, made even more glorious by the fact that the Holy Spirit abides in us, revealing to us through study its meaning. To God be the Glory.