Faith, Works, and Paul

God promises everyone who would believe the Gospel that he would grant them new life in Jesus.

God knew/knows who would believe and who would not.

Greg,
Nobody ever doubts that Calvinists and Arminians are both Christians… What I stated above is in line with classical Arminian theology.
If you want to understand the difference with respect to Calvinism, you can have a look at this site which plots the main differences with respect to sorteriology.

@Patrick, @Mercer, @Greg
Could you guys do a favour and keep these comments to the other thread that was opened so you wouldn’t clutter this one with stuff that is not relevant to the discussion here?
I really don’t want to keep on flagging all your messages.
@Dan_Eastwood : I know you have already cleaned up the thread once… but could you do it again? Pretty please…

Hi Greg,
Have you read the article I linked to. It will help in describing the differences and I won’t have to give long explanations.

God bless.

From Atheist Republic:

Joel Osteen is the senior pastor of Lakewood Church, a megachurch in Houston, Texas. It is the largest congregation in the United States, averaging more than 43,500 in attendance per week. Osteen is often thought of within the Christian world as almost more of a motivational speaker than a pastor in the traditional sense; so, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise when his wife and ministry partner Victoria said something in a sermon that brought the heresy hunters running with teeth bared.

“I just want to encourage everyone of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God – I mean, that’s one way to look at it – we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy. So I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy.”

In other words, God doesn’t want your obedience for its own sake, he wants you to obey him because it’s good for you, it helps make your life better and that is what pleases him. The gist of what she said, even from a Christian perspective – a progressively liberal one anyway – wasn’t all that shocking. The problem is that it’s difficult to convince people to be religious if you don’t also compel them to sacrifice their own self-interests.

Which is why after finding out what Victoria said, there were reactions like this from Steve Camp, Pastor at Cross Church in Palm City:

“It’s the age-old sin of idolatry – that it’s not about God, it’s about us. True worship for the humanist is about how we feel at the end of the day and what gives us meaning, as opposed to what gives God glory…”

This is representative of most of the negative reactions to Victoria’s statement. Another common response is along the lines of what Mini Carlsson posted in response to our story, “…hmmm, didn’t jesus say one is to hate their own life in order to be a disciple? may be she skipped that part”

Anthony Toohey replied, “Thank you for reminding us why Christianity is a cesspool of self-hatred and degradation.”

Winston Gainey also made an astute comment to the story which was very popular, “Love how the snake oil salesman are criticizing her for improperly selling snake oil :)”

It is definitely difficult to comprehend why Victoria’s comments could possibly be construed as bad, but, in Christian orthodoxy, those who say the types of things that Victoria said are seen as idolaters because they are putting the self before God. Religious people are fundamentally motivated to “do good” out of an often very sincere desire to please God. Some “good things” make good common humanist sense. Others are a bit more difficult to understand. So the believer turns to their Holy Book(s) and Clergy for guidance. But at the end of the day, the believer isn’t supposed to be living for him/herself but rather at the pleasure of God.

In the mind of the atheist, doing what works for me and also caring about others makes good common sense. But in the mind of the religious, this is blasphemy. The religious person must be thinking about what pleases God and what God is commanding. All behavior must start from there.

So, when a pastor’s wife tells the congregation to obey God for their own benefit – because it is good for them and makes them happy – well, you can see where that might lead. If I am doing good for my own benefit, why would I need God? If I can figure out what is in the best interests of myself and my fellow human beings without a holy book or clergy then the book become obsolete and the clergy are out of jobs.

As commenter Holly Staggs pointed out, “Christianity has such a large following because people want to believe in something more, but they want to be able to live how they want…and with the bible you have that flexibility. IMO, it pretty much says whatever you want it to say. Guess it doesn’t hurt that if you are a really good speaker/people person there can be large sums of money it too!”

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@Patrick It’s very strange that this is even news-worthy. The hatred of Christianity must be so incredibly strong or else it was a slow news week.

Victoria said that one could look at obedience not only as something that God wants, but also something that is personally beneficial. Shocking!!

Seriously… take this comment and frame it in ANY other context and tell me why you would even read it, let alone copy it and paste it fully into a discussion board at a science site.

The National Safety Administration continues to suggest that seat belt laws be enforced across the nation. Seat belt maverick, John Jones, stated that one should “not wear a seatbelt because the law requires it, but because one’s life can be extended in the event of an auto accident.” Shocking!!

Susie Smith commented, “See how squirrely these seat belt fanatics get? They talk about how important the law is, and then, the next thing you know, it’s all about the personal gain!”

This obsession with religion, by people who are not religious, makes no sense to me whatsoever.

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Shakespeare opined, “methinks he doth protest too much.” I’d rather have Patrick inexplicably opposed to God, than merely acquiescent to some namby pamby view of God. It holds the greater potential for redemption. These are actually life and death issues, after all. Not a fan of Osteen either, @Patrick !

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Who doth protest? Me?

I don’t have a great deal of appreciation for Joel Osteen’s soft theology. I also never suggested what Patrick believed or did not believe about the article. He shared, but he did not endorse. I mentioned the sharing of the article and the lack of newsworthiness of the firestorm over something fairly innocent about obedience. Surely it’s not what the really holy people would say about obedience, as they lived their disobedient lives. It’s just not worth all of the electrons shared over it.

I was referring to @Patrick 's protest. I was agreeing with your sentiment, while counterpointing what it might signal. All is good!
Now, maybe we can begin to worry about what the “really holy” people would have said in these circumstances? As if “holiness” meant having a dour disinterest in what might, even inadvertently, benefit them? : )

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@Guy_Coe (Not Gut… :slight_smile: ) I see. I misunderstood.

I appreciate your comments. I get uncomfortable with this subject because it is a razor’s edge. I am a sinner, saved by grace, who could, very easily, sit back and judge one who merely makes a point that being obedient to God can actually be good for you, by creating an entire theology around it. Or, I can take it for what was said and see what good can be gained from it. Two sides of the same coin.

As you say, would some rather criticize another’s view of obedience rather than to choose to be obedient themselves? There’s something to criticize.

Anyhow, I still think it was a sad day for news if this was it.

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@Djordje

I’ve become more a fan of Paul … but not for how we interpret him, but for how he broke off a chunk of Jewish metaphysics and prepared it for Greco-Roman paganism…