Bryan Davis

I updated my book list, if anyone is interested in checking them out - daviscrossing.com/bookindex.html

@babybeginner The perpetrator is at large ... and getting larger.

Some days you can’t love social media enough. This is one of those days. It began like this. Someone stole 12 tons of KitKats. And then the replies started coming in. Scroll down.

@CalvinistFather And never mind that "Jacob I loved ..." was not part of the prophecy given to Rebekah, which means that it was not stated before Jacob and Esau were born.

IMPORTANT message for fellow CALVINISTS!!! In Rom 9 don't let the fact that the individual Esau NEVER SERVED the individual Jacob... ...stop you from DEMANDING the prophecy applies to the INDIVIDUALS and not the NATIONS... ...even while the NATION EDOM DID SERVE ISRAEL (David)

From April 9 to 11, I will be at the Great Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati, OH, speaking and also selling books at my vendor booth. I hope some of you can come by and chat. Here is a link for more info - greathomeschoolconventions.com/locations/ohio

"Even babes in Christ are so far perfect as not to commit sin." - John Wesley (A Plain Account of Christian Perfection)

@rootcausesleuth It seems to me that "obey" in the context is the same as the obedience that Jesus learned in verse 8.

Jesus is the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him!

From "Man - The Dwelling Place of God" by A.W. Tozer, Chapter 39: "The Saint Must Walk Alone" The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone. The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way. The man [or woman] who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart. It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else.

@Rick74005811 @TodAshby Ridiculous. Of course it was sarcasm. And now you're resorting to ad hominem, charging me with denying God's sovereignty. I won't be responding to you again.

@BryanDavisAuth @TodAshby It was not sarcasm - if you are right, it is a total miscarriage of Justice for God almighty to allow thousands of wrong translations. I will believe God and His sovereign nature to give His word correctly through his servants. You deny His sovereignty.

“Those whom He predestined He also called…” Which comes first, the predestination or the calling?

@Rick74005811 @TodAshby Sarcasm doesn't help. "and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified." Romans 8:30 NASB1995 blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g3778/… The word is "these" not "those."

@BryanDavisAuth @TodAshby Too bad you were not around to correct the thousands of brilliant linguist and biblical theologians who have translated it "those" for centuries.

I finished a rough draft of the first book in a new series, an upper middle grade multiverse adventure. Now for a lot of editing.

The church has been so corrupted by Augustinian falsehoods that it doesn't remotely resemble the spotless bride of Christ. The idea of real holiness is laughed at, not even considered, though the Bible teaches it plainly.

@Toneskeee Simple. Christians don't sin.

How do you reconcile this? “Everyone who does sin also does lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or has come to know Him.” 1 John 3:4-6 LSB

Even if man choose to have faith, God has already acted first. The Holy Spirit convicts the world concerning sin (John 16:8). He calls everyone to repent and believe. So, God acts first and man responds. If man responds with faith, then God acts according to what He has already determined, to save anyone who believes. Nicodemus came seeking further truth, which was a response to the teaching of Jesus. Jesus explained the gospel to him, another act that required a response from Nicodemus.

@BryanDavisAuth @TodAshby Where I get stuck is that it would be contingent on an act of man. Yes God justifies but man would have to act first and God respond. The story of Nicodemus comes to mind. How can a man know God without God?

I think a choice to believe is not a "work" in the sense of "not of works" in the biblical framework for salvation. Paul separated works from faith, so faith is not a work. I think if God decided to grant salvation to those who choose to believe, then the causing act of saving is still God's choice, not man's.

@BryanDavisAuth @TodAshby Where I’m at with this (and I’m also learning and chewing on things) is that any outcome dependent on personal (and esp unknown) choice = a work/act on which salvation hinges

@AimsatJoy @TodAshby I don't think God exists outside of time. There are too many Bible passages that contradict that notion.

@BryanDavisAuth @TodAshby That’s a new take. Doesn’t God exist outside of time and space and therefore future is a present reality? Again, genuinely asking…because “when you pour the infinite into the finite, there’s bound to be some spillage”

I believe God knows everything there is to know, which is a good definition of omniscience. I'm not sure that future free-will choices are in the realm of "everything there is to know." Since the future doesn't exist yet, I don't understand how it's possible to see something that isn't there to see. God can surely know the future with regard to what He plans to do and with regard to choices that are settled in people's minds. But seeing something that doesn't exist doesn't make sense to me. I am aware of the arguments against my point of view on this matter, but that's where my opinion is at this point. Even after being a Christian for more than 40 years, I am still learning.

@BryanDavisAuth @TodAshby Thanks for the answer. Do you believe He knows who will be believers?

Definitions of "sovereign" vary. I don't believe that God has meticulous control over which individuals will have faith and be saved. In His sovereignty, God decided to allow people free will to have faith. He decided beforehand that He would save believers. He did not decide who those believers would be. Those decisions are part of God's sovereign choices.

@BryanDavisAuth @TodAshby Interesting explanation. Genuine question, do you then conclude that God isn’t or is sovereign over whether a person will have faith?

@ReformedDoc Not a single one of them. They were/are dangerously wrong on way too many critical doctrines. There is no Calvinist theologian that I respect.

@sola_chad This is the opposite of the gospel, the anti-gospel.

Predestination is 100% Biblical.

@Toneskeee My cholesterol's a little high. Other than that, no problems.

What’s wrong with you people?