How can we Biblically judge posts on this forum?
Look at what's being said. What is the overall major message of individuals posting here?
For Doug Brents, it's water baptism and confession are required to be saved
There's only ONE way to be saved: The Holy Spirit of Promise is the Person who applies the salvation bought by the Son.
When the New Covenant era began on the day of the Jewish Feast of Harvest (ca. AD 34) when three thousand Jews were born-again no one fully understood what the God of Abraham was doing among His Chosen people the Jews. There were some who were mighty in the Scripture (Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila, Barnabas, etc.), and while each were able from the Hebrew Scripture of the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, to rightly discern this "new thing" God was doing among the Jewish people, God would call and choose one man in particular named Saul, who was a rabbi and a Pharisee and in his own right one who was taught the Hebrew Scripture and read and studied them daily while a member of the Sanhedrin, an association that was part of his life until his death in AD 68.
After Saul met his Lord and Savior on the road to Damascus and became born-again, he remained a rabbi and Pharisee throughout his life. Being rabbi and Pharisee gave him immediate access to the Scripture of the Old Testament. It is not unreasonable to believe he may have had either some or all the "scrolls" of their bible and most assuredly he also possessed scrolls of rabbinical thought from Israel's more famous names, Gamaliel, his teacher being one of them. Others named "Hillel" and "Shammai." After Saul's conversion by the Holy Spirit of Promise PROMISED TO ISRAEL (Joel 2), Saul disappeared for fourteen to seventeen years which we learn from his letters he went away to a place where he could study the text of the Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) in order to more fully understand the things taking place among the Jews. Here is that text of Scripture that explained some of what God was doing among the Hebrew nation.
25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And
I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Ezekiel 36:25–28.
Verse 27 above led Saul to Joel:
27 And ye shall know that
I am in the midst of Israel,
And that I am the LORD your God, and none else:
And my people shall never be ashamed.
28
And it shall come to pass afterward,
That I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh;
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions:
29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids
In those days will I pour out my spirit.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth,
Blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
Before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered:
For in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance,
As the LORD hath said,
And in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.
Joel 2:27–32.
It was Saul's personal experience with the Holy Spirit promised to Israel and his knowledge of the Hebrew Scripture through which he was able to write letters to the Jews living in Gentile lands as the Holy Spirit was not localized to only Jerusalem where the Holy Spirit originally made His Presence known. Jews throughout the Roman Empire were being "born-again, speaking in tongues (not all), walking around with a light about their heads, joy in their heart, and a great testimony of the Prescence of the God of Abraham in their lives. It was contagious. Everyday thousands of Jews were being born-again - as it was later to be called. Every day the testimony of Jesus bar Joseph was making its rounds among the Jews. Despite what
@Doug Brents is quoted as saying, water baptism was not required to be saved by Israel's Mesiah and His Spirit. Water baptism was a ministry of John who came from out of the wilderness to Israel in preparation of the appearance and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who John said is the sole baptizer of the Holy Spirit and fire. Water baptism was John's ministry. It was for Israel, and it was to prepare the people for Messiah's arrival. It was an outward confession to the Jews that while there were some who did not accept the testimony of others of Messiah's identity, there were many who did. Within a few years a majority of the priests were also born of the Spirit and became followers of The Way.
For Runningham and Peterlag, it's "Jesus is not God" and "there is no such thing as the trinity"
While the term "trinity" is not found in the Hebrew Scripture the idea of a trinity of God is. The Jews were monotheists. They believed in One God. However, they also accepted the theology of the Jews that there was God and there was God's Spirit - a Duality. The theology of trinity for a monotheist people did not fully come to be known until the advent of the Son of God. It was the words Jesus bar Joseph spoke and taught that first set Him apart from the prophets that came before Him, but it was the things He did that helped establish Him as God, such as raising the dead, opening the ears of the deaf and opening the eyes of the blind.
To the Hebrew people there is the God of Abraham, His Spirit, and now God's own Son. A Holy Trinity.
For Jeremiah1five, it's the Jews are superior and the Gentiles are inferior
I believe the Scripture. I don't add to the Bible but post and comment in support of the Hebrew Scripture. And the Scripture that elevates the Hebrew people called Israel above all others is Deuteronomy 7:6.
6 For thou art an
holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy
God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself,
above all people that are upon the face of the earth. Deuteronomy 7:5–6.
A reading of the Pentateuch which Moses wrote to document for posterity the God of Abraham's enduring relationship with the Hebrew people, a people born from the seed of Abraham to Isaac to Jacob, and to Jacob's twelve sons and their descendants. As you can see it says right there in the passage God Himself through Moses declaring the Hebrew people of Israel (Jacob) are indeed ABOVE and set apart as a people to and for God.
Although the translators of the KJV use the word "above" it is a word that is used to "set apart from" the rest of the Adamites the descendants of Eber from which the Hebrew people as his descendants appear as a nation under the Law of God. Saul understood this distinction and wrote about it in one self-contain verse that encapsulates God's relationship with this one people "from out of" the rest of the families born from Noah and his son, Shem.
4 Who are Israelites;
to whom pertaineth
the adoption, and
the glory, and
the covenants, and
the giving of the law, and
the service of God, and
the promises;
5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Romans 9:4–5.
When Jesus said, "Salvation is of the Jews" to the mixed heritage Hebrew Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, these six things are the totality of the Salvation the LORD who promised the seed of Abraham - the Jews, that they
under the Law of Moses are the sole recipients of the salvation blessings given of God to the Hebrew people through covenant. Abram the Hebrew who was already enjoying a positive relationship with the LORD asked his God for an heir who would inherit Abraham's massive possessions so that it not goes to one of his servants named Eliezar (Gen. 15.)
God honored his request. And so, beginning with Abram the salvation of circumcision came into being. It was these covenant promises by God to Abram that Isaac was born to his wife, Sarai, who in old age (90 years old) gave healthy birth to an heir, an heir they named Isaac (Gen. 17.)
What followed the death of Moses was a relationship between the Creator of the universe, God, and Abraham, a man who through these promises became de facto father of the Hebrew people through the birth of two Hebrew parents: Abraham, and Sarah.
For Behold and Johann, it's Dispensationalism.
There is a dispensation of time and era recorded in the Hebrew Scripture. However, I am not advocating the dispensationalism of 19th century Moody associate, Cyrus Scofield, whose dispensationalist position began with the publication of a pamphlet in 1888. Later, Scofield incorporated his notes into an English translation of the bible named after him.
For Brightfame, it's Calvinism
John Calvin (1509-1564) studied Augustine who studied the Old Testament, and particularly Saul, who studied as a rabbi and Pharisee the Hebrew text of Scripture, the person who studies the Old Testament and the New Covenant writings of what would later be made into a bible is called a Biblical believer or Christian. John Calvin did bring out theologies of Scripture and was influential in his time for extensive study of Scripture covering many teachings that today are commonplace. I won't go into them now but from my own reading of some of his work is the foundation of a theology called "Doctrines of Grace" in salvation.
For David Koberstein, it's Jewish culture and traditions.
Someone else is once saved always saved.
Etc.
We cannot unmoor true, Biblical Christianity from its Hebrew roots. When we do that the resulting false theology of non-Hebrew Gentiles being saved or born-again is the establishment of a false narrative of "Gentile Church" alongside a Church that Christ promised to build populated by Jews. Salvation of the Jews is a covenant with blessings that include the deliverance of Israel from all her enemies including sin, which under the Law is foundational as the animal sacrificed to temporarily atone yearly for the sins of the Hebrew people in covenant with God. There is no better description of the salvation that is of the Jews than what is found here:
4 Who are Israelites;
to whom pertaineth
the adoption,
and
the glory,
and
the covenants,
and
the giving of the law,
and
the service of God,
and
the promises;
5 Whose are the fathers,
and of whom as concerning the flesh
Christ came,
who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Romans 9:4–5.
Amen.
I'm not saying that these guys never speak of anything else. I am saying that they always eventually return to there own obsession with their pet doctrine.
Speaking for myself I can say that with you and others I had read and studied and been taught from the pulpit early on the great minds of bible theology of what is now called [Gentile] "Christianity." I can recognize the textbook comments and responses made on this site but can also respond with Scripture the things that are wrong with that theology. It's just too bad that those that claim to be believers of the Bible expose themselves as being everything BUT
that. A true, Biblical Christian or Christ-follower is one who takes Scripture as written and does not add to the Bible things that are not there. When one is totally in the grasp of the Gentile theology out there in the world that has been with us since the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple by the Roman army in AD 70, and who are so ingrained, infected, and indoctrinated with a Gentile theology that supplants the doctrine of the Jews who wrote letters to Jews and other Jewish Christians at various Roman and Greek jurisdictions within Asia Minor and in the and places like Mesopotamia, coming to the knowledge of Biblical truth is trampled underfoot by many who elevate God's literal enemies - the Gentile nations of the uncircumcised, non-covenant, and non-Hebrew "world" - above the true Bride and Church of the Living God, Gentile replacement of Israel, a people God calls the "apple of His eye", it is very difficult to escape the "Gentile" theologies that pass for truth. It is a terrible thing to teach Messiah to a people Messiah was never sent to nor had business with, everything that at one time was "of the Jews" has now been replaced with a theology that is "of the Gentiles." And still, NO ONE has been able to provide Scripture from the Old Testament of a covenant between God and non-Hebrew Gentiles nor give the name of the Gentile with whom God made covenant with just like God did with a man named Abram the Hebrew, and a people called of God as His Chosen people with whom God's covenants are described in the Hebrew Scripture.
Ask yourself: Can you imagine the apostle Paul having the same overall message as this person has? Can you imagine Jesus having the same overall message as this person has? Can you imagine Peter having the same overall message as this person has?
If the overall message sounds like what Paul or Peter or even Jesus would say, then you most likely have good fruit.
If the overall message sounds nothing like what Paul or Peter or even Jesus would say, then you have bad fruit.
What do Paul, Peter, and Jesus Himself always return to? The gospel of Jesus Christ, salvation by grace through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Jesus, Saul, Peter, James, and John all taught a salvation of the Jews. They all taught a salvation tied directly to the Mosaic Covenant in the Ceremonial Law the fact of substitutionary sacrifice, the kind prophesied in the Old Testament and realized in the death and resurrection of Jesus as lamb of God at the cross.
When questioned about inheriting eternal life Jesus directed a man to the Law of Moses and commanded the man to DO what is contained in that Law.
Saul, a rabbi and Pharisee who met Jesus on the road to Damascus remained a rabbi and Pharisee, even declaring that while others accused him of teaching things not contained in the Law (of Moses) his reply was that from a young age he was faithful to the God of the Bible and the Law of Moses. Peter, who gave the first sermon spoke his words specifically to both kingdom houses and tribes of Israel and stated without fail that the Holy Spirit of Promise was indeed PROMISED TO ISRAEL and that "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to
us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all [
of us-ward] should come to repentance (2 Pe 3:8–9) identifying the "usward" in his letter as "them that have obtained like precious faith
with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Pe 1:1) as apostle TO THE JEWS with a massage of salvation also TO THE JEWS as being "us-ward"
as Jews.
Saul was very direct when he said: "But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers,
believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets" (Acts 24:14.)
And what Saul believed, he taught. Everything he knew and was taught from Scripture, the very salvation of the LORD was definitely directed
to and became the reality
of a salvation that is
ONLY of the Jews.
James called out the truth when he said, "[I am] a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad", was a letter to the Jewish Christians who were also born-again of the Holy Spirit of Promise PROMISED TO ISRAEL by Joel in chapter 2 of his prophecies.
These very individuals became the "pillars of the [Jewish] Church" which Christ promised to build with the flesh and blood of His people, a people He was sent to save.
The Promise:
15 The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; Deuteronomy 18:15.
The Fulfillment:
21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save
his people from their sins.
Matthew 1:21.
"His people" without a doubt the Hebrew people in covenant with God.
.
