I think you bring up a very good point. I see a trend that many pastors have of blogging….blogging about nothing really. Wouldn’t their time be more constructive sitting before the Lord in prayer and reading His word rather than writing about the ramblings of their own thoughts?

No blog – no comments – no worries. Just the pastor and the Lord.

Yes..the thief on the cross became a believer…yes he trusted Christ. But are you assuming the Holy Spirit had no role? Looking at the Scriprutes as a whole we can see the he had to be convicted by the Spirit and drawn by the Spirit and given faith. In response he repented and believed. True conversion will always manifest itself, but that does not negate the fact that God did the work. Man’s role is simply to trust and that itself is God’s gift. I feel this is a biblically balanced view. I just don’t want you to turn into one of the “calvinist haters” out there. There’s room in the Church for all who have repented of sin and solely trusted Christ alone for salvation … calvinist, biblicist, methodist, Charismatic.

What about the Thief on the Cross at Calvary? He recognized his own sin…..Recognized the Divinity of Jesus and asked that Jesus save him.

Jesus saved this man at his request only after he saw the sin in his own life and sought out the creator to redeem him. By the way the grace of Jesus was immediate……and that was pretty important in the case of this thief. No one had to wait to see if it took……Jesus said you will be with ME. The thief played a role in his salvation……maybe the one on the left was elected and therefore did not need to call on the creator for salvation.

By Calvinist standards the Thief on the right would have never had to speak……I don’t think that this is the model Jesus would have us to use.

Grace is a gift given freely by Jesus but it comes through man ultimate recognition that God is sovereign and the only way to Heaven is through his son Jesus.

I think we have this story for a reason and that is to teach us that Jesus paid the price for our sins so that we could call out to him and ASK him to save us. This may be the most overlooked part of the death and resurrection of Christ.

1) Is this all we have to do? Sit and judge others? Are ANY OF YOU PASTORing A CHURCH?

2) If you are not an elder at Oak Leaf Michael does not really have any reason sit and pray over your blog comments all day. He is accountable to Oak Leaf Church and GOD. Heeding godly counsel is a must but if you don’t love Michael and desire God’s best for him then why should he listen to you. You are strangers…how does he know to consider anything you say as sincere?

3) I believe many in our churches are lost and couldn’t explain the Gospel to a 1st grader but that does not give me the authority to act as an Apostle and become the benchmark for church fruit across America. My job is to proclaim the truth and to make disciples. We spend a lot of time arguing with people over theological or philosophical differences that are on OUR team…Paul’s strongest rebukes were saved for heretics. He did rebuke Peter once that we know of but I have no doubt Paul loved Peter and prayed for his ministry and saw him as a co-laborer…I do not get the same feeling from some of you concerning Michael.

4) Yes. If these people truly trust Christ life change will happen. They will love the church and grow spiritually. Should we be careful about promoting numbers…sure I think so…but I also believe some of those of the calvinist persuasion have went to the opposit extreme and would have someone wait 6 months before they would even baptize them. I don’t find that biblical either.

5) I’ve spent too much time on this already..so not I’m a hypocrite. God’s best to you guys and I hope for God’s best at Oak Leaf. OLC has not arrived, they are not perfect … but I hope they have a desire to love Jesus…love others…and be as biblically sound as possible.

Michael:

I’m sorry to hear that you think our blog exists just to criticize and be negative. We do have some concerns which we feel are biblical and are very willing to engage in discussion about it with you or any of your friends. Feel free to stop by the post that Michael is referring to, introduce yourself and join in the discussion:

http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.974

Also note that we never “alluded to the fact that signing a cross makes someone a Christian” for you. Note my words on the link above “Apparently [Michael] doesn’t believe that swearing allegiance or signing your name to a cross makes you saved” unquote.