Friday, June 02, 2006

John Armstrong on Questions for Reformed Christians

John Armstrong has a good post on Questions I Ponder as a Reformed Christian.

I ask myself these same questions all the time!!!

2 comments:

Ben Myers said...

That's a nice post, Mike. I especially liked: "Why do conservative Reformed Christians ... advocat[e] very narrow definitions of the gospel in an attempt to impress lay people and inadequately taught pastors that they alone are standing for the truth in this dark day?"

I have seen quite a lot of this!

Tony Siew said...

Dear Michael,

Thanks heaps for your post.

"Very narrow definitions of the gospel" is kinda subjective, isn't it? How is the gospel defined in the NT? There must be a number of criteria or essentials or common ground.

One in 1 Cor 15:1-4. The gospel by which you are saved, says Paul, includes Jesus' death and his resurrection. In Acts, Christ's resurrection is preached as the Way which brings new life, seen as essential to the gospel.

Peter's first sermon in Acts seems to suggest that repentance, water baptism and the reception of the Holy Spirit is part of the Gospel's message (Acts 2:38).

In Galatians, because of the Judaistic tendency, Paul defines the gospel as characterized by the grace of Christ(Gal 1:6)and claims there could be perversion of the gospel and calls a curse for those that preach another gospel. Strong words indeed and I hope Pauline scholars can enlighten me on this.

Thanks.

Tony.