MikeWatson1

It is extremely popular these days to have in a salvation tract 'commiting your life to Christ ' and/or 'turning from sin'... for receiving eternal salvation. These are fine and noble things of course. But are they things someone can actually do before conversion? Is not 'turning from sin' ..a work? Is not 'commiting your life to Christ ' also a work? Salvation is all about believing on Jesus Christ... it isn't an effort on the part of the believer of behaviour. You gotta know you are a sinner at salvation of course... otherwise how would God convict you.. but repent doesn't mean 'turn from sin ' as a behaviour..but 'change of heart, mind' that happens at belief on Jesus. John 3:16, 5:24, 10:28..Romans 5:8

Oh .. I just saw about him dying in the forum now. My prayers go out to his family and I'll see him again in heaven. We were very much on the same page with Baptist teaching.

Just on easy believism... Since salvation isn't by works ..by grace thru faith in Jesus... Then shouldn't it be 'easy to believe ' ? Jesus is not willing that anyone should perish... So why would He make it difficult to get a place in heaven? So I'm not sure what the issue is with easy believism. I know it's not just 'repeat a prayer after me '...but it isn't hard to believe on Jesus Christ.

The Reformation connection is that they have a human founder from the Protestant reformation. Most of them don't seem Calvinist but Armenian with loss of salvation possible. I was going to the odd Baptist Union church service and that was all I knew of Baptists until the mid 2000s. Then I was introduced to my first indy bap church. Yea that is the case mostly with NZ Baptist Union churches here

Here in NZ the English Baptist Union is the predominant form of Baptist in NZ. They are mostly Pentecostal and are little different to other mainline denominations like Methodists and Anglicans that have gone charismatic. Independent Baptist churches here most people don't know much about. What is your experience of Baptist Union churches?

Seems to be a good excerpt on this topic from here: https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/what-are-historical-and-scriptural-facts-about-fermented-drinks-bible

I remember being taught that wine in the bible is mostly grape juice.. with a little bit of alcohol to purify it. That it is very low alcohol content. Jesus turning water into wine.. it would make sense if it was pure grape juice without even the little bit of alcohol. But it would be good to know more on this.

The other thing is : King James avoided the scrupulousness of the Puritans by keeping the original ecclesiastical words out. Those being congregation and assembly. They were still used in some occasions.. but were mostly replaced with the word 'church'. If congregation and assembly are better terms than the word 'church'.. then how does that marry up with the KJV being the only rightly preserved bible? I think it is the context of when the word church is used.. that makes the meaning a congregation or assembly anyway.. but why not just use those words?

I only use the KJV, but think I could use an translation like the ASB and NKJV along side it to get the right meaning of a passage. The flaw in doing this is if the KJV is sound enough, why bother with the other ones I guess.

Yeah.. I didn't mean the original copies exactly.. but the fact that the mountains of manuscript copies remain that allow today's scholars etc to do an accurate bible. I guess my real question is why not the ASB or NKJV that come from the same source material? My initial feeling is that the effort gone into the KJV and accuracy and reliability of it means the ASB and NKJV aren't really going to improve on it. Anyway, thank you sir.

Thank you sir. I'll have a good look at it

I have understood the preservation of God's Word thru all generations to be the available access to translate the original copies. I have heard though the teaching that the KJV, and older Bibles before it are the only ones that have preserved it rightly. I am not sure about this and would like to know how someone arrived at this teaching. I believe the Bible is inerrant, infallible etc..but have understood that to be the original copies.. not later translations. The flaw in this is that God is preserving the Word in all generations..and so the original copies aren't that. I thought that that flaw in reasoning is mitigated by the fact of the original copies being preserved in all generations.

Okay, well the senior pastor is on deputation duties around the Southern States. I'll wait till he is back..but it's good to know it's not really an issue.

I am wanting to join a church . I've been attending for a couple of months now.. I want to get a membership transfer .. and be voted in..but don't know if it is going to happen. . The senior pastor said it won't be a problem to get a transfer..but nothing has happened.. What do I do?

Canterbury, New Zealand.. Best: close to sea, mountains, rivers and lakes .. strong sports teams (Canterbury Crusaders in rugby have one 7 titles in a row against NZ AUS and Pacific teams.) Gets a good amount of sun. Worst: it's a stronghold for liberal govt support. If it was America it would be a blue state. So there is a lot of political correctness and feminism.

I'm 5 foot 5.. so relatively short. Wonder how tall Zachias was?

I saw a statement of faith for a congregationalist church, and it was very similar to a baptist church.. even an IFB one. I am unsure of the difference. I know baptist churches can claim to have no known human founder.. do congregational churches have a definite fella starting them? Be interested to know if anyone else does know.

Yeah I was getting worried when the guy went to the Catholic cathedral.. but then saw the rest of the film and saw it wasn't supporting the RCC and was very good.

In a choir often you'll get repeated 's' sounds.. like hissing. The best thing is to have only some people do the s sound and the others have no s. Then it sound more like one s. The other way is to drill exactly when the s happens and do it at the right time. I usually don't sing the s at the end of a phrase at choir.

I'm in a choir. I sing bass. Doing long notes.. it's best to make vowels less round and nasal. Using the Latin ah air ee or ew for a e i o u. Unless you are singing songs that sound better with the local twang. Like country gospel.. then you need the southern twang. ?

Yeah... Many look at disciplining verses and think it's removal of eternal life. Many also.. as soon as you say osas.. will say you are teaching a license to sin. They don't understand what grace compels us to do.

Yeah the song Kyrie... Most Europeans will pronounce keey ree aye But it's Latin vowels... key ree ..with ree having a kind of L for the 'r' .. An then 'ie' is 'air'. ... Not aye. Key ree air With the 'r' almost an L.

I liked how John McArthur covered spiritual gifts in his series. I read Arthur Pink for his view on defining the 'church'.

Yeah... People should do a letter of transfer from one to another

Well.. I believe the body of Christ is purely local. That is 'the church'. Matt 16:18 Has Jesus building His church that is Him and His disciples. It's local because Matt 18:20 is also local. The time the church will be all redeemed is in the New Jerusalem. We haven't got there yet. All redeemed is in the Family of God. Not the body of Christ. Which is local. So... A methodist would call the church all redeemed (universal, invisible). Church membership is not a doctrine they would believe in, seeing 'the church' for them is not local. And if they see at as both local and universal.. well most who have this don't do church membership either.