
Originally Posted by
Jason Mallory
I read it. And what I learned is that the Greek authors of the Septuagint did not know what to make of a word so they made something up. Then, the folks who penned the KJV merrily followed after this error, oblivious that unicorns did not exist.
Rather underscores my point about a greater understanding of the original language. Computers also enable us to do word studies in a way that KJV translators could not.
But oh no!
“The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence,” notes Dr. Mitchel. “Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.”
If you can find me a unicorn skeleton, I will publicly retract what I've said here, but short of that, the above argument is just embarrassing.
No disrespect at all to men who did the best with what they had. But we have better tools at our disposal now and do not labor under the yoke of a State Religion.
I find that compelling.
Oh, and I'm with Solicit on the baptism thing, but I'm wary of getting hip deep in a systematically theological study of salvation on a BJJ forum. I'm mostly Reformed and the thing I find compelling about reformed theology is that Jesus did all the work to save us. He didn't save the best people. You don't go to heaven by being better than everyone else. This is not a religion where you work to earn your salvation and the people who go to heaven are those who did the best on the righteousness bell curve. On the contrary: we're all so messed up that even if we could work hard enough to deserve salvation, we wouldn't really want to.
Based on what I've read above, that is what we all agree on and it's super important.
It's a remedy for pride (which is something I struggle with) and that aspect of the theology is one a lot of people don't understand. Salvation is not about being good and deserving it. You don't earn it. And even the good things we do are a result of grace in the form of sanctification.
(No friends, I'm not an antinomian, just trying to keep things simple)