Sunday, May 3, 2009

Topic for discussion: salvation, faith, repentance

Agree or disagree: "Most of what evangelicals claim about the gospel would be more or less accurate if every time someone mentions 'believe,' we replace it with 'repent.' We might further replace 'believer' with 'disciple.'"

Discuss.

5 comments:

James A said...

I don't think a simple substitution works. But as new-comer to your perspective, I do agree that feeling and commitment are what give life to what is otherwise sterile propositional assent.

Paul Wilkinson said...

Hmmm. I know that just about everywhere you can replace 'sin' with 'selfishness.'

David Rudel said...

I've come to think that "selfishness" is a pretty good modern term for the spiritual death Paul describes in Romans 5. The death caused by Adam's rebellion.

It's the same concept in Romans 5 [and Romans 8:1] that gets translated condemnation. The word Paul uses there is only used 3 times in the New Testament, all by Paul in Romans [Romans 5:16. 5:18, 8:1]. It is not the same word that gets translated condemnation everywhere else, and that is probably not the best word for it.

I talk about this in the Paul chapter of TGYNH if you have a copy.

David Rudel said...

Hi James, welcome to the blog...feel free to tell a little about yourself. I don't know that I've seen you around here before.

Anonymous said...

:)