<delurk>
Matthew Johnson wrote:
> In article <D5YHj.2433$lV1.112@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, AJA says...
>>> "Matthew Johnson" <matthew_member@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>> It is to try to show a third way that I put so much effort into
opposing
>>>> Calvinism in the threads on "free-will" (in this NG and in SRC.B-S)
and
>>>> even translated a large part of St. Symeon's sermon on this _very_
topic in
>>>> msg-id <8C82637B-F793-36F0-12D3-BD79F275D7B9@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>.
Very much worth the trouble to look up. For those who'd rather not dig
through Message-ID headers, here's a link to this post in the Google
Groups Usenet Archive:
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.religion.christian.bible-study/msg/7afd926dbdc7f9df?hl=en
>> Thank you, Matthew. I'll have to re-read the sermon, but at first
blush it
>> seems a good "third way". Also I saw the posts about the 'controversy'
>> about predestination. I remembered those discussions of past days.
>> And by the way, I'd be interested in hearing from you how one knows one
is
>> saved, if indeed that is possible.
> You know when you hear His voice saying:
> 'Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
the
> foundation of the world...'
> (Mat 25:34 RSVA)
> Until then, it is for our own benefit that the knowledge is kept from
us.
I'm not sure this is true, at least not for everybody. Some of the
saints were entirely confident of their salvation, in some cases long
before they died. A person who really gets it that "All have sinned,
and fallen short of the Glory of God," and who is therefore proof
against being tempted to spiritual pride might well be entirely (and
safely) confident that God will not abandon him or her. If you accept
that we all have the freedom to choose to submit to God or reject Him,
it's still theoretically possible that such a person would choose to
reject God after submitting to Him so thoroughly that they truly known
Him, but that would constitute what Aristotle called an "improbable
possibility".
Unfortunately neither my humility nor my faith are at that point, so I
can only speculate. <wry grin>
>> We sing Blessed Assurance, etc., as you
>> know.
> Actually, I don't even know which 'we' sing this. We certainly do not.
AJA, Matthew was raised as a Roman Catholic and became an Orthodox
Christian in college. What little familiarity he has with Protestant
hymns was probably in the Christian Fellow****p group at our college. (We
went to the same college as undergraduates more years ago than I care to
remember now.) "Blessed Assurance" is, I believe, specifically an
Evangelical hymn (originally Baptist, perhaps?). So don't expect
everyone to recognize it. :)
By the way, I'm also an Orthodox Christian. I was raised in a
non-religious household, and came to Orthodox Christianity after some
years in the Churches of Christ (the American Restorationist group, not
the group Barack Obama is part of). I am familiar with that hymn. It's
beautiful, and I think can be true for at least some of us, but from an
Orthodox Christian point of view it is easily misunderstood and can lead
people astray if misunderstood.
> We sing
> something quite different, such as the 'samoglasen' this last Sunday:
>
> Thanking with the Publican we cry out, "you who suffered for us, yet
remained
> God without passion save us from our passions and save our souls"
> [fm http://days.pravoslavie.ru/design/canon.php?id=358]
One thing I love about being an Orthodox Christian is that we really
embrace the vision of the Church that St. Paul (or perhaps a disciple of
his) provides in Hebrews 11. We ask the saints for their prayers. ;)
Under His mercy,
--
Catherine (Hampton) Jefferson <ariel@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Personal Home Page * <http://www.devsite.org/>
The SpamBouncer * <http://www.spambouncer.org/>
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