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Calvinism & The Salvation of Infants

1. From the beginning a few held with Zwingli that death in infancy is a sign of election, and hence that all who die in infancy are the children of God and enter at once into glory. After Zwingli, Bishop Hooper was probably the first to embrace this view. It has more lately become the ruling view. 2.    At the opposite extreme a very few held that the only sure sign of election is faith with its fruits, and, therefore, we can have no real ground of knowledge concerning the fate of any infant; as, however, God certainly has his elect among them too, each man can cherish the hope that his children are of the elect. Peter Martyr approaches this sadly agnostic position. 3.Many held that faith and the promise are sure signs of election, and accordingly all believes and their children are certainly saved; but the lack of faith and the promise is an equally sure sign of reprobation, so that all the children of unbelievers, dying such, are equally certainly lost. The younger Spanheim...
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Babble To Babel : Acts 2:1 - 13

1  When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.   2  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.   3  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.   4  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues [ a ]  as the Spirit enabled them. 5  Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7  Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans?   8  Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?   9  Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, [ b ]  ...
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Babel To Babble: Genesis 11: 1 - 9

1  Now the whole world had one languageand a common speech.   2  As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3  They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4  Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” 5  But the  Lord  came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.   6  The  Lord  said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.   7  Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8  So the  Lord  scattered them from there over all the...
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Tongues Have NOT Ceased

I recently responded to a man who says tongues have ceased.   This is my reply;  Do you hear yourself?  On the one hand, tongues were real human languages, & on the other, they have ceased.  How so?  Tongues as real human languages is multilingualism.   The gist of what Paul has to say about them in 1 Corinthian letter conduces to:   One the problems in your church is the spirit of division.   Another is disorderly worship.   People speak out of turn & it can get of of hand.   Your church is part of the Roman Empire, & in the Empire, people speak Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Egyptian, & many other languages.  That’s how the Empire manages communication, business, & justice.  Your church reflects the world, not only as to your moral problems, but also as to your linguistic composition.    When you receive a visitor who speaks a language nobody there knows or understands, he prophesies to his own e...
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The Land Of The Found

  9  Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.   2  The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.   3  Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. 4  “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.   5  And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. 6  “Whoever sheds human blood,      by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God      has God made mankind. 7  As for you, be fruitful and inc...
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The Land Of The Lost

  6  When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,   2  the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.   3  Then the  Lord  said, “My Spirit will not contend with [ a ] humans forever, for they are mortal [ b ] ; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” 4  The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. 5  The  Lord  saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.   6  The  Lord  regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.   7  So the...
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The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic?

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From time to time, the Internet Shaman class, thinking they are more clever than they really are, will claim that there is an original Aramaic version of the Lord’s Prayer & then proceed to inform us that it agrees with their mystical translation/understanding of it.     Here are some examples:  There are several things wrong with their claims.  First of all, there is no documented version of an Aramaic original, nor is there any documentation of an Aramaic version of Matthew, although Eusebius, quoting Papias wrote, “ Matthew collected/composed the oracles [logia or sayings] in the Hebrew language /style; but each recorded them as he was able.” (Emphasis mine).  Notice that Papias is said to have remarked that Matthew wrote the oracles in the  Hebrew  language. Not  in Aramaic &  Not  in “the common tongue” Not  not in “the popular tongue” The assertion that there is an “Aramaic original,” in addition to being an assertion ...
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