The Magisterial Protestant

Apostolic succession, is the doctrine that for a church to be considered a true church, that is, one with true and saving sacraments. The sacraments need to be administered by a pastor who has been ordained by a bishop that can trace his ordination back to someone ordained by the Apostles. Essentially apostles like Paul, ordained bishops like Timothy and eventually Timothy ordained other men and those men ordained other men and so on and so forth. This forms an unbroken and physical line of laying on of hands. The present day Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Assyrian, Oriental and Anglican churches all claim that they can list the ordinations of their bishops back to one of the original Apostles ordained by Jesus Christ our Lord. I will be presenting the case that Lutherans, the Reformed and other protestants have a type of presbyteral succession which should also be seen as valid. Should you even care? Lets quickly read what some of the early church fathers thought:  Saint Clement, bisho...

The Problem of evil is by far the main reason why people reject the existence of the Christian God. The Logical problem is stated by the philosopher Epicurus as follows:  Premise 1, A good God would want to prevent Evil.  Premise 2, A Omnipotent God would be able to stop Evil.  Premise 3, an omniscient God would be aware of evil.  Premise 4, Evil still exists.  Conclusion: therefore an omnipotent, omniscient and good God cannot exist.  This argument states that if a God possessing the qualities of the Christian God particularly Goodness, omnipotence and omniscience exists then this God would want to stop evil because he is good, be able to stop evil because he is all powerful and is aware of all evil because he is omniscient. therefore evil should be impossible in any world this God creates yet evil prevails in the world He created. Therefore it is a logical contradiction for a God with such qualities to exist in our world. This is a valid argument meaning ...

Due to the Bible being silent on infant baptism, Credo Baptist have to argue from narrative, not instruction. It is a well established fact that baptism is the new circumcision, that is baptism is the sign of the new covenant and circumcision was the sign of the Old covenant. This is stated explicitly by Paul in  Colossians 2:  11-12 where he refers to Baptism as the "circumcision of Christ". Paul also tells the Galatians that they no longer need to receive circumcision. Now  lets look at the cases whereby someone would receive circumcision. Case 1: They become Jewish. If one wished to become Jewish or join the Jewish people they had to be circumcised. One would have to essentially need to convert to Judaism first which requires a profession of faith and him and his household will be circumcised. Case 2: One needs to be born to Jewish parents and they would be circumcised at 8 days. There is a Case 3 but we will get to that later. Now all comprehensive examples of T...

  One of he most foundational doctrines of the Christian Faith is the deity of Christ. Many religions and cults however deny this doctrine such as: Islam, Jehovah's Witness', Mormons etc. The evidence is strongly against their favour as the deity of Christ is undeniable in the Old and new testaments along with Church history. What I will attempt here is to approximate all the evidence for the deity of Christ we have. However this blog will most certainly fail in this endeavor. Allow me to demonstrate. The Scriptures New Testament Here I provide unambiguous statements that the Holy Bible calls Jesus God aswell as the bible saying Jesus does things that we know only God does. Romans 9:4-5 [4] They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. [5] To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all , blessed forever. Amen. Philippians 2:5-8 ...

  Calvinism is a set of theological beliefs held by the reformed tradition of the Protestant reformation. Its teaching on predestination is quite popular and have been labeled the 5 points of Calvinism as they can be summarized with 5 statements. 1. Man can not on their own come to saving faith, 2. God elects some people to eternal life, 3. Jesus Christ did not die for the sins of the whole world but only for the elect, 4. When God chooses to save someone that person can not resist God's grace  , 5. A true Christian can not loose their salvation. These points can basically be summarized as God picks and dies for only those who will ultimately be saved (the elect) and the only true Christians are the elect. Augustinian predestination  Saint Augustine of Hippo was by far the most influential Church father in all of Christianity and he's battle with the heretic Pelagius led him to develop a robust monergistic system of predestination. Monergism is the position that God saves...

  Was coming to Christianity something you did on your own or did God predestine you before you were born to be a Christian who will persevere to the end in faith? I will argue in this entry that when we look at the scriptural data, I believe the latter is true. Now I know many will have vehement disagreements with me on this, which is fine however I do ask you to hear the opposing side first so you at least know where we have gone wrong. I welcome feedback in the comments. To break this down 2 questions need to be asked when dealing with this larger question. 1st, can human beings come to genuine saving faith of their own free will. 2nd Does God pick those that will come to the faith and be saved. The biblical term for those who come to final salvation is the "elect". I ask you to approach these passages from the Word of God with an open mind and seeking truth in the only place we are certain truth lies. Can man come to faith of his own will? Lets hop right into passages tha...