[blue-duncan]

"....and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." -- Acts 13:48


Not to belabor the point since you obviously agree with me but look at the tense and mood of the verb "believed". It is aorist indicative, a fact that an action was completed at a point in time. Now many can't point to a specific time, like kids brought up in a believing home, but God knows.

[Kitty Mittens]

I was Rivited to this Facinating Read by Michael Bunker, and Also to the Excellent Posts my Fellow Believers in Christ Made on this Thread! Thank you all!

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I think the POV that insists on a specific moment in time when believers have come or will come to a secure and true understanding of their faith often is predicated on our Baptist brothers and sisters putting so much insistence on adult baptism and the "conscious acceptance" of faith. As if that faith could not take hold of us without a public declaration. As if that faith does not come sometimes in bits and pieces and sometimes in thunderbolts and lightning. As if God absolutely requires an oath.

I'm becoming more of a Puritan as I age. 8~)

But Spiritual Discernment is Wholly Lost Until we are Regenerated by John Calvin

"Indeed the Word of God is like the sun, shining upon all those to whom it is proclaimed, but with no effect among the blind. Now, all of us are blind by nature in this respect... Accordingly, it cannot penetrate into our minds unless the Spirit, as the inner teacher, through his illumination makes entry for it." -- Calvin

The world is made up of those who will understand and those who won't understand; those for whom the Holy Spirit will illuminate the word and make possible its entry into their minds and hearts, and those less fortunate. Timing, like everything else, is from the Lord. Ripeness is all.

And I found this excellent essay this morning. Too much to read; too many yelling at me to make them lunch. 8~)

THE FAITH OF INFANTS by Francis Turretin

"And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." -- Deuteronomy 30:5-7

[Dr. Eckleburg]

"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." -- 1 John 5:13

I think life is most often a gradual awakening to the fact that God has determined that Christ paid for our sins in total.

Once we truly understand that, life seems to fall into place.

As God intends.