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God's Effectual Call?

Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by Bible-boy, Oct 5, 2005.

  1. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    If you intend that if we had a less than 95% success rate in secualar education then we would have a tax revolt ... I can agree with that
     
  2. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    "On the basis of results"

    Statistics shows that in all denominations (Christian) that most pastors are INEFFECTIVE. Often, weak, and ineffective pastors make up for their weakness by blaming the church.

    God appointed (gave) some to be pastors (Eph 4: 11), God did not give alllll to be pastors.

    We have lowered the standard for pastors over the last 50 years, & now we want to remove the calling (appointment) from God pertaining to pastors.

    Should we expect God to bless (results) the men that HE DID NOT CALL?

    [Sadly, there are men that have been effective by just implementing good business principles, but that is a different thread.]
     
  3. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    But, most importantly, men that are not called of God to lead His people JUST PLAIN DO NOT COMMUNICATE HIS TRUTH VERY WELL. Then the sheep get restless and begin moving towards the voice of the Chief Shepherd. And then they bounce back and forth between the two.

    We look at the commotion and blame the sheep for being restless.

    It is the Pastor's RESPONSIBILITY to encounter GOD and then communicate HIM to the followers ... Not the other way around.
     
  4. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    I get excited about this because of the breakdown in our leadership.

    More than 80% of our(*) 'godly men' (those men that claim 'they are called'(**) and are trained in our seminaries) will fail in ministry. We want to fix that by removing a felt 'call from God'. This is not the Army, more cannon fodder will not win this. We need specialists. We need specialists called (by God) to give their lives in the defense of the sheep.

    We (the churches - Believers) do not need HIRELINGS. We need authentic men of God. To offer God anything less, is IMHO a sin.


    (*) For those not SBC, I do humbly apologize. The SBC is the only Bapitst denomination that I have found results for. Being SBC, it is also the easiest for me to discuss.
    (**) SBC seminaries REQUIRE that applicants write out 'their divine call'. I know this for 3 of the 5 seminaries.
     
  5. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    That means nothing when 2/3 of the churches in the SBC are plateaued or dying.

    Take a look at a different vantage point. Don't always blame it on the pastors. I do believe if the majority of pastors were willing to be without a job and require accountability by the leaders in chruches we would see a very different scene. There just might be a lot of churches without pastors.

    Leadership Journal, Winter 2003

    Preacher in the Hands of an Angry Church

    Jonathan Edwards's church kicked him out after 23 years of ministry, but the crisis proved his greatness was not merely intellectual.
    by Chris Armstrong

    As messy dismissals of ministers go, the 1750 ejection of Jonathan Edwards by his Northampton congregation was among the messiest. The fact that it involved the greatest theologian in American history—the central figure of the Great Awakening—is almost beside the point. The fact that it took place in a New England fast moving from theocratic "city on a hill" to democratic home of liberty is more relevant.

    But another aspect is worth a closer look: Friends and enemies alike agreed that in the long, degenerating discontent, Edwards continued to love and pray for—or at least tolerate and refrain from attacking—his people, even when they bared their fangs.

    Salary controversies and power struggles marked his ministry during the 1740s. In the infamous "bad book" episode of 1744, some teen boys in the church distributed a midwife's manual, using it to taunt and make suggestive comments in front of girls. When the culprits were summoned before the church, their response, according to documents of the proceedings, was "contemptuous . . . toward the authority of this Church."

    Edwards chose to read before the church a list containing, indiscriminately, the names of both the young distributors as well as the purported witnesses. Some parents were outraged at Edwards.

    Another issue was Edwards's personality and style as a minister. At the outset of his ministry at Northampton, for example, he decided that he would not pay the customary regular visits to his congregants, but would rather come to their side only when called in cases of sickness or other emergency. This made him seem, to some in the church, cold and distant.

    An Edwards "disciple," Samuel Hopkins, later wrote that this practice was not due to lack of affection and concern for his people: "For their good he was always writing, contriving, labouring; for them he had poured out ten thousand fervent prayers; and they were dear to him above any other people under heaven."

    Rather, Edwards had made a clear-eyed assessment of his own gifts and decided that he was unable to match the graceful gregariousness of those ministers who had a "knack at introducing profitable, religious discourse in a free, natural, and . . . undesigned way."

    Thus he would "do the greatest good to souls . . . by preaching and writing, and conversing with persons under religious impressions in his study, where he encouraged all such to repair."

    Edwards's ministry might yet have endured, however, were it not for the death of his uncle, Colonel John Stoddard, in 1748. Born in 1682, 21 years before Edwards, the colonel had built a friendship with his nephew. A sharp thinker, a county judge, and a savvy politician, John was a militia colonel who had become commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts western frontier by 1744. Stoddard wore—at least in the secular sphere—the mantle of his father and Edwards's grandfather, "pope" of the Connecticut Valley, Solomon Stoddard.

    Edwards found himself often leaning on his uncle's influence to navigate the affairs of the church. Thus when Stoddard died, Edwards lost not only an uncle but a powerful ally and confidante.

    As Ian Murray put it in his biography of Edwards: "There would be no open criticism of Edwards as long as Stoddard sat appreciatively in his pew beneath the pulpit in the meeting-house Sunday by Sunday." Once the colonel was gone, however, that changed dramatically.

    Stoddard's heir-apparent as Hampshire County's leading figure was Edwards's cousin Israel Williams, a Harvard graduate, imperious in manner and implacably set against Edwards. In his early nineteenth-century biography, descendant S. E. Dwight named Israel and several others of the Williams clan as having "religious sentiments [that] differed widely from" those of Edwards. Their opposition soon became "a settled and personal hostility." Williams served as counselor and ringleader to Edwards's opponents. Joining this opposition were another cousin, Joseph Hawley Jr., 21 years Edwards's junior.

    Visible saints, hidden agendas
    The same year John Stoddard died, an event finally pushed the hostile faction into open revolt.

    For years, Edwards had been uncomfortable with the lenient policy on membership and communion set by his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, Edwards's predecessor at Northampton. Stoddard had allowed almost anyone to join and to partake, hoping that membership and communion might encourage true conversion. In 1748, Edwards changed the policy and told an applicant for church membership that he must first make a public "profession of godliness."

    Thus Edwards rejected the "Halfway Covenant"—the longstanding compromise of the Puritans who had, generations after planting their religious colonies, found their church membership dwindling. That compromise had reversed the traditional Puritan requirement that new church members be "visible saints," godly in word and deed.

    When the congregation saw that Edwards intended to return to the earlier, stricter Puritan position, demanding not only a profession of faith, but also evidence of repentance and holiness, a firestorm arose. Many of the church's leading members felt Edwards's innovation was a direct threat.

    Two revivals had produced many converts, but, as biographer Patricia Tracy put it, "Men and women who had been recognized as visible saints in Northampton still wallowed in clandestine immorality and flagrant pride."

    Though Edwards knew, as he notes in his letters, that he was likely to lose his pastorate as a result, he stuck to his principles.

    A council of the congregation put a moratorium on new memberships until the issue of criteria could be resolved. Edwards told them he planned to preach on his reasons for changing the policy. They forbade him to do so. Edwards began to write a book on the matter. Few read it, and too late to do much good.

    In 1750, a council was called to consider whether the congregation would dismiss its minister. No one doubted what the conclusion would be.

    Edwards's friend David Hall noted in his diary the minister's reaction when on June 22, 1750, the council handed down its decision:

    "That faithful witness received the shock, unshaken. I never saw the least symptoms of displeasure in his countenance the whole week but he appeared like a man of God, whose happiness was out of the reach of his enemies and whose treasure was not only a future but a present good . . . even to the astonishment of many who could not be at rest without his dismission."

    46 and unemployed
    Edwards wrote that he now found himself a 46-year-old ex-minister "fitted for no other business but study," with a large family to provide for. Although he knew "we are in the hands of God, and I bless him, I am not anxious concerning his disposal of us," he fretted over his situation in letters to friends. Yet neither the distressing conditions nor the continuing antagonism of his opponents drew him out to open attack.

    Remarkably (and partly because of financial need), Edwards agreed to continue preaching at the church while they searched for a replacement. But his Farewell Sermon also indicates he acted out of continued concern for the flock. He continued through mid-November, despite the Town maliciously barring him, a month after his dismissal, from using its common grazing land.

    Finally in December 1750, after an anxious autumn during which he had even considered removing his entire family to Scotland to accept an invitation there, Edwards accepted a charge in Massachusetts's "wild west," the Indian town of Stockbridge. There he would labor the rest of his life, pursue his theological thinking to its most brilliant heights, and create one of the most enduring missionary biographies of all time, the life story of his young friend David Brainerd.

    Belated praise
    In 1760, his former enemy, cousin Joseph Hawley, wrote to Edwards's friend David Hall, confessing that "vast pride, self-sufficiency, ambition, and vanity" had animated his leadership in the "melancholy contention" with Edwards. He repented of his earlier failure to render the respect due Edwards as a "most able, diligent and faithful pastor."

    Hawley concluded, "I am most sorely sensible that nothing but that infinite grace and mercy which saved some of the betrayers and murderers of our blessed Lord, and the persecutors of his martyrs, can pardon me; in which alone I hope for pardon, for the sake of Christ, whose blood, blessed by God, cleanseth from all sin."

    On June 22, 1900, exactly 150 years after Edwards's dismissal, a group gathered at the First Church in Northampton to unveil a bronze memorial.

    H. Norman Gardiner, a professor of philosophy at Smith College and chairman of the memorial committee, characterized Edwards's ejection as "a public rejection and banishment" that remained "a source of reproach to his church and people." He noted the "hatred, malice, and uncharitableness which characterized the opposition to him," for which, to Gardiner, no apology either contemporary or modern could atone.

    Edwards would have disagreed, arguing instead that even such deeply wounding actions as the aggravated and wrongful dismissal of a pastor from his pulpit of 23 years are not unforgivable. In that understanding, as in so much else, Edwards was far ahead both of his enemies and of many of us today.

    For 2003 Christian History magazine is publishing an issue commemorating the 300th anniversary of Edwards's birth. For information visit www.christianhistory.net
    Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.
    Leadership Journal, Winter 2003, Vol. XXV, No. 1, Page 52
     
  6. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    Well

    I stand as I stood.

    Great theologian or not, your application to SWBTS included a description of your call. Bible-boy included a description of his call for Southeastern. Or did you guys skip that block?

    The GNT attests to God giving the church men to fill specific leadership roles.

    But, you give argumentation as to why we do not need leaders under the divine call of Almighty God.

    IMHO, that is not worthy of debate. God called those whom he called. If He did not call you, that is HIS CHOICE (sovereign choice).

    I am still humbled that He called me. But, that is not the purpose of this thread.
     
  7. Bible-boy

    Bible-boy Active Member

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    Originally Posted by El-Guero

    Perhaps I may not be communicating my point very well (or maybe you are willfully misunderstanding what I am saying). Either way, I’ll try again. The point that I am making is that the Bible does use the term “call” (kaleo). It is used 148 times (with an additional 70 variations based on the same root word). It has three basic theological uses. However, the Bible never uses the term “called” in the same exact sense that you are using it to mean that God “effectually calls” all who serve in ministry. Additionally, there is no passage of Scripture that supports the idea that such a “call” (as you are using the term) is required of those who serve in ministry.

    I said that the term “call” is found in the Bible. Then I went on to demonstrate that the basic theological uses of the term “call” found in the Bible do not equate to the exact same way that you are using the term “call” (to mean that God “effectually calls” all who serve in ministry today).

    And I argued that those examples are the exception rather than the rule and that they are not indicative of the normal way in which God has dealt with believers in any age. Just as argued by Charles R. Smith:
    This is an assertion that has so far in the discussion not been refuted.

    My seminary is not the final authority on biblical interpretation. The leadership at SEBTS understands that concept and has employed professors that hold various doctrinal positions on numerous topics. Likewise, I am not “fishing” I am plainly asking you to simply and clearly state in detail what you mean when you use the term(s) “call,” “called,” and/or the phrase “God’s effectual call on your life to ministry.” Then I am asking you to provide Scripture that supports your definition of those terms/phrase. Finally, I am asking you to provide Scripture that shows that such a “call” (as you are using the term) is required of those who serve in ministry. If you cannot or will not honor this simple request our discussion can go no further.

    I have discussed this issue with the most direct biblical authority in my life (my pastor) who also happens to be a professor here at SEBTS. He holds the same view that I am expressing and is the one who suggested Friesen’s book, Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View, where this view is supported.

    I am sorry that you do not like the fact that I used my logic book to show that you had indeed committed an informal fallacy in your line of argumentation. Likewise, you do not have to agree with the definitions that I have used (another reason why I have repeatedly asked you to supply your own definition and Scripture to support that definition). My understanding of the Scriptures is based on sound hermeneutics and solid exegesis. However, I have asserted that you employed eisegesis when you attempted to use the Scripture to support your argument. This is an assertion that you have yet to refute. I am not so proud as to assume that I cannot be instructed in my understanding of the Bible and would welcome the chance to discuss this issue with Dr. Akin (President of SEBTS).

    Agreed. However, does the great commission mean that God has “effectually called” all who would serve in ministry? If so, where do the Scriptures support the idea that such a “call” is required of those who serve in ministry? Does being commissioned and sent equate to “God’s effectual call on your life to ministry”? I really do not think that you want to go down this path of argumentation. It is often used by liberals to support their claim that women can be pastors.

    Yes, Paul was called to be an apostle. He heard the audible voice of the exalted Christ. Does his specific call to be an apostle equate to “God’s effectual call on your life to ministry” for all who would serve in ministry today? If so, how many “called” pastors out there have likewise heard the audible voice of Christ tell them that He wants them to be His under-shepheards? I would venture to guess the answer is none. We are not to expect the same kind of supernatural revelation that the great prophets and apostles of the Bible received. God’s word is complete and the canon is closed. God is not continuing to progressively reveal His word through us today.

    That is correct. However, does Paul’s appointment of others to ministry equate to “God’s effectual call on their lives to ministry”? Are you saying that Paul equates to God? Does the laying on of hands equate to “God’s effectual call on one’s life to ministry”? If so please support that idea with a corresponding passage of Scripture.

    Yes. However, does Paul’s commissioning of Timothy and Titus equate to “God’s effectual call on their lives to ministry”? Is Paul now equal with God? The same questions also apply to the men appointed by Timothy and Titus. Do their appointments of others equate to “God’s effectual call on the other’s lives to ministry”? Are Timothy and Titus now to be equated to God? Does the laying on of hands equate to “God’s effectual call on one’s life to ministry”? If so please support that idea with a corresponding passage of Scripture. It looks like you are espousing the very Roman Catholic doctrine of Apostolic Succession here if I understand you correctly.

    No, that passage never uses the word “sent.” It says,
    You have once again applied eisegesis by importing your own presupposition into the text of the Scripture. That passage never uses the word sent (or more importantly "called") and even if it did, does being sent equate to “God’s effectual call on your life to ministry”?

    So from this quote it does in fact appear that when you use the word “call” that you actually mean “appointment.” Then in support of your holding to the traditional view you are equating the “appointment” of (or by) men with “God’s effectual call on your life to ministry.” This is a fallacy of ambiguity, namely Equivocation. According to Copi and Cohen, Introduction to Logic:
    D.A. Carson in his book entitled, Exegetical Fallacies, refers to this as “Unwarranted Associative Jumps.” According to Carson,
    [ December 10, 2005, 02:02 AM: Message edited by: Bible-boy ]
     
  8. Bible-boy

    Bible-boy Active Member

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    Hey El-G,

    Where are you getting your percentages? I some posts you say that 95% of seminary grads leave the ministry. In one of your last posts you said that greater than 80% of those trained at seminary fail in ministry.

    I was talking about this with a friend of mine who has been a student here st SEBTS since 1996 (came and did an ADiv., then a BA, and is now working on his MDiv). He questioned the high percentage (95%) leaving the ministry. He pointed out that there is no way that number could be correct regarding SEBTS grads who went through our MDiv. with International Church Planting program becuase way more than 5% of our total number of grads are still out on the mission field.

    [ October 08, 2005, 08:50 PM: Message edited by: Bible-boy ]
     
  9. Bible-boy

    Bible-boy Active Member

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    Nope. Back then I answered it based on my misunderstanding of the term "call" (as in the traditional use). However, since learning how to apply sound hermeneutics and solid exegesis to my interpretation of the Bible I have changed my doctrinal stance on the issue. If I had to complete that same application today I would answer differently and say that I aspire to be a minister of the gospel according to 1 Tim. 3:1, and I have made it my life goal to be able to meet and live up to the requirements of 1 Tim. 3, Titus 1, and 1 Pet. 5.

    Nope. I argue that the Bible does not use the term "call" in the exact same sense that you mean when you say "God's effectual call on your life to ministry," and that there is no passage of Scripture that supports the idea that such a "call" (as you are using the term) is required of those who serve in ministry.

    You have yet to demonstrate from the Scriptures using solid exegesis that God does indeed "call" those who would serve in ministry.

    Sure it is it goes right along with the topic of the opening post. So... how do you know that you received God's "call" into ministry? Did he speak to you in an audible voice, or did the Holy Spirit speak in an audible voice either directly to you or through a modern day prophet, or did God communicate with you through a supernatural revelatory vision? These are all the ways that the Bible says God "called" Paul to be an apostle, a missionary, and to direct him to carry the gospel into Macedonia. If one of these methods was not how you were "called" into the ministry how do you know that it was God who did the "calling"?
     
  10. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    God has called me to apply Mt. 28:19,20 in making disciples. If pastoring will allow me to do that in an obedient capacity, great. If not, then I will not pastor a church. Nobody can pastor a church that runs off people and be disobedient vessels. Pastoring is not just teaching. It is mentoring. You cannot mentor people who are lazy and do not want to learn and grow in ministry. Life is too short ot spend trying to coax people when there are many others who are serious and weant to grow. Everywhere I go people are wanting help badly while there are pastors who are beating their head against the wall because of problem with someone who just wants to cause trouble.

    A few years ago a friend of mine told the church he was leaving and they wanted to know why. He told them about one of the people who was causing such problems. They took care of the problem. The person is still there and not causing problems. The church is doing very well today.

    SWBTS never once asked about me making disciples or if I had made disciples. That should precede the qualifications of pastor. It is implied in the NT. If a man cannot make disciples then how can he lead a church. They never once asked about my relationships with outsiders. Isn't that one of the qualifications of a pastor? I submitted a recommendation from a non-believer and they told me they would not accept that because it was from one of my neighbors who was not a Christian. So I had to get another from someone else in the church.
     
  11. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    I agree.

    I asked questions about that then and few I asked who were in ministry could give me a distinct answer.

    I can tell you from what I saw working with other seminary students some of who believed God called them to be pastors and would show up to work late and have a poor attitude because "it was not ministry."

    If one were to take a look at the results he would see many who are walking with God today because of the investment I have had in the lives of many.

    Sometime read http://www.bibleteacher.org/Dm118_8.htm

    then ask yourself was that man who started a parachurch organization called? He never once pastored a church.

    Was Jesus called? He never pastored one church.
     
  12. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    gb

    I am counting to ten. In japanese, spanish, & then english.
     
  13. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    Jer 23: 21ff I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied.

    22 But if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.

    31 Yes," declares the LORD, "I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, 'The LORD declares.'

    Jer 35: 12, 15 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying: .... Again and again I sent ALL my servants the prophets to you

    John 20: 21 Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."

    Eph 4: 7, 11 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.....It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,
     
  14. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    Phil 1: 15 - 18

    It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.[a] 18But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
     
  15. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    I rejoice because the Gospel is preached.
     
  16. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    Bible-boy

    But, because God has not called you, you eisegete into His Word meaning that He did not place there.

    You play with fallacy ...
     
  17. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    Bible-boy & gb

    I must assume that you two are playing semantic games to try to make me angry and lead me into sin.
     
  18. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    Not at all. I have been down that road a long time ago. You would be surprised at how any of the professors I had at SWBTS who would disagree with what many of the leaders in the SBC said about being called.

    Just take a look at 1 Tim 3:1, "It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do."

    Later in that chapter are qualifications about many facets of his life. Just because someone can preach doesn't make him qualified. Making disciples is the primary qualification according to Mt. 28:19,20. If he cannot make disciples he is disqualified automatically. He can have all the desire in the world but his life'e results speak for themselves. No disciples means no results and no leadership. If he has not made any disciples shouldn't that be a clue about his leadership at the time? If he is not a leader with one or a few then what indicators are there that he will lead the congregation to make disciples when he has not.
     
  19. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    You have got to be kidding.

    After all of these years of traditional definition, you want me to believe that God is redefining what He has said, through men that are NOT called.

    I really do not think you understand the irony in that statement.

    You are not called, but you want the called to submit to your interpretation of Scripture ...

    This has to be a JOKE.
     
  20. Bible-boy

    Bible-boy Active Member

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    Nope. I have only read the relavent texts in a literal historical, grammatical, linguistic mannner, which is the basis for sound hermeneutics and solid exegesis. I have not added any outside meaning to the text, which is exactly what I assert that you have done when you import words and meanings that are not present in the text. I have only allowed the biblical text to speak for itself.

    Thus far I have demonstrated with source materials that you have twice fallen prey to fallacies in your line of argumentation. You, on the other hand have not demonstrated that about my line of argumentation. You have asserted such, but have not demonstrated where I have allegedly done so, how I have allegedly done so, which specific fallacy I have allegedly committed, or a source that documents such.

    I am not attempting to bait you into anger and sin. If what I am saying so rocks your theological world in a way that drives you to anger, then I suggest that you closely examine your theological worldview. Nothing that you have said in this discussion has driven me to anger. I simply want to discuss the Scriptures, how they apply to the issue at hand, engage your mind, and hopefully help you to see when you are dogmatically holding to a tradition of man as opposed to what the Bible actually says about those who serve in ministry. Please allow the Word to speak for itself rather than importing meaning in an attempt to make the Word fit your presopositions.
     
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