How can we all read the same book and see God so differently?
The God that Calvinists describe is nothing like the God that I read about in scripture.
This is my observation and not meant to be mean.
Why do you think love and pursuit of God's glory are somehow incompatible? I think what we are seeing here is the problem we see elsewhere in your thinking ... You grab a couple of verses of Scripture and ignore the rest of them. That ends up leading to a flawed theology.
The Bible declares that Jesus died to bring glory to God, and that his purpose in saving people was to bring glory to himself.
I would not argue at all that God's love is selfish. But being self-centered is not selfish either so we have no problem there.
Leave the ad hominems out of this discussion, Larry. I have done no such thing. There is a difference between pulling a couple verses to prove a point and building one's theology solely on a couple verses. I'm not "ignoring the rest of them", so your accusation is false.
...like calvinism?
The Bible also declares that Jesus died to atone for sin....to reconcile mankind to the Father...and to defeat death. These all bring glory to God. This doesn't mean this was done in a self centered way nor fashion.
Define the difference between selfishness and self centeredness.
Would it help if the word being used was "God-centered"?
But scripture says more than that.
God's glory is not merely the result of his show of love toward human beings, but the ultimate purpose for it.
He saved people to demonstrate the wealth of his grace. (Ephesians 2).
He saved to show something about himself.
He built the church to "disclose the multi-faceted wisdom of God", and this was his eternal purpose for what he accomplished in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 3).
Once again, his plan to save is ultimately for the purpose of showing something about himself.
Over and over again, as well, God's delivering work is said to be "for his name's sake."
In other words, the ultimate purpose is to show something about "his name", or who he is.
This doesn't mean that there aren't other purposes, but that "to the praise of his glory" or "to the praise of the glory of his grace" or "for his name's sake" or "to demonstrate the wealth of his grace" are always given last shows them to be the overarching, ultimate, primary purpose.
The overarching purpose of God's saving work is to demonstrate characteristics of himself and bring himself glory in that way.
In return, not being to be mean, I think that your presuppositions about what God is like determine what you find in Scripture. As we have seen the Scripture presented here, your side has no real answers for it.
You have rarely given any reasoned response to them. The verses you pull out to prove a point only prove that point because you ignore other verses, and sometimes they don't even prove your point at that.
No.
It doesn't mean it wasn't. Why did God save man? What was his reason? It was to bring glory to himself.
Selfishness is an unjust focus on self. Self-centeredness is simply being centered on self. God is not unjustly focused on himself. He is justly focused on the pursuit of his own glory, and he has plainly told that to us.
What is my side Pastor?
Can we not lay aside our differences and be on the side of Christ?
Must the debate about Calvinism continue to split us apart?
Will you only consider me to be a sister in Christ if I agree with you?
If I believe in free will, why does that bother you so much?
Can we not be united in Christ and still maintain some differences in our interpretation of scripture?
Do you think I'm unsaved because I believe in free will?
As far as my presuppositions go, I didn't have any.
I wasn't raised in a Christian house and I have depended on the Bible for all my teachings.
webdog is right in questioning the title of this thread. Self-centered just doesn't fit. God is Spirit. He can't be divided into That One who has a Self. He doesn't need to "center". I AM.
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I have never questioned your faith in Christ, nor the faith of those who disagrees with me on this. But we disagree. We cannot both be right.
It doesn't bother me that much. In fact, I don't think I have ever responded to you very much, have I? What bothers me is when people say I believe something that I don't.
Yes.
No.
Actually we all have presuppositions. Your's may not have been formed by a Christian home, but you still have them.