Subject: need for a bible-anyone |
Bible Note: Greetings Raven! I was curious about your exgesis of Acts 2. Where exactly does Acts 2:14-41 say that they had 'faith' or that they had already 'believed'? The only passage which speaks of anything remotely like a response to the Gospel is verse 41 which says that 'those who accepted his message were baptized'. Thus, some of those referred to in Acts 2:37 had not already accepted. No one is tired of Acts 2:38, it is the misinterpretation of Acts 2:38 which causes consternation. ;-) As I have posted several times, the singular command 'to be baptized' cannot be connected to the plural pronoun in the phrase 'for forgiveness of your sins'. The only verb which can be connected to the 'eis' clause is the plural command to 'repent'. Thus, it is repentance which leads to forgiveness of sins - not repentance and baptism. This is a grammatical fact which has to be dealt with in interpreting Acts 2:38. Thus far, I haven't heard any explanation from the baptismal regeneration postition which deals with this point - other than to simply ignore it's importance. It is hard to duplicate this problem in English. The closest I can think of would be an example like the following (remember Greek does not follow the same word order rules as English does): "Paul said that those who live foolishly he does not live foolishly they will perish". If the above were a Greek sentence, it would be obvious that the pronoun 'he' can only refer to Paul. While the pronoun 'they' could only refer to 'those who live foolishly' and the phrase 'they will perish' can also only refer to the plural 'those who live foolishly'. What the baptismal regeneration position does is try to force the 'he' to refer to the plural 'those' and the 'they' to refer to the 'he'. It can't be done. It breaks the rules of Grammar. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |