Subject: Adultery always involves married woman? |
Bible Note: emethalethia, I understand completely where you are coming from. I am a calvinist, 99.9 percent of the people I know are not calvinist. What has given me the most heartache in that situation is not that people I know disagree with me, but rather when they simply will not even look at what scripture has to say. They will simply say, "no that can't be" or as you say, simply walk away with no discussion at all, all the while judging me for my belief. It is as if they truely do not want to know what God's word says on the issue. When I actually find somebody who will look scripture straight in the face, acknowledge what calvinism actually teaches and yet ultimately tell me they disagree with me I count it an absolute joy. Even if they disagree with me I am very delighted because I am so use to people refusing to even consider scripture that I find it so refreshing for somebody to at least do that! The point being I know exactly how you feel. However...I also know how much that wounded me. It took me a long time to realize that no matter how sincere and pure my desires were, being faced with that type of willfull blindness hurt badly(I do not refer to non calvinists, only to those who will condemn it while refusing to consider scripture on it.) And for awhile it caused a bitterness within me and a skepticism towards most other people who professed religion. It took me some time to work out those feelings, and what I did not realize at the time was that in the mean time while I worked through that hurt, most of my conversations were colored by that. I found myself entering conversations actually expecting people to not consider scripture. I expected them to choose their comfort zone rather than the often discomforting realities of what God's word said. And my expectations doomed the conversations to be unedifying at the least and harmful and sinful at worst. I choose to walk away from this conversation not from an unwillingness to look at scripture concerning this question, but becaue I can see there have been many professors of religion who have done the same to you. They have absolutely dismissed your question with no sincere desire to see whether scripture agrees with you. I can truely see that, and I can see it has caused you the same pain that it did me. And I can see hints of the same hurt that it left in me. And I can see you expecting me to respond to you with the same shallowness that they did. That is why I choose not to discuss it with you, because I know from experience that converstations undertaken in that context will seldom end well. Know that you have my prayers and sympathy. Continue seeking to know scripture and to submit to it and in time the precious Spirit of truth will perfect us both. In Christ, Beja |