I'm not trying to waste your time and I'm sorry you feel that way. As far as a dividing line between people, I'm not ignoring it. I just don't see it as grounds to justify 2 gospels. You name any subject and there is a dividing line.
I only cited it as evidence not as proof but you blow it off as though it were meaningless.
If the divisions that clearly exist within the Christian church were the product of mere ignorance, as you suggest, then you wouldn't expect to find such a pattern. If Paul and Peter were both teaching the same thing and the differences between doctrines were just a matter of effectively random personal opinions then you'd not find the starck dividing line between them on so many diverse doctrines nor would people tend to group these doctrines together based on that same dividing line.
You'd have just as many people who believe both that there is no pretribulation rapture and that you can lose your salvation as you have people who believe that there is no pretribulation rapture and that you cannot lose your salvation. But you don't see that! The overwhelming majority of people that reject the pretribulation rapture also reject eternal security. And the reason that happens isn't mere hapinstance. The line of demarcation between those two doctrines as well as a whole list of other doctrines that seem equally unrelated to eachother is none other than the Apostle Paul.
Now, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, that IS powerfully strong evidence that your doctrine (that Pater and Paul taught the same gospel) is false. Evidence that anyone who was more interested in believing the truth than in preserving their doctrine would insist on dealing with and getting a good explanation for beyong effectively blowing it off as a mere coincidence born out of the ignorance of those who happen to disagree with your doctrines.
Try seeing from my perspective. When Paul converted the jailer, he did so in a very short time. After speaking the word of the Lord they were baptized.
I don't have to try to see it from your perspective. I used to hold to your perspective! I grew up reading a Scofield Study Bible and went to a church that water baptized everyone and served communion every single Sunday and taught that if you tithe God owes you a ten fold return and on and on and on. I know exactly what it's like to be an Acts 2 (or earlier) Dispensationalist because I was one for decades. I know precisely why I was wrong for all of those years but it's a paradigm level issue and so it is exceedingly difficult to get people to see it, much less accept it.
Paul's letters help us understand grace. His letters apply to all who have received grace in this dispensation. How did those he wrote to receive grace? Help me to understand what he said/did to this Gentile, in this very short time, that was different than others who were converting Christians?
There is nothing that I can say. You're still trying to get me to deal with your proof texts as though they present as problem texts for me. Your proof texts do not touch my doctrine. In fact, they argue MY DOCTRINE!. You are trying to get me to show you my paradigm through your paradigmatic filter. It can't be done! It isn't that you're in a dark room and need the light turned on. You can't see it because you are wearing tinted glasses that filter it out quite completely. And the likelihood is that you'll never come to see it. You aren't willing. You don't see any need to see anything other than what you see now and thus find no motivation to remove your legalist colored classes. You're also emotionally invested in your doctrine. You've turned the doctrine of baptism into a religious mission and have invested all kinds of energy and time into being a water baptism apologist. For you to go even one step down a road that might possibly lead you to understand that you had wasted all that time and energy would take a level of intellectual honesty and bravery that not one person in a thousand possess.
Not that I'm any better than you. I'm just as human as the next guy. This teaching just happen to catch me at a time when I was still in the process of making my faith my own. In fact, I was actively searching for a way to explain why there were three churches within a quarter mile of the church I attended, one of which was literally across the parking lot from my church, and why all four churches taught and practiced different things while all claiming to base those beliefs on the same bible. Why was my doctrine superior to any of theirs? By what authority or on what basis could I declare them wrong without that same premise lopping my own doctrinal legs out from under me?
I found no answer until I read "The Plot" by Bob Enyart and suddenly it was like the Sun had peaked out from behind a cloud. One single teaching that not only told me why my church taught what it did but why the Catholics believe what they believe and why the Lutherans believe what they believe and why the Seventh Day Adventists believe what they believe and so on and so on. ONE TEACHING that instantly and effortlessly (i.e. intuitively) resolved doctrinal debate after doctrinal debate. Suddenly a whole list of doctrines, including everything from water baptism to the rapture, that previously were complex and difficult, taking weeks or months or even years of study to pin down, were instantly turned into doctrines that were obvious and intuitive. Not only that, but it turned the bible into one giant collection of proof texts with not a problem text to be seen anywhere. It was, without a doubt, the most profound and important paradigm shift that I will ever experience during my physical life.
And, by the way, what more powerful argument for a doctrinal system could one hope to make? One single biblical teaching that is stated explicitly in the bible that instantly resolves a whole list of seemingly unrelated doctrinal debates that have divided the church for millennia and that leaves you with effectively no problem texts related to those doctrines, allowing you to simply read the bible and take it for what it plainly states. How much more elegant of an argument to establish the validity of a doctrinal system could you possibly ask for?
I mean, there is a definite answer to the question, "Will the Rapture occur and, if so, will it be before, after or during the Tribulation?" There is absolutely only one right answer to that question. Some people have it right (some in spite of themselves) and everyone who disagrees is wrong. And God, obviously, is in the group that knows the right answer. Do you think God has problem texts? You must!
I don't!
Resting in Him,
Clete
