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Please consider the suffix in the Greek that these verses were written in. 1 Cor. 1:18 and 2 Cor. 2:15 both use σῳζομένοις which is a present participle, properly translated as "being saved."

Again, you don't know what I think of it, or what reverence I have for it. More to the point, your comment that the Bible is "the only Truth that is left" in this world is either hyperbole, or excludes the truth of your own statement (which, after all, is not found in the Bible)!

Gen2Rev, I gave an example of what might be hyperbole, and it happened to concern a physical attribute. Your response is that I "have no idea what men were capable of back then." (How in the world do YOU know what ideas I have and don't have? You don't know me at all!) Hyperbole goes well...

For you inerrantists out there . . . how can you tell whether a particular verse is or is not engaging in hyperbole? (Example: 2 Sam. 2:18 declares that “Asahel was as swift of foot as a wild gazelle.” If true, Usain Bolt would have had no chance against him!)

Thanks for this collection of verses on point. Important for even Fundamentalists to consider -- although I'm pretty sure they won't. The certainty of salvation from Day One is just too important a concept to them, and they will defend it by marshaling other verses that tend their way. And...

That topic has been the subject of varying opinions since the patristic period. Robert L. Wilken, "The Interpretation of the Baptism of Jesus in the Later Fathers," Studia Patristica 11 (1972) 271, has a decent summary if you want to canvass the period. I suggest you start a new post posing the...

"Begotten" -- as I understand the word -- can refer to the physical birth of a human being, or it can refer to the generation by one being of another being. I have always understood that the Son (I will reserve the name "Jesus" for the incarnate Son who walked the planet 2,000 years ago, and...

Where are you getting this from, Aunty? There is no evidence I am aware of that this bizarre practice was anything other than a localized, mid-first century Corinthian practice engaged in by nobody else at no other point in time. There is no evidence that those Corinthians also believed infant...

Well, it was a Christian practice at Corinth in mid-first century. Paul says the Corinthians engaged in the practice -- the Corinthians he was writing to in the Church at Corinth (i.e., per 1 Cor. 1:2, Christians). And while you don't believe him, preferring to conclude that the text is just...

Actually, I wasn't focused on salvation so much as on holiness. Transmission of holiness was my bottom line question.

Thanks for that, Ronald. As it happens, I was about to include a quote from that exact same Catholic Encyclopedia article as part of my post ("we plead and represent before the Father the Sacrifice of the Cross"), but took it out at the very end!

Roman Catholics do not hold that the Mass is repeating the sacrifice of Christ. By current interpretations, that sacrifice is being realized―rather than repeated―through the consecration and offering of the elements in a mystical union stretching across the bridge of time and space. I have...

Let me suggest that the Psalm called David "firstborn" simply in an effort to overturn (in his case) the primogeniture mindset of the times that would otherwise have relegated his status. But in Colossians, there is no primogeniture issue (because Christ was the only-begotten, and didn't need...

I'm happy to let the members decide whether they wish to disclose their denomination. (Personally, I'm OK with revealing mine: Episcopal.) But I also think that knowing a member's denomination is not necessarily a sure guide to knowing the member's beliefs. There is at least some dissent in...

Point taken. But the question remains whether the unbelieving spouse, while ONE with the believing spouse, is somehow saved despite his/her nonbelief. The argument that x is holy; x is one with y; therefore y is holy will be valid if “one with” is understood such that the amalgam is...

The Corinthian practice of being baptized on behalf of the departed was neither condoned nor condemned by Paul -- only mentioned by him as a point of argument ("how can you deny bodily resurrection when you yourselves do this baptism-on-behalf-of-the-dead thing, which would be pointless if...

And let's look at the juxtaposition Paul uses in 1 Cor. 7:14 ("otherwise your children would be unclean"). Here he uses akatharta – generally translated “unclean” – rather than hamartoloi (a la Rom. 5:19), generally translated "sinful." The word appears only two other times in Paul’s...

In 1 Cor. 7:14 we find Paul’s comment, made in the mixed-marriage context, that an unbelieving partner is made holy by his or her believing partner, and that the children of the union are likewise holy. Is holiness somehow sexually transmitted, and genetically passed on to the next generation...

67 years on the planet, and this is the first time I've heard the notion that pre-resurrection the saints were still in their graves and "conscious of nothing." Tell me more!

Sir, Not having taken a poll on the subject, I'm in no position to say what "Confuses Many." No doubt we could separate "Forgive others FIRST, THEN God Will Forgive" (a result of our forgiveness of others) and "Forgive others Because Christ Has Already FORGIVEN us" (a reason for our...