How many times did you ask God for the Holy Ghost?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by seekerman

This isn't about a deserted island and this isn't about requiring history to be saved, this is about the fact that the oneness Pentecostals cannot find the church of the Living God during the 1800's, a relatively recent century.

Why can't the church of the Living God be found in the 1800's? Why can it suddenly be found, slowly, after 1913?

Poor guy on the island could not get saved, huh? Hopefully a full set of the history of the world would float by that was fallen off from some shipwreck, and then MAYBE... just maybe.

[seekerman]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Poor guy on the island could not get saved, huh? Hopefully a full set of the history of the world would float by that was fallen off from some shipwreck, and then MAYBE... just maybe.

I'm sure he would have found the same salvation doctrine that the civilized world found...after 1913.

But, imagine the confusion in his mind if he had been rescued in 1910 and upon return to civilization couldn't find a oneness Pentecostal church preaching the true salvation gospel of the living God. Stranger yet, he would not be able to find the church of the living God in the 1800s either. Or the 1700s.

Would he then have to assume that the gates of hell DID prevail against the church for several hundred years and it was his mission to reintroduce the true salvation message to the world? Could it be that this castaway's name was R.E. McAlister and he later would preach this new salvation message he found while stranded on the island?

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by mfblume

If one was on a deserted island, with nothing but the bible, and never knew anything else about God, and they learned from the bible how to be saved... then what? Could they do it? Would they require history to be saved? Go figure.

I have actually met people from foreign lands who were in a similar situation. I have never met anyone who ended up with the "full package Acts 2:38" method of salvation, though. Nobody gets that without first coming through us. We guard it jealously.

I know a family of Ukranians who we transported to the Caucasus region in Soviet days. They knew only some scanty elements of the Orthodox faith but had never been believers and grew up under Communism. They started off with just a Bible and developed the idea that "church institutions" were wrong. They baptized each other and their converts according to Matthew 28:19 - since "that's what Jesus said."

They only learned about the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" with tongues from watching a tape of a TBN broadcast in the 1980s. When they finally got to America the first person they wanted to meet was Benny Hinn.

These were some of the most sincere Christians I have ever met. Sincere, and desperately naive - IMHO.

Oneness and Jesus name baptism escaped their attention entirely. They took the Bible very literally and and very seriously. When "Jesus prayed to the Father" they saw two Persons communicating with one another. I find this to be a common conclusion among most Bible readers.

Your presumption that our "message" is so easily found in the Bible seems to ignore the fact that no one ever "found" this message in the Bible for 1700 years. That is the crushing argument history brings against our insistence that "this is the only way to be save." (And I know Mike, you don't take that extreme of a position - BUT you keep arguing in favor of it).

[notofworks]

Originally Posted by pelathais

I have actually met people from foreign lands who were in a similar situation. I have never met anyone who ended up with the "full package Acts 2:38" method of salvation, though. Nobody gets that without first coming through us. We guard it jealously.

I know a family of Ukranians who we transported to the Caucasus region in Soviet days. They knew only some scanty elements of the Orthodox faith but had never been believers and grew up under Communism. They started off with just a Bible and developed the idea that "church institutions" were wrong. They baptized each other and their converts according to Matthew 28:19 - since "that's what Jesus said."

They only learned about the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" with tongues from watching a tape of a TBN broadcast in the 1980s. When they finally got to America the first person they wanted to meet was Benny Hinn.

These were some of the most sincere Christians I have ever met. Sincere, and desperately naive - IMHO.

Oneness and Jesus name baptism escaped their attention entirely. They took the Bible very literally and and very seriously. When "Jesus prayed to the Father" they saw two Persons communicating with one another. I find this to be a common conclusion among most Bible readers.

Your presumption that our "message" is so easily found in the Bible seems to ignore the fact that no one ever "found" this message in the Bible for 1700 years. That is the crushing argument history brings against our insistence that "this is the only way to be save." (And I know Mike, you don't take that extreme of a position - BUT you keep arguing in favor of it).

The thing about this whole discussion that amazes me is that people like Blume and the 3-steppers have taken a position that seems to propagate that a special few on this planet's history have discovered the secret decoder ring to the bible and have become a special chosen one for salvation. The rest of us through history? Too bad, so sad.

If you look through this country, heck, this continent or this world, you're going to see thousands of churches. The 3-step view of them? "Poor saps". I guess it's too bad for them on "election day", huh?

It feels like a very privileged, arrogant position.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by pelathais

I have actually met people from foreign lands who were in a similar situation. I have never met anyone who ended up with the "full package Acts 2:38" method of salvation, though. Nobody gets that without first coming through us. We guard it jealously.

You never answered my question.

Could they be saved, though? Do not miss my question. You know my thoughts on the whole package deal thing. But they have no history and no verification of who preached what for how many centuries. Could they be saved? Is the bible complete enough, whether or not you agree with my viewpoint?

When "Jesus prayed to the Father" they saw two Persons communicating with one another. I find this to be a common conclusion among most Bible readers.

Do you feel they are correct in saying there are two persons? Aside the point, but just wondering.

Your presumption that our "message" is so easily found in the Bible seems to ignore the fact that no one ever "found" this message in the Bible for 1700 years.

You are avoiding my question. Could such a person be saved on that desert island? Yes or no? Or do they need an ecclesiastical history book with the bible?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by seekerman

I'm sure he would have found the same salvation doctrine that the civilized world found...after 1913.

But, imagine the confusion in his mind if he had been rescued in 1910 and upon return to civilization couldn't find a oneness Pentecostal church preaching the true salvation gospel of the living God. Stranger yet, he would not be able to find the church of the living God in the 1800s either. Or the 1700s.

Would he then have to assume that the gates of hell DID prevail against the church for several hundred years and it was his mission to reintroduce the true salvation message to the world? Could it be that this castaway's name was R.E. McAlister and he later would preach this new salvation message he found while stranded on the island?

You never answered my question either. What is it with that?

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by mfblume

You never answered my question either. What is it with that?

Maybe you ask offkey questions.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by mfblume

You never answered my question.

Could they be saved, though? Do not miss my question. You know my thoughts on the whole package deal thing. But they have no history and no verification of who preached what for how many centuries. Could they be saved? Is the bible complete enough, whether or not you agree with my viewpoint?

That is such a fundamental and emphatic "YES!" that I thought my answer was already known and your question was rhetorical.

Jesus saves. He can and He always has.

Originally Posted by mfblume

Do you feel they are correct in saying there are two persons? Aside the point, but just wondering.

I hold to what I have come to understand Tertullian's original point to have been. A "Person" wasn't intended the way we use "person" today.

"Two (or Three) Persons, analogously" in modern terms. In the case of Christ's prayer to the Father, I see a complete human being with all of the faculties that you and I possess crying out to the Great Divine. He wasn't just a "Deus ex machina." The "machima" was a complete human being.

Originally Posted by mfblume

You are avoiding my question. Could such a person be saved on that desert island? Yes or no? Or do they need an ecclesiastical history book with the bible?

I wasn't "avoiding," I was jumping ahead in the dialog. Yes, they could be "saved" - and really saved at that. And they could possess this salvation without a single inclination toward our "Apostolic Distinctives."

[seekerman]

Originally Posted by mfblume

You never answered my question either. What is it with that?

Of course he could be saved without history books. He wouldn't be able to find the church of the Living God in the history books before 1913 though, wouldn't matter if a container ship with thousands of volumes of history books ran aground on his island. That should cause him not a small amount of concern.

Why do you think 1913 is a magic year for the guy on the island?

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by seekerman

...

Why do you think 1913 is a magic year for the guy on the island?

Everybody was on a "deserted island" until the year 1913, when Brother Scheppe roused us all from our tropically induced daze by shouting about his Eureka! moment of revelation.

Ever since that time the preacher had to say your baptism right or you went to hell. That's just the way it is.