Salvation is a free gift? But...

[episkopos]

It just seems like Christians choose whichever verses supports their personal goal and just ignore the rest.

Very true. Dogmatism creates an environment whereby growth is stunted...and that stunting dogmatism is tenaciously held to as if it was the faith itself.

The problem as I see it is that the bible is God-centered in it's logic but the interpreters are usually man-centered. The truth seems inconsistent but that is due to the fact that the truth is spoken in an opposite sounding dialectic....it is given as a 2 pole entity....like a magnet that has a North and South pole. If you take the one pole only....no magnetism (but a strong dogmatism). If you line up scriptures properly...you have a mutual repelling taking place in the natural sense. The word wants to kill us at first...not save us. Man reasons that this cannot be and ignores the whole message from there on. Man is attracted to some of the message of the bible but gets the truth backwards since the opposite poles attract. But in doing so the message is reversed to make it 180 degrees out of whack. So by adding our desires and attractions to the word we get it EXACTLY wrong. And all this happening over and over without giving the least thought as to why. God has designed His word this way to keep the flesh out of the garden. Only the new creation may enter. This new creation itself is a seeming contradiction.....how can an eternal life be hidden in a temporal one?

So the truth MUST sound contradictory to human ears in order to capture the eternal essence of it. When we take just one pole of the truth we end up with a private human interpretation that can we champion for our own "glory" (actually vainglory). This is how denominations are started. But we are largely blind to this. We are to be humble and REMAIN SO...but our scant knowledge puffs up to the point where we remain mainly in the dark.

The letter KILLS....then the Spirit gives life. Most Christians are looking to have the letters give them life.

[Boo]

The bible is NOT ambiguous about how to recieve salvation and what following Jesus entails.

People make it that way.

[mailmandan]

Romans 6:23 - "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Romans 5:15-17 - "But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ."

Romans 3:22-24 - "For there is no distinction: for fall have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith."

Ephesians 2:8-9 - "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

None of these scriptures even remotely are intimating a "free pass into immortality".

Amen! Well stated. The gift of God is eternal life. In Romans 5:15-17 (NKJV), five times Paul says gift and two out of five times he says free gift. We are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:8 (Amplified Bible) - For it is by free grace (God’s unmerited favor) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation) through [your] faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [of your own doing, it came not through your own striving], but it is the gift of God. Regardless of whether people believe that salvation is forfeitable or not, we do not earn or deserve salvation. Receiving salvation as a gift does not imply that it's a free pass into immorality.

1 John 3:7-10 - Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

[Athanasius]

...the only two individuals apparently left in this discussion are disrespectful and condescending in their tone and are concluded on the matter more than they have the right to be. I tend to respond to this kind of behavior with equal spite, and I feel that doing so would be counterproductive for all of us. Anthanasius, I give you the floor to have the final word, however, I won’t respond any further.

Bah, I lost my reply

I'll leave your reply at the last word in our discussion. I tend to go hard at conversation, so don't take it personally. Typically the avatar tips people off, but be that as it may.

Cheers!