Hi LBS

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Hi LBS

Forum: Messageboard
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Getting into the "Secrets of the Vine" (Ivan)
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Salvation & works
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Thanks LBS, do you want to contribute and form your own conclusion,if any? eom. (Ivan)
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Responding
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Hi Truelight, Do me a favour first
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Ivan, Truelight, Need your help to understand
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common ground: we are all saved in Christ (Keith)
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A matter of life and death
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I have to explain further because you believe in an empty faith. (True Light)
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Faith is believing what God ask you to believe
Date: 2001, Nov 04
From: Royston Ong godwithus

We have to be careful not to disagree wholeheartedly too easily as well, as many interpreters of the Greek and Hebrew have conceded that their interpretations do carry some weightage of inaccuracies regarding translation work, and that is why theological students have to study the Greek as well as Hebrew words in order to understand its true essence, instead of leading people blindly with the English translations we have. Hence, I would rather not rule out the possibilities that John 15:1-5 is meant or not meant for Christians to take heed of their salvation by works, just on the basis of English translations, and it be better all of us do so too. Am also not inclined to say I am totally right, but on historical context, Gospel of John was the last Gospel written close to 65-70 years after Christ died, risen and ascended. His target group was also the believers of Christ, in order to strengthen them. Hence, his message to them was God incarnate and the central message was "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name" (Jn 20:31) with its key word as "believe" running through the whole of Gospel of John. I would probably put more emphasis on study of John than Luke or Mark, as John was an eye-witness to the mysteries of Christ and the Holy Spirit, compared to Mark and Luke, for they were only transcribers of what they have heard from the Apostles. Which leaves Matthew. Matthew, on the other hand, wrote to a target audience of Jews, practising Judaism still, and it was a warning for them to put their faith on Christ by drawing OT prophecies to point out Jesus as the promised Messiah instead. On top of this, his book was the first being circulated around 40 years after Christ died, risen and ascended. Hence, I would not be prepared to lump the styles of Matthew and Luke together with John. It would highly unwise to do so. This would not be a theologically right thing to do, as proposed by Ivan/SBG/True Light. John would be a stand alone because it is more theological in literary sense, while to put Matthew, Mark and Luke as a combination by themselves together, this could be a possibility but never to lump John with the other 3 Gospels. God speed, royston