80 The Race Set Before Us : A Biblical
نویسنده
چکیده
Almost every believer has faced the troubling situation of thumbing through the photograph directory of his congregation, only to see the faces of once vibrant Christians who have now abandoned the faith. For far too long, the typical evangelical response to this tragedy has been to shrug our shoulders with the reassurance that “once saved” means “always saved.” And yet, our consciences remain troubled when we move from the church directory to the New Testament, only to find repeated warnings that those who do not endure to the end will not inherit eternal life. This volume seeks to address this perplexing issue by calling the church to reconsider the implications of the “warning passages” of Scripture. Schreiner and Caneday approach the subject with an inductive study of the admonitions and conditional promises of the New Testament, regarding the salvation of those who persevere in the faith. In so doing, the authors interact with and critique various contemporary models of understanding perseverance and assurance. They reject as unbiblical the Arminian view that genuinely regenerate believers may forfeit their salvation. They likewise oppose the popular “non-lordship salvation view,” in which the warning passages refer only to a loss of rewards for “carnal Christians.” The authors do not, however, embrace the typical Reformed interpretation of the warning passages as applying simply to unregenerate, professing Christians within the community of the visible church. Instead, Schreiner and Caneday agree with Arminians that the warnings of Scripture, including the terrifying admonitions of the Book of Hebrews, are indeed addressed to genuine Christians. Nonetheless, they maintain that these warnings are a means that God uses to secure the perseverance of all authentic believers in Christ. The warnings, they argue, specify real conditions for entrance into the Kingdom of God— namely, a faith that endures to the end. But, they continue, those who have regenerate hearts always hear and always heed these warnings, due to the work of the Holy Spirit in preserving believers in the faith. Schreiner and Caneday are not the first to propose this understanding of perseverance. Indeed, Baptist theologian E. Y. Mullins contended in his early twentieth-century treatment of systematic theology that the warning passages express “real dangers” to be taken seriously by believers. “Looked at from the standpoint of human weakness, they may occur,” Mullins wrote. “There is, however, another factor to be reckoned with, God’s grace” [The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression, p. 435]. Schreiner and Caneday, however, do not simBook Reviews
منابع مشابه
Christian Iconography and Biblical Interpretation
Since the Bible is regarded as the most important source of Christian iconography and iconography in return is the visual interpretation of the Bible, the relationship between Christian iconography and biblical interpretation is noteworthy. In some cases this relationship is such that the visual representation is actively involved in the interpretation of the biblical text and is...
متن کاملAnother Look at the Hypocrisy of Chaucer’s Pardoner
For us, readers of Chaucer living in an age when appeal to religious passions and sentiments as a means for the realization of worldly objectives by some charlatans has grown significantly, reviewing the theme of religious hypocrisy treated in The Canterbury Tales can be useful in a way that it proves a helpful means for recognizing and dealing with the hypocrites. The Pardoner of the Tales is ...
متن کاملRace, Education Attainment, and Happiness in the United States
Background and aims: As suggests by the Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDR) theory, educationattainment and other socioeconomic status (SES) indicators have a smaller impact on the health andwell-being of non-White than White Americans. To test whether MDR also applies to happiness, in thepresent study, Blacks and Whites were compared in terms of the effect of education attai...
متن کاملNotices Scripture and Interpretation
C. Stephen Evans, Mary Healy, and Murray Rae. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003. Pp. xx + 553. $34.99. “Behind” the Text, the fourth volume of the Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, is a product of the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar (SAHS). According to their website, SAHS “was set up in 1998 to see what could be done to renew interpretation of the Bible as Scripture in the Academy.” SAHS striv...
متن کاملSubstance Use and the Number of Male Sexual Partners by African American and Puerto Rican Women
Background In the United States (US), there are 19 million new sexually transmitted disease (STD) infections each year. Untreated STDs can lead to serious long-term adverse health consequences, especially for young women. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that undiagnosed and untreated STDs cause at least 24,000 women in the US each year to become infertile. This clearly is a...
متن کامل