Clients From Hell
I work for a software consultancy and, every now and then, clients say odd things. They are rarely as amazing as some of the things said at Clients From Hell though…
"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
I work for a software consultancy and, every now and then, clients say odd things. They are rarely as amazing as some of the things said at Clients From Hell though…
In the last two blog posts I critiqued the Scripture interpretations of Mack, a commentator on my Once Saved, Always Saved post. Mack had responded to my article, claiming that I had been misapplying Scripture passages to support my argument that it is possible to lose your salvation. If you would like to read my two previous replies, they are available here and here.
We have nearly finished looking at Mack’s commentary, so please pour yourself one last cup of tea and we’ll take a look at the final two passages…
In the last post I began to examine the responses of Mack, a recent commentator on my Once Saved, Always Saved post who offered some constructive criticism concerning the Scripture passages I presented.
I previously looked at Mack’s commentary of 1 John 5:16-17 and 2 Peter 2:20-22. I will now look at his analysis of several other passages which I offered in defense of the idea that it is possible to lose one’s salvation. Mack basically attempted to disqualify these texts since they were drawn from letters addressed to groups of people.
So, grab another cup of tea and we’ll look at what he had to say…
I recently had some comments on my Once Saved, Always Saved post by a chap called MackQuigley. In that post I presented several passages as evidence that it is possible to lose one’s salvation. Mack disagreed with my article and said that I had misapplied these passages and that they did not, in fact, support my case.
In his final comment, Mack went through each of the passages I quoted and gave a brief summary of his own interpretation in an attempt to prove that it is not possible to lose one’s salvation. Since he graciously took the time to explain his position and challenged my post in a charitable manner, I would like to return the favour and offer a reply.
I’m going to break up my response into a few different posts, collecting together the passages where Mack used similar argumentation to disqualify the texts. For each passage, I’m going to quote the Scripture under examination, append Mack’s comments and finally offer my own rebuttal.
There are quite a few Scripture passages to address here – seven in total – so this’ll take a little bit of time. It’s probably a good idea to put on the kettle and brew up a nice cup of tea before we continue…
“The first time you share tea with someone, you are a stranger. The second time, you are a guest. The third time, you are family”
– Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson
Did you know that Catholic Answers are having an apologetics conference in September? You’ve got until the end of the month to qualify for the early bird discount!