WAGING WAR AGAINST FELLOW BELIEVERS...you need to read this

Fellow blogger and friend, Carla Rolfe, has posted an excellent article on this issue of confronting issues within the blogosphere with those we may disagree with in the household of faith. She mentioned me along with friend James White at the end of her post under the "update" section 

This is a must read article and I hope it will encourage you all in the how, what, why, where and whom we blog categories. Three key words for us all to remember when blogging, emailing, texting, etc. about fellow believers in the Lord: grace, charity, and humility.

The Apostle Paul deals with this subject very pointedly in his epistle to the Galatians. As Dr. MacArthur points out in his study bible on the following passage I quote below:

"The imagery is of wild animals savagely attacking and killing each other - a graphic picture of what happens in the spiritual realm when believers do not love and serve each other."

And may I add, attack and spread falsehood about each other. Listen to the Apostle's words:

"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another." -Galatians 5:13-15

It has been said, that he who bites has exhausted his angry passions. But the one who seeks to devour is given over to extreme cruelty. 

Puritan divine, John Calvin, explains it as thus:

"slanders, accusations, reproaches, and every other kind of offensive language, as well as acts of injustice arising either from fraud or violence. And what is the end of them? To be consumed; while the tendency of brotherly love is to produce mutual protection and kindness. I wish we could always remember, when the devil tempts us to disputes, that the disagreement of members within the church can lead to nothing else than the ruin and consumption of whole whole body. How distressing, how mad it is, that we, who are members of the same body, should be leagued together, of our own accord for mutual destruction."

May we not excite a spirit of contention within the church and between brothers and sisters in the Lord, but provoke one another unto love and good works. Amen?

In His unfailing love,

Steve
1 Cor. 13:1

SALVATION IS ALL OF GOD, ALL OF GRACE, ALL BY THE GOSPEL...man must believe the gospel to be saved... but

And when the Gentiles heard this, 

they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, 

and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

-Acts 13:48

"Yes, men believe the gospel to be saved. No question about it. I believe it, I preach it, I call all men to do it. 

I just know that no man will do it unless and until the miracle of regeneration takes place first. God must open the heart. God must enlighten the mind. God must grant faith. And when God draws one of His elect to Himself, He draws them to Christ through the gospel. The unfailing result of being drawn by the Father is looking to, believing in, coming to (all present tense actions) the Son. It is the nature of the new creature in Christ to believe in Him." -Dr. James White (Debating Calvinism, p. 305)