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Pilgrim said:
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li0scc0 said:
I think that, although I would agree with everything you say here, there are degrees of this growth. That said, yes, it should be constant growth. Someone who proclaims to be a Christian, and to have been one for 40 years, should show some clear and definite signs.
Let me throw this out to you and see if it causes you to think just a bit on the ramifications of your current view. Now mind you, it is not as if I disagree totally. For indeed if there is life then there must be signs of it. A dead person has no life-signs.

Fine then, let's suppose you were living during the reign of David, king of Israel. And, you just happened to have moved into the same neighborhood as the king during the time of his "indiscretion" with Bathsheba and his duplicity in regard to her husband Uriah's death. Understanding that these events didn't happen in a day or a day and a night, but rather over a period of time. It is well documented that David denied having done any wrong-doing for some time and hiding his affair with Bathsheba until after Uriah's death. Soooo, from your perception of king David during this period of his life, what would you conclude about him as one who professed to be a believer? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/scratchchin.gif" alt="" />

In His grace,

Agreed. and this is why we can never be fully sure, frankly, either way. We aren't God.

I hate to bring a worldly science to the world of Christ, but in a sense it is a means of statistical accuracy. By applying the 'in the world but not of the world' example, we are going to be accurate, statistically, much of the time. And again, in my earlier statement of this, I defined it as (assuming a profession):

1. If in the world but not of the world - generally we can assume this person is a Christian.

2. If in the world and of the world - we may call into question, but we cannot be sure either way

Your apt example with David, Pilgrim, would fall into the second bucket. David was acting of the world.

Real Christians have affairs. Real Christians sin. To use a Baptist term, we 'backslide'. I certainly have gone through the depths, for sure.

So David was a man after God's own heart. Yet at that time I wouldn't have wanted him teaching Sunday school to my kids, given his behavior 'of the world'. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Steve

Grace is not common.