Monday, March 31, 2008

The Homeless and Me, Part V

Last night was fun. I was promoted to a manager position starting last Wednesday, and last night I put out and banned my first resident. I had a report of some obscene behavior (the likes of which I won't even mention in this forum). I went to investigate what was going on and when I found the person in question I just asked him his name. He responded, "I'm not telling you. You have no right to question me!" I assured him that as long as he lived in the mission I could at least ask him his name. I was going to tell him that he would have to leave for the night and come back the next day and talk to a case manager--since I didn't actually see what was going on. However, he got angry and started to cuss at me. He also threatened to shoot me. I told him to leave and started to dial the police and he was gone before I finished the call. We marked his file so as not to let him back in to the facility for any reason for at least 6 months.

I love my job.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Baptism and Eternal Security

A couple of years ago there was some controversy concerning alien immersion. Should a baptism administered in a church that does not affirm that a true believer cannot loose their salvation be considered valid--even if it is by immersion as a believer with no understanding that baptism in any way is salvific.

This issue was brought up in my class last night and I think I've had a change of mind. Earlier I would have accepted a baptism as valid as long as it met the other qualifications I listed above. However, Dr. Patterson described the qualification for a valid baptism is that it be administered by a New Testament church. The thing that he maintained was necessary for a New Testament church was that they be clear on salvation by grace through faith alone.

I'm not exactly sure that drawing a line at eternal security is necessarily the right place to draw a line. However, there is one thing that makes me think it is probably a good place for SBC entities to draw the line: "Perseverance of the Saints" is probably the only one of the 5 points of Calvinism that Southern Baptists can almost all agree on. If a church rejects perseverance, chances are they don't clearly teach salvation by grace alone either.