Dialogue with a Muslim

[shazeep]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Make it easier shazeep and just toss the bible altogether.

You consistently stumble at the cross. Nuff said.

yes ok ty for your interest in this matter Mr Blume, your timely and heartfelt comments are always etc etc.

Zaccheus came up @ Bible study tonight; not sure if this was the thread that i proclaimed "all salvation in Scripture is future tense," but i'll deal with that later...

1He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. 3He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd, since he was a short man. 4So running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus, since He was about to pass that way. 5When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today I must stay at your house.”

6So he quickly came down and welcomed Him joyfully. 7All who saw it began to complain,a “He’s gone to lodge with a sinful man! ”

8But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, I’ll giveb half of my possessions to the poor,c Lord! And if I have extortedd anything from anyone, I’ll paye back four times as much! ”f

9“Today salvationg has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham.h 10For the •Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”i,j

So, here we have a couple (at least) interesting points for our ongoing debate; Zaccheus is proclaimed "saved" by--to all appearances--his works, by Christ, present tense. I haven't lexiconed the verses yet to verify that the same word is used in other instances of "salvation," but i found this intriguing in light of the OP position on salvation. Here we have salvation w/o calling on Christ's Name, baptism, tongues, none of that. (And contrasted with the nobleman who asked Christ what else he must do to attain salvation, it gets even more interesting)

I'm not even sure what i might comment here--other than "salvation is not for humans to define"--but i'll sleep on it.