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Can mute people be saved then?

Yes, because a mute person’s “mouth” could be writing or even just mouthing the words without sound.

What about severely mentally handicapped people, who don’t even know what a resurrection is? What about infants?

How do you know they don’t know what a resurrection is?

It doesn’t matter whether I know if they know. There might be some people who just don’t have the capability to know. Severely mentally retarded, brain damaged at a young age, somehow they have not the capability to understand what being raised from the dead is. Hypothetical situation. And infants.

Ah, so you’re just here to stir up hypotheticals. Are you saved?

I’m here to help educate that Romans 10:9 is an incomplete definition of the requirements for being saved because there are obvious logical flaws in it. Not only that but there are other formulae in the Bible for being saved that appear to be additional requirements.

Mark 1:15 - “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Matthew 19:16-17 - “Now someone approached him and said, “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?” He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

So we also must repent, and keep the commandments. That’s more than proclaiming Jesus with our lips and believing in resurrection of the dead.

BTW, these are more than hypotheticals. With the diversity of people on earth, these are statistical likelihoods. I’m not talking about any one particular individual.

Also, there are lots of references in the bible to different states of being saved.

“I Have Been Saved” : Romans 8:24, Eph. 2:5,8 2 Tim. 1:9, Titus 3:5

“I Am Being Saved” : 1 Cor. 1:18, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12, 1 Peter 1:9

By the Romans 10:9 formula, there is no “I Am Being Saved”. You are either saved or you are not. There is no “working out your salvation with fear and trembling” as Peter and Paul both state.

Am I saved? By your definition, I am saved. By my definition, if I died today, I would go to heaven. So I guess the answer is ‘yes’. By my standards, I’m good either way. Why do you ask?

I asked because you seem to have a real problem with the Bible being the Word of God. You often dispute the Scriptures as valid and want to continually put your words into the mouths of Jesus and Paul and others. (Not just here but on other sites.) You’ve also posted many hateful and condemning things toward other people on this and other sites and I see very little love in you toward other people.

You also like to twist scriptures to fit what you want to accomplish instead of taking them for what is said. For example, you post 1 Corinthians 1:18 as if being saved is a process. The verse says “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Clearly it’s talking about people who are coming to Christ…not those who have already come to Christ. You’re being deliberately deceptive in what you’re posting.

Now, I could write that off as a simple misreading of the scripture itself but you’ve done this multiple times on other sites. Sometimes I just wonder if you’re someone who likes to mess with Christians while claming to be one. I hope I’m wrong on that because I want you to be in heaven just like I would want everyone else there.

I’d appreciate, if you are going to slander me on your blog, if you’d please post links supporting your claims. Go ahead and post them, they are out on the internet. I don’t mind. At least then you have some substantiation to back up your claims, which I find very offensive.

I don’t have a problem with the Bible being the word of God. I have a problem with someone’s interpretation (that I feel is erroneous) being accepted as the word of God. Having a different interpretation of the Bible than you doesn’t mean that I am twisting scriptures. In order to say that, you are going with the assumption that you are right and I am wrong. From my point of view, you are the one twisting scriptures. But that is just a point of view, and with that we can debate this passage.

You failed to address anything regarding this interpretation of scripture that I have posted. Instead you have chosen to calumniate me.

Paul in Romans 10 even elaborates on this issue, apparently so that people don’t make the mistake of taking Romans 10:9 out of context (although Bible verses themselves are a later addition). Here is a summary:

* Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
* You can’t call on the name of the Lord unless you believe.
* You can’t believe in Jesus unless you have heard of Jesus.
* You can’t hear about Jesus unless you have someone to preach him to you (note - does not say read the Bible, but could also be construed as that these days in which the Bible is widely available, although there are so many interpretations that you really need an authority to teach it to you)

There is also the implied assumption that whoever preaches Jesus to you is preaching the real Jesus and not a cariacature of Jesus. Unless we know Jesus, we read the Bible, we learn about Him, then the Jesus in our head is really an idol Jesus that we make for ourselves to worship. So we must choose our authorities (teachers) wisely and really learn our faith.

So in summary, and taking Romans 10 as a whole, the person who confesses that Jesus is Lord with their lips and believes in the resurrection must know the real Jesus (either by being preached to by someone who is a legitimate authority, e.g. who is sent, or by assumption reading the whole gospel and believing in it). Even reading the Bible on our own carries with it our own prejudices from the culture we live in, and it is easy to misinterpret because for many things in the Bible, we must understand the culture at that time to really “get it”. Personal interpretation is dangerous. Especially of Paul. Even Peter acknowledges that Paul is hard to understand.

In addition, the whole point of Romans 10 is not to definitely tell to all Christians how to be saved. He is addressing the Jews and the way they were living their religion through the Levitical Law (v3, v5 righteous by following the law) and their need to worship through faith (v4, v6-7) The Jews thought that they had to see Jesus to believe, that is, bring Jesus down from heaven instead of having faith in Him, that he already is in heaven. So really Romans 10 is really promoting an emphasis on ‘believing (and not simply obeying the law) in order to see Jesus’ rather than ’seeing to believe’, and not stating an absolute formula on how to be saved, as you have stated in your blog that it does.

You have the right to say that you disagree with me. Argue your case as to why I am wrong, why we can say that Romans 10:9 is all we need to do to be saved. And don’t forget to address why then we are supposed to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”. It could make for a lively conversation.

I love the Truth, and proclaiming the Truth and the gospel is showing the ultimate love for people. The gospel is not easy to accept. To give someone a simple formula for salvation and not have it be understood correctly could lead people down a path that is not to heaven, which is a good reason for debating your post.

Slander would mean it’s untrue. People can look at your comments previously on this blog to see there’s truth to what I’ve said about you. Your indignation does nothing to change the truth about what you’ve posted here and on other sites. I don’t need to link anywhere else…the truth’s on display right here.

What I stated in my blog is the truth. You are like the people I was referring to in the blog who want to try and complicate it with their dogma instead of just accepting the truth of Christ. Again, this is nothing new, as I’ve seen you do this before.

However, it’s clear that by the way you want to claim you’re just using “different interpretations” when I clearly showed you were incorrect in what you posted that you’re not going to even listen to reason. As such, I’m following my own instructions from today’s blog. Have a good day.