If you mean in the historical sense, my impression is that ALL the choice was with the PATRON, i.e., the CLIENT could APPLY to the patron to be chosen, but the entire choice resided with the patron.

I guess the difference today is that OUR patron has told ANY (ALL) who would want to be chosen by Him, “I have already chosen you; will you respond to me?”

What a gift that is!

–Mark

“How does this reconcile with the original post? It seems obvious that James treats faith and works as two different concepts.”

I’ve been so far away from blogland that I’ve sort of lost my train of thought on this post (just being honest), but I remember the day you left your comment I thought, “Hmmm, the answer he is looking for was discussed by Mark Moore in his lecture, so I need to go listen to it again so I can respond to Sam.” Except I never did. And I’m not saying he had the RIGHT answer, but he DID have AN answer. So, standby while I go listen to it again … OK, I uploaded it to a location you can hear it: PatronClientClip (It’s only about 7 minutes long.) You could listen to all of it (sorry about the poor quality, but the DVD I have with the recording was created in an echoey room and so you have to listen closely), but for just this part of the question you could skip to about 6.0 minutes and just listen to the last minute or so. Here is the gist of it, as it applies to your comment:

Wouldn’t you say that, perhaps, instead of James’ treating Faith and Works as two different concepts that he is rather saying THEY CAN NOT BE SEPARATED? Seems to me he is rather addressing “cheap” faith, i.e., “faith without deeds.” THAT KIND OF FAITH will save no one. (v14)

Considering the whole Patron/Client concept, if a man claims to have FAITH but has no DEEDS (v14), James’ point is that such a man does NOT have REAL faith, not the TRUE faith — instead, he has only a cheap imitation, not the substance.

–Mark

19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[e] and he was called God’s friend. 24You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

25In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

How does this reconcile with the original post? It seems obvious that James treats faith and works as two different concepts.

Sam

A couple of weeks ago I attended a class taught by Keith Parsons here at Meadowbrook. I always enjoy his class because you are challenged and learn so much. I was teaching the high school this quarter so I missed the whole quarter, but got to here is summation, he’s a lawyer by trade)on the gospel of Jesus.

That Sunday he did a review of Christianity from about the second century to the present day. I wish everyone could have heard it, but here’s what I took away from it. The church has spent hundreds of years debating specific issues concerning communion, the trinity, baptism, grace, and many other topics mostly from the epistles, and primarily Paul’s. In the past few centuries most of the discussion has been around Paul teachings so much that if an outsider looked at us we maybe should be called Paulians! One scholar from Yale called Paul the central figure in Christianity.

If we are Christ followers and Christ is the center of our belief, then why haven’t we/ why don’t we spend the majority of our time studying Jesus and his teaching? Instead of spending our time on how to worship, why haven’t we spent more time on loving our enemies? Instead of debating and fighting over marriage and divorce, why haven’t we gone into deep study on what it means to deny ourselves, and service to others? What does it mean to be last; not to worry; associating with that society has no time for; determining who my neighbor is; honoring God; holiness; sacricice? The list could go on and on.

If we spent our time and our energy on studying Jesus and his teaching, and focused on modeling our life after his, so much of this wouldn’t be an issue.

Sam

I should do a posting soon on the SILENCE OF GOD I suspect.

The folks who espouse the “SILENCE=PROHIBITION” dogma need to relook at what they are really saying. The proof texts they use (strange fire, gopher wood, priests from the tribe of Judah, …) have nothing to do with God’s SILENCE, but rather His SPECIFICITY. In each of those cases he SPECIFIED what He DID want (sanctified fire from a certain source, gopher wood, and Levitical priests), and so choosing something else was not a violation of His SILENCE, but rather of His SPECIFICITY!

Oh well; this is just a “comment,” so I’ll stop there.

I liked the tenor of your comment around the case when “the silence of God is not an issue for me” when your heart is right.

–Mark

I understand the fear, that if you open the door on the silence of God, who knows what will happen and the church might just disappear. But if a church is being held together by CENI, then maybe it ought to disappear.

The silence of God doesn’t allow me to do what ever I think of and then look through the Bible to see if I can find a prohibition. Rather if I love God, and love others as myself; if I see the image of God in every face; if I feel the responsibility to minister to the hungry, the poor, the homless, the unloved; if I acknowledge that grace of God that will save me; if I spend my time being the hands and feet of Jesus in my community, then the silence of God is not an issue for me.

I will never keep the “Law” perfectly, or know what’s bounded by the silence of God, and I’m so thankful that is not the standard by which I’ will be judged.

In love,
Mark

I ‘ve come to believe that the command of Matt 28 is to make disciples, and that clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, visiting those in prison, taking care of the widows and fatherless, helping the opressed and offering mercy and grace is the way they are made. See I listen to Eric!

We have for way to long believed and practiced that the way to God’s heart and acceptance is through knowledge, and that disciples were made when they acquired enough of the “right” knowledge. We validated someone’s discipleship by what they were able to recite what the Bible said. Many churches selected elders based upon their knowledge of the book. It wasn’t important that they lived as Christ, but that they could find all the scriptures that talked about how Christ lived.

However, knowlwedge isn’t the goal, love is. If the law and the prophets hang on loving God and loving people, then discipleship is measured by one’s actions of loving God and loving people. THIS IS HOW THEY WILL KNOW IF YOU ARE MY DISCIPLE, IF YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

Sam