[b]MattBob_SquarePants wrote:[/b] [quote]Hexis- Wow, very impressive! Your intepretation of the beginning of John seems like common sense in a way. It probably does to you, too. But a lot of people want to put implications and interpretations into scripture, instead of reading what\'s there. I don\'t want to derail the conversation, just wanted to say Kudos! for keeping it simple. [/quote] thank you, i\'m amazing arent i?;) [quote]What you say does clarify your beliefs, thank you. I do disagree (mildly), because of something I only barely touched on. To say that we are saved by works.. That implies a certain type of works, right? \"Good works\" ? I just don\'t see slaughter and sacrifice itself as qualifying as a \"good work\". I tend to agree with Soldier in Christ, that it doesn\'t neatly fit into either package. But I am convicted that it is oversimplifying things to say that in pre-Messianic times we were \'saved by works\'. And also as I said, this is because I have not found a promise from G-d \"Do this sin offering and your sins are forgiven\". But we can agree to disagree, and I\'m glad that we can have the discussion. [/quote] like i said to Soldier in Christ, I agree with him... I just wasn\'t sure how to say it. I believe that in order for the pre-Messianic people to attain salvation, they had to maintain some sort of works (ex. sin offerings), but i think the balance fell in between saving by grace and saving by works... I highly doubt any of us will understand this for sure until we achieve salvation ourselves. My new question however, is when did this change from partial to complete salvation by grace take place? Would it have been at the moment of the birth of Jesus Christ? (sorry, it\'s habit, i\'m not going to call him Yeshua) or was it the night he was crucified? [quote]Mister Nathan- It\'s older than Spanish. Yeshua (yeh-SHOO-wah) was made into Yesus (yay-SOOS) by a Greek culture that said masculine names couldn\'t end in a vowel. Then when Latin was invented, I don\'t know what happened, I guess they needed some words to try out their new letter on (\"J\"). [/quote] there is no \"J\" in latin, thank you very much... it\'s been my foreign language elective in school for the past 2 years