I must admit, I brought Tobit into the discussion because of some comments I saw on another website, in which someone attempted to make a Catholic priest look like an imbecile for defending Tobit’s statements about almsgiving. But Tobit’s statements, while certainly capable of being misused to promote a sort of works righteousness, can just as easily be understood in keeping with biblical piety.

Dear James, I get a kick out of you greatest hits videos on your website. They are good examples of decent debating and very poor debating skills. Unfortunatley God doesn't judge us on our debating skills, he judges us on whether or not we have acepted the Grace thast He has offered us. I just wish for once you would debate someone who knew what the heck they were talking about. Anyone who knows the Catholic faith would have defeated your arguments very easily. Secondly just because someone has 2 PHDs, like Stravinskas, doesn't mean that they know what they are talking about, or that they can debate their way out of a classroom of intellectually challenged school-children. I find it quite absurd that you put these videos on your site trying to glorify yourself, when you pick such pinheads like Stravinskas to debate. He wouldn't know the side of a barn door if it hit him in the head. The answer for almsgiving covering a multitude of sins is only worthy if it is united to Jesus Christ. Catholicism is not a pay as you go Christianity. It is a unite yourself to the will of God and sacrifice your will for His, Christianity. One which you have no clue of. I know that I don't have 2 PHDs James, but I could defend the Catholic faith much better than the clowns you put on your videos. Yours in Christ, Matthew.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

   A statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters (Discovery Channel/Vision Canada/C4 UK) concludes that the probability factor is 600 to 1 in favor of this tomb being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.
They've uncovered evidence on which a "conservative" statistical analysis has placed 600-to-one odds in favour of being the family tomb of Jesus.

DNA tests conducted for the documentary at Lakehead University on two ossuaries — one inscribed Jesus son of Joseph and the other Mariamne, or Mary — confirm that the two were not related by blood, so were probably married.

The family of Jesus and James had no burial cave in first century Jerusalem and it is known that about a generation elapsed between the death of Jesus and that of James. It is not known from the details of their lives that the family moved from Nazareth to Jerusalem. It is thus not likely that in the space of thirty years the burial of a large family related to Jesus and his brother James developed in Jerusalem, that made it necessary to write the deceased’s name on the ossuary in order to distinguish him from others. According to the above proposal, that such an ossuary would derive from a large group, it is unlikely that the present ossuary of Ya‘acov son of Yosef originates in the burial cave of the above family. The rationalization that early Christians were buried in Jerusalem according to their own rites still lacks proof or evidence. The possibility of a sectarian burial exists, but it doesn’t seem likely that an ossuary would be inscribed in this special way, that normally would belong to a family burial. (reference)

   "The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. Sacramental grace is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. The Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1129).

   "The schools of the Sophists have taught with remarkable agreement that the sacraments of the new law (those now used in the Christian church) justify and confer grace, provided we do not set up a barrier of mortal sin. How deadly and pestilential this notion is cannot be expressed and the more so because for many centuries it has been a current claim in a good part of the world, to the great loss of the church. Of a certainty it is diabolical. For in promising a righteousness apart from faith, it hurls souls headlong to destruction. Secondly, because it draws the cause of righteousness from the sacraments, it binds mens pitiable minds (of themselves more than enough inclined to earth) in this superstition, so that they repose in the appearance of a physical thing rather than in God himself" (Institutes IV:14:14).
   "Now, it is clear how false is the teaching, long propagated by some and still persisted in by others, that through baptism we are released and made exempt from original sin, and from the corruption that descended from Adam into all his posterity; and are restored into that same righteousness and purity of nature which Adam would have obtained if he had remained upright as he was first created. For teachers of this type never understood what original sin, what original righteousness, or what the grace of baptism was" (Institutes IV: 15:10).

Dear Dr. White
   I grew up in a KJO home. My grandfather wrote a book on the subject (pro KJO) and as a result was close with Peter Ruckman. In 1995 I was 20 years old and I was clueless about truth but addicted to Ruckman's crazy ideas. I remember that during these years Ruckman went on and on about a James White who had written a book that was trying to destroy people's faith in "the book" (KJV). I never read you book, but I certainly knew I didn't like you (after all, you were trying to "destroy my faith").
   10 years later. In 2005 struggled through the version issue and finally realized KJO is absurd. After realizing that the KJO position was false I knew I had to leave my IFBx church. After I left IFBx'dom for good I had no clue where to go. I knew I was lining up with Reformed folk in my worldview but I rejected Calvinism. I decided to study more so I bought Sproul's Chosen By God. After reading a few chapters I was still unconvinced. I went out and bought Chosen But Free still believing Calvinism was false.
   Well, one day, not too long after finishing Chosen But Free I stumbled across a little book called "The Potter's Freedom, A Rebuttal of Chosen But Free". I immediately knew that if I was going to be fair about things I would need to read through this book with an open mind. Dr. White, you didn't waste any time in The Potter's Freedom destroying every Arminian falsehood and straw-man that I had ever clung to. By the time I was halfway through the book I was a convinced Calvinist. What did me in was the way you consistently exegeted the Scripture. I had no defense to what you were saying. Because of that I knew I was in error, and since then have enjoyed the fine Reformed expository preaching in a Founder's Friendly SBC church. So, I genuinely say want to say "Thank-you"! God has blessed me because of you ministry and I am thankful for that. I hope to come and meet you someday if you ever make near East Tennessee! God bless you!

Hunt, Dave, and James White. Debating Calvinism: Five Points, Two Views. Sisters, Oreg.: Multnomah, 2004, 427 pages.
This book grew out of James White's response to Dave Hunt's 2002 book, What Love is This? (see the annotation on The Potter's Freedom, by James White, under "Articles in Reference Works, Systematic Theologies, Etc." below). This book has a debate format and could well go down as the most lopsided debate in church history. Once again, as in What Love is This? Dave Hunt neither understands true Calvinism nor correctly represents classic Arminianism. If you want to see an excellent presentation of classic Calvinism, you will find it in James White's portion of Debating Calvinism.

   Seth Kohrman, a senior from Decatur, Ind., majoring in ancient near eastern studies, is one of the students involved with this project and on the Oxyrhynchus collection. Kohrman said he has learned a lot about the gospel from his studies.
   "In a funny way it has strengthened my testimony of the gospel and the Book of Mormon especially," Kohrman said. "There are over 5,600 manuscripts of the New Testament, not to mention all the apocryphal writings we are working on now, and none of them contain the New Testament as we have it today. This shows me personally of the immense importance of the Book of Mormon. Without it, we would be lost and confused."

Greek text: kai. splagcnisqei.j evktei,naj th.n cei/ra auvtou/ h[yato kai. le,gei auvtw/|\ qe,lw( kaqari,sqhti\
Variant: orgisqeij D a ff² r^1*

If something or someone “makes the will make its choices,” free will is not free.

Calvinism and Arminianism are not epistemically on par with each other. For Calvinism enjoys explanatory power, while Arminian theology represents the abdication of rationality.
   Arminian theology is worse than untrue—it could not even be true. It is unable to supply and satisfy certain truth-conditions without which the very possibility of an explanation is overruled. As Van Til would say, Arminian theology is disproven by the impossibility of the contrary, for it cannot acquit the preconditions of intelligibility.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Before Jehovah’s awful throne,
Ye nations, bow with sacred joy;
Know that the Lord is God alone;
He can create, and He destroy,
He can create, and He destroy.

His sovereign power, without our aid,
Made us of clay, and formed us men;
And when like wandering sheep we strayed,
He brought us to His fold again,
He brought us to His fold again.

We are His people, we His care,
Our souls, and all our mortal frame;
What lasting honors shall we rear,
Almighty Maker, to Thy Name,
Almighty Maker, to Thy Name?

We’ll crowd Thy gates with thankful songs,
High as the heavens our voices raise;
And earth, with her ten thousand tongues,
Shall fill Thy courts with sounding praise,
Shall fill Thy courts with sounding praise.

Wide as the world is Thy command,
Vast as eternity Thy love;
Firm as a rock Thy truth must stand,
When rolling years shall cease to move,
When rolling years shall cease to move.

On March 22-24 we will be holding the annual meeting of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. The meetings will be held at BYU in Provo, Utah. I will be presenting a paper entitled: “How Being an Anglo-Catholic has Affected My View of Mormonism.” For more information about the society, check out www.smpt.org . Having been involved from the beginning in the founding of this group, and having attended the annual meeting last year, I can tell you that there are some high quality theologians and philosophers involved (both LDS and non-LDS), and some very interesting papers and discussions. I find it a refreshing time to get together and converse with my gracious Mormon friends about the God we both profess to love and worship, the Lord Jesus Christ whom we serve, the differences which define our two faiths, and future dreams of drawing closer through the illumination of God’s word.

   I struggle as a Protestant who longs for catholicity over the dogma of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven.

We know that Mary went to heaven, and the date of August 15 for the Assumption of Mary continued to be recognized in the Lutheran and Swiss Reformed churches of the Reformation.

But there is not a complete agreement as to the details. Did she pass through death, and then ascend bodily into heaven? Or did she ascend into heaven without tasting death? Or should we just say that her Blessed soul passed into heaven and was received by Christ, the Saints and the Angels there?

I would tentatively suggest the following:

1. We do not know for a certainty the details of Mary’s entrance into heaven. We do know the fact of it, and it is surely a cause for celebration.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

How ancient manuscripts were made (Did you know that scribes did not sit at a table to do their work--they sat on the floor, stool, or even stood at times).

Material: papyri to parchment to paper.

The "Codex." Are you aware that it is Christians who invented what we know as the form of the book at the turn of the 2nd Century?

Styles of Greek Handwriting: Uncial, Minuscule, Scriptio Continua

Palimpsest: the "Etch-A-Sketch" of antiquity.

Ancient Punctuation, Abbreviations, and Symbols.

And many more paleographical features....

Highlands Grace Reformed Church
514 N. Pine Street
Sebring, FL 33870
863-385-3787
2/23-3/2

Providence Baptist Church
4471 W. Sanction Rd.
Lecanto, FL 34460
352-746-4595
3/2-3/9

Faith Baptist Tabernacle
17531 Northeast Highway 27 Alt
Williston, FL 32696
332-528-2216
3/9-3/16

Grace Chapel
5460 Holy Cross Ct.
Sanford, FL 32771
407 834 2373
3/16-3/19

Collins Road Baptist Church
6105 Collins Road
Jacksonville, FL 32244
904-272-6483
3/22-3/27

Roman Catholic Conversion Stories: An Introduction Wow James, what moxie does anyone have by giving their personal testimony of how Jesus Christ has changed their lives. You attack Scott Hahn and others, or rather your midget-minded friend James does in this case, but you posted it, and concurred with him. I guess Saint Paul was a loon for giving his personal testimony of how he was changed by Jesus Christ in the Sacred Scriptures as well. We should all give an account of our conversion stories, this is how we help pass on the Gospel, just as Saint Paul did. Of course if Saint Paul was standing here in person telling you the truths of the faith as handed on by Jesus Himself you would probably call Saint Paul a dull-witt as well. Your gross arrogance is simply amphigoric as usual. Why on earth James do you think you have any authority whatsoever to teach from Sacred Writ? As you well know you constantly mutilate and pervert Holy Writ and the quotations of the Church Fathers. You alone will have to answer for your unmittigated, apathetic arrogance. Yes another love letter from Rome. You have been warned. Yours in Christ, Robert Locksley

We converts have been made so rich. We have been given wealth beyond our wildest dreams! What words can express the sense of the child who, after passing through a series of orphanages and foster homes, finds himself standing in the doorway of an unfamiliar mansion staring into the loving faces of long-forgotten family members? He is reintroduced to his Father, Almighty God, and to Mary, his mother and queen, who is standing, arms outstretched in welcome, next to his elder brother, King Jesus- in the midst of that glorious company of angelic and saintly siblings who stretch forth from heaven to earth and under the earth. Can you imagine a more royal reunion? Few joys surpass the ones related here by these former theological step-children who have finally come home. [Patrick Madrid (ed), Surprised By Truth (Encinitas: Basilica Press, 1994), p.10)]

Why does one become a Christian? You do it because it feels right. ... To me it's no big deal. But people like to know what you believe in.

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16)

What James has overlooked is that while his Dream Team would be some very sound thinkers and generally decent and thorough apologists, aomin.org looks like it was last remodeled in 1979.
And listen: I say that after having sent at least one very nice template ugrade to them for nothing about 6 months ago. That purple thing that site has sported for the last decade or whatever is, um, well, I'm sure it was a great idea before CSS was invented, or people used something better than a VGA monitor ...
... BRING IT!