The Bible Line - January 29, 2013

Suzanne, St. Helena Island, SC - I took the 128 questionnaire on how to discern one's spiritual gifts. Besides "service and helps" which makes sense given my personality, the other with the most points was "exhortation". This one took me by surprise, and now I am very curious about what it is exactly,,,and how to approach the "using" of this particular gift correctly. 

I visited a church today while visiting family in South Dakota and this church is 'baptist' and is part of the Baptist General Conference.  From what I understand, the Baptist General Conference was started in Minnesota by people from Sweden who left the State Church in Sweden to follow the teachings of the Bible.  The preaching seemed very solid at first impression as does the doctrinal statement and salvation message.  They would appear to be very similar to the Southern Baptist Convention though they are not part of it or from it.  I talked to the youth pastor who is leaving in a few weeks to be senior pastor of an Evangelical Free Church in Iowa and he said they believe in the literal Genesis and Noah's Flood stories in addition to the doctrinal statement saying they beleive in the full inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible.  He said the Baptist General Confrence statement of faith is very similar to the Southern Baptist Convention, but I'm not sure what the differences are or how much they matter.  I forgot to ask what their position is on women preachers/teachers.  They have a magazine called Convergence or something like that they have a lady on the back of it for a conference who is credited as a Bible Expositor.  The lady is Dr. Tony Evan's daughter so I assume she is not a woman preacher like Ann Graham Lotz.  Can you comment on the Baptist General Conference of the Upper Midwest?  I know you've commented a lot on the Southern Baptist Convention and its offshoots like Independent Baptists, Cooperative Baptists, etc, but the Baptist General Conference of MN/SD/IA area is not to be confused with any Southern Baptist churches, apparently.  I'm assuming they are independent churches like the SBC churches are supposed to be independent.
I also heard about "german baptists" for the first time at this church below so I looked it up.  Up in this area there are some "german baptist" churches and their seminary is Souix Falls Seminary.  They are now called North American Baptists.  They are much smaller than the "Swedish Baptists" (Baptist General Conference).  Can you please also comment on the german-baptists/north-american-baptists(not to be confused with mennonites, amish, etc.) in addition to the swedish-baptists/baptist-general-conference.  I was surprised to hear about these separate baptists groups among these different ethnic groups.  This is making me think that maybe the "baptists" really are the people who read the Bible and followed the Bible and are not a "protestant group".  Apparently, people in different countries read the Bible and learned what it teaches independently and arrived at the conclusions of being born again, eternal security, baptism by immersion as a symbol of being born again, and these other "baptist" doctrines/theologies.  Then in their different countries with Catholic, Lutheran, etc., state religions they were persecuted for not following the infant baptism which I think was also a way to document citizenship in some countries.  Its also interesting because these other baptists groups maybe don't have the problems of slavery/racism, freemasonry, and money-lending ingrained into their history and organization like the southern-baptist-convention does.  However, I don't know how solid they really are in following the Bible.

A while back I heard you talk on cremation being unbiblical.   I agree with you.   I was trying to explain this to some family members that think that there is nothing wrong with it.  They said ashes to ashes and dust to dust.  The important part is the heart...which it is....and that it does not matter about the body then....we are out of it then.   What do you think on this matter?   Would you please explain why you think it is unbiblical and please give any scripture reference that you might have?  

If our politicians are successful in creating a national gun ban, how should the Christian respond? If it becomes the law of the land, should we obey it?

How does the bible interpret and what are your thoughts on the Scripture in 1 Timothy 3:12. Does this mean man (deacon) should be married to one wife at one time or one wife for all time to qualify as deacon?

Regarding election and salvation...Given God's omniscience, is our choice of salvation based on His foreknowledge or is our choice based on His choice?