Contendah, my Friend,
If you walked into a church, any church in any city, to address them, I imagine you would begin be greeting them, "Brothers and sisters. . . " Most folks would.
Do YOU honestly believe that every church is 100% true believers? Are you that naive? Well, neither was Paul. Yet, he wanted to give them a Christian greeting, so he began by addressing them as "Brethren."
Yet, Paul shows that he was not as naive as you, for this is what we read:
12. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
13. But exhort one another daily,. While it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14. For we have become partakers of Christif we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end....”
Seems that old Paul knew there were some sitting there who were just social seat-warmers.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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Bill, It is transparently obvious that you have not at all addressed the issues I raised concerning your OSAS perspectives on the several verses I referenced. I showed you why it mattered not at all whether the recipients of the Hebrews letter included some who were not saved. The fact is that it most certainly included saved persons ("holy brethren") and that his advice was intended for them. You utterly bypass the fact that one can not depart "from the living God" unless one is first a child of that same living God. And you very obviously do not wish to deal with the argument I submitted to you relative to Hebrews 6, where certain "partakers of the Holy Ghost" (and thus indisputable "Christian believers") are clearly contemplated by the writer as impossible of being renewed to repentance if they "fall away." Why would the inspired writer have described that kind of apostasy if it could not possibly happen?
Paul was not at all naive and neither am I. It is your naivete', Bill, coupled with your your preconceived Calvinistic notion of perseverance, that impels you to dodge and weave and put up such shabby indefensible and failed "justification" for that OSAS nonsense.