The Author of (our) Salvation

This posting includes a lot of rambling. If you want to read the part about the author of salvation immediately, skip down to the third to the last paragraph.

Last night (night of 02/22/06) I went to a place called the Nuart Theatre in Moscow Idaho with my roommate who is named Warren. A man named Eric Engerbretson owns the place and plays his guitar and sings and plays his harmonica in the lobby on Tuesday nights from 9 pm to 11 pm. The lobby is used for selling Christian books and coffee and soda. The auditorium is used for concerts and free movies and church services. Last night was an unusual night from my perspective.

I didn't want to work on homework, but I wanted to access the internet while I was there so I packed all my computer things into my backpack. Warren and I traveled the eight miles between Pullman and Moscow in my car which I call the Illuminate 2. I imagine that I will post an entry about the name of my car later. I parked the Illuminate 2 and noticed that I had left my backpack at the house that I live in which is called The Embassy. I don't really know how The Embassy got its name. I thought to myself, "I guess I can just sit and listen to music and read a book." I got started with a book called Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis and read through the whole first entry (Screwtape Letters is a fictional compilation of instructional letters written from one fictional demon to another regarding the deception and capture of members of the race of men), but while I was reading, Warren made contact with the people playing chess at the table next to me. He got me set up to play a man named Reed. I beat him easily because he made three mistakes and two of them were made consecutively. We played a queen's pawn opening. I fienchetoed my queen's bishop and I had one diagonal and one file clogged up by my queen's pawn. I gave him a half hearted excuse to get it out of the way and he fell for it (probably thinking that he had some really clever plan). Then he fell into a fork between his rook and his king. He moved his king to the wrong spot and I made it a fork between his king and his queen, the latter of which he lost. I went on to win the game.

Warren decided to play with him next (since I wanted to quit while I was ahead and it was Reed's board). I began to talk with the man that Reed had been playing with while I was reading the Screwtape Letters book. This man's name is Nate. I asked Nate about his house and found out that he used to live in a fraternity but that he moved out because the people there drank too much. I asked him how much drinking was too much. After a bit of discussion, someone mentioned the Bible and the reference in Ephesians about not becoming drunk came up. I went on to ask him about whether or not he belonged to Jesus. He told me that he considered himself to be saved. I asked him why and told me that he considered himself to be saved because he had quit a lot of his sinning since he began college. I kept asking him questions about sin and how it should be dealt with and how God should deal with it because I was trying to get him to tell me that the work of Jesus is the basis upon which Jesus can justify a sinner, but he never mentioned Jesus. I had to set him straight and I pointed out Acts 4:12. He invited me to his Bible study and I'll probably go at least once because there may be other people like him attending.

I just don't very well understand how people can think that they are saved and explain their salvation without mentioning Jesus who is the only savior.

If you don't have any idea what I am talking about, then please take some time to learn Hell's Best Kept Secret. I didn't think it would change my thinking before I heard it, but I was wrong and I was glad to find out.