Ernesto and I successfully set up for the first time at the White Horse Flea Market. This flea market is very similar to the Jockey Lot in Anderson with some differences. They both have indoor and outdoor booths. They both open at 6 AM, but we noticed a difference today. Even though we were there at 6 AM there weren't many there until around 8 AM. At the Jockey Lot it's pretty busy even early in the morning. Also, there is a larger hispanic presence at White Horse. In fact there is a section that I'm going to start calling Little Mexico.

Ernie and I then met a gentleman who said he used to work with Ernie. When I tried to offer him a pamphlet he came over wanting to start a detailed discussion beginning to say that it is complex. He asked questions ranging from baptism to the authority of Peter and the apostles. In the end of the whole long and friendly question and answer session we could discern that this man is certainly trying to ascertain a proper understanding of Scripture. However there is a lot of confusion, because as we found out he is following a very strict principle of Scripture Alone (meaning be explicit). Once we got to that point I challenged him to tell me where the Bible teaches that explicitly. There is never a satisfactory answer to that question. He believes things like water baptism is only a work of man and for repentance, but salvation comes only through a seperate baptism - the baptism of the Holy Spirit and Fire. He had a christology that I told him was more like the early heresies than the majority of Christianity - even "Bible Alone" Christians. For instance, he at first argued that there is a God, who is called Father, who is truly God and that this God dwelled within Jesus, who is a human, but that Jesus is only the "son of God" in the sense that he was born as a human. He argued against us when we tried to point out the first chapter of John - that the Word was with God and was God - he said you can't from that passage say that Christ is God's Son in the Eternal sense because it says "Word" and not "Son". I can go on and on and I think you get the point. At the end we and him both acknowledged our fundamental differences: He is Bible Alone - we are not, He doesn't trust human authority - we do because that's the way Jesus Himself set up His Church, and finally he asked me to explain how one can be saved. I told him to believe in the right faith (I quoted the Creed), repent (more than just feeling bad about sin, but actually turning away from it and making amendments which if anyone was honest requires tremendous amounts of work even with the help of God's grace), be baptized (we already established that to us this means by water and with the Trinitarian formula as Christ commanded) and remain in Christ until the end (praying, receiving God's grace in the sacraments, staying one with the Church Christ founded, and repenting if we fall into sin). He didn't like the last bit about having to be dependent on the Church (human authorities) nor does he believe one can lose their salvation. In the end we agreed to disagree. Ernie got his contact info and he's certainly going to be praying for us, so maybe we should pray for him too. God's will be done. Thank you Mike Craig for reminding us of this important truth.