Posted on 06/13/2011 6:54:18 PM PDT by Gamecock
You Might Just Be A Calvinist If….
If you have a Martin Luther Jell-O mold… you just might be a Calvinist.
If your DVR has over 25 episodes of Wretched With Todd Friel recorded on it… you just might be a Calvinist.
If your child’s first word was “Westminster”… you just might be a Calvinist.
If your 4 year old can explain what the word “propitiation” means… you might just be a Calvinist.
If you send your mother tulips on Mother’s Day… you might be a Calvinist.
If your passion for evangelism blows away your Arminian friends… you might just be a (true) Calvinist.
If you hate rap music BUT you listen to Lecrea, The Cross Movement, Flame or D.A. T.R.U.T.H. because of the lyrics and theology… you might be a Calvinist.
If quotes from Pink, Spurgeon, Luther, Piper, and McArthur make up 90% of your Facebook statuses…you might be a Calvinist.
If you still remember the 8 speakers in order from the recent T4G conference… you might be a Calvinist.
If you cringe every time you hear someone proclaim “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life! Choose Jesus!”… you might be a Calvinist.
If you’ve ever wanted to attend a Benny Hinn crusade just so you could stand up and shout “Ichabod!!”… you might just be a Calvinist.
If you purposefully read a book to be convicted… you might just be a Calvinist.
If a free Bible or book has ever arrived in the mail to you from John McArthur… you might be a Calvinist.
If you have to order theological books online because no one at the Christian bookstore has ever heard of them… you might just be a Calvinist.
If you have ever purchased 100 or more copies of the same John Piper book to hand out to random people you meet …you just might be a Calvinist.
If you ever have found yourself thinking “My pastor’s sermon was particularly Spurgeonesque this morning”… you just might be a Calvinist.
If you read “The Purpose Driven Life” just to see how bad the book really is… you might just be a Calvinist.
If you go to your bookshelf in search of a particular John MacArthur book only to discover that your 14 year old son is reading it up in his bedroom… you might just be a Calvinist.
If you purchased an MP3 player with the sole purpose of downloading sermons… you might be a Calvinist.
If you were shocked to just discover that some people download MP3 files that are not sermons… you might be a Calvinist.
If you have adjusted the default passage setting at www.biblegateway.org from “NIV” to “ESV” … you might be a Calvinist.
If while visiting friends or family’s homes you hid their copy of “The Shack” (for their own good)… you might just be a Calvinist.
If your preacher says to turn to Obadiah and you do not use the index… you might be a Calvinist.
If your teenagers are excited that your church’s youth group is learning Biblical theology and being spiritually challenged instead of playing stupid games and eating pizza…. you might just be a Calvinist.
If you think a 50-minute sermon is too short… you might be a Calvinist.
If you’ve ever heard a wave of groans sweep through Sunday School when you refer to Romans 9… you might be a Calvinist.
If you find yourself talking to the Lord Jesus more than to your family… you might be a Calvinist.
If you get irritated when you visit a Christian bookstore and ask where they keep the books on deeper theology and they point you to the Joel Osteen section… you might just be a Calvinist.
If you find yourself wanting to read your Bible instead of watching television… you might be a Calvinist.
If quotes from Pink, Spurgeon, Luther, Piper, and McArthur pop into your head at random times during the day …you might be a Calvinist.
If you can barely contain your laughter when someone refers to Joyce Meyer as a “minister”… you might just be a Calvinist.
If you are confused when someone uses the term “my Bible” as if they only have one…you might be a Calvinist.
If your Bibles must be replaced in less than a year due to pages separating from the spine…you might be a Calvinist.
If you smile, nod and hold your tongue with your teeth after a lively church service when someone says, “God showed up today”… you might be a Calvinist.
If you’ve ever shouted “YES!” when the pastor says to turn to 1st Thessalonians…you might be a Calvinist.
If you see 6:37 on a digital clock and think of the Lord Jesus’ words in John… you might be a Calvinist.
If you’ve muted a Thanksgiving football game because it’s interfering with your family discussion of Ephesians 1… you might be a Calvinist.
If you have bookmarked three or more preachers’ scripture index webpages… you might be a Calvinist.
If you’ve ever been banned from a Sunday School class for quoting scripture… you might be a Calvinist.
If you have ever purposefully sung a different word in a hymn to conform to scripture… you might be a Calvinist.
If your kids own more Bibles than televisions… you might be a Calvinist.
If your children never ask you “Where are we going?” on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night… you might be a Calvinist.
If you’ve ever read parts of “The Bondage of the Will” to children under ten and prayed that it would change their lives… you might be a Calvinist.
If your children argue and you require them to listen to a Piper Sermon as punishment… you might be a Calvinist.
If you visit spurgeon.org, desiringgod.org, and gty.org, more than once a day, yep… you guessed it… YOU, my dear friend, might just be a Calvinist!!
SOLI DEO GLORIA!
“I’d really like to meet some of these righteous people you speak of.”
“In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah,[a] of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.”
+++++++++++++++
“I may be wrong, but I bet your understanding of Calvinism is little more than a caricature. Despite a sound theological education from a top institution, for many years I argued against a system I did not understand.”
You are wrong. I am well versed in Reformed theology. Went to a solid PCUSA church for years. It heard from the pulpit that made me realize Reformed theology is full of holes.
+++++++++++++++
“I relied on what I had been taught and my own logic and understanding. I shudder when I think of it because it was a flippant and dangerous approach to a matter of such eternal consequence.”
What’s there to be afraid of??? What’s the danger???
You will only experience what was predestined for you.
See, you guys don’t really believe this stuff either!
That passage does not teach Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous on their own strength. You’ll not find a passage that teaches that in the entire Book.
Also, of course I believe it. The danger was believing lies and living in accordance with lies. I believe in Divine Sovereignty, but I also believe in human responsibility. Calvinism is not rank fatalism.
How can humans be responsible for their choices without free will? How is Calvinism not completely deterministic.
Goodness, that describes a lot of folks :-P
I envious. I guess I might be a Calvinist.
***It’s hard to miss this: “ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE”***
All people, not all persons. If Jesus dies for all persons he failed miserably.
There are some things many of us can agree on.
Because free will is not neutral. Our "free will" fell in the Garden and we now choose to sin, of our free will. It is not until we have been born again that our free will can choose to come to Christ.
Unless you are a Universalist.
Of course it isn't. If it was, it would be called "Chance".
Our "free will" fell in the Garden and we now choose to sin, of our free will.
No--we now have the ability to choose sin--it's a small, but distinctive difference. Unfortunately, most people choose sin with great enthusiasm. However, it does not preclude our ability to choose not to sin--it just makes it more difficult.
It is not until we have been born again that our free will can choose to come to Christ.
So, we're saved before we choose to come to Christ?
The way I see it, our will isn’t free at all until we are regenerated. Then, and only then, are we free to “choose” Christ. Be cause at that point there really isn’t any other choice.
We are unable to come to Christ unless we are first regenerated.
Define “regenerated”
Ephesians 2:1 says we are “DEAD in trespasses and sin”. Regeneration changes us from spiritually dead to spiritually alive. We must be spiritually alive before we can respond to God’s call on our life.
yes, it does.
Regeneration changes us from spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
That is not a definition. However, given that statement, then all men are capable of choosing Christ.
All men.
God chose who He will regenerate.
I'd be interested in hearing your justification for that statement.
Titus Chapter 2.
Utterly speechless and the amount of Truth that Osteen says are the same - mouth are open and nothing comes out. He just does it in lots more words and a goofy grin. :)
Titus 2 doesn’t say anything to the effect that God has regenerated all of mankind. It simply states that he has brought salvation to people of all walks of life, not all individuals.
“If you’re a Calvinist and you have only a basic familiarity with less than a quarter of this list, and are baffled by the rest....you just might be me.”
Agreed. Sounds more like a Reformed Baptist, than a full blown Covenant Theology Calvinist list to me...
Prove that God didn't mean that.
” That passage does not teach Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous on their own strength. “
Not the point. The point is that there are people whom the Bible refers to as “righteous”. I referred to “righteous” people. You asked me to show you one. I did.
++++++++++
“I believe in Divine Sovereignty, but I also believe in human responsibility. Calvinism is not rank fatalism.”
So you don’t believe that every single event in your life is predestined?
all men = all people
My point was that if a man is righteous, God made him that way. There are no righteous people outside of His grace. And once God makes a man righteous, He has promised to hold and keep Him forever. So the notion of God hardening a righteous man doesn’t work.
I believe God is firmly in control over ever minute detail of my life and yours. But He did not make us robots. He is sovereign, yet we do make choices and we are fully responsible. I don’t have time to go into this discussion this morning, so I will simply cut and paste something found elsewhere from a few years ago.
One of the perennial charges made against Reformed Christianity is that it’s “fatalistic.” The idea is that because Calvinists believe God actively works out everything that happens in the universe, we also believe that humans have no will or range of action. So you get comments like, “Well, prayer doesn’t mean anything if God predestined everything.” Or “you don’t believe in evangelism, because God’s just going to save people anyway.”
The problem these people have is that they aren’t arguing with Calvin, but with the Word of God. If their critique was true, they’d have disproved not just the great Frenchman and predestination. The Bible itself posits both human responsibility AND the total, active sovereignty of God.
“In Him we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. . . — Ephesians 1:11”
God is working everything that happens in the Universe according to his own divine plan and will. But He’s chosen to work out this will through means. No Calvinist believes that God makes robots of us. The Westminster Confession itself says that God does no violence to our wills in predestination. Instead He works through our own actions — both good and evil ones.
So how does this work out practically? Take prayer as an example.
God has ordained that prayer changes things. When I pray, God really does hear and respond to it. But if God has a purpose to be accomplished, there WILL be prayer for it. God ordains both the ends, and the means to accomplish it. Far from fatalism, I have the comfort of knowing that my prayers fit perfectly into the gracious plan of God’s predestination.
Evangelism is the same. God has ordained the foolishness of preaching as his primary means of reaching the lost. So I can never say, “Ah, no need to evangelize. God’ll save them anyway.” No, He won’t. I’m responsible to preach both in season and out. But it is true that if God has predestined that someone will hear the Gospel, it WILL invariably be preached to them. Again, both means and ends.
Philippians has a great example of the two elements working together:
“. . .work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” — Philippians 2:12,13
Paul is exhorting us as beings who have a will and the ability to choose our actions. At the same time, however, he shows us a second aspect of our reality — that the will we exert and the actions we peform are actually thanks to the working of God within us. And that He’s guiding them according to His “good pleasure.”
Fatalism accepts what the Bible says about God’s sovereignty without acknowledging the verses about human responsibility and free agency. Much of the rest of contemporary Christianity does just the opposite — swallowing free agency without facing up to the sovereignty verses. Both approaches leave one with a truncated Bible and a distorted image of God.
I recommend “Whate’er My God Ordains: A Biblical Study of God’s Control”
http://www.wordmp3.com/files/gs/ordains.htm
Selective interpretation.
Got it.
“All people, not all persons. If Jesus dies for all persons he failed miserably.”
That’s an utterly ridiculous thing to say! He died for all so that all could be saved - not that all will.
Did Adam’s sin not effect all “individuals”???
“Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”
Do you see the one-to-one comparison there? “...the free gift came upon all men...” Not that all will be saved - but all can be saved. All! ALL!! ALL!!!
Now how about those goats???
I read that Alice Cooper was raised a Congregationalist and his father is/was a minister in that denomination. Are they calvinist?
Wikipedia points out that AC’s dad was a pastor in a branch of the LDS and that Alice Cooper is now a born-again. Dunno how true it is, but it seems about right in the references
Thanks. Guess Circus magazine (yes I’m THAT old) was wrong.
***Did Adam’s sin not effect all “individuals”???***
Yup. Are you saying that Jesus’s death and resurrection saved all, in the manner that Adams sin condemned all?
Umm, what about the goats?
The righteous folks in the Bible are righteous because they had faith in Christ.
It’s in the Bible.
Bingo!
“The righteous folks in the Bible are righteous because they had faith in Christ.”
Not arguing that! I’m asking (hypothetically) where there is an example of God turning a righteous person to wickedness - to show the extent of His sovereignty. The reason I am asking this is to bring light to the fact that God hardens wicked people - those who have already chosen wickedness (ex. Rom 1.)and He doesn’t go about randomly hardening people. He does, infact “... hardens whomever he wills.” but, according to Romans and Thessalonians He chooses to do so only to those who have already made their choice and rejected the light they have.
It’s also in the Bible.
Then how can we be held responsible?
there really isn’t any other choice.
Same question.
Unless you are a Universalist.
///
?
Oh! I see what you are saying.
Of course he doesn’t take his elect and harden them. But he does take the wicked and give them hearts of flesh, causes them to be reborn and thus, with a couple of other intermediary steps brought about by the Holy Spirit, makes the ungodly righteous.
Hardening the heart of the already unrighteous brings about the removal of all restraint that God had exerted on their miserable lives and exposes them for what they really are.
Know a lot about God's motives and heart, do you?
Would God take His elect and destroy their lives, kill their family, and let them rot from disease?
Would God take His elect and destroy their lives, kill their family, and let them rot from disease?
Ask Job.
My point exactly. The “Of course..” portion of his post irked me for assuming he knows what God will/will not do.
That’s not the same as hardening their heart, now is it?
However if He is willing to do that to the most righteous man on earth at the time, then I don't think you can claim you know whether He would harden the heart of the the elect.
I think you are confusing apples and oranges.
Trials are not the same as hardening.
And yes I can say He will not harden one of the elect.
Phil 1:6: And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Romans 8:31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”l
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,m neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
PINK? the raunchy singer?
If Calvins follow her...sign me up
Again--I did not say they are.
What I *did* say is that you cannot know what God will or will not do, nor can you know His motives. You cavalier use of the phrase "of course" indicates that you are on intimate terms with God to the point that you know what He will and will not do.
That is what I was trying to say.
The FIRST thing I see, after a long, long hiatus from the FR Religion forum, is this...
Thanks Lord for predestining this, I needed this chuckle just now, and thanks Gamecock!
>> If quotes from Pink, Spurgeon, Luther, Piper, and McArthur make up 90% of your Facebook statuses…you might be a Calvinist. <<
Pink?
“I’m coming out so you better get this party started”?
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