Posted on 03/07/2012 10:24:56 AM PST by marshmallow
MINNEAPOLIS (ABP) – An author and preacher popular in Calvinist circles says it is no accident that recent killer tornadoes followed paths that ravaged some communities while others were spared.
“Why would God reach down his hand and drag his fierce fingers across rural America killing at least 38 people with 90 tornadoes in 12 states, and leaving some small towns with scarcely a building standing, including churches?” John Piper of Desiring God ministries wrote in a blog March 5.
Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, said it is wrong to ascribe power capable of causing an estimated $2 billion worth of property damage to Mother Nature or the devil.
“God alone has the last say in where and how the wind blows,” Piper said. “If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command.”
Piper said he doesn’t know why if God has a quarrel with America that he wouldn’t show his displeasure in Washington or Hollywood instead of places like Henryville, Ind., but that “every deadly wind in any town is a divine warning to every town.”
(Excerpt) Read more at abpnews.com ...
We have always had tornadoes even in the puritan gay 90's and the 1950's. Guys like this make Christians look like idiots.
Most Calvinists are dour folks anyway.
I know that are not random because I know if one is coming in from the southwest and tracking toward my direction, the chances have been greater that they hit close.
Not so much if they come from another direction.
I don’t know what that has to do what what this guy is saying.
Hmmm. 1925. Washington was much smaller. Hollywood wasn't a liberal-infested hellhole. And this happened:
F5 on the ground for 219 miles.
These tinhorns should read up on their history before trying to claim that a medium-sized (historically) tornado outbreak like last Friday's is a sign of anything more than bad luck weather.
The world’s just chock full of nuts and crackpots, isn’t it?
So when innocent people die, we're to conclude that God ordered their death? This idiot confuses "God is in control" with "God commands Mother Nature to kill innocent people because he's angry."
More fodder for the barely human debris that is Mike Malloy.
I guess Job was a determinist too:
18 While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 19 when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.[c]
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”
22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing
God doesn’t punish people by generating natural disasters. Jesus addressed this issue in Luke 13:4, when discussing the collapse of a tower in Shilokha (Siloam), a suburb of Jerusalem, in which 18 people were killed:
4“Or those eighteen upon whom the tower of Shilokha fell and killed them; do you think that they were sinners more so than all the children of men who dwell in Jerusalem?” 5“No, but I say to you, unless you repent, all of you shall be destroyed like they were.”
It seems this paragraph clarifies his meaning:
“We are not God’s counselors, nor can we fathom all his judgments,” he said. “That was the lesson of Job. Let us beware, therefore, of reading the hand of providence with too much certainty or specificity. God is always doing a thousand things when he does anything. And we see but a fraction.”
I always think of that verse in Matthew 5 when it comes to natural disasters striking some and sparing others:
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Piper is exactly right. “Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?” Amos 3:6
Most of them are down to a tulip with the one petal of eternal security.
That is a very common christian teaching.
No, an event is good or bad based on whether it draws us closer to God or farther apart. Plus, an event which happens to us isn’t necessarily designed with us as the end-product. It could be happening to us in order to minister to someone else.
I can’t, because I’m not omniscient, tell you the particulars concerning the why of a thing. I just know that God is sovereign and his overarching “banner” is love. To me that is a whole lot more comforting than thinking we are either at the mercy of an arbitrary dice-thrower, or that some things are able to thwart God’s will.
I have been called many things, but I don’t believe I’ve ever been labeled as “dour,” ... until today.
Matthew 13: 1-5
This passage makes it clear that God may, if he so chooses, visit disaster upon us but that not every disaster is God's explicit doing.
Marshmallow, would you please write a short post on “Why I rejoice in being Roman Catholic!” Something positive, inspiring, and uplifting! It would make your posts a delight to read!
I don't see that passage as making your coclusion clear at all. All this passage says is that when God visits disaster on someone it doesn't mean it was because they were worse sinners than those who weren't victims of such a disaster. Judgment will come to all. As Amos tell us, all disasters are the work of God, we just have no business trying to assume we know God's reasons or motives for each act he does.
My old pastor likes Piper. I stopped liking my old church about the same time my old pastor started quoting Piper and friends.
It is horrible doctrine. It makes you feel like bad things happen to people because they have done something wrong (which can be the case, but not necessarily).
If you blab it and grab it, maybe you can overcome a deep insecurity and inferiority complex. It's all about them. "God" is simply a magical incantation.
Nobody is predestined to either follow or reject the Two Commandments of Christ.
nutcase.
Exactly
You are correct. Also, we are reformed because God caused it to be so. I’m thankful for it.
Is evil "the work of God"?
I’m always surprised to see Christians taking the lord’s name in vain.
When you say “God is punishing you because I am right and you are wrong.”, that’s your own vanity speaking, not God.
You’re just using God’s name as a cudgel.
That’s a sin bubba.
Sovereignty of God is not synonymous with God instigating and orchestrating every physical, chemical and biological event. God gave us the laws of physics which govern creation, including weather patterns. This means there is no need for God to trace the path of a tornado any more than He must trace the path of the #15 bus which takes people home from work. Is he any less "sovereign" for this?
God sometimes intervenes and suspends these laws of physics. We call these events "miracles".
When man sinned the wheels were set in motion, God could no longer walk with man in the cool of the garden, and in many ways, was left on his own in a world without the overriding protection of God. We chose to go it alone, and so far, it ain’t been working out well, that’s all there is to it folks. We sinned, the world became a hazard instead of a blessing.
Evil isn't a thing - it's the absence of good. And it is all our (human's) fault and and has been since the first transgression of the fall.
To be fair, he said most. In which Calvinist church were you raised? It does make a difference.
Piper Himself is saying one cannot read the hand of Providence.
He's merely stating God's judging qualities and His authority over everything. I don't have a problem with a Preacher reminding people of that.
You're reading too much into this.
The Arminians have Pat Robertson and the Calvinists have the likes of John Piper.
Piper is a hyper-Calvinists, but there are worse.
I wasn’t raised in a calvinist church. Upon studying the Bible, I chose to be a calvinist (/heavy irony). I’m now a member of the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America, one of the conservative presbyterian churches).
Poor Robertson. He can’t help being an Arminian. </more irony>
Hey, you’re DOUR! You may not make jokes.
Had you been raised in a hyper-Calvinist church; you would have understood the dour comment and likely agreed.
I know a now elderly guy who grew up in the Christian Reformed Church where the Gospel was never preached. He and his parents were faithful members and attenders.
His expression regarding the CRC was, “I was raised in the CRC, but praise God, I got saved.”
I'm just trying to understand what you mean by the word "disaster". You said that all disasters are "the work of God".
If the proximate cause of the loss of the life of a child is a murderer and not a tornado, is that "a disaster"?
You are in error........
I’ve heard the dour appelation all my life. I do understand it.
David Brainerd is my first cousin, seven times removed. That makes Jonathan Edwards an in-law.
Explanation: while I’ve heard the term, no one has ever applied it specifically to me.
I wasn’t applying the term ‘hyper-Calvinist’ to you.
I was referring to hyper-Calvinist churches. I thought I was very clear. If I was going to apply that term to you, it would have been very clear.
Typical of a theological determinist.
The alternative is the handwringing God.
But I think he is talking about chastisement for the nation which our saints declare can happen.
I didn’t think that you had, at any rate, I don’t feel any ill-will with what has been said.
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