Calvinist or Arminian

I have written previously about the controversy between Calvinists and Arminians. This month is the 405^th anniversary of the Synod of Dort which settled the controversy in the Netherlands: the Arminians were evicted from their pulpits. This explains why the Dutch Reformed Church is staunchly Calvinist as well as the many other denominations that sprang from the same Reformation soil. Most Baptist-type churches are Calvinist to varying degrees. Methodists, Wesleyans, Nazarenes, and Seventh-day Adventists are Arminian.

The controversy which takes its name from the Swiss reformer, John Calvin, and the Dutch theologian, Jacob Arminius, is actually centuries older than these men. Augustine debated with Pelagius over much the same subject in the Fifth century. As I see it, the central issue of the dispute is whether humans can come to faith and therefore salvation on their own, or whether God must do something first to draw them to Himself. This leads to the question of whether people can come to faith but later fall away and lose their salvation. This question is what most people today think of as the Calvinist/Arminian debate.

In “Understanding the TULIP Doctrine,” I briefly explained Calvinism. “The five basic tenets of Calvinism have long been summarized as the TULIP doctrines, an acronym taken from the major tenets: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of saints. There are those who consider themselves “five-point” Calvinists, meaning they hold firmly to each of the TULIP principles. Others pick and choose among the tenets of Calvinism to construct their own brand.” As I said, perseverance of the saints, commonly known as “once saved, always saved,” is the item over which most people debate. Unconditional election also bothers some people; I discussed this aspect of Calvinism in some depth in “Election: God’s Choice.”

It was election that bothered Arminius. It is possible to read Calvin and come away thinking God predestines some people to salvation and some to condemnation. Arminius couldn’t stomach that because he felt it made God the author of sin – an obvious contradiction to Scripture. There are those who do believe in what is called double predestination today and would have Arminius turning over in his grave. Calvin’s teachings have been shaded and shifted over the centuries since he lived making the term “Calvinism” almost irrelevant. You need to dig into what people mean by the label to know what they really believe.

If I haven’t bored you into scrolling on yet (bless your heart), I am going to explain the value of this history lesson – WHAMM. I believe with all my heart that there will be Calvinists and Arminians in Heaven. Like all of us who make it to our eternal home with God, there will be some adjustments and corrections to our theology. Perhaps some of the tears God will wipe away will be from people discovering that, sadly, they were wrong all their lives about some point of theology. The debate I have described that began in the early centuries of the church and continues today is not one that will keep anyone out of Heaven in my opinion. There are radicals in both camps who may disagree with me on that, but I think I have the truth of Scripture on my side.

The reason I plodded through all this is to make a point we all need to understand: Jesus didn’t say the world would know we are His because of our brilliant doctrine; He said our love for one another (and our neighbors) would show that we belong to Christ. I made the point in Lead a Horse to Water that Christians bickering over what seem to unbelievers to be arcane theological issues might be one of the biggest hinderances to faith. It also causes some to doubt our claim that the Word of God is true and infallible. When we air our differences publicly, it appears to outsiders that we are denying that claim.

As I have written previously, sometimes fellow believers must agree to disagree. The final disposition of that agreement must be to continue to behave in a loving manner toward those with whom we disagree. I should clarify this by saying that I am not talking about compromising on essentials. I will firmly disagree with anyone who says God is not the sovereign creator or Jesus is not the co-equal, co-eternal God/Son/Savior, or that the Word of God is not absolute truth, etc. Some things are beyond debate and are essential and necessary to a proper understanding of God.

If you have read this far, you may be asking what I believe. Since I covered that in “Understanding the TULIP Doctrine,” I will leave it to my readers to seek an answer there. I will say this much: I will strive to love all people whether I agree with them or not. As I said in Loving Biblically. “Christian, biblical love must abound in knowledge and discernment if we aim to be sincere and blameless. To know how God loves, we have to dig deeply into the Bible and ferret out the true measure of divine love; it is a mix of caring, compassion and judgment. The most difficult thing to grasp is that God’s love involves discernment – judgment.” I am not God; I do not get to condemn (judge) people. However, if I am sincere in my faith, I must use discernment. That may mean I will disagree with some people. I will still love them – biblically – Calvinists or Arminians.

Related Posts: Election: God’s Choice; Disagree Agreeably; Understanding the TULIP Doctrine; Loving Biblically

Redeem the Time

When Jesus was teaching His disciples at Jacob’s Well in Samaria, He told them the fields were ready for harvest. The men were no doubt confused because it was months until harvest time, and they missed the Teacher’s metaphor meaning not the crops, but the people were ready. He then demonstrated truth by convincing most of the people in town that He was indeed the long-awaited Messiah. As I mentioned in “The Samaritan Revelation,” this was twice dumbfounding to the disciples since the converts were Samaritans. A less likely place for revival could hardly be imagined.

I think we are in a similar position now. I said so a while back in “Finding God in COVID 19.” I think the double whammy of COVID 19 and the civil unrest we are experiencing has our “neighbors” in a perfect position to hear the gospel. Maybe I should have said see the gospel. The phrase “redeeming the time” was brought to my mind recently. I went to Ephesians 5 to be reminded of the full context of the admonition. I discovered that the verse containing the phrase begins with a therefore. As I often do, I looked to see what the “therefore” was there for. It is actually one link in a chain of therefores. Here is my condensed paraphrase of the thought Paul begins in verse 17 of chapter 4:

My life and my words say that you should no longer live the way unbelievers live without concern for truth or goodness, but take a higher, spiritual view of things, so that you become the person you ought to be, letting everyone you meet see what really matters. Be kind toward one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Demonstrate to everyone the kind of love your Heavenly Father showed you while you learn how to please God. Don’t get caught up in the wicked ways of the unbelievers around you, but rather reveal them for what they are. Take utmost care to spend your time wisely because these days are full of perils, hardships and annoyances.

Notice that Paul was calling the Ephesians to action: “Live… become… see… be… demonstrate… reveal… spend your time wisely.” None of these words sound like shelter-in-place behaviors (sorry). This admonition sounds like something we should put into practice. At its root, it is a practical description of what following the “Greatest Commandment” (love God; love your neighbor) would look like. The old saying is true that actions speak louder than words.

Another thing you might notice in my paraphrase is how I translated the last word. The King James and many others say we should redeem the time because the days are evil. In both the Old and New Testaments, the word “evil” is not primarily a moral judgment; it has a broader meaning. “Perils, hardships and annoyances” comes straight from the Greek dictionary definition of the word Paul used. The Hebrew word often translated “evil” means unpleasantness, calamity, distress or adversity.

We are in the midst of some serious unpleasantness right now. Days like these call for wisdom. We need to spend our time doing everything we can to show God’s love to a hurting world. While actions are extremely important, we are not excused from speaking the truth when we have an opportunity. If you are not sure how to begin a conversation about God with your neighbor, I can recommend some resources. The Gospel Coalition has an article on how to evangelize during a pandemic. God Space by Doug Pollock has some very simple, practical suggestions. I wrote Lead a Horse to Water to help people break the ice that often keeps them from sharing the gospel. Put Google to good use; you’ll find plenty of help. Whatever you do, take utmost care to spend your time wisely because these days are full of perils, hardships and annoyances. Let people know you believe better days are ahead – an eternity of better days.

The Samaritan Revelation

The Gospel of John has a familiar account of Jesus’ dealings with a woman who lived in a town in Samaria. I’m sure I have heard scores of sermons and read numerous commentaries on this passage. There are many worthwhile lessons to be drawn from the situation; usually they focus on the fact that Jesus’ love and acceptance reached even to women (not common in His day) and more astounding, to a Samaritan.

Most of the sermons and commentaries reveal the reason for the Jews’ disdain for Samaritans. One must go back seven centuries before Christ to begin to understand. After Saul then David then Solomon ruled over the kingdom of Israel, it was split by a disagreement between Solomon’s sons over who should take their father’s throne. Ten tribes situated in the northern part of the kingdom chose to follow one son, and the other two tribes, Benjamin and Judah, followed another. This split became Israel in the north and Judah in the south bringing two centuries of troubled relations.

In 722 B.C. the Assyrians overwhelmed Israel and, as was their practice, took most of the population captive and spread them throughout their empire in hopes that they would lose their cultural identity and will to survive as a nation. The Assyrian tactic was successful, and from that time on the ten tribes of Israel were considered “lost.” The few Jews who remained in what had been Israel were forced to live with people of other countries whom the Assyrians deported there per their usual practice with conquered people. The culture that had evolved by Jesus’ time had some Jewish elements, but it was so corrupted by foreign influences that no self-respecting Jew from Judea (the former Judah) could accept a Samaritan on equal terms. So we are told.

 Here is where I had my eyes opened when I read John 4 in my devotional reading recently. I noticed first that the Samaritan woman considered herself to be a descendant of Jacob, hence “Jewish” in some sense. She asked Jesus, “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you?” Later she explains that, “our fathers worshipped on this mountain,” linking herself to the historical tradition of her people. The Samaritans did use a version of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Jewish scriptures, and they considered Yahweh to be their God. What surprised me most was the expectation she revealed when she said, “I know that Messiah is coming.” I had never noticed that the Samaritans were expecting Messiah. The depth of their belief is displayed when the townsfolk invite Jesus to stay for a few days and eventually say, “we know that this one is truly the Savior of the world!”

The irony struck me that not long before this incident, Jesus had been escorted out of His hometown to the brow of a cliff where His neighbors intended to throw Him over the edge. The same irony appears in Jesus’ parable of the “Good Samaritan.” There are hints of Jesus’ inclusiveness elsewhere in the Gospels: the Canaanite woman, the Gadarene demoniac, the Roman officer’s servant. None of these persons was acceptable to a “good” Jew. The bigotry of the self-righteous Jews was being spotlighted by the Messiah for all to see. No wonder the religious leaders in Jerusalem wanted to kill Him.

My application of this may be alarming to some. I am going beyond the obvious lesson that Baptists should stop “hating” Catholics or that charismatics should stop belittling anyone who can’t speak in tongues. I scandalously suggested in my book, Lead a Horse to Water, that Christians might want to think of Mormons and Muslims as believers who need to be further educated. I am not implying that they have saving faith, only that they have misguided beliefs much like the Samaritans in Jesus’ day.

In the teaching at my church lately we have been encouraged to make every effort to see things as God sees them. Looking at things through Heaven’s eyes is the only way to see clearly. It occurs to me that in chapter four of his Gospel, John was putting flesh on the concept he had expressed so memorably in 3:16 that, “God so loved the world that He gave…” “The world” Jesus loved included the hated Samaritans. He loved them. That’s how God saw them: loved ones. Who is there in your world that you should love like Jesus loved? Who is your “Samaritan woman?”

Leading a Horse to Water: Introduction

I am writing a book which I intend to publish in serial fashion here on my blog. What you have in this post is the chapter titles and the introduction. The first post of each chapter will be in the nature of a rough draft. I would love to have readers' comments, criticisms and suggestions on each post. If you would like to be certain to see each chapter as it is posted, please leave a comment to that effect and I will put you on an email list to see that you are kept up to date. If you would rather stay somewhat anonymous, you may find the posts by searching "Leading a Horse to Water" in the blog labels and making comments on the blog itself.

Leading a Horse to Water: The Great Commission in the 21^st Century

Alternate title

Leading a Horse to Water: Making Disciples in the 21^st Century

Introduction

Inviting pagans to church is not the best strategy; after leading the horse to water…

                Unbelievers won’t get anything if it’s real church

                Believers won’t get anything if it’s all evangelism

                Doing a little of both shortchanges everybody… and it has failed

Chapter One: Matthew 28:19-20

The Great Commission: Make Disciples

What is a disciple

How to make one follow

                Offer something they want/like

                                Deo Gloria: make God look good

Chapter Two: John 13:34-35

Do the obvious thing: love one another

                Do the less obvious thing: love the “enemy”

Chapter Three: 1 Corinthians 9:22

Package the Gospel for atheists and agnostics

                Philosophy 101: what works

                                Avoiding nihilism and utilitarianism

                Guarding against syncretism

Chapter Four: Matthew 9:17

New wine for new agers: God as ET

                Reading the enemy’s playbook: the sci-fi gospel

                What does it mean to be “extra-terrestrial”?

Chapter Five: Matthew 10:16

What not to do

                Don’t be so earthly-minded you’re no heavenly good     

Don’t promise wealth and health

                Don’t promise happiness

                Don’t expect holiness

                Don’t use church language

                Don’t be ostentatious

                

Chapter Six: Ephesians 2:10

epilogue: it’s all God’s doing ultimately

                “Not by [our] works, lest any should boast”

                “I do what I see my Father doing”

Introduction

I attend a pretty good little church. Actually, it’s not little; it’s on the high side of average statistically. We run about 100 on any given Sunday. According to the Christian pollster George Barna, the average Protestant church size in America is 89 adults. 60% of protestant churches have less than 100 adults in attendance. And anyway, size is not the most important statistic about a church.

I am very happy with just about everything we do as a congregation: we have vital praise and worship times; we hear Bible sermons every week; we have several Bible study opportunities going on all the time; we pray openly for one another; we help each other out as needs arise; we collect enough money to maintain church operations and make significant contributions to a number of local and foreign ministries. So far, that’s the portrait of a healthy church.

However, as I look over the group that gathers under our local banner each week, I discover that almost all of the attendees are refugees from churches elsewhere in the area. I am quite certain that less than ten percent were brought to Christ through the ministry of our church; possibly less than five percent. I assume that the majority attend my church because they, like the founders of this body, were not happy in their previous church. This may be fine; I believe in different strokes for different folks. No one church will be perfect for all believers. That too is healthy.

What is not healthy is the lack of new converts. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament makes one realize that evangelism, sharing the Gospel, reaching the lost is a major focus of the church. If new people are not being added to the church, an important purpose of the church is not being fulfilled. Because I know many of the people I share my Sundays with, I am certain that they would agree with what I have said. I am also certain that many of them would respond as one did recently when I expressed my dismay about our lack of new converts: we need to invite more people to church. That may be one answer, but I don’t think it is the best answer.

The idea of inviting people to “church” to convert them to Christ leads ultimately to the question: what is the Sunday service for. The answer is debatable. Some believe that Gospel proclamation or evangelism, is the primary purpose of the Sunday church meeting. Others believe that teaching the Scriptures primarily to believers is what it’s all about. Not a few modern churches attempt to balance both of these elements in every meeting, particularly on Sunday morning.

This confusion over the purpose of Sunday meetings may explain at least in part why the church has not experienced significant growth in the last couple generations. It may also explain why young people are not staying connected to any church when they reach adulthood. The bottom line of a study done by Lifeway recently seems to indicate that irrelevance played a role in the decision of young people to leave church. Young people don’t think church has anything for them. Although what’s-in-it-for-me may be a selfish motive, it is legitimate to ask the purpose of attending Sunday church. If the leaders are confused about purpose, is it any wonder the attenders are too?

The answer to the confusion may be to choose to be either fish or fowl. If the leadership of a local body believes that evangelism is the main reason to hold services on Sunday morning, they should swing whole-heartedly for that fence. Make everything about Sunday attractive to non-believers (more on this later). This is basically what the “seeker friendly” churches have been trying to do for the last couple decades. While this is a worthy goal, current research suggests the tactic has not been an unmitigated success. Perhaps the tactic needs rethinking.

If on the other hand, a church decides that Sunday morning is for believers, then they must find another path than the Sunday morning service to appeal to the unbelievers. Assuming good Bible teaching is part of the service, sooner or later the congregation will come to the realization that a significant command of Jesus is being ignored for all practical purposes. I am not suggesting that solid preaching of the Word cannot bring some unbelievers to repentance; nor am I disregarding the important work of the Holy Spirit in conversion (more on that in the last chapter). But delving into the intricate beauty of the Word of God will be lost on all but a few unchurched listeners. “Pearls before swine” may be an apt analogy. The challenge is to determine how to reach the not-swine.

The authors of Simple Church, xxx, have researched successful churches and found what they believe is the key to success: in a word, focus. According to xxx, growing, vital churches have one main goal, and every program they offer leads directly to that goal. Although the churches studied by xxx use different language, I will summarize what they are doing by calling it what the Bible calls it: discipleship. Successful churches are successful because they are making disciples. My purpose in this book is to offer suggestions to help less-than-successful churches become successful in this truly biblical sense. I will not answer the question of which type of Sunday meeting is best; perhaps either will work if done properly.

Because I believe that all the best ideas come from the Scripture itself (what a concept), the suggestions I will make rely primarily on at least one specific passage of Scripture. Hence what you hold in your hand is a series of exegetical sermons on the topic of church growth. Someone is saying at this point, “Oh goody! As if we haven’t had anything like that before.” I say with all humility that there are countless other books available which do what I am proposing, and they have been written by Christians with far more serious qualifications than I. However, I am a unique person with a unique way of looking at things (as are all persons), so I will nonetheless undertake this challenge. Besides, God seems to be prompting me to do this. Whether it is just for me or for others too is for you to decide.

The first chapter will explore just what Jesus was asking of His followers when he commanded them to “make disciples.” If we don’t know what the task at hand is, it is pretty hard to know if we are doing it. There is probably nothing startlingly unique in my exposition, but I feel it is necessary to lay the correct foundation for what follows. Subsequent chapters will offer conceptual understanding and practical applications of some very specific things which I believe flesh out the command: make disciples

                If you follow me to the end of this literary journey, you will find me saying in the last chapter that nothing we do, no matter how brilliant – how biblical, will result in anything eternal if the Holy Spirit is not in it. Some have heard this before and concluded that if it is “all God” anyway, there’s no use troubling ourselves about evangelism. Wrong. It is one of the great mysteries of God’s purpose that He does, in fact, want our participation in this greatest of endeavors. It is my prayer that this little book may contribute in some small way to that purpose. Having read it, I pray readers will be better able to fulfill Jesus’ last command to us all: make disciples.

(Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.)