Calvinism!

Welcome to the Labor's Podcast. We are thankful that you're watching and looking forward to tonight's conversation. Uh-oh, there I am. We are gonna be talking about Calvinism. That can be a scary topic, it can be a fun topic.

It depends on who you are and what you understand about Calvinism. Even if you don't know much about Calvinism, we hope you'll stick with us. I think it's gonna be a good conversation. Big John is gonna be our host tonight, so we'll see you on the other side of the intro.

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Now let's.

Join our laborers for tonight's broadcast. Sorry John, I was just gonna say. The comment line is open, so everyone watch and ask your questions and we'll try to answer them. Absolutely. So, here's what we want to do.

If you're.

Watching, go ahead and get your ink pen out. I want you to do some hard thinking. The questions that are going to be asked here tonight are not going to be as hard-hitting, I'm sure, as some would like to ask.

So now's your chance to ask them. Make them sweat. Put them on the aisle. We're gonna be asking a bunch of Calvinists, what is Calvinism? Why they're Calvinist? And we've prepared a litany of questions.

And then I also would like to give them an opportunity to take, you know, take liberty with their answers and to be as long-winded as you want to. And if there's any kind of kickback or challenge, we'll ask it.

And I'm gonna try my best to monitor the comment line over here on the right-hand side of the screen. So, how's everybody doing, man? Doing good. Doing good. Glad to have everybody with us. We've got Tyler, the Bread of the Word.

We've got the Reformed Rican with Providence Perspective. Rob, the Reshaped Baptist. Did you reshape the beard, Rob? Is that what this is? Is that.

What's going on there? It's simple reformata. That's what my beard is. And as.

Always, the happy Calvinist all the way from an undisclosed location in Tennessee somewhere, they say, with a lot of Alabama going on right now.

You know, Claude, are you from Alabama? No. I have what I referred to as a paternal fandom. So, my son's 29. From the time he was four years old, old enough to really start getting into sports, he just latched on to Alabama.

So, I latched on.

With him, and here we are. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at your answer. I'm my buddy. Oh, man. And it starts. Yes. That's a good question, Matt. Listen, I am a Gators fan myself, so I'm not gonna make any comments and start a.

Controversy up in here. Yeah. Well, let's try to keep it just on purely religious topics. That way, we don't get in anybody's crawl, right? We'll just go keep the conversation light and airy. How about that?

Yeah, because religion isn't offensive to anybody. Especially this topic, right? So, let's let's start with just a blunt question. I'm sure somebody out there that watch, I pray God that somebody who watches don't know this question that's watching it, and y 'all can answer it.

Not all at once. What is Calvinism? And why is it so diverse? So, what's the word? Just what's Calvinism? We'll go to the next. We'll go to the next question.

After that. I struggle with the English language. Do you want the IFB King James.

Only answer? I will say that Calvinism is the belief in predestination and election. That's really as simple as I can make it. And, well, the thing is, you know, you can't really, you can't really say that you believe the Bible if you don't adhere to predestination election.

But I would say that Calvinism is the consistent understanding of predestination election. I guess that would be in a nutshell. I could talk a lot more about it, but I want to give a chance, because you guys know I'm long-winded, and so I want to give a chance for everybody to to jump in.

So, we're gonna start with that. Predestination.

Election. Okay. I would say that Calvinism probably has defined parameters, which I could not define all those parameters. But I also believe that currently, in this day and age, that Calvinism seems to be a little fluid, because you have some Calvinists who would agree with five points, but then you have some who only agree with four points.

And I agree with Jay that the aspect of Calvin's teachings that deal with soteriology, those are the ones that I would lean towards. And then there's other aspects of Calvin's teaching that I do not adhere to.

So, I kind of waffle in that arena myself on whether, do we, at what point do we not call ourselves Calvinist or call ourselves Calvinist? How much of his doctrines do you have to believe to be considered a Calvinist?

So, when you, just to make the conversation round here, so what would be one of the specific doctrines that Calvin held that you think, that you mentioned there, that you have trouble adhering to or.

Considering, Rob? So, I guess infobaptism would be one. Yeah, that's because that's.

Presbyterian. So, hang on a second. You said something that nobody has so far, Claude. You referred to Calvin as a person. Yes. Now, keep in mind, there are people who don't know that this is a reference to a man's teaching.

Correct. Right. So, do you.

Want to start there? Yeah. So, Calvinism, called Calvinism, truly is, just for newcomers, Calvinism is not the religion of John Calvin himself, okay? The church doesn't worship Calvin. The church doesn't hold Calvin up as a saint.

Calvin basically, like Jay said, just systematized what we call the doctrines of grace, which can be summarized in the acronym TULIP, right? T, total depravity. U, unconditional election. L, limited atonement.

I, irresistible calling. And P, perseverance of the saints. And you know,.

It's funny about that because there's some debate as to whether John Calvin even believed in limited atonement. He wasn't real clear on that. In fact, he did I would say that he's probably, theologian, the most expounded on those things, with maybe the exception of limited atonement.

I think the canons of Dort, right? The synod of Dort, with its canons, really systematized what we call the TULIP. But John Calvin himself, a lot of what he taught was, first of all, from scripture. But the understanding that he had came from, I would say, Augustine of Hippo.

Not exclusively, but he definitely spoke a lot about, in terms of who was the most influential church father for him, it was definitely Augustine or Augustine, right? Some people get mad about how I'm pronouncing it.

So when we say we are Calvinist, though, because Calvin wrote about a lot of things. He was a brilliant man. I mean, everybody agrees, even if they strongly dislike or hate John Calvin, they agree he was highly intelligent.

I mean, nobody can deny that. And so he wrote a lot about a lot of different things. Broadly speaking, that has been what Calvinism has meant, to follow the teachings of John Calvin. But when we talk about Calvinism in today's context, we're talking about what Rob said, soteriology specifically, right?

So he says, for example, I disagree with infant baptism. Well, that's because when you describe yourself as a Calvinist, you're not talking about baptism, you're talking about esoteriology, which I think all of us here would, for the most part, agree with, right?

With maybe some minor points. But again, even Calvin himself was not 100 clear on certain aspects of his soteriology. And so I think when we say we are Calvinist, it's an oversimplification, but there's a need to call it something, right?

So it's a lot shorter to say I'm a Calvinist than to say, well, I believe in predestination election. That in itself would cause confusion, because like I was saying, all Christians should believe in predestination election.

It's in the Bible. But how does that play out? That's where we get into that Calvinist system.

Okay, so good answers. One thing I have to say, I'm not a Calvinist. But there's yeah, I know, right? So that's why I'm asking the questions, though. So I guess that was technically question number one, though.

This is listed as question number one on your on your handout. Let's look at Matthew chapter 23. And I've got 37 to 39 here set out. But obviously, we can look at the whole chapter or the whole book as far as that concerns.

I really like the book of Matthew. Jesus is speaking. He says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.

And you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. For I say to you, from now on, you will not see me until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So from a non Calvinist perspective, some would say this is an example of man being able to reject the Lord or something to that of that effect.

From a Calvinistic point of view that has the declaration that this is primarily a soteriology of election and predestination, explain.

Explain Matthew in that in that section there. Well, I think for one thing, we.

Can't negate or belittle the fact that this is a lament from Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And this, I think, gives us a a peek into his heart in a very, very honest way. Just as we see in the Psalms that he takes no delight in the death of the wicked.

That we have Jesus Christ, the God-man, lamenting the fact that Jerusalem does not believe. I don't think we can get away from that as we try to explain this either as a Calvinist or as an Arminian or whatever we want to, whatever ism we want to tag on that.

That at the end of the day, there is a brokenness that Christ expresses here about the unbelief in Jerusalem.

Tyler, you hit something that I was going to say. You know, God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. And I can say that as a Calvinist, right? Because the assumption, if somebody is listening to this and kind of has been exposed to Calvinism, they might have the idea that, well, Calvinists just think that God just loves to send people to hell because he predestined them to hell.

And so they have no way to get out of it. I do believe, and this is one of the things where Calvinists might disagree, I believe in something called double predestination, where God does predestine people to heaven and people to hell.

But the way that I believe it would be, if you know anything about R .C. Sproul, is that he explained things really, really well. And so when people think of double predestination, as they understand it most of the time, this is how I understood it when I first heard of it, is God is actively doing whatever he can to make certain people end up in hell, right?

And so I would disagree with that assertion. What I would say is that my understanding of double predestination is that God actively saves some people, changes their heart to be saved, and we can get into that a little bit more detail later, whereas he passes over men who he did not predestine to save.

And so in that sense, they are predestined to eternal damnation, not because God is doing anything to make them go to hell, but rather because man is inherently sinful, and so man is sending himself to hell, right?

We know, as a Calvinist, I would say everybody knows right from wrong, right? The law of God is in the heart of all men, right? You don't have to teach a kid to lie, for example. They just lie on their own because it is inherent.

They know that they need to hide something because they know that it's wrong, and so they inherently lie. So even though they know that what they're doing is wrong, they do it anyway. So there's no excuse for man, right?

And so I would say God doesn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked in the sense that it's a sad thing, right? All men are image bearers of God, right? All men have value and worth, and it's a sad thing that many will be lost.

But at the same time, God does care about justice, right? Think about Jesus, right? Jesus, we're talking about Jesus here lamenting over the fact that Jerusalem wasn't willing to believe, which by the way, I don't know if these other gentlemen want to clear up anything on this, but I would say man does have a will, right?

We don't deny free will if you define it correctly, right? I'm saying man, I can decide to, you know, what I'm going to eat for lunch or dinner, or I can decide to go play basketball and break my finger like we were talking about before the show, right?

I can decide things in my life, and that's okay. I have a free will. I'm not a robot, right? But at the same time, I don't have an unlimited will. So I can't go outside right now and start flying spontaneously, right?

My will is limited to what I am able to do. And so when Jesus laments over Jerusalem, that doesn't speak on their inability to believe, but it is a sad thing that they do not believe, that they are unwilling to believe because they can't from a Calvinist perspective.

Jesus also lamented, in a sense, the fact that he had to go to lacrosse, right? He said, let this cup pass for me, yet not my will, but your will be done. So there can be a sadness there. And at the same time, guess what?

He was willing to go lacrosse for us. So it's not like he was unwilling, but there was this duality, right? And this, I guess you could call it a bitter sweetness about it, right? Like it's a bitter cup, but many will be saved by his sacrifice.

And he knew that, right? So God doesn't necessarily just laugh while he's sending people to hell, but at the same time, he does stand for justice.

So if I can, I'd like to take a stab at it. And I think the question comes from the one word in the middle there of those passages, unwilling. So how can a Calvinist, or how does a Calvinist explain this passage?

Because it seems like there's the ability for the person to be unwilling and you were unwilling, it says. So I think that single word there is the focus of where the question comes from. However, I think ultimately, and I'm going to try to make my way there.

I don't think it's about the willingness or unwillingness or the ability to be willing or unwilling is the main point. And so let me try to get there and you guys can correct me if you think I'm off target here.

So you have to look at the context all times when you're looking at scripture. So if you're in chapter 23, there's a bunch of woes to scribes and Pharisees, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe.

And what that woe is, is judgment. Jesus is proclaiming judgment on the scribes and Pharisees who represent Jerusalem, who represent Israel. And so Jesus is declaring this judgment that's going to be poured out on them.

And then you just move up three verses from the passage where John started. He started us in 37. If you start just three passages up, it says, therefore, behold, I am sending, and who was I? Jesus. This is Jesus speaking.

I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. Verse 35, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Verse 36, truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Eschatology. Sorry. So I don't want to take that.

Rabbit trail just yet. Yes, let's not. But to answer Matt's question in the comments here about who Jesus is talking to, that's a really good point, because as Rob has laid out, we've got all of these woes upon the Pharisees, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

Next verse, he says, all these things shall come upon this generation, and then laments Jerusalem, now that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee. But he says, how often I wish I could have gathered thy children.

And so I don't think that we're talking about the Pharisees and the thy children. I think the people that do not believe are the people who have been, I guess, entrusted to the Pharisees, that just as Jesus called them blind guides, that this is the state of Jerusalem, that they do not believe because.

They've been led by blind people. I'm sorry. I was just wondering if I could finish my trail there. I'm sorry, did I cut you off? It's fine. It's okay. I paused there, hoping somebody would catch my eschatology joke, but it was too much of a pause there.

I chose not to endorse it. I'm sorry, Rob. That's all right. That's all right. So the key word that I was bringing out that earlier was unwilling, there's another key word in verse 35. So what's going on?

Jesus says, I'm sending you scribes, wise men, and you're going to kill them. You're going to scourge them. You're going to persecute them from city to city. So that there's intentionality here. In order to that, upon you may fall.

There's the sovereignty of God and sovereignty of Jesus Christ written all over this, that he has a purpose in this. And he is writing this out. His plan is being fulfilled, and it will be fulfilled. He's sending them.

They're going to persecute so that the guilt can fall upon them. And so it ends up not being about their willingness or unwillingness of the individuals, because we all know that just like Jay was getting at, we have a will, but it is limited within that the boundaries of our sin nature.

And so they couldn't do anything but reject Christ because they were still in their sin nature. They were going to reject him. They were going to wait a minute, wait a minute. So, so my conclusion, go ahead.

I I'm right at the tail end. I'm sorry, John. So, um, so the real, to me, the real question is why would Jesus save anybody? That's the real question. Not, not were they willing or did they have the ability to be willing?

But the real question is why would Jesus save anybody? And the answer to that is because of his amazing grace, his loving kindness. So I said, now that part, you know, I'm, I'm totally.

With you. Why would God save anybody? Whenever he was told Adam, the day you do this, you'll die. And everybody born of Adam has inherited that sin. So he's obligated to save no one. Right. But I think that if, if we try to just paint that too casually and say, well, how can anybody accept him?

Because they're all unregenerate. And I believe like that's almost a straw man's point of view of looking at it to begin with, because you do remember he has, he has disciples walking with him, right?

He has, he has some people that believe that are even among the, the Sanhedrin, right. Joseph of Arimathea, was he not a member of the Sanhedrin? So he did have some believers in the midst of these unbelievers.

So Matt may have, may be hitting on part of the question. I tried to get these up. My apologies if I didn't get them up in the right order, Matt. This is a pretty good point. I think that, that brother Rob was hitting on, on some of this.

Is that fair, Rob? Sure. Mm-hmm. As well as this, I, and, and I know that wasn't exactly the reversed order, but, but in any case, whenever I hear guys like Spurgeon say, go ahead. You go ahead. When I hear guys like Spurgeon talk about God's sovereignty and man's, and man's obligation as being like railroad tracks that run parallel with one another over the, over the horizon, where you don't necessarily know what horizon, where one ends and one begins.

I can kind of see that point of view in something like this, because I believe it's God's will that none should perish. I don't, I'm like, Brother Jay, I believe that, that God doesn't, doesn't take the light and, and the death of, of the wicked or the judgment of the wicked, right?

And every, and every available method of salvation has been made available to us in the personal work of Jesus Christ. In fact, there is no salvation in any other. Amen. Same time, everyone in Jerusalem had access to the same knowledge, the same teaching, and you see some surrender and you see some rebel.

And it would appear from this scripture when I'm, when I see Jesus lamenting over an unbelieving people, that it would be His desire, it even says as much so, that they would come to Him, which tells me that His will is not being adhered to in this text.

And I know that that goes somewhat at odds with what I understand about God's sovereignty from the Calvinistic point of view. And, and I know this is not, you know, this isn't a hill to die on by any means.

This is just one scripture reference and there's myriads of others. And before Brother Claude takes it, I want to make sure that those who are like me, that aren't Calvinist, I'm not insinuating that man decides in and of himself to ever seek the Lord.

I want to read a scripture so that I stay fair and balanced. In John 6, 44, no man come to me except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him, and I'll raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall be taught of God.

Every man therefore hath heard, hath learned of the Father, come unto me. We don't get to make a decision to come to the Lord. This is by invitation only. You understand? It's the, it's the, it's the drawing of the Lord that, that makes man in right standing with God.

The whole process begins with God calling out.

Right. Can you put Matt's last question back up there? Question or statement? Let me think. Is this the one? Or is it this one? No. Is it this one? Oh no, go back. You had it right. The first one. The first one?

No. Yeah. The first one. Instead of speaking on election. Yeah. Instead of speaking on election, is this more of a passage on judgment, on the religious leaders for hindering those under their spiritual care?

So, so this passage, again, as, as has already been mentioned by everybody on here, context is very important. So when we read it, we don't read it into the future. We read it as it's written. So in the text, as it's written, Jesus is speaking about the past and about the, I mean, literally right then present, and he was speaking here, particularly in this text, about an immediate future, meaning within that generation.

And yes, he is, the Lord is expressing his concern and his compassion and his care in verse 37. That's what he's saying there. Oh, Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem. That was a, that was a means of repetition, was a means of importance and bemoaning, right?

He said, you kill the prophets and you stone those who were sent to you. I mean, it's like if those, those of you who are fathers that are watching and listening, or mothers watching and listening, consider how maybe you've warned a child over and over and over.

I mean, they've been given repeated warnings and repeated one right after the other, and yet they continue to do stupid stuff, right? So I'm just playing talk, right? But he's bemoaning this fact, and he said, you've killed the prophets, you've killed those that I've sent to you, often, and how often?

He said, if you would have only, basically, how often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. This goes back to, again, who is, like Rob said, who is he speaking to directly?

He's speaking directly here in this passage to the Pharisees, who were supposed to be the religious leaders of their day, men who were supposed to know God and who were supposed to be able to rightly interpret God's Word.

So he's speaking directly to them, and so in verse 38, he says, see, your house now is left to you desolate. Understand that it's all going to come crumbling down. He warned them. He actually gave them another sign or a time indicator right there.

He said, I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Now, he's not talking about them. He's not saying you as Pharisees will say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, of course, because what they did when he came into Jerusalem, the crowd shouted out, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, and what did the Pharisees do?

They said, tell your disciples to quieten down, right? As the old Saturday Night Live skit where, I can't remember the lady's name, the simmer down lady, simmer down, simmer down now, simmer down, right?

They were told to quieten down, and the Lord said, I tell you that if these shut their mouths, that the Lord is able to raise up stones that would cry out and praise him. Well, yeah. So, I mean, really, so we see this, and so yes, Matt, this is, can you throw that question back up there for just a second?

Absolutely, I apologize. No, that's okay. So yes. Nope, I did it again. That's okay. It is a passage on judgment on the religious leaders for hindering those under their spiritual care of that time, literally, and it's a message to all on the faithfulness and the sovereignty and the faithfulness of God.

God has never said he was going to do a thing and did not do that thing. Won't he do it? He's not a human. He's not a man. Yeah, he's not a man like we are, right? He communicates in anthropomorphic terms to us through the scriptures, but it's so that we can understand because we can't speak God's language.

If he would speak to us in his language, in a language that's not our own, right, whether it was Greek, Hebrew, English, whatever the case may be, if he did not speak in these anthropomorphic terms, we would not be able to grasp.

It's hard enough to grasp the bigness of who God is and God's sovereignty, God's will, God's predestinating purpose, God's electing purpose. It's hard enough for us to grasp those things as we are now, no matter how wise and intelligent a man is.

But yes, Matt, he was speaking directly as a testimony of judgment against them for how they refused. He was bemoaning the fact that they refused because, as has been quoted by these other men already as well, that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

On the other hand, God is so holy and so righteous. If there was not a punishment, God would be unholy, and God would be unrighteous, but he is not. He sticks to what he says that he's going to do at all times.

And so, again, in this, it's not a matter of the will of men. It's an example of the sovereignty of God, how God patiently and compassionately—we leave this out. So many Reform folks, so many quote-unquote Calvinists, I mean, certainly we don't focus on just love, but so many Calvinists forget about love.

They leave the love of God out of the message of the gospel, and that is the message of the gospel that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, right? That's what the Scripture says, and that's what we've got to go to. We've got to go continue on, right? He didn't send his—but those, he said, those who did not believe were condemned already, and back to Jay at the beginning.

The thing is, for sinners, which, by the way, if you are alive and breathing or ever have been alive and breathing, you have been a sinner. Yep. Not one moment you have not, and we stand in need of grace.

We don't need help being lost. Yeah. We need grace to be found. That's right. That's good. Being lost is all—it's all on us. If we want to take any credit, there it is right there. I am. I am lost, and I am nondone.

That's all I've done is contributed sin to cause my lostness.

That's why I love that song, His Mercy is More. You know, our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Amen. I could listen to that song over and over and over again, and actually, I incorporate that into my prayers.

I'm like, Lord, you know what I've done today. You know what I thought about today. You know the things that I've said today or done today, and all I can say is praise you that your mercy is more. That's it.

That's right. But you're right. You're right. His love, you know, the greatest of these is love. Why? Because God is love. That's right. Amen. And it's absolutely true that sometimes as Reformed folk, we can definitely—you know, as Calvinistic Reformed guys, we can definitely underappreciate or underemphasize the love of God.

You know, I think that has to do with the fact that, like, we see the world around us sometimes emphasizing it a little too much to the point where they will say, okay, wrath and sin, that doesn't matter at all.

It's all about God's love. No, we have to uphold both. We have to uphold both, but ultimately understand that His love is more than everything.

That's right.

I think sometimes whenever I listen to a Frozen Chosen Calvinist-type fella, that, you know, give a very well-articulated defense of his doctrinal principle and his theological practices, I think a lot about the way people drive on the highway.

Yes. Yes. Perfect example. Yes.

So, I'm on a motorcycle about half to three quarters of the time, and I'm driving down the same highway as somebody in a four-winded plus windshield and rear glass sedan, and they don't want to wreck any more than I want to wreck.

The difference is if they come into my lane and hit me, the chances of my survival is negligible compared to theirs, right? I mean, I'm more or less considered anything other than dead is a bonus, and this has been an inconvenience to them, and I think sometimes that because the doctrine leans one to, I suppose, overemphasize his security in God that he sometimes forgets that there's a people around him that he can damage by his freedom that's been given to him, and that's a dangerous thing.

I've heard it called the cage stage where you're supposed to just put them in cages and never let them out or whatever. The fact of the matter is that from a ministry standpoint, from being a brother in Christ, from being a laborer on a podcast, my objective is not to be right first.

My objective is not always to have the most proper understanding of who God is. As Claude said, my objective, I can't understand God in his capacity, so if God's counting on my salvation and God's relationship I have, what he has with me, is in any way indicative upon my understanding of God.

I'm hosed before this thing ever gets off the ground. What I'm relying on is God's grace and God's mercy, and what my neighbor and my brother is relying on is my mercy and my compassion for him, and if I don't have that because I'm so locked into my doctrine that I can't understand entirely, then I'm not doing what God has asked me to do.

I'm being disobedient and sinful in my freedom,.

So I got heavy in a hurry. There's a really good book that I read when I was new to this thing called predestination by Greg Dutcher called Killing Calvinism, and the subtitle of that was How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Theology from the Inside, and essentially the thesis of the book was that oftentimes the enemy of Calvinism is Calvinists, that we are our own worst enemy sometimes, that if we believe that what we have is true and we have a gospel, we believe our understanding, our articulation of the gospel is something that creates humility, why doesn't it?

If we take the stance that God has chosen people not because of their own merits, not because of their own inherent value, but actually quite in spite of what they bring to the table, why are Calvinists so arrogant?

I don't know, because let me tell you something.

When I first heard of Calvinism, I mean, I didn't like it, but I ended up hating it because of the way that Calvinists treated me for not believing in Calvinism. I'm not even kidding. I set out on a journey to disprove Calvinism for a year and a half simply because, I mean, probably not the only reason, but the primary reason was it wasn't because I hated the doctrine itself, but I hated the way that they were being to me, and so I wanted to prove them wrong.

Now, that was a problem with me as well, right, because I was being self-righteous and, you know, instead of having pity with these people, I wanted to just prove them wrong, right? It was an arrogance thing, but that didn't help.

You know what I'm saying? And so their way that they treated me and the way that they kind of mocked me for not believing Calvinism was probably not the most Christian way. And it happens a lot. Happens a lot with Calvinists.

That was fast. There's all kinds of.

Things clicking over here on the side. I'm typing in the wrong chat too.

Is that where them's coming from? Yeah, you're coming to live, Claude.

From church is saying same here. So I know we took way too long on that question, and that is totally my fault. I want to say one thing, then go to the next question, and then we can look at Ephesians 2.

Claude, do you want to look at Ephesians 2 first, and then.

Move? Has Rob got anything to add right there? Oh, yeah. Well, if you don't mind, I'll try to do it quickly. I was just pleased with seeing what Matt was saying in the first part. I think you guys touched on the second part of what he was saying, but especially the first part.

Instead of speaking on election, and Matt is actually pulling out or doing something that I think we all should be doing is just seeing what's going on within our conversation. And so in the beginning, we talked about Calvinism, what it is, and for us, it's referencing soteriology, the doctrine of salvation.

And for us, it's predestination and election. Those are the big terms that come out when we talk about Calvinism. And so the opposing side wants to bring out the free will. Don't we have free will, the ability to choose?