Calvinism - Biblical or Propaganda?

All right, well, welcome to Apologetics Live. Having some technical issues there with the music. Don't know what was with the introduction for the podcast. I'll just have to edit that in. But welcome to another Thursday night.

We're here again to answer your theological questions. And as always, we can answer any question you have about God and the Bible because, well, I believe I don't know is a perfectly good answer. So we want to get started.

Calvinism, the Show Format, and the Night's Topic

Tonight's topic is going to be Calvinism. Is it biblical or propaganda? This is something that came up quite often this week in our Christian Apologetics Facebook group. And what we had several people that wanted to discuss it and there's at least one of them that showed up.

I always find that interesting, by the way, folks, that we have people who will challenge people on different things. They'll challenge people on, you know, things like, you know, in this case, Calvinism.

And then when you say, well, hey, come on and defend yourself. It's just amazing how few times anyone ever actually shows up. We've had the Black Hebrew Israelites that over and over again challenge us to debates.

And if you want the epic debate that I had, it's on our YouTube channel. Just search for Black Hebrew Israelites or BHI and you'll see the debate that I had with an empty chair because, well, three guys said they were gonna show up to debate me on Black Hebrew Israelites and yeah, they didn't show.

So, but that won't happen tonight, thankfully. That way it's not just me talking. We are not gonna have Justin and Anthony here. They are out. So it will be, we got John, the clock commander. We don't have his chickens.

It's probably too cold for them, but you know, he will be popping in, I'm sure. And so I do wanna give you guys some quick updates on some things as I look for some of my notes. The one thing that we have is I want to update you guys on the fact that the Israel trip is filling up and I'm looking for my other notes.

The Israel trip's filling up. You want to make sure that you go to, if you want to join us in Israel, I think there's only like two slots left and those two slots are probably gonna fill up pretty quickly.

Those will go once they're gone. There's still maybe some extra room to join us, but you'd have to meet us in Tel Aviv is the way that would work. And so here we go. That's what I'm looking for. Had to get my other notes here, sorry.

So if you go to Israel trip or Israel tour 2021, I'll put that up on the screen. As soon as I could find where it is. But Israel tour 2021 is where you could find us to join us in Israel. Again, the price of this goes up $100 starting at the end of this month.

So we have about a week left before the price goes up. So I really wanna encourage you to do that quickly. Some other notes is if you're checking out some things on striving for eternity, there are some, we're trying to put up some new stuff.

There's a new article out by Bud Alheim. I wanna encourage you guys. He went into great detail going into the Equality Act and all that that is going to affect. So just go to strivingforeternity .org, check out the latest blog articles or just go and search for Equality Act and it will come up.

And it's a very detailed article. Any of you that know Bud's writing, you know that he's pretty detailed. So you can expect that. Also, just to remind folks on YouTube, there is ways to help support us.

One way is, well, super chats are always a way. If you want your comments or questions to make sure that we're going to respond, you can always hit the super chat that's in the chat. That's the little dollar sign.

You can also sponsor the show through YouTube if you want, or you could go to our website, strivingforeternity .org slash support. That is a place you can get to support us. Another way that you could support us, we mentioned this last week, is you can not only support us, but at the same time, get a good night of sleep.

Now, one person who probably needs a good night of sleep is this guy, Chris Honholtz, who says he just wanted to pop in and say hi for a minute. He needs a good night of sleep. And what he needs is a MyPillow.

And if Chris was to get a MyPillow, he could actually not only save money on the best pillow out there, in my personal opinion, but also be supporting Striving for Eternity. And you can too. All you have to do to save money on pillows, they have some great discounts.

And in fact, one of the discounts they're running for us is that there are pillows that are regularly, they're premium MyPillows, are regularly like just under $70. They're selling it for $40 off. So it's under $30 for a queen size premium pillow.

All you have to do is call 1 -800 -873 -0201. 0176, that's 800 -873 -0176. Or go to MyPillow and if you, either way you want to use the promo code SFE. So SFE, and if you go to there, if you go to mypillow .com, just click the radio listeners square and in there put promo code SFE, and you will get a better sleep because they're outstanding pillows.

I've said this before to you guys last week. I travel with mine. I love it. I don't like to go in without my pillow. I'm getting old. I guess these things are... So we got someone saying that they got my pillow coming.

Thank you very much. So let me first bring in John, Mr. Cluck Commander,.

Lovely Cluck Commander.

For folks who don't know that you raise chickens. Now someone is saying, actually I should say this. Wait, it was Humble Clay that said this. I finally do know who Humble Clay is. He's revealed himself to me.

But he says, Michael Liddell, the MyPillow guy is a Christian. Someone, I guess earlier trying to find that comment said he's a devout Catholic. Here it is. Says he's a devout Catholic. He was a Catholic.

He now, unfortunately, I don't know if I want to say he's Christian. He's more word of faith. So I'll leave that to those who want to say if that's Christian or not, because some don't understand word of faith.

They're just in that. Hey, that's a great book. You are a slow reader. You read that book every single week. You know, I'm wondering,.

What Calvinism Actually Teaches

Since tonight's talk is about Calvinism and how they're so cultic, I just figured maybe it would be under this book. What do they believe? What do they believe? You know, the Calvinists and what in the world are they, you know, are they a bunch of propagandists?

I do have a guy who I used to be friends with. He actually told me I'm not saved anymore because I, actually he told me I'm not saved anymore because I preach on stage with Calvinists. And so believing the doctrines of grace makes me unsaved.

He actually did write a book about how Calvinism is a false teaching and all. It was kind of funny because I reminded him that he's been on stage with Paul Washer and Paul Washer pretty much. So if me being on stage, you know, with other Calvinists make me a Calvinist, I said, doesn't that, I mean, just simple logic, but no, it didn't go that way.

So John, anything you got going on that you want to update folks with before we bring Seth in?

You know, I just heard on the, this is just for a sidetrack here, but I just wanted to say that there is, I saw a news report on Fox Sports that NASCAR is going to begin having dogs that can sniff COVID from you, on you.

So you can actually get

So that they can have people in the audience,.

To attend the events? Yeah, so basically when you want to go and see NASCAR racing and all that, and you go to this, you know, the track or whatever, they're going to have dogs that can sniff out COVID for you.

I mean, so they can actually detect COVID. So I thought there'd be a great episode, a new TV series that's called, BDU, Biodetection Unit, COVID Canine. Chug, chug. But anyway, I already made the jingle for it and everything, so I'll have to do it for you.

Why am I not surprised?

I know. All right, someone was asking in chat if they could do any volunteer work for us at Striving Fraternity. You could contact us at info at strivingforeturning .org if you're interested in doing that.

That's how to get ahold of us there. So just reach out to us that way. Let us know what type of things you're interested in doing and what you're capable of doing, and we'll do that. So, John, I'll put you in the backstage.

You just, as usual, let me know if you want to come in. And I'm going to bring Seth in. Seth, welcome to Apologetics Live. You are someone who is in our Christian Apologetics group, and you and I, I guess, got involved.

You reached out to me because you were having a discussion and someone muted you in the group. And so you had thought it was over Calvinism because that was the discussion. I didn't read the thread, as I told you, but you're going to be unmuted, I think, by tomorrow, so you could then respond.

But I said, hey, why don't we talk about what you do disagree with? So why don't you just real quick introduce yourself to our audience, let folks know how you came to know Christ. And I mean, even with that, we're talking off air.

And Yeah, when you tell me you have my whole testimony, I kind of waste a lot of time, I guess. Yeah, the short version.

Okay. I mean, I guess I was raised in the church. I left the church, I guess, in high school and college because I was convinced by my college professor of evolution, that's a different state. I went through a while of being pretty confused about whether God did exist, or if he does exist, if he's even a loving person at all, if he actually cares about us.

After I got out of college, started doing some searching for myself and found that there is a lot of assumptions made in evolution that are not proven. So that brought me back to questioning things. I went and found a lot of philosophical arguments for the existence of God.

And it seemed that that was evidence that at least a creator does exist. At that point, I started studying, reading the Bible for myself, reading the Old Testament, New Testament. I started looking at all religions because I really didn't know who the creator actually was.

I believed that it was a creator, but I didn't know who he was. I was reading the Quran. I was reading the Book of Mormon. I was reading basically anything that I could find that might tell me who God was.

And the only thing that actually made a discernible difference in my life that actually touched my heart were the words in the Bible. All the other texts that I read, there was nothing like that. A lot of it was laughable, honestly, if you're trying to look at it logically.

Like the Book of Mormon is a joke. If you actually read it, I don't know how you'd read it and not laugh out loud.

Well, it's good science fiction, maybe. I mean Not even that.

Read the Quran, because I'm reading the Quran and the Book of Mormon at the same time. The Quran is actually, it has very poetic language. It honestly, to me, it seems like it is inspired by demons because it actually has a lot of almost truth to it.

The Book of Mormon is just a flat comedy. It's nothing compared to, it looks like somebody read the King James Version of the Bible one time and then tried to recreate some type of fiction along those lines.

Actually, an interesting study that the Tanners have done, I don't know if you know who Gerald and Sandra Tanner are, but with Mormon research, they're kind of the pioneers. Gerald Tanner actually looked at all of the usage of the Elizabethan English in the Book of Mormon and found that the only time that the Book of Mormon, the English matches the rules for the Elizabethan English with the these and the nows was when it was quoting the King James Bible.

That makes sense.

I think that's all Joseph Smith did. Is he read the King James Bible and tried to make his own religion using that type of language.

So we want to talk about specifically Calvinism. We have some other things we could talk about afterwards about apologetics. You take more of an evidential approach. I would take more of a presuppositional approach.

And so we could talk about that as well. Laura's here saying Sandra Tanner is great. Sandra Tanner, just a side note, before we get into Calvinism, I'll tell this for Laura's, but Sandra Tanner is the only person I've ever been starstruck with, which for me, I'd be like, well, what?

Because I've gotten to meet very well-known people, but Sandra Tanner was someone who early on, when I was a young Christian and I was dealing with Mormons, I was studying Mormonism and learning about it.

And I studied so much about the Tanners. And so when I met her, which was probably 20 years later, I was actually starstruck meeting her. So probably the only time I've been starstruck. But we want to talk about Calvinism.

What I want to do is, Seth, I want to give you a chance. I think I said, and I can't remember if it was to you or to one of the other people that said they wanted to show up and challenge me on this, but aren't here.

So first off, kudos to you because you are more of a man of your word. I think there's a passage that says in the scriptures, it says something about, you know, the person who says yes and doesn't show, you know.

This is the first time I've ever done something like this. And to be honest, I have turned down several offers to come to Bate Law. I just, I don't think very well through word of mouth and through speech.

I think way better when I'm able to write my thoughts and edit them. Because sometimes when I'll say something, I don't mean exactly what I say. I'd rather go back and edit that and say, this is what I actually meant by that.

I just, sometimes I speak faster than I actually think. This is actually making me very nervous because I don't do well in this. Don't be nervous.

I mean, that's why, like I said to you, I don't, I prefer discussions. Right. Just open discussions. And one of the things, yeah. One of the things I find, though, when it comes to the topic of Calvinism and specifically doctrines of graces, because Calvinism is kind of a loaded term for a lot of folks.

But whenever we talk about it, I usually find that people don't understand what Calvinism actually teaches. And so what I wanna do is, I wanna first give you an opportunity to see for you to define it and then work through what your definition is.

I wanna see first that we're using the same definition. Right, that's definitely important, I agree. And so I thought I'd let you define it, see what issues you have with it, where they are, and then if there's corrections, if I think there's corrections to be made, I'll say what my definition is.

Sound good? Yeah, that's perfect. Right. Can I, I'm assuming you're not, you wouldn't represent hyper-Calvinism. That's like a very minority view. You're more of the compatibilist.

Yeah, and so for folks that don't know, hyper-Calvinism would be more in the camp of, there's two branches of hyper-Calvinism. Well, there's hyper-Calvinism and high-Calvinism. Hyper-Calvinism would be determinism, where God determines everything.

We have no say in anything. God forces every decision we make. That would be hyper-Calvinism. High-Calvinism would be those that would say that you have to believe in Calvinism to be saved. Okay? I would have a problem with that as well.

Right, I agree. I think there are good brothers and sisters on both sides of the camp that are saved that believe and don't believe in the issues of Calvinism. Okay? I can say that one of them are wrong.

Well, yeah, that's absolutely true. They can't both be true, right? Something has to be wrong. I 100 agree. Yes, like for the compatibilist view, it's basically that God has determined what your nature is.

So our nature is fallen because of Adam's sin. So we have no ability basically to have faith. The only way we can have faith is if God regenerates us ahead of time. If we are elected before the foundation of the world, then eventually we will be regenerated and we will have the ability to believe at that point of regeneration.

The thing I have a problem with compatibilism is that basically removes the, what is the word? Moral culpability from people for their beliefs in faith, I believe, like for, if they don't, if God never gave some people the ability to have faith, then they can't be accused of not choosing to have faith because they never had the ability.

That would be like accusing someone with no legs not being able to jump. That's, it's not right. You can't accuse somebody who has no ability to do something for not choosing to do something. It's not that they didn't choose, they have no ability.

And that's the problem I have with the compatibilist view.

Okay, let me just, and you're gonna see that I'll do this a lot, is I want you to define terms that you use to make sure we're, so when you say compatibilism, what do you mean by that?

So basically it's trying to make free will compatible with God's decrees. It's a God decrees all basically who is going to be saved from the foundation of the world, but it's still trying to say that people still make their own choices.

So they're still moral and culpable for their choice, but I'm saying that that's a logical contradiction because they can't be.

Is that correct? Am I? Yep, and so, I mean, I'm not gonna agree that it's illogical. I'm gonna be able to very easily show that. So what would be the view in your, and I'm just taking some notes here.

So if you see me looking down, I wanna make sure I don't misrepresent,.

I'm trying not to misrepresent. I definitely don't wanna do this either.

So give me your position of what you believe on the subject.

I believe that people can believe whatever they want to believe. I believe that the only thing preventing people from being able to believe in God or in Jesus is that they need to be told about God or Jesus.

So you can't believe something that you don't know about basically. And that's what, I know there's a verse. I don't think I can figure it off the top of my head. So I'm trying to think of it. Give me a second.

I'll come back to it, I guess. Okay. Okay. How can they believe if someone has not preached to them?

Something along those lines. Read Romans chapter 10. That sounds about right. So, I mean, one of the things you're gonna see here a lot, we're gonna, I mean, we could actually spend all our time in Romans nine and Romans 10.

And I read Romans nine and I would say that's biblical. You'll read Romans 10 and you'll say that's biblical.

Right, I believe that the questions posed in Romans nine are answered in Romans 10 and 11. Yeah, how can they call on him who have they not believed? How can they believe in him who have they not heard?

So they need a preacher. They need to be able to hear. That's just synergism to me. Like if you're preaching the gospel, that's two people creating something that's better. That's God working through you and working into them.

So that's, in my opinion, that's synergism.

So you're saying you would hold to a synergism, not a monergism?

I don't believe, okay, I believe God is the only one that saves.

We're finding those folks in a moment, but I just.

I believe that God's gift is the only thing that saves, but I believe people do have to participate. I think God requires us to participate in that in order to receive that gift. I believe the gift is offered to every single person, literally every single person.

The only reason that people don't necessarily hear about the gift is our fault as servants, because we didn't get the message of Christ to those people. And I don't put any place on God saying that God didn't love these people, so God didn't even give them the chance to believe, because I think that's what, that's the logical, I believe the logical conclusion of Calvinism.

That's why I think it's wrong and dangerous, because that would suggest that God doesn't love everyone, or that I impossibly love lost people more than God does, and I don't believe that's possible either.

Yeah, so, and some people are, someone's asking, what's your name? There was a comment up here earlier from Chris Honholds that said, I appreciate not only his willingness to come on, but also his respectful demeanor.

And someone was asking your name. His name is Seth. I don't know, I don't want to give your full name unless you choose to. I don't have any problem with that. So let me work through some things and see where you're at.

So you mentioned the sin nature. Do you believe that we are born having the effect of the curse of sin?

Yes, I do believe that we are born with the curse of sin. I don't necessarily, I'm kind of conflicted on this, because there, so I don't have a very firm decision. I don't know if we are necessarily guilty of Adam's sin, but I do know that Adam's sin led to our sin nature to where we will sin eventually.

Like, I believe we're still at fault because we make those choices. I don't believe that God forced us to sin, but I believe that because of our nature, because of our fallen nature from Adam, we are tempted to sin and we will fall into temptation.

Okay. There's a verse, I think God says he consigns all people to sin. I believe that's in Romans 11. Let me look it up.

Bible over here, so I'm not looking off screen so much while you're doing that. And partly because I don't want to go there. So while you're looking up.

For God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all. And that's Romans. What?

Romans 1 .32. Romans 1 .32? 11 .32. Oh, 11 .32. Okay. I forgot to shut up. All in disobedience. Okay. So let me work through some of this. So when we say the fall, right, what happened in Genesis chapter three with the curse, do you believe that the effect of the curse of sin, did that affect the human being when it comes to his thinking?

Not necessarily. I believe that God created us in his image and we are rational creatures capable of objective logic. I believe objective logic is very important in order to discern truth. I think that's one of the gifts that God gave us is in order to discern truth is logic and reasoning.

Okay, did it affect the emotions?

Sure, sure. I definitely believe it affected emotions, but emotions can be overridden by logic and reason.

Well, okay, so logic and reason is not a product of the human mind. So there's aspects of the human being, right? It's what we might call the mind, the emotions, and the volition. So really what I'm trying to get at, when people speak of sin nature, the question becomes generally people that hold to a sin nature, except that the curse affected the mind and the emotions and the debate is over whether it affected the will.

Okay, now Romans five. As I was saying, okay, I'm tracking.

Okay, so Romans five and six, I don't have time to read the whole chapters, but in Romans five and six, it talks about the fact that we're basically enslaved to sin. Okay.

Slaves rebel against their masters all the time. Being a slave doesn't mean you don't have free will.

Well, I guess, and this is where we'd have the first disagreement, because, and maybe defining terms, when we say free will, I would argue that we don't have a free will, we have a will. There's a big difference between the two.

We can make choices, but those choices are bound by our sinful nature. In other words, we are gonna make choices based on our selfishness. Why am I not gonna steal something? Because I don't wanna suffer the consequence.

But throughout history, when you remove consequences for breaking, just look in America, we're removing consequences for doing wrong. And now, people for seven months, eight months, nine months now, burning cities down because no one's gonna stop them.

Okay, I don't see how that correlates to mean. You don't have a free will then. Like, I don't see where the free will is always set.

Theologically, free means that you're not being influenced by something like a sin nature. In other words, you can make perfectly moral choices, righteous choices, things, God would be free. I would argue we're not free until the Holy Spirit indwells us.

And now, we can choose to do that which pleases God versus that which pleases self.

Right, that's what I was saying earlier. That's what, I agree, that's at the competitivist view. I don't agree that that's true though. I just, I need to see the evidence that that's actually true. I agree that that's the competitivist view.

Mm-hmm, so the issue we'd end up seeing is that scripture would end up seeing that we are enslaved to sin. And therefore, I would say that our will, if we're enslaved, it's not free. It's enslaved.

But slaves rebel against their masters all the time. That's what I'm saying. Slave doesn't mean that you have no free will.

Yeah, I know, okay, so be specific. I'm not saying that you can't make choices. I'm not saying you can't rebel.

You keep You're saying I can't have faith though. I'm not either.

So this is why I'm trying to break this down in small, just starting points because what I'm seeing you doing right off the bat, you're jumping to conclusions that I'm not even making. Right? What I'm talking about is the idea of freedom.

Is our will bound by sin? That's the question. Now, scripture says that we're enslaved and you're saying, but a slave can rebel. That's not, you know, that would actually, I would argue that's a red herring because it's not the point.

The point is not, can someone rebel? The point is, is the will actually free to be able to make righteous choices or is it enslaved to sin and can only make sinful choices? Choices that are pleasing to self.

See, I don't believe that being enslaved to sin means you can only make sinful choices. I know atheists who can make good moral decisions. Like, they don't do it all the time, but they, I mean, they can do it sometimes.

So that proves that they can.

No, it doesn't because it's missing the point again. Notice what we're saying. Again, I'm not saying that people can't make choices. But you said that they can't do anything good. No. Because they're enslaved to sin.

So they can't They can't do anything righteous. Okay, so define righteous sin. So they can't do anything that is without sin. They can't make, they can't do, you know, you can have someone who sacrifices his life for another person, right?

For a child or something, right? That's evil. That seems good and it is good, but yet But it's actually evil. No, it's actually selfish. They're doing it for self reasons, right? But it's still good.

Like, okay, okay. The issue is not, see, it's good by what standard? So you're saying good is a moral standard of human beings. I'm saying good by God's standard. We are going to please self or please God, right?

Do you agree with that?

I don't, I don't know. It seems like a false dichotomy. I don't necessarily have an idea of why, but I'm not sure. Okay. I'm not sure if I 100 agree with it or not.

So, so the point I'm saying is that when the scripture says that we are enslaved to sin, I'm going to say that that includes our will. So that our will is enslaved to sin. So it's not free. I disagree with that.

Do you believe that God saves people?

I believe that we cannot be safe without God. I don't know, I don't believe that he forces people to come to heaven because I think that's a shallow view of God, to be honest. Right.

Well, let me take a different, a different tack with you. Cause I see some coming up a lot that you're having issue with. Let me ask you, who wrote the book of Romans? Paul. No, who wrote the book of Romans?

It wasn't Paul.

Think about it. Who wrote the book of Romans? I mean, okay, God, third of all. Oh, all right.

So who gets a hundred percent of the credit for the writing of the book of Romans?

I mean, God didn't physically write it, so. I understand, but who gets the credit?

Both. Okay. So when we look at scripture, we call it God's word. Yeah, I agree. This is a doctrine in the area of inspiration. This is a doctrine we call superintending. Okay. And this is very important in this discussion.

Superintending is that God works through a human author in such a way that it is exactly as God intended it to be. That's how come it could be without error, without flaw. Every letter is as God intended it.

It's God breathed would be as second Timothy would say, or first Timothy would say, right? God breathed it. And so what you have is that God, this is God's word, and yet it has a human author. This is the doctrine of superintending.

And you've come around this a bunch of times, right? So God can work through a human being to write, even though Paul writes personal things. Hey, bring my books, bring my cloak. It's going to be cold this winter, right?

He'll say that to Titus and Timothy. He's going to have a different writing style than John.

Very different. So I think the overall message is what God intends. I think the writing style and the way it's laid out is the work of the author's individuality.

Yeah, and so what we see is that God works through them, even with their own personalities. Right. God can work through them to write what he intends to be written. No, I agree. I agree with that. Once we get saved, the doctrine of sanctification, the doctrine of sanctification would be this process, and you may understand this, but I'm just for the audience as well, is the process after we get regenerated, I might say is being saved, from the moment we're regenerated until the moment we die and are glorified is this process of being made more in the image of Christ, more saint-like, more holy.

That is an ongoing process called sanctification. Now, in the process of sanctification, we do good works. And yet in James, it says that God does the good works. So when it comes to the good works we do as a Christian, do you believe it's God who does it or do we do those good works?

I mean, I think God works through us, but I think it's still ultimately our decision because I could be led to do something that is a good work, but I'd choose not to do it. I mean, I still have the decision factors, I think.

I don't think we lose any type of... I guess, yeah, decision factors is the word I'm probably gonna go with.

Okay. Yeah, and folks, anyone here, you've already heard Seth say he's, I don't want anyone holding you to like, oh no, you're not using good words or something. So don't worry about that. It's more just that we understand what we're trying to communicate.

I'm trying to make sure I understand you as well so I don't misrepresent you and I see that you're trying to do the same. So the issue here is I'm gonna argue when it comes to the doctrine of regeneration, this same doctrine of superintending is in play, that God works through a human author in such a way where God gets all the credit and yet we experience that we chose God.

Theologically, God chose us. The reason there seems to be so much debate over this is because people think that it's either or, and it's not an either or. It's not either or when it came to scripture.

It's not either or when it comes to sanctification. And therefore, I don't think it's a stretch to say it's not either or when it comes to regeneration. God works through human beings in such a way that they will choose what he intended for them to choose without forcing them.

You've already said. But isn't regeneration for us? No. Why is it, this is the whole thing that you're struggling with. Look at the same thing that you said with scripture. You said Paul has his own personality.

Paul chose what words he was gonna choose. Yeah. And yet it says, scripture says that that's what God intended to be written. That it's God breathed, that God breathed through the human authors. Okay.

Peter would say that, and he would say that it was, it was not by man, but by God that they wrote scripture.

Okay, but you still, people still play a part in the writing of scripture. Yes, I believe God is the ultimate source because he wanted this written, but people still have to like, I think Paul still had the choice to write these letters or not.

And thankfully he wrote, he did make the right choice. But I think if Paul decided not to write these letters, God would have used somebody else to get his word written. I don't think that people are forced to do something that God tells them to do.