Calvinism

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the.

Podcast. Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Deere and David Gasson. And today we will be discussing two questions that we have sent in that are sort of, that you can take them in tandem, we'll say.

First question reads, is anyone who is not Calvinist a false teacher? How do we know who is deserving of this label? Are non-Calvinists just inaccurate or anathema? The second question reads, what advice would you have for someone who recently came to believe Calvinism, who is going to be a youth pastor at a Disciples of Christ Church?

The church is not left-leaning, but certainly not reformed. So we have, in the first question, we have, are Calvinists false teachers? And in the second one, someone who's come to believe in the doctrines taught by Calvinism, but maybe in a position that is somewhat compromised with those views.

What do you.

Think, Michael? Well, I think we'll start off with a definition of hyper-Calvinism. And I think the one given by Ian Murray is my favorite in his book, Charles Spurgeon versus the Hyper-Calvinists. The definition that he gave there, hyper-Calvinism, it pertains to those who would deny that all men have a duty to repent and believe.

That the gospel should be preached to all men in a response called unto all men. Those who deny that and say, no, all men do not have the duty to repent and believe. Those would be classical hyper-Calvinists.

I heard someone mention, and I don't remember who it is, who mentioned this, but they said another way of defining hyper-Calvinism are those who say that if you don't believe in Calvinism, you don't believe in the gospel and you're going to hell.

And I thought that was probably a good way of describing the kind of hyper-Calvinism that some people encounter today. And so this is certainly not what Calvin himself would have taught. And just while we're at it, very often people will use the term Calvinism and they're not really referring to everything that Calvin taught.

Correct. Because Calvin's view of church and state and Calvin's view of infant baptism and Calvin's view of eschatology and so on are not going to be what people are referring to. Yeah, those go.

Far beyond the quote-unquote five points of Calvinism, which are not, you know,.

Calvin didn't write those. Exactly. When people refer to Calvinism today, they're referring to the response of the Synod of Dort to the official complaints made by the Remonstrants against the reform doctrine of Calvin and so forth, where Jacob Arminius' followers tried to systematize what they believed would be a better rendering of the doctrine of salvation.

And you're.

Referring to the Remonstrants, the five points that they made in the early 1600s as a response to Calvinism's, or Calvin and his followers' sovereignty.

Of God, the Remonstrants. Yes, and so Arminius is the one who, in his systematic theology, he tackled a lot of these things, and he made his comments. Well, his followers, of course, took it a little bit further than he did, and then the response to that amongst the churches, and this was truly from all over the continent and from Britain, theologians came in and made a response, the Synod of Dort.

And from that, the summation of that is when, you know, at some point someone figured out, you know, hey, let's give it an acronym, get these.

Five points, we'll call it TULIP. Which is funny because, you know, Dort was in Holland, you know, so hence the TULIP. You get the TULIP. So you've got total.

Depravity. This is the basis wherein, like, even Arminius would agree, but he would say, even though we're totally depraved, God gives a prevenient grace to allow everybody to choose for or against, that kind of thing.

But anyway, so total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the Saints. The five points of Calvinism. Now Calvin himself, again, as David said, hey, he didn't write that out.

He didn't invent the acronym. But when people say Calvinism today, that's basically what they're talking about. These doctrines that pertain to salvation. How is it that we're saved? Who's responsible for our salvation?

Is it a joint effort between God and man working together on getting the man saved? Or is it God doing it and graciously saving the man who then responds, having been saved with great joy and wonder? So that's the debate.

Of course, the debate is not new. It was not unique to the era of Luther and Erasmus and Calvin and Arminius. It wasn't unique to their time. These kinds of conversations were being had by Augustine and Pelagius, right?

This concern is one that is brought up by our understanding of the Scriptures. So the question is, of course, if somebody does not believe the doctrines of Calvinism and they espouse something different, are they a false teacher?

Are they just mistaken? So on and so forth. Those are the questions. I think it's important to recognize that you can be a Calvinist and be a false teacher. Amen. Yes. Okay. So just because you have the five points doesn't mean that thereby you are a true teacher.

You can have all five points and be a false teacher as well. So Calvinism doesn't.

Make you orthodox. There's actually a lot of that these days, wouldn't you say?

Absolutely. But to be fair to the questioner, let's say somebody says, like I had a professor say in agreement with Adrian Rogers, I don't believe in any of the five points of Calvinism. And he kind of did, but he said he didn't because it was a wonderfully popular thing to say.

Got him a lot of applause and amens and so on because he wanted everybody to understand he was a soul winner. He cared about the lost and he felt like Calvinists did not. So they got the caricatures and so on involved.

When somebody says, I don't believe in any of the five points of Calvinism, and then they start going through, here's how I read the Bible. Here's how I understand what goes on here. Very often, you know, they walk away and they say, you know, I don't think man is totally depraved.

I think man is a sinner, but I don't think he's totally depraved. Am I gonna call this guy a false teacher? Probably not. Yeah. You know, right. If he said, I don't believe in this unconditional election, I believe you're saved by grace alone, but I don't think it's an unconditional election.

I'm gonna call him a false teacher? No, probably not. If someone says, you know, I don't think everybody in the world is gonna be saved, but those who believe in Christ will be saved, and I think that everybody has a chance to get saved.

They can just hear the gospel. Okay. I'm gonna call him a false teacher? Probably not. They didn't, right, they didn't come out and say, I think man is holy and there's nothing wrong with him at all, right?

That would be a false teacher. If they came out and they said, I think that, like with Pelagius, you know, you're saved by doing righteous works, okay? You come out clean and you do clean things and God's like, you're clean, right?

Or does he come out and say, I don't believe in limited time. I think everybody's going to heaven, right? You know, universalism. Yeah, Rob Bell or whatever. Yeah, okay, that's a false teacher. That's a false teacher.

Irresistible grace. If someone says, I don't believe in irresistible grace, I think you could, I think you can say no when somebody preaches the gospel. I think, you know, God's not gonna force you against your will to believe in the gospel.

I think that, you know, when you believe you're gonna actually want Jesus. Well, you know, I kind of agree with you in more ways than one. Yeah, that's true. That's funny. But if somebody comes out and says, you know, I don't believe in irresistible grace, I think that God doesn't try to compel anyone to be safe.

He just kind of just left it there and, you know, you can or you don't. You know, I'd probably say that's gonna be a false teacher. And for the perseverance of the Saints, well, you know, I think some people can apostatize.

You know, they, you know, they're doing all these Christian, they were part of the Christian family and then all of a sudden they're not, they're gone. And, you know, obviously they didn't make it. And so I don't really believe in the perseverance of the Saints.

Okay, well, you're observing an experience and trying to give some sort of expression to it. I'm probably not gonna call you a false teacher, but, you know, I'm gonna be a little, a little bit worried about you if you, if you think that, you know, salvation depends on you doing enough good stuff.

Okay, so I'm gonna be a little concerned about your doctrine. After all, you know, Paul tells Timothy, give attention to your doctrine. And why is that? Because, you know, you need to be paying attention to what are the things that I believe in agreement with the Word of God and I really want to make sure that they are.

But I'm not gonna probably come out and call somebody, you know, a false teacher. Adrian Rogers, by the way, he said he didn't believe in the perseverance of the Saints, he believed in the preservation of the Saints.

Wow, big, big, huge, massive, controversial difference there. Thank you, sir. Brother Adrian. So, no, I wouldn't call him a false teacher. Adrian Rogers was way more.

Calvinist. I was about to say, that sounds a little more monergistic than the original.

Phrase, right? He was way more Calvinist than a lot of people in history were. And that just kind of comes with the territory. Now, I think that in recognizing, you know, just kind of focusing on these five points can sometimes get us a little bit astray from the core issues and the critical matters.

Right. And understanding that the doctrine of salvation is very important, right? That's what the whole, I mean, when you think about the Reformation, you think about the formal cause of the Reformation, justification by faith alone.

The essential cause being that of authority, scripture alone. But on this article, the church stands or falls, whether you are saved by faith alone, justified by faith alone. And so when we're talking about doctrine of salvation, it is very, very important.

So, I don't think you have to be a Calvinist in order to be saved. I do not think that you have to be a Calvinist in order to be a good pastor or a proper teacher. I would disagree with you, but I would be interested to see which way you're leaning, right?

So, if you disagree with the five points of Calvinism, but you lean towards God, you want to honor Him, and you see Him as big, you know, and, hey, we're, you know, we're not saved because we're good people.

We're saved because God's a good God, you know? I'm not gonna call you a false teacher just because you disagree with me on the five points of Calvinism, right? But if you're leaning the way far the other way, you know, Joel Osteen style, okay?

And, you know, God just can't get enough of you, you know? You know, we're all the puppies in His playpen, and He just loves you, you know? And it's all about man, man, man. Yeah, now we're gonna have some problems, right?

Not because you annoy me. Well, you do. But not because you annoy me, but it's because of... Great hair, though. ...how far afield you are from the clear declarations of the Word of God, and that's the concern.

Not, are you in agreement with five points of Calvinism? The question is, are you in.

Agreement or in disagreement with the Word of God? So, when you say false teacher, is he using it as a euphemism or a synonym for just a heretic? I mean, because a false teacher, when you're talking about a false teacher, is propagating heresy, and heresy is a serious charge.

Right. So, heresy, to be.

Carefully defined, heresy is something that is, it is a denial of a doctrine of the first order. So, in other words, we're denying something about who God is and His nature... Right. ...and His character and His nature, or we're messing with the Trinity somehow, the nature of God somehow, or the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Right, Christology. This is the core. Think about it in this way. The doctrine of the Trinity is, in some ways, as some people have called the doctrine of the Trinity, the key doctrine in Christianity.

I think, to be more clear, it's the doctrine of the Incarnation, because you can't have the doctrine of the Incarnation without talking about the Trinity, and the Incarnation is everything. That's where heresy has mostly been defined.

That's where the most work has been done, the most care has been taken, the way of negation in the Confessions, being very, very careful about who Christ is, and we're not saying these things, but we are saying these things, and this is who Christ is, this is who God is, and if you mess with that, then that's heresy.

Okay. Definitely, somebody could have a heretical thought, just a complete misunderstanding of something, but it doesn't make them a heretic or a false teacher, unless, of course, they're holding to that, oh, absolutely, you know, there are not three persons in God, and teaching it.

Right. That'll make you heretic, that'll definitely make you a false teacher, but if you, let's say you have those principal doctrines down, you know, just fine, but then you continue forward, and you begin saying other things that are, you know, clearly not biblical, all right, then now you're, we may not call you a heretic, but we're.

Gonna call you a false teacher. Yeah, they're like, they're different.

Categories, right? Yeah, so every heretic is a false teacher, but some false.

Teachers are not heretics. So this discussion on Calvinism reminds me of our discussions on eschatology. You can have these differences, and we can even have strong, strong debates, but it's when your eschatology says that Christ has already come back, all right, now we have a problem.

Right. Now that's a clear violation of revealed truth, that's a clear violation of Scripture, all right, that you are false, or that Christ hasn't come in the first.

Place. Right, he never came, or he's never coming again, or he already came back.

Any of those things, that's a clear violation of Scripture, that's not just a false teacher, that's a heretic. And I think the other part of this question is, are these people just in error, or are they anathema?

Now anathema is cursed. Cut off from God. Cut off. Heretic. Non-believer. So I think this discussion shows that if somebody doesn't really adhere to the five points of Calvinism, and I know many brothers and sisters who don't, I think that's an error.

But it certainly doesn't go into anathema, or cursing, or heresy, unless your views start to add things to the gospel, add things to its faith plus works, or faith plus this, or faith plus this, equals salvation.

All right, now.

We have a problem. I think we have to be careful here, because I'm agreeing with you. I think we have to be careful that when somebody who is, shall we say, very zealous for the five points of Calvinism, when they hear that somebody does not agree with one of those points, let's take unconditional election.

Okay. And so they don't really think about the eternal plan of God, or decree of God, however we're gonna call that. You know, the foreknowledge, it just means prescience, looking down the corridors of time.

They really want to protect God from the evil of forcing people to love him. They think that's a monstrous idea, so on and so forth. Okay. And so they don't agree with this unconditional election thing, and they find it very very uncomfortable.

They think it's unbiblical. All right. Now, somebody who's very zealous about the five points of Calvinism will look at that, and they'll say, well, if that, then what you really mean is God isn't all-knowing, or God is not all-powerful.

And now you've messed with the very basic nature of God. You're guilty of heresy. Sure, I can see that. You see how fast you get there? Yeah. And that's uncharitable. Now, just because you see a logical progression from someone's doctrines heading somewhere heretical, doesn't mean that they are heretical, right?

And you don't get to pronounce that. And I think that's where a lot of, I would say there's a lot of bad reputation about Calvinists, because that kind of maneuver has been made way too many times. You know, well, if then then that, well then that must mean that they are heretics.

The critique is well deserved, I guess. Yeah. And so that's, I think you have to be careful, because someone could be heterodox. Someone can have two things in their head that don't really match logically or biblically, but they're not taking the logical progression forward into some sort of heretical position.

They're just not. And they would be surprised that you would ever think that they would. Yeah. Right.

So would we call that, that wouldn't necessarily be creating a caricature, because you can't eventually get there. Sure. But the error there is assuming that they've already gotten there, right? Yes. Yeah.

So there are open.

Theists today who were Calvinists 20 years ago, right? They gave up on Calvinism, and they began to follow their logical progressions. Well, if then then this. I've got to follow this all the way through.

I could be consistent. And they had a very systematic theological mind about them, and they just followed the train of logic to the nth degree. And now God just doesn't know what's gonna happen next. You know, poor God.

Well, that's not true of other people who reject Calvinism. Just because this one person.

Did that, doesn't mean that they all do. Yeah, you can't apply it to everyone. Yeah.

Then this is where it's gonna be far more helpful to start those conversations, to start doctrinal conversations about who is Christ, right? Who is Christ? Who is God? And in exalting God and exalting Christ, does this other person also exalt the triune God and the God-man who's fully God and fully man, who for us and for our salvation died upon the cross, rose from the dead the third day, ascended to the heavens, and he's gonna come again?

The old creeds still work. Hello. Yeah. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Hey, do we have fellowship? Do we agree with these things? But if we start with, hey, doctrinal salvation, very, very, very important.

Essential. Have I been helped by the TULIP acronym and working through it? Yes, I've been helped by that. Sure. But that is not the heart. That's not the.

Heart. So we've got to remember that. So if you take the Calvinism pill, don't become the wrecking ball. Yeah. Because, I mean, I think we see that a lot with anyone who would, you would say, has taken a red pill on any given subject.

They realize that what they had before was the lie, and so they're a little bit angry about it. And I think you can see within those newer Calvinists that bit of edge that comes through when they're arguing these positions.

I know that it was there for me, and you got to restrain yourself. You have to be self-disciplined. And we can kind of laugh at ourselves.

Yeah, I was in the cage stage where just I was like, you know, very, very robust and zealous. We contend when we learn something new and we are zealous in our repentance from moving away from what we had before, we can often, that can kind of color everything we see and all the ailments of the church is because nobody understood this.

And now that I understand it, I want to cure all the ailments of the church by getting everybody to agree to these.

Points. And you can be totally, you feel totally justified in it, because I was one of you. I know exactly where you're coming from, and if I can just explain it to you the way it was explained to me, then I know that you'll join me in this.

And, you know, I have the best of intentions. And it usually comes off.

Pretty poorly. Yep. Which brings us to the second part. Yeah, the second question.

Yeah. The second question read, what advice would you have for someone who recently came to believe Calvinism, who is going to be a youth pastor at a Disciples of Christ Church? The church is not left-leaning, but certainly not reformed.

And Michael, I think you have a pretty good background, or at least a pretty good basis for, first of all, telling us who the Disciples of Christ.

Are, and then why this might be an issue. Yeah, I had a friend in college who was Disciples of Christ, and the, you know, the concern, I think, for instance, I'm just, you know, you look up, what do Disciples of Christ believe?

And I'm just looking at one of many websites, and here they mention something on their website. Here's our beliefs. And one thing they have there, this is our confession. We believe in the Great Confession.

When Jesus asked his disciples, who do you say that I am? Peter responded, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Matthew 16, 16. Christians refer to these words as the Great Confession. As Disciples of Christ, we believe all Christians should be able to affirm these words.

Therefore, when one wishes to join a Disciples Church, he or she is simply asked, do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and do you accept him as your Lord and Savior? Right?

Now... Sounds pretty good so far. Yeah, it's pretty down the middle. Yeah. So let's say this person wants to go to a church like this, and they're certainly not querying whether or not new members agree with TULIP, okay?

They're not asking them, you know, are you in agreement with the New Hampshire Confession? Are you holding to the Westminster or these, you know, classic Calvinist Reform Confessions? They're not asking that.

They're just asking some very basic things. So something else I noticed on this church's website, and just how much they emphasize unity. They really, really want people to be in unity, even if they disagree, and to bear with one another, and so forth.

In the spirit of that, if you are recognizing that there's probably... there may not be another Calvinist in the entire church, okay? And you're going there to be on staff. Not as senior pastor, right?

Not as one of the elders of the church, but you're coming there in this servant leadership position, being a youth minister. Obviously, I think that you should be able to communicate well with the folks that are there who are looking at you and probably wondering, what are you going to be teaching our children?

How are you going to be discipling our youth? What kind of questions are they going to bring to our homes at the end of the day? If we give you an opportunity to lead a devotional for the whole church, what are the things that you might teach and say?

Okay? Now, if this is a robust, healthy church, and they hear you espouse total depravity or limited atonement in a devotional on a Wednesday night, or their son or their daughter comes home and they're trying to wrestle with how irresistible grace and total depravity work together, and they're asking their parents this.

If it's a really robust, healthy, mature church, then they're gonna be like, oh, okay, so they're kind of coming at it from this angle, and we may not all agree with that, but you know, key thing about our church is that we love one another even when we disagree, you know?

Then I don't think you got anything to worry about. But if this is a more normal, typical church, reality, and you're the only Calvinist in the whole church, and possibly the only Calvinist they will ever meet, you might be starting off on the wrong foot just even thinking about the fact is, here I come, the Calvinist.

That might be the wrong perspective from the very beginning, because you're not going to fix this church by bringing Calvinism to them, right? What is the.

Background for the Disciples of Christ? Are they more on the freewill side, or they're more on the sovereignty of God side? I honestly don't know a lot.

About them. Yeah, they're more on the freewill side, most definitely. Alexander Campbell, Campbellite movement, and the progression of the Church of Christ, and the Disciples of Christ, the Christian Church, and so forth, has not been known for sovereignty of God and salvation, monergism, so on and so forth.

That is not the tradition at all. So this youth pastor is really going to be a fish.

Out of water. Yes, yeah. I mean, Baptists be 50 -50, you know? At least most Baptists believe, you know, in the perseverance of the saints, you know? Once saved, always saved, so on and so forth. They're going to have some familiarity with Calvinism, you know?

Presbyterians far more so. Now, that's not a deal-breaker, again, if the main issues are the main issues, right? So you could have asked this question and said, you know, I've recently come to the realization of post-millennialism, right?

The Puritan hope, and I'm bringing, and I'm coming to a church where everybody is on the edge of their seat waiting for the secret rapture, secret pre-tribulation rapture, but I'm coming in as post-mill, baby.

But see, you're already, you're already kind of parsing the ministry in a framework that is not going to be beneficial. It's not going to be for the good of the folks there. So I don't think being a Calvinist is the core identity concern that you should have.

I don't think, you know, if somebody asks about it, it's like, oh yeah, I lean heavy on God doing it. God's the one. I think, you know, I think God has to save us, otherwise ain't nobody can get saved.

I think it's a good thing, too, because I think we would give up on a lot of people, but God doesn't, and God saves people that we couldn't possibly ever reach, right? I think you can come at it in a very winsome way.

I wouldn't make it your main, your main identity, the main thing. It's not going to be the main area of contention. So in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3, in the first three verses, Paul is dealing with some, you know, credential issues, some authority issues.

Will these Corinthians really accept me or not, right? Because we may have, he's been away for a little while, other people have come in, they're kind of, there's a big anti-Paul sentiment kind of going on a little bit in the Corinthian church.

And what will commend Paul to this church? What's really going to commend him to them? And it comes down to the fact, he says, you are our letter, written not with ink, but with the Holy Spirit. You are Christ's letter written by us.

And this is the commendation, that Paul's going to have influence, Paul's gonna have a ministry there. Why? Because what he labored to do was to see Christ written in their lives. And that is the only basis for pastoral commendation, for pastoral influence, is whether or not you are laboring to write Christ upon the lives of those you serve.

That's the, that's the thing that matters. It's not writing Calvinism on their hearts. Right. It's writing Christ upon their lives by the grace of God. And when people know, when people are being fed with the Word of Christ and being formed in the image of Christ and they're growing in Christ because you're serving them in this way, serving them with the gospel in this way, you're gonna have influence with them.

Their love for you will be increased. You'll be able to pastor and shepherd there. That's, that's.

What you should be aiming at. Do you feel that, or what responsibility does this young youth pastor, especially since he is on staff, now I don't know if he's part-time, he's a volunteer, or whether he's actually being a paid staff member, but if he's vocationally being paid by this church as a youth pastor and he knows that his particular view is in conflict with some of the other pastoral staff, how honest should he be, you know, how forthright should he be regarding this?

Now he could go at it from the, exactly the way that you said it. That is not my focus. My focus is these kids and, you know, your authority as parents and teaching these kids the kind of things that you want taught, you know, as I bring them up in the admonition of the Lord, we form them into the image of Christ and then working, you know, working with them and all the problems that young kids and teens have, you know, all the things that a youth pastor deals with.

But I do have these other views, so how does he navigate that as a leader paid staff member? Yeah, so if it's a church.

That he knows well, let's say, you know, I know this church really well, it's my home church, I grew up here, you know, I know these folks and honestly they wouldn't give two hoots about it, you know, but let's say they do, you know, you're going to need to be in conversation with the folks that are bringing you on.

You know, is there an elder body that have asked you to come on and serve in this way? Who are the spiritual authorities in this church who are asking you to be on staff like this? And what kind of questions did they ask you?

Are they interested in what you believe? Are they interested in the doctrines you're going to be teaching? Or are they more of the school of persuasion of, you know, it's not really about how much you know, but how much you care, you know, and we're just wanting to make sure that you care for these people and, you know, and they don't really have a preference, right?

I think you're gonna have to be very open and forthright, but again, if you walk up to everybody and say, just so you know, I'm a Calvinist. Yeah, your focus is not right, you know. Your focus isn't right in the first place.

Now when push comes to shove, there is no safe verse in the Bible. There's absolutely no safe verse in the Bible, and if you're gonna be teaching Bible, which I hope you would, be teaching the Scriptures, Jesus says to Peter, feed my sheep.

What are we gonna feed the sheep? We got to feed them the Word, right? Well, there's no safe passage in the Bible. Everywhere you look, it's about the sovereignty of God, the neediness and the lowliness of man, the glory of God outstripping all of the the self-importance of man, so on and so forth.

I mean, there's just no safe place to go. So if you're teaching through the Scriptures and these themes are coming up over and over and over again, and if that's going to really, really bother a lot of people, you're gonna need to make sure that, you know, the leadership are okay with that, you know?

I mean, just you got to think that through. There's a difference between trying to preach and teach the full counsel, the Word of God, and over time, folks not liking what they hear, versus I know what you don't want to hear, I'm gonna give it to you anyway because I'm bold.

Here's your medicine.

That tastes like black licorice. Yeah. Have some and enjoy it. Right. Yeah. I'm.

The only member of my family that likes black licorice, by the way. Just, you know. We found the black sheep of the family. It's true. It's the least I get at all.

No, so I really like the counsel you've given this young man moving forward, and I think we could say, given that counsel, he can coexist in this position, but it does matter the view with which he's going into it, the attitude with which he's going into it, the intentions and the motivations that he's going to be having in order to bring the Word to these children consistently, to these parents consistently, and we would say that it's not a deal-breaker then?

No, I.

Don't think so, especially unless it's a deal-breaker for you personally. If it's something where you are using the Bible and serving the system, then you're going to be in a world of hurt, right? I've got my system of Calvinism and I'm using the Bible to serve my system, then it's just going to be a rough road, even if you go to a different church, it's going to be a rough road.

Right. But if you're going to serve the Scriptures and you happen to use this system, but it's not your main focus, you know, you're going to use this system to kind of coordinate and help you understand where you're at in the Bible when you're talking about the doctrine of salvation, that's fine.

I just wouldn't go in there and teach systematic theology, I would go in there and teach the Bible and go in there and exalt Christ. Show them.

Christ. Yes. And you will see his sovereignty, you'll see his majesty, and.

You'll see your own need for him. And it's one of the marks of a settled, true Calvinist, what we call the sage stage, wherein you're not obsessing about it all the time and talking about it all the time, and you're just going to do the work of the Lord in confidence, knowing that he will save.

And when these.

Conversations eventually come up, because they're going to, this is this is one year, or years hopefully, and faithfully preaching the counsel of God to everyone that was under your care. Yes. Yeah. And if you.

Make anything else, it doesn't matter if it's Calvinism or you can do post-millennialism, you can do presuppositional apologetics. Yes, I've seen that one. You can take whatever topic it is and make it your hobby horse, and you'll end up like a bull in a china shop.

Yeah. So I'm trying to mix all my metaphors as much as I can. I'm a big fan of.