Calvinism

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the texts of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints.

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I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are Michael Deere and David Kassin, 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 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.

I thought that was probably a good way of describing the kind of hyper -Calvinism that some people encounter today.

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 ...

Calvin didn't write those. Exactly. When people refer to Calvinism today, they're referring to the response of the

Senate 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 Senate of Dort. And from that, the summation of that is when, at some point, someone figured out, hey, let's give it an acronym, get these five points, we'll call it

TULIP. Which is funny, because Dort was in Holland, hence the

TULIP. You get the TULIP. So you've got total depravity. This is the basis where 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. 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? Amen. 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.

It got him a lot of applause and amens and so on because he wanted everybody to understand he was a sole 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, they walk away and they say,

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 going to call this guy a false teacher?

Probably not. Yeah. Sure. 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 going to call him a false teacher. No.

Probably not. If someone says, I don't think everybody in the world is going to be saved, but those who believe in Christ are going to be saved, and I think that everybody has a chance to get saved.

They can just hear the gospel. Okay. I'm going to call him a false teacher. Probably not. 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're saved by grace of the clean slave.

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. 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 can say no when somebody preaches the gospel.

I think God's not going to force you against your will to believe in the gospel.

I think that when you believe, you're going to actually want Jesus. Well, I kind of agree with you on that in more ways than one.

Yeah. That's true. That's funny. But if somebody comes out and says, I don't believe in irresistible grace,

I think that God doesn't try to compel anyone to be saved. He just kind of just left it there and you can or you don't.

I'd probably say that's going to be a false teacher. And for the perseverance of the saints, well, I think some people can apostatize.

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 obviously they didn't make it and say, 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 going to call you a false teacher, but you know, I'm going to be a little bit worried about you if you think that, you know, salvation depends on you doing enough good stuff.

Okay. So I'm going to 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 going to 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, 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 going to 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, we're, you know, we're all the puppies in his, in his playpen and he just, just loves you, you know, and it's all about man, man, man.

Yeah. Now we're going to 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, um, 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 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 S or a synonym for just a heretic?

I mean, cause 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, uh, and his character and his nature, or we're, we're, we're messing with the

Trinity somehow, the, the nature of God somehow, or the person in work of Jesus Christ.

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

Trinity, the, 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. Um, and the incarnation is, 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. And 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, you know, 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 principle 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 going to 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, this discussion on Calvinism reminds me of our discussions on eschatology.

You can have these differences and we can have, we can have, 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, it'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, or he's never coming again or he already came back.

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

No, anathema is cursed, cutoff from God, cutoff, heretic, nonbeliever.

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, who don't,

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

All right, now we have, now we have a problem. I think we have to be careful here because the, I'm agreeing, 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, think about the eternal plan of God or decree of God, however we're going to 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, that's a monstrous idea.

So on and so forth. Okay. And so they don't agree with this unconditional election thing and they, 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, you don't get to pronounce that. And I think that's where a lot of, um,

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 will be surprised that you would ever think that they would. Right. So would we call that, that, that wouldn't necessarily be creating a caricature because you, you can eventually get there, but the error there is assuming that they, that they've already gotten there.

Right. Yes. Yeah. Um, 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 and I could be consistent. And they had a very systematic theological mind about them and they, and they just followed the train of logic to the, to the nth degree.

And now God just doesn't know what's going to 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. You can't apply it to everyone.

Yeah. Then this is where it's going to be more, 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 full and the, 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.

It's in these kind of come again. The old creeds still work. Hello. Yeah. Jesus is the

Christ, the son of the living God. Do, Hey, do we have fellowship? Do we agree with these things? But if we start with now,

Hey, Dr. Salvation, very, very, very important, essential. Do I have,

I've been helped by the tulip acronym and working through, yes, I've been helped by that.

Sure. But that is not the heart. That's not the heart. So we've got to, we've got to remember that.

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

They've realized that what they had before was the lie. And so they're a little bit angry about it. And you,

I think you can see within those newer Calvinists that, that bit of edge that comes through when they're arguing these positions.

I know that it was there for me and you gotta, you gotta restrain yourself. You have to be self -disciplined.

And we can kind of laugh at ourselves. Yeah. It was the cage. 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 in 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 cause I was one of you, I, 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. Uh, 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, a 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, the concern

I think for instance, I'm, 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 mentioned 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, pretty down the middle. I mean, what do you, yeah, so let's say, uh, 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, they're not asking them, you know, are you in agreement with the, the

New Hampshire confession? Are you in, are you holding to the, uh, this, the

Westminster or these, you know, classic Calvinist reform confessions and are asking that they're just asking some very basic things.

So something else I noticed on this, uh, this church's website and just how much they emphasize unity.

I 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.

Yeah. 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, um, 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 going to 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 Disciples of Christ? Are they more on the free will side or are they more on the sovereignty of God side?

I honestly don't know a lot about them. They're more on the free will side, most definitely. Alexander Campbell, the

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 the seed 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 coming to a church where everybody is on the edge of their seat waiting for the secret rapture, secret pre -tribulational rapture, but I'm coming in as post -mill, baby.

But see, 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.

Amen. Right? I think you can come at it in a very winsome way. I wouldn't make it your main identity, the main thing.

It's not going to be the main area of contention. So in 2 Corinthians 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. This is the commendation that Paul's going to have influence,

Paul's going to 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 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 going to have influence with them.

Their love for you will be increased. You'll be able to pastor and shepherd there. 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, how forthright should he be regarding this?

Now, he could go at it from exactly the way that you said, that that is not my focus. My focus is these kids, and your authority as parents, and teaching these kids the kind of things that you want taught as you bring them up in the admonition of the

Lord as we form them into the image of Christ, and working with them and all the problems that young kids and teens have, 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, I know this church really well, it's my home church,

I grew up here, I know these folks, and honestly, they wouldn't give two hoots about it, but let's say they do.

You're going to need to be in conversation with the folks that are bringing you on. 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.

And we're just wanting to make sure that you care for these people, and they don't really have a preference.

I think you're going to 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. 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 going to be teaching Bible, which I hope you would, be teaching the scriptures.

Jesus says to Peter, feed my sheep. What are we going to 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 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 going to need to make sure that the leadership are okay with that.

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 going to 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.

We found the black sheep of the family. It's true. It's totally true. I get it 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, unless it's a deal breaker for you personally. I mean, 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'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 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.

So I'm trying to mix all my metaphors as much as I can. I'm a big fan of Paul. Okay, so here's a question.

If you are a bull in a china shop with one specific area, one specific thing, and I think there's room for that in the church to have men who are really zealous about specific things, would you say then maybe the counsel might be consider what you're called to as well because you're not called to be just a presuppositional apologist when you're dealing with the youth or when you're preaching from the pulpit each week as well?

That's a good question. I mean, so if you desire the position to serve and you desire this good thing, then make sure you know what it's about, right?

This is not about giving yourself a platform to share with great zeal all the cool stuff you just learned.

That is not what ministry is. In ministry, you're going to be sacrificing yourself to edify others, helping to mature them and build them up in Christ.

And it's hard work. You need to have some level of maturity about it. And so you don't need to be tossed to and fro by every new wind of doctrine.

And if you're still being tossed to and fro by all this cool Calvinism thing, and I agree, these are helpful things to know and they are encouraging things to know.

However, if you're still being tossed to and fro, you need to find your footing on the solid rock who is

Christ. Amen. Well, I think that about wraps up our discussion today with those two questions.

Michael, let's go to our recommendations for the week. I recommend a book by R .C.

Sproul. It's called Willing to Believe. And in the book, he gives several profiles of different historical figures, different theologians, pastors, scholars, and their position on the will of God and the will of man.

And how do these cohere? I mean, classic theological question. So he talks about Pelagius, Augustine, the semi -Pelagians,

Martin Luther, John Calvin, James Arminius, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and Louis Sperry Schaefer.

And these are great profiles of men who have had a lot of influence in their writings and what they thought about man's will.

Is it completely free? Is it hampered in some way? What about God's will? How do these things come together?

And so it's a great profile, kind of walks through history, and you can kind of see the issues at stake. Did I see a signature in that copy?

Yes. This was for James by R .C. Sproul. And I have James's copy, so.

Nice. I don't know who James is, but I've got his copy. Yeah, that's great. That's fantastic. Wow.

So a book that I've been wanting to read for years, and I just recently finished it.

I mean, literally finished it two weeks ago. And I had no idea we were going to be, you know, this is the question we're going to be tackling, but it was very helpful.

This is a book by James White called Drawn by the Father. Drawn by the Father was written in 2013, and it is truly an exposition of John chapter six.

I mean, that's what it is. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and no one coming to me

I will never cast out. No man is able to come unto me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

And White dives into this chapter and draws out from it the doctrines of effectual call, or as some people call it, irresistible grace.

I use the term effectual call. And I think that that's really the strength of his argument, that this is just what the text says.

And when you take John six in context, and you read the entire chapter, and then you put it into context of the rest of the gospel of John, it really exalts what

God does and what God has to do, because there's no other way that I would have come.

So if you are looking at some of these issues of Calvinism, and you don't have to call it that, you just want to learn more about what

John chapter six says and the implications of that, I highly recommend

John by the Father, James White, and I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. I just want everybody at home listening to know that David has on a

Bruce Lee t -shirt that is quite fantastic, and I just realized it. And faded, which means he's wore it a lot.

Yeah, he's a fan. He's a fan. My recommendation for the week is The White Horse King, The Life of Alfred the

Great. So it's a historical look at Alfred and some of his major dealings during his kingship and before, how he became king, and some of the necessary steps that he took to preserve the kingdom of Wessex, but also spread his influence across the rest of England.

And his son, I believe it was Edward, saw out his dream in a united England. But he is the only sovereign of what is known as England to have the title

The Great. So apparently he's the only one that we can look for.

But it was written by Benjamin Merkel, and it's been a nice read so far because it's written from a believing position and not a position of unbelief of someone who takes

Alfred less seriously because of his belief in Christ. He takes Alfred's belief in Christ and his mission to Christianize England and the

Anglo -Saxons as a very serious project because that's the way that Alfred took it. That was his main motivation.

So it's a really interesting look at it. So I recommend The White Horse King, The Life of Alfred the Great by Benjamin Merkel.

We'll move on to what are we thankful for, Michael? Thankful for my brother. I was able to hang out with him this morning and give him a ride.

And we just had breakfast, which was my wife's suggestion. So I wouldn't have thought of that.

But so thankful for her as well. So anyway, so we just got to hang out and spend time together. And on my way to go have breakfast with my brother,

I saw my dad driving his school bus pulling out of it. It's just surreal to me. I spent so much of my time, you know, my brother and my dad and me are all living in different states.

And at one point, my brother living in Hawaii, we were just so, so scattered. And now we're all in the same city and get to hang out together.

So I'm thankful for that. Amen. David? Over the past week, I had the opportunity to work pretty closely with another pilot whose name was also

Dave. And he was my captain. And he shared the most beautiful story that I had heard in a long time.

We've been together for several days. And he was kind of a churchgoing guy. But let's say he's rather rough around the edges.

As some older guys are. Just say it. He's like me, Dave. His language is a little saltier than yours.

But he said, show up early the last morning we were together.

And the first words out of his mouth says, well, something pretty amazing happened last night. I was like, what's that?

One of my best friends in the world came to Christ last night. Oh, really? So this is the guy

I've been praying for for years, 20 years. I was like, really? And we just happened to go to his childhood home.

He grew up around this area and he was going to go visit friends. And one of his lifelong friends has

MS. He's basically he's homebound. He's almost bedridden.

And he's just kind of coming to the end of himself. He's like, I don't know when I'm going to see him again. But I have been praying for this guy for years and years and years.

And to his credit, he said, look, I don't know if it was genuine or not. I don't know.

I'll only know because of his changed life, however long he has. But he was elated.

It was a beautiful day. It was a beautiful afternoon because of the story that he told me is like, well,

I was praying for my oldest. And unfortunately, my oldest died in a car accident last year. But it's definitely saved.

And now my best friend. Now you just got one more friend, one more friend to go. You got two out of three. So he's all excited about continuing to pray for and serve and witness to his other friend.

And he's just more encouraged because his lifelong friend that has MS finally has come to the end of himself.

And he has placed his trust in Christ. So I have been very thankful for that.

Dave shared that story with me that he felt comfortable enough sharing that with me. And this guy was bold. I mean, he's great.

It's one thing about the guys who are kind of bold to China shop. They are fun to talk to. Oh, yeah. They are great. And that's just where he was.

He was just bold. He was excited. And he was telling everybody it was really kind of beautiful to watch.

And so my prayer for his friend is that he would miraculous healing where he stays.

He stays on for stays here for a couple more years. And he's able to have a ministry because he knows that he's wasted most of his life.

And this guy is brilliant. An engineer. Incredibly brilliant. He has all this money. He has so much money.

That's why he's able to live at home. He has nurses come in and out, in and out. So he's really had a lot of made a lot of money.

And now he has nothing left but Christ. And I'm like, give him another couple of years.

Let's see what he does with his life. And let's see that. Imagine this guy in the ministry. He could have prayer ministry and anything else in this hospital bed witnessing to other people that also have

MS. You know, so that is my prayer for him. And I'm just very thankful for a new brother. And I'm very thankful that Dave shared that with me.

Amen. I can relate to that on so many levels. So thank you for sharing that. That was special.

And just as we've been sitting here talking about answered prayer, I'm thankful to God for answered prayer.

As we were sitting here, I might have had an opportunity to find work that is sufficient to meet our needs and our household and to cause us to save a little bit more money than we've been doing.

So that just as we were sitting here in the last couple episodes that we've been talking so answered prayer has is immediately on my mind right now.

And I'm so thankful to hear it from for that guy. And I'm so thankful to see it in my life because I know I'm not the only one that's been praying for this.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners. And hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with having not read.