WWUTT 550 Q&A Halloween Cremated Calvinism?

Halloween, Trunk-or-Treat, and Romans 14

Should Christians participate in Halloween if they redeem the holiday and make it into something else? Does the Bible say anything about cremation? And should a Calvinist admit to being a Calvinist? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

Remembering 500 years of the Protestant Reformation, this is when we understand the text. Presenting the Word of God as our ultimate authority. Visit our website at www .utt .com. Now here's your host, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. You're welcome.

And a happy birthday to our two-year-old, about to be three-year-old, tomorrow. Yes! Yay! We've got a birthday in our house, even as we come upon this weekend, when your church may be doing something related to the Protestant Reformation, or maybe you've got something Halloween-related coming up, which happens to be the subject of the first question that we're taking here.

So, questions can be submitted to us when we understand the text at gmail .com. And our first question comes from Neil in South Carolina. Hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky. Hello! I have, with the Halloween theme, it would be, Hello!

Hello! I have just a quick Halloween-related question or two for the podcast. Is it appropriate for a church or Christian to participate in a trunk-or-treat slash giving out candy? What is the top five worst Halloween candy to receive when trick-or-treating?

So, one's theological, and the other one is probably also theological. According to some. According to taste here. So, the question about whether or not to celebrate Halloween, you always have to go back to the origins of Halloween, because it's obviously steeped in the occult.

There's a lot of spiritual mysticism associated with the particular day. Where Halloween actually came from is a subject of a lot of debate, because what we know as Halloween today is kind of a hodgepodge of a lot of different traditions.

Oh, really? But it goes all the way back to the first century, 2 ,000 years ago, when the Celtics celebrated a holiday called Samhain. If you looked at the word, you wouldn't get Samhain out of it, but that's how it's pronounced.

Anyway, so their New Year's was on November the 1st, and so the last day of the year would have been October 31st, and so it was considered to be everything's coming to an end, and so death is associated with that day.

Oh, like out with the old and in with the new kind of thing. Sort of a thing like that, yeah.

So they would do all of their dark celebrations and stuff like that would be on October 31st. That's where all the dark evil spirits are, and then as we pass over into November 1st, that's where the new fresh spirits are.

Gotcha. So everything associated with death was right there on October 31st. But then as time went on, and of course the church became prevalent and spread, the Catholic Church in particular wanted to redeem the day and make it into something else other than this day of death.

So they had Martyrs' Day and Saints' Day. I think Martyrs' Day was in May, and they decided to move all of that to the same day, November 1st, and so they had All Saints' Day. Oh, okay. And so the day before All Saints' Day was All Hallows' Eve.

So then you still had kind of the whole evil spirit, dark spells, all this stuff associated with it. And whenever the evil spirits are looking for us, if we disguise ourselves and wear masks, then they won't be able to find us, and that's where the whole dressing up in costumes comes from.

There was also one particular tradition that had this apple that they would give. That's where the whole concept of bobbing for apples comes from. There were these cakes that they would bake and pass out these cakes.

You had to go and ask for a cake, and that's where trick-or-treating came from. Anyway, some of this I'm just throwing out off the top of my head. Because, like I said, there's a whole hodgepodge related to this.

But definitely the whole concept of the occult, the spiritual— not spiritual in a good way. Like, you know, witchcraft. I guess that's the word I'm looking for. Ghosts, goblins, demonic. All of that is wrapped up in this particular holiday.

This is where you're most likely to see people walking around acting like zombies, you know, rising of the dead, very pagan beliefs, somebody wearing a pentagram, dressing in something ghoulish. And so there is all of that occultic connotation in the holiday, and that's why Christians ask, should we be participating in this?

Should we have nothing to do with it whatsoever? And some of the passages that you will hear about why a Christian should not be participating in this would be like Leviticus 19 .31. Do not turn to mediums or necromancers.

Do not seek them out. And so make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. Or in Deuteronomy 18, we have this instruction. When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.

There shall not be found among you one who practices witchcraft or a soothsayer or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer, one who conjures spells or a medium or a spiritist or one who calls up the dead.

For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord. And so somebody would cite a passage like that in Deuteronomy 18 and say, see, this is pagan, and this is what the world is going to do. So we as Christians cannot participate in a day like that.

And then you have this one in John 14 .4. This is the one that gets thrown at me the most. In fact, this verse gets used also to talk about like Christmas and Easter, even if we should be participating in those.

You said John 14 .4? Oh, Job 14 .4. I'm sorry.

The other J book of the Bible, Job, Job 14 .4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one. And that verse will get thrown at me. Say, see, October 31st is an unclean day. So churches can't redeem it and make it into something that they can, therefore, you know, share the gospel in or pass out tracts or you should just not participate in the day at all.

Don't let your kids dress up. And to make that argument, you have to take Job 14 out of context because what Job is talking about isn't a day that's unclean. It's a man that's unclean. It is because he is a sinful, wretched man before God.

Who can make him clean? Right. No other man can, but the Lord God is the one who cleanses us and makes us new by the precious blood of Christ. So Job 14 .4, somebody throws that one at you. That doesn't apply to Halloween.

It might apply. And then you can share the gospel with them. Yeah, right. It might apply to them. And then you can share the gospel with them. So should a Christian be participating in Halloween, even if they're not doing the occultic side of things, they are dressing in tasteful costumes, they're turning it into a trunk or treat, people are coming to the church, they're getting candy, you have a chance to hand out tracts or even share the gospel, or you've got a fall festival, your alternative.

And by the way, Reformation parties don't jive with this at all because it's not in any way related to Halloween. No. October 31st is the day that Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door of the church.

Correct. So that's why Reformation holidays are typically celebrated on that particular day. But should a church participate in anything Halloween related, even trying to redeem it into a trunk or treat or something like that?

Well, this is where I think Romans 14 principles apply. So Paul is talking about whether or not we should worship on this day or that day or whether you can eat this food or not eat that food. And Paul says this, and I think that this sums up the argument quite well.

Romans 14, verse 1,. As for the one who is weak in the faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything while the weak person eats only vegetables or Halloween candy.

That for me, I'm reading that into the text.

That was in brackets. Yeah, that's right.

This is implied by Gabe, not by the scriptures. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?

It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. Days are not in and of themselves inherently unclean. Right. Food is not in and of itself inherently unclean.

Paul gives that illustration with the Corinthians, where he says food goes into the body, it gets expelled. You know, it's just food. It doesn't make any difference. So the same is also the case with a day.

Should we just wall ourselves up in our house and not interact with people at all on Halloween evening because we want to shun this otherwise occultic holiday? I think that the Romans 14 principles apply.

So here would be my instruction for you. If you are convinced that you should have absolutely nothing to do with that day, then don't participate or you will be going against your conscience, and that would be sin.

But if you are convinced that you can use that day as an opportunity to share the gospel or provide some other more positive alternative in which Christ can be shared and glorified, even in the things that you are doing or planning for that particular day, then do it.

And don't let a person who looks down on that look down on you for your participation in that day, for you're not unholy because of that. Anyway. Convictions are different. People have different convictions.

And related to this particular subject, you can call this a gray area. So some are going to be convinced we shouldn't participate. Others are convinced we can. We can turn it into something more Christian-like.

Honoring God. And so basically, in summary, Neal, you got my thumbs up. Way to go, man. Yay. Have fun. Enjoy your Trunk or Treat or Fall Festival giving out candy. Use it as a chance to hand out tracts.

We've done it at our church. It's been a few years, but we've had Trunk or Treats.

He said he's expecting over 300. Oh, did he? Did you talk to him about it? No, I read on Twitter. Oh, okay.

He had another spot where he was talking about it. Yeah. There was one year where I was really ambitious. And I was like, I'm going to share the gospel with everybody that comes through. So I'm kind of at the entrance and all the other cars are around in another part of the lot.

And so I'm where everybody has to go through in order to get to the other cars. But there was no stopping and talking to anyone. They wanted to zip in, grab candy, get out of there so they could hit the other houses in the neighborhood and try to fill up the biggest bag of candy they could get.

Well, yeah. Isn't that the objective? I had to rely on just the tracts. And we had these little baggies we were handing out to all the kids and it had a tract in it. And so I had to let that be the presentation of the gospel because nobody wanted to stand and talk.

And pray over them as they go. There we go. Amen. So, yep, that would be my blessing on you. We're not doing a Trunk or Treat this year. We just have the Reformation party, but maybe we should. Maybe it's something we can do again in the future.

I just got tired of planning it.

It was really hard. Yeah, we always had to take over because PCS or whatever.

People would be leaving or the person who did it the year before couldn't do it again. Right. Something like that. I think it's just, hey, we're going to get together. We're going to put our cars in the lot.

We're going to hand out candy to kids that come through. I've got tracts that I'm going to hand out. You have to supply your own candy. Come and park in our lot and participate. Don't wear ghoulish costumes.

And done. And done. Great. All right. Next question. This one comes from Henry. Hang on. Okay. I'm sorry. We forgot Neil's other half. Oh, yeah, we did. He did have another question here. The other half of the thing.

What is the top five worst Halloween candy to receive when trick or treating? Yes. I have my list. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and throw my number one out there. Go for it. Candy corn. I'll eat it. Gross.

Gross. But you know what? And you know what? I'll even say what's worse than the candy corn, but still in the same category because you'll see them bagged together. Those little pumpkins.

Okay. Little wax pumpkins. Okay. Disgusting. It's after figuring out what all of the ones that I don't like are called. Okay. Apparently the pumpkins and the circus peanuts are mellow cream, which is I assume what the candy corn is made out of as well.

Those circus peanuts and the pumpkins aren't the same thing.

No, they're not the same thing, but they're made out of the same. Well, yeah. They're all made out of sugar. No, no, no, no. The mellow cream. Kind of like...

I'll have to look that up. I haven't heard that. Yeah. Well, that's what it says on the wrapper. So the little marshmallow peanuts are made of mellow cream. The little pumpkins are made out of 1 mellow cream and 99 wax.

No. But close.

And then... So anyway, I can actually eat the candy corn just fine because it's just a little bit... I know. But I can't stand the pumpkins or the circus peanuts.

All candy corn was made in 1896. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was made one year and we're still eating the same candy corn that was made over 100 years ago. Yep.

That's why they have caramel candy corn now. They're trying to get you to eat it.

Yeah, that's right. Now we're going to decorate it up with some other flavors because we still have candy corn sitting around since 1896.

I'm surprised I didn't see pumpkin spice candy corn. I thought that was a spice girl. Pumpkin. Pumpkin spice. No. Anyway, sorry. Bad joke.

Bad joke. All right. Go ahead. All right. So what's your number two? What's my number two? Let's see. I've poured out a few already. Black licorice. Yep, I've got that. Disgusting. I swear there is a whole big giant jar of black licorice on Todd Friel's desk in those wretched clips of him doing the radio show.

Not the televised version of it, but they'll throw the radio show clips on YouTube now. He's got a great big giant jar right there. Look for it. I'm sure that's black licorice. Somebody said that they think it's the little plastic spiral binding things.

But why would you put all those in a jar and have them on your desk? Your wife. I could see myself doing that for you. I think it's black licorice. So Todd Friel apparently has a thing. Maybe that's what makes him six foot twelve.

Six foot twelve. Anyway, okay. So what's your next one? So my mom actually likes the black licorice. So I gave her everything. I'm like, here, you can have it. It's gross. Anyway. There are people that just absolutely love it.

And I don't get that. I just don't get it. That's my mom. Don't get it. And Aria too. Aria likes it. That's right. She does. She does. I forgot that. Yes. She'll eat it up. Okay. So anyway. That's the only thing she'll eat.

The only thing on planet Earth. Very, very true. Anyway. Okay. So I figured out what the black and white, or not black and white. Black and orange wrapped candies are. Little taffy looking things. Yeah.

Looking. Looking, but it's not taffy. No. Okay. They are called Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses. Oh yeah. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't like those either. I'm not even really a big fan. I'm not a big fan of saltwater taffy. It's not one of my least favorite candies. Like it's not going to show up on this list. I like saltwater taffy.

I'm just not like, I'm not that big into taffy. I definitely don't like Laffy Taffy. Not into that.

Anyway. Okay. Going on. Okay. So Laffy Taffy is a number. What are we on? Two, three, four. Yeah. Something. Okay. So here's another one of mine. Laffy Taffy. No? No, no, no. It's not on my list. I just don't like Laffy Taffy.

Okay. Anyway. Okay. So another one of mine would be. Number four. Peppermints. Hard candy peppermints. Like the ones you get at Pizza Hut? Yeah. Like you would get at a restaurant.

They give you on your table. Okay. I'm fine with them the rest of the year. I do not want those in my Halloween candy bag. That's hilarious. Keep those little peppermints to when I'm done with dinner.

They're not dessert in my Halloween candy bag. I thought they were just for Christmas.

No. You get them on Halloween too? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. You would get those folks at Halloween who would buy up the little hard cinnamon candies and the hard peppermint candies. Oh, yeah. And they would fill. They would be at the bottom of my bag. And the butterscotch.

And see, that was my number five.

I hate butterscotch. Oh, really? Cannot stand butterscotch. Well, hang on. Hang on. We got to back up. All right. Because I'm on number four. Taking up the list. All right. Go ahead. Okay. So my number four is Whoppers malt balls.

Yeah.

I remember that you don't like malt balls. I hate them.

And I've tried to love them. I saw my brother eating them like nobody's business. Like they were milk duds or whatever. And I'm like, oh, that looks so good. Let me have one. And I ended up like scraping my tongue.

It was so gross. I regret this every time. I do. I do. So I can't stand this. Okay. So your number five was the butterscotch. Butterscotch.

Yeah. And I know like all the other ones, I could say they're legitimately gross. Or in the case of the peppermint, it just doesn't belong on Halloween. I understand that butterscotch is an acquired thing.

For me, it's just disgusting. I just hate butterscotch. I've never liked it.

I don't mind it so much. I like it. I don't like butterscotch. Okay. Okay. So gummy things like the hamburgers that they make and the little prepackaged and they put them together. Oh.

No. It's gummy worms. It's the same as gummy worms or gummy bears.

They are flavorless and gross. Like I will even eat the wax lips before I would eat the gummy things. Yeah. Oh my goodness. No.

Do you remember those wax lips? Yeah. I used to mess around with those. I wouldn't eat them though. I'd chomp on them for a while. I did eat them a couple of times. They're just flavorless. There's nothing to them that has any flavor to them.

They have more flavor than the gummy things.

I think the gummy things taste like gummy worms and gummy bears. No. No. I swear. I swear that's what they taste like. Maybe cheap. Cheap gummy bears. Gummy worms. Now, I've been told that on Amazon .com, if you look up sugar-free gummy bears, the comment section is like high comedy.

Oh, really? If you want a good laugh, look up sugar-free gummy bears and read the comment section. I actually haven't done this yet, but I've been told it's pretty hilarious. We'll have to do that together.

Right. I'm curious now. For those who have seen the picture that I posted of how Becky and I do Twitter together. Yes. This will be our next adventure when we're on our smartphones. We're going to be reading these comments on sugar-free gummy bears on Amazon.

We lead an exciting life. Hey, once the kids are in bed, it's just like, oh, let's not do anything.

Yes, that is precisely it, before they get up again. So, now I said I had a question from Henry. In a couple hours.

Yeah, we got one that's going to wake up here in a couple hours. That is true. Henry says, hi, Pastor Gabe. What is your view of cremation or other forms of disposing a dead body? Does the Bible have anything to say about this?

I'm asking because of what Albert Moeller said on his podcast this morning. And this morning being Thursday, October the 26th. But he's talked about this recently. He's cited some articles that talk about how the number of people who are burying the dead in burial plots, in caskets, is shrinking.

And now the number of people that are cremating their loved ones has surpassed the number who are burying their loved ones. Oh, right. So, more are cremating than are burying the dead. In all honesty, there's nothing in the Bible about this at all.

And it really doesn't matter whether you cremate the body or you bury the body. Because God has the power to transform our lowly bodies into his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

That's what Paul said to the Philippians. And ultimately, your body becomes as dust anyway. It's just when you cremate the body, it happens a lot faster than a person that you bury in the ground. But eventually, a person even that gets buried in the ground, their bones turn to dust.

And so when Christ returns and he transforms our bodies to be like his glorious body, it doesn't matter whether it was ashes or dust. He's got the power to transform it. Right. And it's going to happen one way or the other.

No joke. You're going to have a glorified body. Your cremating or burying a body does not affect what your glorified body is going to be like. I mean, we were made from dust.

Precisely. God didn't even sneeze and make us. He just said, let there be. And then there we were.

Well, he did form Adam from the dust to the ground and breathed his own breath into him. So it's the whole concept behind that is he got his hands dirty. With all the rest of creation, he spoke it into existence.

But with man, he actually gave man a piece of himself. That's what I'm getting at.

He can be able to do that. He is able to do that. For us to worry about something trivial as what's going to happen to us. What should happen to us when we die.

One of our elders, Chris, has said, just do whatever you want to with me. I'm dead. I'm gone. My spirit's with the Lord. It doesn't matter. I'm in heaven. Whatever's cheapest for you to get rid of me, just go ahead and do that.

But yeah, like we've read in 2 Thessalonians 2, when Christ comes back, he's going to destroy Satan with the breath of his mouth. He's going to wipe him out because God has that kind of power. And done.

So it doesn't matter. The reason why we bury the dead instead of burn our loved ones is because we believe that the body is going to rise again. That's really where the tradition of it comes from. Even the ancient Egyptians, when they mummified bodies and buried them in the ground, it was because they believed those bodies were becoming reanimated and walking around in an afterlife.

So that was why they preserved the body. So any sort of tradition in world history that has preserved the body after it has died is believed that a person continues to live even after the body has perished.

Whereas those who would burn the body generally did not believe that the body had any sort of significance to an afterlife. But they might burn the body because then it sends their spirit up into the air to meet with the gods.

That was kind of more the pagan connotation to it.

I think I freaked out some kids today. They were drawing Halloween pictures. And this little girl was drawing a mummy tonight. And I was like, hey, have you seen one of those? You know, whenever they take the bandages off?

Because she was drawing them in the rain. And I was like, oh, no, you know how easy a bandaid comes off in the shower and bath and everything. And so she gave him an umbrella. And I was like, that's good.

But have you seen one? And they're pretty cool. And she's looking at me like they're real. Oh, my goodness. Wait, I've retracted.

We just thought it was in ghost stories. I take it back. Right. I didn't think they were really such a thing as mummies. Yeah. So she hasn't gotten to the Egyptian history part of her schooling yet, I guess.

Sorry. You terrified the little girl, sweetheart. Probably. Right now, she's having trouble sleeping because this lady, this strange lady told me that there are real mummies out there.

That's kind of not here nor there. So anyway.

Yeah. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you bury the dead or you cremate the body. Recently, I'll tell you, I actually did a funeral service. I was called as a pastor. Hey, could you do this service for our mother who passed away?

We buried our father so many number of years ago. And we're going to sprinkle her ashes on the grave where our father was buried. And so they asked me if I would just come and say a few words. And so I said, sure.

And I pulled some passages out of 1 Corinthians 15 where I came with my Bible. But I knew what I was going to be saying out of 1 Corinthians 15 and talked about how it doesn't matter whether we have buried the body or we've turned it to dust.

If we are in Christ Jesus, then he has the power to raise us from the dead. It doesn't matter what we did with the body after the soul had left the body. So I shared the gospel with them while I was there because I really didn't know the family.

They just wanted a pastor to come and say some words. And so I talked about what Paul said concerning the resurrection of the dead in 1 Corinthians 15 and shared the gospel with those who were present.

And if we should be concerned about that, I mean, that goes to the people get burned up in like a house fire. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. The California fires. I mean, what's going to happen to them?

Somebody dies in a car accident. Yeah. Their body gets incinerated. There's nothing left of them. People who, you know, we read about getting pulverized when the towers fell. Yes. In New York City on 9 -11 and bodies that were never even recovered because they believe they were just they were decimated when those towers collapsed.

So what happens to them? Well, it's the same with anybody. If they were in Christ, they will rise again. Amen. And we will live forever with him in glory. So thank you. Amen. Thank you for your question, Henry.

Whether to Say You Are a Calvinist

Next question. This last one comes from, I think, David, but I didn't write the name down. So I'm going to assume this is David. If not, names have been changed. Protect the innocent. Pastor game. First of all, let me say how grateful I am for your ministry.

I listen religiously to your daily podcast. Awesome. And especially love the Friday podcast of the questions and answers. This past year, my wife and I have been reading through the Bible and learned that by looking at Scripture from a Calvinist angle, that all the verses seem to fit together better than from an Armenian viewpoint.

It's like my eyes have been opened to more understanding. But now I have a problem. I found out that I am a Calvinist. The word is typically frowned upon in my Southern Baptist Church. The question is, should I tell my pastor or deacons that I am a Calvinist before accepting any leadership role in the church?

I fear that I will be shunned by the congregation if my belief is revealed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Well, first of all, let me share. I have never actually admitted to being a Calvinist.

No, I have never used that word to describe myself. Right. Basically, because I don't have any use for it. And I came into the beliefs that I have before I even knew what Calvinism was. Right. In fact, when I started serving at the church that I'm at, there was another pastor on staff who was a Calvinist, and we would have conversations about that.

Well, I realized that my understanding of Calvinism was actually hyper-Calvinism, and I didn't really know true Calvinism. And so what I believed was totally the doctrines of grace. And so I came to understand what Spurgeon said when he said, if you ask me if I am a Calvinist, I would prefer that you call me a Christian.

But if you ask me if I love the doctrines of grace, I will say that I do, and in the main, uphold them. And so that's really been my position. I love the doctrines of grace, and I think it is sound biblical teaching.

And with Spurgeon, Calvinism is just another word for the gospel. But there was a time when I came to an understanding of the sovereignty of God just by what's in the pages of Scripture. It wasn't because I studied church history, and it wasn't because I studied Calvinism.

And it sounds like, David, that's the same way that you came into this. This past year, my wife and I have been reading through our Bible and learned that by looking at the Scripture from a Calvinist angle, the verses seem to make more sense than from an Arminian viewpoint.

So just take, for example, the passage that we read yesterday out of 2 Kings 19, where God is telling the king of the Assyrians that the only reason why he has been as successful as he has been in overthrowing all these other kingdoms and building the Assyrian empire is because God foreordained it.

So this is 2 Kings 19, verse 25. Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins. This is God's sovereignty.

Nobody can do anything outside the sovereign will of God. Lamentations chapter 3. Is there anything good or bad that happens that the Lord has not decreed? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and bad come?

And then, of course, when it comes to the predestination of those saints who have been elected for salvation, one of the best passages of Scripture that we have related to this is in Ephesians chapter 1, beginning in verse 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. And really, the only way that you understand any of these passages, just these few that I've quoted here, is from the viewpoint of knowing that God is sovereign and He has predestined all things from before the foundation of the world, or what David described as the Calvinist viewpoint.

You cannot explain these things from an Arminian view without giving man more sovereign control than he actually has. That's the only way the Arminian comes at these things is by giving too much authority to man.

Right. Too much power and ability in his own will to do what he cannot do. And who are we? We are nothing. Together we have become worthless. Yeah. There is no one good, not even one. That's Romans 3 .12.

So it is Christ who saves us. It is by His power that we have been transformed from being rebellious dead people in the presence of God to being alive and obedient following after our Savior Christ. Yes.

And that's sound doctrine. That is the truth. Those are the doctrines of grace. You come to that understanding from what the Bible says. And so I do think, David, that you have a proper hermeneutic in understanding the scriptures.

Amen to you, brother. And when you read Spurgeon, in fact, he even talks about when he came into understanding the doctrines of grace, it was like being born again again. Everything in the scriptures just became open to him in a whole brand new way.

So first of all, he was made to understand it when he came to Christ the first time. And then he came into even deeper understanding once he beheld the sovereignty of his Lord God. Right. And so now your question is, should you tell your pastor or deacons that you are a Calvinist before accepting any leadership role in the church?

Let me tell you first that that's up to you. But let me give you my experience. So when I became pastor of the church, I felt like I had laid all my cards out on the table and I had told them exactly what I believed and exactly the way that I taught.