Baby Calvinists Should Be Shackled!
I wonder if it would be a good idea for those who are new to Calvinism to have to study, take a test, and get a license before they are allowed to share the Doctrines of Grace?I remember when God first captivated my heart and mind with the powerful doctrines of Grace! I struggled with my employer over the doctrine of predestination! He was for it and boy was I 'agin' it! I thought to myself: "How could anyone believe that God was the One who 'chose' someone over someone else? Didn't God give us 'free will?'"
I remember fighting and fighting and fighting within myself. I was so... upset... that anyone could think that we didn't have 'freedom.' I knew that I 'chose' everyday!
I remember my employer telling me to just read Romans 9 and Ephesians 1. I tried to... but I literally couldn't do it! My mind just could not grasp what it was reading! That God could love one person and hate another?!? That, so that His purpose of election could stand, he chose Jacob over Esau! Not that Pharoah had hardened his own heart but that God had hardened it because He 'will have mercy on who he has mercy!' For several years I just ignored those chapters.
Really... I would read the Bible through but when I came to those passages I would skip over them! Then the Lord exposed me to some men who didn't even try to push 'Calvinism' on me. They simply told me what the Bible said and asked me to back up what I believed.
That was the end. My father holds to 2 doctrines very deeply: the Authority and Sufficiency of God Word and that God is God, He is the Sovereign! (ironically my father still holds to some form of autonomy while each of his 4 children are firm Calvinists!) How could I avoid it now? I had to humble myself and believe God's Word!
I could not get enough of it! Once the Lord opened my eyes... everything became clearer! I read the Word like never before! It was truly alive! All Iwanted to do was to show everyone else what I had been missing!
Thus the title of this post: Baby Calvinists Should Be Shackled! I wasn't persuaded by the arguments of baby calvinists who are so excited and usually so tactless! I retreated before them and hid in my libertarian shell. I was persuaded (through the work and power of the Holy Spirit of course) by the patient, carefully, simple interaction of mature, patient men who cared for my heart and my mind. These men pointed me to the Word, time after time, and let me move at my own pace. They didn't attack me everytime I used the word 'free' or 'freedom'. They weren't reading Libertarianism into every 'choose' or 'choice' that I uttered.
I wish that we, young Calivinists, would realize that 'having begun by the Spirit' we are not being perfected by the flesh (Galatians 3:3). Let's grow up in our faith. Let's study, grow up, and get licensed to share!
thrown at you by Stephen Morse at 12:12 PM
3 Comments:
This is so true! We had a saying among us Calvinists in New Orleans (in which we were the great minority), that all Calvinists should be locked in their closet for the first year after their eyes were opened to the Doctrines of Grace. And it proved true that after about a year, most of the new Calvinists calmed down and actually were able to dialogue with non-Calvinists.
Yeah we said that at Southern. I wonder what it is that makes dialogue so rough?
For me I think it was because Calvinism goes so much against the modern church culture. I was so used to only focusing on one of God's attributes at a time, and it took awhile to figure out how to view every aspect of God equally. Plus I think there is something to be said for how a baby Calvinist handles that initial knowledge. What takes a person from a baby to an adult is time and experience with incorporating Calvinism into everyday life. And finally the following passage [emphasis mine!]
1 Cor. 8
1Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. 3But the man who loves God is known by God.
After God convinces us of the true nature of His grace, we must trust God to continue transforming our hearts and minds. When I first believed Calvinism and needed to be thrown in what we at Boyce called the "Calvinist Box" I was so enthralled with the knowledge I had acquired that I stopped continuing in knowledge and grace. I got hung up on the doctrine but didn't fully understand the reality of grace that doctrine taught. It takes time for that humility to sink in. As Ravi says, "Only God is able to humble us without humiliating us and to exalt us without flattering us."
Post a Comment
<< Home