They are preaching the gospel, cant get saved without the gospel, romans 10 says how shall they hear without a preacher, they are at least playing an equal role to us when we believe.
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Calvinists are synergists
- Thread starter Revmitchell
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They are preaching the gospel, cant get saved without the gospel, romans 10 says how shall they hear without a preacher, they are at least playing an equal role to us when we believe.
good point.
Cals have used the tired old accusation."you don't know what that means" or "you don't understand the gospel" it has lost all sense of any real meaning and has become totally worthless.
None here were saved apart form the Holy Spirit "convincing them" that Jesus is the Lord, as we all came thru our own Paul Damascus road to God!
Bad point. The preacher is God's co-worker, not the sinner's. "Salvation is of the LORD." Not of the sinner.
The Archangel
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Your understanding of "Synergist" is fallacious and flawed. Calvinists, such as myself, whole-heartedly agree we must believe to be saved. The hyper-Calvinist does not, but hyper-Calvinists are outside the scope of orthodoxy. Synergy, in soteriological discussions refers to man's cooperation with God in his own salvation, not his receiving of the gospel. So, at best you are ignorant; at worst you've set up a strawman.
The preacher does not work "in cooperation" with God. The preacher is the means of the delivering the gospel. Just as no one in their right mind would claim a newspaper delivery boy is involved in the publication of said newspaper, no one in their right mind can rightly claim that the preacher delivering the gospel has anything to do with the salvation it proclaims.
Now, here's where a deeper problem shows itself. Faith comes by hearing, it is true. But, in your error, you assume everyone can hear. Jesus Himself says to His disciples that they'd been given eyes to see and ears to hear. Which clearly shows having ears to hear is not given to everyone. Furthermore, in the very same passage, is Jesus' own explanation of the Parable of the Sower. It is clear from His explanation that hearing the gospel is not necessarily the only factor, as if the gospel was some type of talisman.
In fact, Jesus' description of the Sower shows us that more than one factor is involved in the reception of the gospel and hearing is only one of those factors. Just as combustion requires three things (fuel, spark, and oxygen), the reception of the gospel requires multiple factors.
The Archangel
And you don't know what Reverend means.
The Archangel
Well-Known Member
First, you are citing a textual variant. Many manuscripts substitute "servant" as opposed to co-worker. While I do think that "coworker" is the better reading, there is no small mess in the manuscripts in relation to this particular verse.
Second, given the entire corpus of Pauline literature, it is laughable (almost to the point of shooting milk out of one's nose) to think that Paul means what you're taking him to mean. Gordon Fee explains:
But what Paul almost certainly intended is what one finds in the TNIV, that Timothy, who ultimately belongs to God, is being commended first of all as Paul’s and Silas’s own “brother,” and further as their co-worker “in the gospel of Christ.” At the same time he is God’s person in all this missionary activity. Although Paul’s phrase for this activity may mean, as the TNIV has it, “in spreading the gospel of Christ” (which as an English idiom means to evangelize), he far more likely intended, “in the continuing work of the gospel of Christ,” which would thus include his past and present visit to Thessalonica.
Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 116.
In no way can Paul be meaning that Timothy is in some way participating in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ to affect the salvation of the Thessalonians. Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 116.
The Archangel
Yes, even their ESV says the exact same thing: that Timothy is "God's coworker [Greek: synergon] in the gospel of Christ."
The Archangel
Well-Known Member
Ah.....I misunderstood. I never thought about it in that direction.
We see hyper-Calvinists in the anti-missions movement but the average Calvinist dude believes the lost can't hear without a preacher. I guess the only glitch may be the "not I but Christ in me" argument. But it's still our striving. Again, Scripture presents it as both the work of God and our fighting the good fight.
1 Thessalonians 3:2 And sent Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our fellowlabourer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith:
συνεργὸν sunergon
Friberg, UBS, Ludell Scott - Fellow laborers, fellow workers.
It's very plain what it means.
Lest we forget that Fellow Laborers are also of great importance to God in His harvest.
Apparently God does not just jettison workers into "The Harvest".
Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Though the glory goes to God this also seems to be a συνεργὸν (sunergon).
If the human effort/aspect of the Harvest is important to God so much so that it requires prayer on our part then it should be important to us as well and we get on our knees to petition "the Lord of the Harvest" for these laborers for the Harvest of the "elect" of our Sovereign God.
HankD
I think his point was that respected manuscript evidence indicates the absence of συνεργὸν. Personally I believe the word is attested to by the majority of Greek manuscripts, so the point is not really the variant, but rather that Timothy was a fellow-laborer with Paul in the ministry, not that the preacher is the fellow-laborer with the sinner, contributing to the sinner's salvation (IE synergy). Which is simply preposterous. I have been preaching for almost 50 years and I have never saved anyone. God, and God alone, saves sin sick souls.
So, in your theology can one of the elect reject God's grace?
You've never seen a painting of Jon Calvin before, have you?
Yes. Right next to: Trinity.
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