Featured How Should Arminians and Calvinists Approach One Another?

Not sure I've observed any “Arminians.” But listen to what “that”? Did you just get whooshed?

 

I don't believe Calvinism because I want it to be true, but because it seems to be closest to what the Bible teaches. If it were up to me, some form of universalism would be true, but I'm not judge and savior of the universe.

 

On the flipside the hatred is really aimed at God for not letting humans dictate the means of salvation. By nature, humans want their autonomy. We want to be a dependent sovereign, under the King, much like indigenous tribes in the US are dependent sovereigns under the US government. We want to have a say in the decision making and we get mad when someone else makes the decision for us.

 

I'm still intrigued by the seeming ignorance of depraved human nature such a statement exhibits. How about explaining just what “normal human standards of fairness” it refers to?

 

John Wesley and George Whitefield were perhaps the greatest evangelists of their time. Wesley was the most well-known Arminian in history, while Whitefield was a Calvinist, and yet they worked together in evangelism as fellow Methodists. They recognized that winning souls for Christ is more important than theological precision.

1 Corinthians 8:2-3
Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.



Wesley and Whitefield's main focus was to preach the Gospel to the outcastes of society. Because of his Calvinism, Whitefield had faith that God would use His preaching to unfailingly draw His elect unto Himself.

 

You realize you take that verse out of context... don't you?

 

No, it should definitely apply to the debate between Calvinists and Arminians.

 

You take that verse out of context.

 

We need to focus on the positive side to Calvinism, that God chose us to love others and bear fruit, rather than be buttheads to other people.

 

We need to preach Christ and Christ crucified and watch God save whom He wills. I couldn't care less about defending John Calvin. I will defend God's word and point out what is observed.

 

Good, then love your Arminian brothers and sisters.

 

In the words of John Calvin, "How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ," not by the exactness of our theology.

 

I love every brother and sister in Christ, even when they are petrified of losing their salvation and take the Bible out of context to try support their fear of losing their salvation.
I will still point out that their understanding of God's grace is wrong.
You sound like Joel Osteen. Your struggle with discernment is noted.

 

No, I would rather sound like Jesus.

Mark 9
38 Now John answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.”39 But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me. 40 For he who is not against us is on our side. 41 For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

If Joel Osteen sounds more like Jesus than John MacArthur does, so be it. I don't belong to the Calvinist club.

 

John 15:16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

 

Osteen sounds more like Satan.

Luke 4:5-7 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”

 

The closest the Bible goes to explaining why God chooses some for election and not others is that it’s not due to anything special in the individual, that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
(1 Corinthians 1:26-27)

There is nothing unfair about God’s sovereignty in election. (Romans 9:21) No one who desires to be saved will be turned away. (John 6:37) If you sincerely care about your salvation, that’s a sign you are among God’s elect. It’s very humbling to have the assurance that God chose you, by His grace alone, from before the foundation of the world.

If your apartment building was burning down, and a firefighter died while saving you but not your neighbor, what would your proper response be? Should you gripe and grumble about how unfair it was that the firefighter gave up his life for you, but not your neighbor? Or should you be thankful for his sacrifice?

If God were obligated to save everyone, that would be justice and not grace. It’s by God’s grace alone that He’s chosen to save some, rather than leaving us all to our fallen human condition. As the Bible says from beginning to end, God’s ways are not our ways. It’s not ours to understand why He’s chosen to elect some and not others.

Deuteronomy 29:29
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

Isaiah 55:8-9
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 40:2
“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

Matthew 20:15
Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’

John 20:29
Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Romans 9:20-24
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

Romans 11:33-34
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counselor?

1 Corinthians 1:25
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

1 Corinthians 2:16
“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:7
for we walk by faith, not by sight.