It's not just the SBC we are after..muwhahahahaha

[ReformedBaptist]

This is turned into bickering. Have a nice one. And if it strickes your fancy you can say you win.

Bye bye now. :wavey:

 

[Squire Robertsson]

It's not about "winning" or "loosing". For my part it's about remembering the way we've "done church" for say the last hundred years (good or bad) or so is rooted in how church was done (good or bad) in the previous hundred or so years.

 

[ReformedBaptist]

So, far he hasn't reacted to my comment.
RB, have you read Wayland's Notes on the Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches? If not I highly recommend it. Remember in the late 19th century, there was a split between the Gillites and Fullerites. Most non-Free Will Baptists today follow the Fullerite tradition.
Further, I view pulpiteering that doesn't seek an action not to be preaching. It's many good and neccessary things but not preaching. Though, all preaching is not neccessarily evangleistic.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I am always interested in learning about Baptist history.

I am not sure what pulpiteering is. When I filled the pulpit of that little church I was just seeking to be faithful to God to preach His word for His glory, and serve the people as God gave me strength to do so. Looking back I see things I could have done differently, better, et.

Today I do not see the Lord calling me to the office of elder. Today the desire is not in my heart. Nevertheless, my heart burns to see the Gospel preached in our community and spring out from there to the ends of the earth. I hope the Lord will use me to aid in that in some way.

May the Lord bless you all.

 

[Squire Robertsson]

pulpiteering=speaking from the pulpit.
I took my definition of preaching from Lloyd-Jones' book On Preaching and Preachers.

Wayland caught the tail end of the Gillite era. He is also one of the founders of the Northern Baptist movement.

 

[webdog]

A question probably for another thread:
I once heard a preacher remark, "The Calvin\Arminian v somthing else question comes down to are you looking to have a systmatic theology or a Biblical theology. The two overlap to a great extent. However, a Biblical theology allows for more unclear areas." I like to say trying to systematicly define all of the aspects of soteriology using human language is like trying to describe quantum physics using under grad calculus.

Excellent statement...and the way I see it :thumbs:

 

[Squire Robertsson]

Instead of

I like to say trying to systematicly define all of the aspects of soteriology using human language is like trying to describe quantum physics using under grad calculus.

I think I should have said

I like to say trying to systematicly define and organize all of the aspects of soteriology using human language is like trying to describe quantum physics using under grad calculus.

It isn't the description that's so hard. Many a preacher has preached a series on the "Great Salvation Words." The problem is trying to organize them into a logical system. That's when quantum physics kicks in. :tonofbricks:

 

[John of Japan]

Instead of I think I should have saidIt isn't the description that's so hard. Many a preacher has preached a series on the "Great Salvation Words." The problem is trying to organize them into a logical system. That's when quantum physics kicks in. :tonofbricks:

Exactly. And that is why no C/A discussion will ever be conclusive. We puny humans just don't have the brain power to figure out how God does it. We drag out our various 5 point schemes, salvation orders, etc., and end up still unsure. God is not Someone you can cram into a little human theological system. Though I've gotten good stuff from the systematic theologies, they simply can't contain God.

 

[Jkdbuck76]

Amen, JoJ.

 

[Tom Bryant]

Good statement by both John and Squire.

It's the movement of all humanity to make God totally understandable and therefore predictible. A friend of mine says systematic theology tries to systematize an unsystematic God who constantly crosses us up and does the unexpected.

I like systematic theology and use it at times to teach doctrine, but in the end we must always understand that our eternal God goes eternally beyond out temporal minds.

 

[Jerome]

"To many men it might well seem that the Word of God had become petrified, for they receive it as a hard, lifeless creed, a stone upon which to sharpen the daggers of controversy, a stumbling-block for young beginners, a millstone with which to break opponents' heads, after the manner experienced by Abimelech at Thebez. A man must have a stout digestion to feed upon some men's theology—no sap, no sweetness, no life, but all stern accuracy and fleshless definition. Proclaimed without tenderness and argued without affection, the gospel from such men rather resembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father's table. Teeth are needlessly broken over the grit of systematic theology, while souls are famishing. To turn stones into bread was a temptation of our Master; but how many of His servants yield readily to the far worse temptation to turn bread into stone! Go thy way, metaphysical divine, to the stone-yard, and break granite for McAdam, but stand not in the way of loving spirits who would feed the family of God with living bread. The inspired Word is to us spirit and life, and we cannot afford to have it hardened into a huge monolith or a spiritual Stonehenge--sublime but cold, majestic but lifeless; far rather would we have it as our own household book, our bosom companion, the poor man's counselor and friend."
---Charles Spurgeon, Feathers for Arrows

 

[paidagogos]

Formula for debate

For someone to apologize for my reaction seems quite condecending to me. But John made himself clear. I accept that. I wasn't asking for an apology nor thinking he had thrown in the towel as you say.

As to your last exhortation, do you wish to see Calvinism better served? Do you think I am seeking to win arguments? I am not. I am seeking to bring glory to God by defending His truth as I understand it. I make no pretence that I have often done this poorly and with much frailty. I am not always the best communicator and sometimes I get frustrated by these things.

Perhaps you can share your wisdom in these matters rather than telling me to shut-up?

Yes, leave the person out of it. Address issues, not your opponent's person. Don't question his manhood, his sincerity, his intelligence, his patriotism, his motives, etc. Identify the specific point of disagreement and state it carefully. Be fair to your opponent--do not put words in his mouth or ascribe things to him that he denies. Starting on common ground of demonstrated Biblical principle, use logic and careful reasoning to support your view. Above all, don't despise your opponent even if he is getting the best of the argument and you are frustrated. Love him as a brother.

I am not fully clear on how much we are obligated to defend truth. We stand for truth but are we called upon to defend it? It seems that truth stands on its own or God defends it. Our obligation, IMHO, is to preach the truth and allow God through His Holy Spirit to convict and persaude the hearts of men. Sometimes, our perception of truth is simply that--our perception. Van Til said that our knowledge is only analogical and I tend to somewhat agree.

 

[ReformedBaptist]

Yes, leave the person out of it. Address issues, not your opponent's person. Don't question his manhood, his sincerity, his intelligence, his patriotism, his motives, etc. Identify the specific point of disagreement and state it carefully. Be fair to your opponent--do not put words in his mouth or ascribe things to him that he denies. Starting on common ground of demonstrated Biblical principle, use logic and careful reasoning to support your view. Above all, don't despise your opponent even if he is getting the best of the argument and you are frustrated. Love him as a brother.

I am not fully clear on how much we are obligated to defend truth. We stand for truth but are we called upon to defend it? It seems that truth stands on its own or God defends it. Our obligation, IMHO, is to preach the truth and allow God through His Holy Spirit to convict and persaude the hearts of men. Sometimes, our perception of truth is simply that--our perception. Van Til said that our knowledge is only analogical and I tend to somewhat agree.

Thanks for the advice. I will take it into consideration. I assume that those exhortations were given because you thought I did those things. I don't think so, and I do not want to argue about that, but I will take them before the Son of God and ask Him about them as well as look to Scripture to be corrected where it is truly needed.

Concerned the need to contend for the Christian faith I believe it is biblical and our duty as Christians to do so. "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." Jude 1:3

Of course, the manner in which we do this should be one of gentleness and love and not with the things you described above. Perhaps I have fallen short in those areas.

I have not read too much of Van Til. When I read the Scriptures I get the knowledge that I can know the truth. Can my understanding be affected by presuppositions, perceptions, bias, et. Of course. But ignorance is bliss as they say. God has given us His Holy Scripture and we ought to make diligent study of it, exegetically I believe, to the best of the ability God gives us. We must rely fully on His mercy and grace to guide and teach by His Holy Spirit as He illumines our minds to His revelation. God wants us to know the truth, not be in doubt about it. But, if He hides something from us, it must be for our good. This was the case for me concerning the Calvinist doctrines. They were right there in Scirpture plain for all to see, yet for me they were somewhat hidden until the Lord opened my eyes.

Now I am despised sometimes because I confess them. There are those who think the best argument wins the truth. It does not. Crafty arguments can be made by devils as well as saints. And between brethren one may be more skilled at debate than the other. When I meet someone who loves to debate I often find, if we have a disagreement, that it degenerates fairly quickly into an argument. It becomes a seemingly never ending battle of words and quips and information. I will leave that kind of debate to others.

 

[BobinKy]

Here is a debate from back in 2007. What I like about this debate are how well the debate issues are described and discussed. This debate certainly has a catching quality to it that we don't see today in the debate forums.

Good Stuff.

...Bob

 

[Luke2427]

I'm afraid Calvinists are indeed causing trouble in IFB churches (and I don't mean the so-called IFBx crowd). On our last furlough we heard what is happening in Illinois. Unfortunately there is a type of young Calvinist that believes all Baptists simply must agree with them or they will know the reason why!

To ReformedBaptist: On another thread (you know which one) I mentioned this crowd of young Calvinists as full of vim, vigor and venom, and to tell the truth, I felt your opening gambit on that thread was venom. What I've seen from you since has been gracious and reasoned. Keep up the good work.

Having said that, I'll believe that these young Calvinists are not out to take over our churches, but are ready to follow the Great Commission, when I see some of them come on out to the mission field and start churches. Where are the Reformed Baptist mission boards? There are none to my knowledge, though a google search will turn up a very few missionaries that say they are Reformed Baptist. Years ago there was a Reformed Baptist in Japan down on the island of Shikoku, but he's been gone for years.

Perhaps you've heard of a man by the name of William Carey? You know the baptist father of the modern missions movement... he was a devout Calvinist.

Time will not permit me to walk you through the prominence of Calvinist evangelists, revivalists and missionaries who have circumnavigated the globe.

I believe it was Colin Hansen's book, Young Restless and Reformed, where I read that Southern Seminary is supplying the lion's share of SBC missionaries these days and MOST of them are thoroughly Calvinistic.

The Southern Baptist Convention did an official study comparing unapologetically Calvinist SBC churches to ones that deny that they are Calvinists and found that the baptism percentage was nearly identical.

This is striking since we tend to not beg and plead with manipulating music in the background for people to walk the aisles and dunk every kid that attends VBS to pump our stats like so many others do.

I attended Jeff Noblit's church in North Alabama a few months back and they are, by themselves sending out missionaries to beat the band. They, of course are THOROUGHLY reformed.

I have baptized ten in a year and a half here in my town which has a population of 1,026 people and is INUNDATED with churches of most stripes. And I hardly give an invitation at all.

Frankly, in this country, the rise to prominence of Arminian leaning Baptists is a hiccup that I sense is coming to an end.

We were here first. We were the predominant viewpoint among baptists for most of the civilized history of this continent. This was so much so that Particular Baptists simply became known as REGULAR Baptists here.

I do not think that Arminianistic type Baptists (those who are for all real practical purposes just four point Arminians) can make a historical case that they have been more effective than those of the Reformed persuasion.

 

[John of Japan]

Perhaps you've heard of a man by the name of William Carey? You know the baptist father of the modern missions movement... he was a devout Calvinist.

Time will not permit me to walk you through the prominence of Calvinist evangelists, revivalists and missionaries who have circumnavigated the globe.

I believe it was Colin Hansen's book, Young Restless and Reformed, where I read that Southern Seminary is supplying the lion's share of SBC missionaries these days and MOST of them are thoroughly Calvinistic.

The Southern Baptist Convention did an official study comparing unapologetically Calvinist SBC churches to ones that deny that they are Calvinists and found that the baptism percentage was nearly identical.

This is striking since we tend to not beg and plead with manipulating music in the background for people to walk the aisles and dunk every kid that attends VBS to pump our stats like so many others do.

I attended Jeff Noblit's church in North Alabama a few months back and they are, by themselves sending out missionaries to beat the band. They, of course are THOROUGHLY reformed.

I have baptized ten in a year and a half here in my town which has a population of 1,026 people and is INUNDATED with churches of most stripes. And I hardly give an invitation at all.

Frankly, in this country, the rise to prominence of Arminian leaning Baptists is a hiccup that I sense is coming to an end.

We were here first. We were the predominant viewpoint among baptists for most of the civilized history of this continent. This was so much so that Particular Baptists simply became known as REGULAR Baptists here.

I do not think that Arminianistic type Baptists (those who are for all real practical purposes just four point Arminians) can make a historical case that they have been more effective than those of the Reformed persuasion.

Apparently you did not even read my comments in the whole thread. You completely misunderstand my position.

 

[Luke2427]

Apparently you did not even read my comments in the whole thread. You completely misunderstand my position.

No, but I read this:

Having said that, I'll believe that these young Calvinists are not out to take over our churches, but are ready to follow the Great Commission, when I see some of them come on out to the mission field and start churches.

Well they are pouring into mission fields by the hundreds. Not only are these young, restless and reformed types signing up for the mission field left and right, Calvinists have historically been passionate for missions.

Baptists in this country have historically been Calvinistic until the last 75 years or so- interestingly enough about the time the IFB was born.

It seems that it was these guys who have no systematic theology who came in and "took over" OUR churches. If there are Calvinists turning Baptist churches to the DoG they are doing nothing more than reclaiming what was ours to start with before the nameless theology guys took over OUR churches 75 years ago.

It is my opinion that as SBC became liberal and those who left the SBC tended to be uneducated Calvinism took a furlough in Baptist life.

But it is coming back with great vigor.

But my point is that before 75 years or so ago MOST Baptist missionaries were Calvinists.

BTW, I may be off a decade or two on the 75 year comments, but you get my point.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

I'm a newbie.....what is the so-called IFBx crowd? Defectors perhaps?

 

[John of Japan]

I'm a newbie.....what is the so-called IFBx crowd? Defectors perhaps?

This is a term used by some to describe IFB people who are extreme in their beliefs, Ruckmanites and the like.

 

[quantumfaith]

Amen. When the pastor of the IFB who was leaving asked me to fill in, we had a long conversation about doctrine. One should not "sneak in unaware" to any church they know disagrees with their theology. It's unjust.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[Mexdeaf]

This quote Jerome posted earlier bears repeating-

"To many men it might well seem that the Word of God had become petrified, for they receive it as a hard, lifeless creed, a stone upon which to sharpen the daggers of controversy, a stumbling-block for young beginners, a millstone with which to break opponents' heads, after the manner experienced by Abimelech at Thebez. A man must have a stout digestion to feed upon some men's theology—no sap, no sweetness, no life, but all stern accuracy and fleshless definition. Proclaimed without tenderness and argued without affection, the gospel from such men rather resembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father's table. Teeth are needlessly broken over the grit of systematic theology, while souls are famishing. To turn stones into bread was a temptation of our Master; but how many of His servants yield readily to the far worse temptation to turn bread into stone! Go thy way, metaphysical divine, to the stone-yard, and break granite for McAdam, but stand not in the way of loving spirits who would feed the family of God with living bread. The inspired Word is to us spirit and life, and we cannot afford to have it hardened into a huge monolith or a spiritual Stonehenge--sublime but cold, majestic but lifeless; far rather would we have it as our own household book, our bosom companion, the poor man's counselor and friend."
---Charles Spurgeon, Feathers for Arrows