John McArthur

Actually the church we are attending now is pastored by one of John Mac's associate pastors from California. So,I agree with him doctrinally and like the others have said,he is a gifted teacher of God's Word. I appreciate him very much. I attend a reformed church with strong MacArthur influence with quite a few elders from the Master's seminary leading us. It is abiblically sound balanced church.

John MacArthur is speaking at our church this Spring. We've heard him once before....he is defintely God's spokesman for this generation,he speaks clearly and plainly the words of God.

 

Personally, I think that he is arrogant and mean spirited and thinks taht he is the standard by which everyone should measure truth!!!!

 

Let me clarify... I did not intend to make him out to be some sort of heretic. He is not. The point I was trying to make was that, in my opinion, John MacArthur is more right than Charles Ryrie on doctrine regarding salvation. Ryrie's position had every benefit since I took him (at that time) to be the foremost interpreter of the Bible. I used his study Bible and the doctrinal outlines in the back to carefully study his position verse by verse. The problem was that I had actually read the Old and New Testament several times very carefully before I concentrated on his doctrinal teaching and I could tell he was not telling the whole story. I don't think he was being dishonest at all, but he seemed to focus on Paul's work (written to people who were already believers) than the Gospels (written to both believers and unbelievers). The primary focus of the gospel of Jesus is repent and follow Me.

Actually, I don't dislike him at all -- I just don't think he's right about a number of things. I have benefitted greatly from my study with his study Bible -- I just don't buy a number of his interpretations. I certainly appreciate you expressing your disagreement in such a polite way! THANKS!

Yep, I bought his book too and studied it carefully to see if I was wrong. My impression is that he didn't truly understand the arguments that John MacArthur was making and he was simply defending a doctrinal position instead of working with the Gospel material.

 

Lordship salvation simply means that once Christ is your Saviour, He will also be your Lord. A saved person will have a desire to live for Him, and when he does not, the Lord will chasten him. A person who claims salvation, but continues to live like the devil, is deceived and a deceiver.

 

I appreciate DocCas response to your question, but I would like to add to what he said:

The question is about the necessity of a person making a commitment, or allowing Christ to be Lord over their life at the time of Salvation. Does a person need to make Jesus Savior and Lord over their life before you can receive salvation through saving faith. No question that Jesus is the The Lord period. If you do or do not believe that then this does not change the fact that Jesus is Lord. But does a person need to understand the fact that Jesus wants to have command, or control of your life as a believer, and does that person have to make a commitment to allow Christ to become their Lord over it. Then to go a step further, of course we would then have to determine if we want Christ over part of our life or complete surrender of our life. Thus then the implications are to try to clean up our life before salvation. Perhaps this teaching is a result of the idea of easy believeism. Come down the isle ask Jesus in your heart and zap, your saved. I don't necessarily believe in that type of thing either. BUT Jesus made if abundantly clear that all a person needs to do to have eternal life is to believe. Not believe + commit.

I believe saving faith to be one where ones faith in Christ becoming ones savior, that the savoir lived a perfect righteous life on our behalf, died to pay for our already sin debt, and rose again to give life into our dead spirit. He saves us. I don't think it is required that I analyze my sin, and commit those to Christ in an effort to make him Lord over my life. An example could be that if I were drowning and the life guard came to my rescue and offered me a life preserver and a rope to bring me to shore, I would accept these necessary things in order to be saved. Surely the life guard would not want me to start committing my life to him, demanding that I cut his grass every Saturday, or wash his car ect...

I think to mix "lordship" with salvation is to mix it with discipleship. A person may well be a Christian, but not be a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. Discipleship is a further step in the Christian walk, that far too few people care to take. I have often considered many on the BB to be a disciple of Christ because of their desire to discuss these theological issues further, and not waste their time in from of the TV.

1 Cor 12:3
Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

 

Baptist Believer,

Thank you for clarifying. Of course we still disagree, but I especially appreciate your clarification on Ryrie. May God Bless...

Chet

 

Thanks for your replies Chet & DocCas, much appreciated...

Eric

 

My husband and I went to his church, Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Ca. before we moved out of town. He's a good godly, knowledgable and articulate pastor...We learned a lot from him. He is a very mild mannered man of God. I really liked him and his church.

To atestring who said .

my husband and I both laughed because he is one of the most quiet and mild mannered pastors that I've ever seen preach.

[ September 02, 2002, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: WisdomSeeker ]

 

Chet makes a lot of good points.

Jesus Christ IS my Lord and Saviour, and He became my Lord when He became my Saviour.
However, understanding that fact is often a matter of long-term discipleship. It was for me. Perhaps MacArthur too much expects an instant realization, when for some it is a process of understanding the truth, in a process of discipleship.
"Easy believism" is not correct, but neither do you have to understand everything to become a Christian. We GROW in grace.

Karen

 

Can Christ be our Savior but not our Lord? MacArthur does not say that believers cannot be rebellious in our walk with Christ but he does reject the idea that a Christian can live in Rebellion all their lives and be a Christian. There seems to be a Karl Barth type idea in Baptist work that "God perseveres with us but not us necessarily with him" that infected Protestanism in the early 20th that both Calvinism and classical Arminianism rejected. MacArthur does not teach we become sinless or that we don't still struggle with certain sins but he does reject the idea that one can call themselves a Christian yet show absolutely no change since conversion. When one is saved they are a new creation. Ryrie, Zane Hodges often have teaching that is Antinominian (easybelievism) that gives many a false view of salvation.

MacArthur's book was a wake up call for American Christianity where only about 33% of Church members attend Church at anytime or show any fruit of being believers.

[ September 02, 2002, 05:32 PM: Message edited by: Kiffin ]

 

Whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.

 

Personally - He's a decent theologian - excellent no - good perhaps - inspired by Satan Ill have to think about it j/k

I did his study booklet on Roles of women - Our church for a brief time was in majority women - and that brief 2 month period they picked the study - I got the impression of flip-flopping on difficult issues.

He's got guts sure, but they aint guts of steel.

I really dislike my old church's and other church's worshipping of him, and his theology - However I am grateful that he actually inspired another person in my old church to actually study the Bible and care about doctrine

As to old or young Earth - Im unsure as the youngest the earth could be is that 6-10K years, but that requires a lot of children to be born in order for some of the historical wars to have been fought with the numbers they have found. Im willing maybe to go up to 1 billion years; but whatever that's another thread -

Back to [Dr. MacArthur,(editor)] - He's educated, and decent, but take his opinions with a pound or two of salt, he always slips some truth in there, it just varies as to the amount.

[Editor: Please avoid disrespectful references to others.]

[ September 04, 2002, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: DocCas ]