For several months our Bible Study on Sunday morning has been studying The book of Romans and using the Lifeway quarterly which is billed as an indebt study of Romans. However it skipped from chap 8 to chap10,skipping chapter 9 entirely. Did anyone of you brothers find this interesting and is it an attempt to ignore this chapter. President Frank Page was recently quoted as saying the following "as to the rise of 5 point Calvinism in our SBC Churches and Seminaries, Everyone is aware of this but few want to talk about it in public. "The reason is obvious, It is deeply divisive in many situations and disconcerning in others. At some point we are going to see the challenges which are ensuing from this divide become even more problematic for us. Are we sticking our heads in the sand?
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Romans 9
- Thread starter Berean
- Start date
plain_n_simple
Active Member
Would you be ok with going into your prayer place, your quiet place, with only your bible, and ask God to reveal Romans to you?
Not if you mean by this to do that alone; and not if you mean do that as a PRIMARY means of getting to the truth.
If that is what you mean I'd say to you that that sounds very spiritual- but that's all it does. Well, that's not true. It probably also creates copious amounts of spiritual pride and false spirituality.
It's this kind of thinking dumped on us by pentecostals and charasmatics that has aided the process of our religious culture being ten thousand miles wide and a half inch deep.
God told us to ask for wisdom and God said that he gives it liberally to those that ask.
But wisdom is the ability to rightly divide the word of truth. It is the good sense to understand that we should STUDY to show ourselves approved unto God.
It is the Holy Scriptures that are able to make us wise unto salvation- not some emotional experience or funny feeling or mystical "peace" about something. The Holy Spirit does not whisper the interpretation into your ear via some still small voice. He gives you truth as you study properly- in context, Christocentrically, utilizing original languages and historical setting, authorial intent, intended audience, understanding the literary genre of the piece you are reading and running your interpretive hypothesis through the filter of theology consistently taught throughout Scripture, running your interpretation humbly before the scrutiny of the Body of Christ both contemporary and historical, etc...
Good hermeneutics is the way we discover truth in Scripture. Good hermeneutics is wisdom.
You can pray till the cows come home and you can speak in tongues and roll around in the floor a yell like the banshee; and you can feel like the Holy Ghost is talking to you and teaching you things- but I got news for you: without good hermeneutics you are wasting your time and accomplishing nothing but deceiving yourself and those with no better sense than you have.
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plain_n_simple
Active Member
No thank you for the the advice
That's what they said in Proverbs 1, too.
It never pans out well for those who reject wisdom.
Go back to the origional question.
I have not used this lifeway study. But I would guess that it was the misguided application of a valid desire to avoid causing more division or confusion or controversy. Too bad they did it. I learned in a preaching class that if you are preaching through a book and skip a passage, it creates more problems than it solves, since everyone then asks why you skipped it.
Sooner or later, people will have to accept that there are Arminians and 1,2,3,4, 5, 6, & 7pt calvinists in the SBC...and that all of them (the different designators, not each individual person) are committed christians who believe in evangelism and Love the Lord...they are simply coming to different conclusions about some difficult texts in the Bible. They simply need to be able to work together, even in the same churches.
Our Church has a man, who durring a sunday-school discussion of predestination said something to the effect of "Well it seems like it really comes down to God saving who he wants to save." Then a few weeks later, he was the strongest voices arguing that a person could lose their salvation by turning from Christ. So where does he fit in? I don't know... but he is a godly man, our strongest missions advocate, and leads at least 1 mission trip a year to haiti.
One additional reason that we may be coming to a point where the "fat hits the fan." (where people will have to accept that Calvinists are true christians too) is a combination of 3 factors:
1. For the past 15 or so years, Southern Seminary, and to some extent Southeastern Seminary have been producing a much higher number of "reformed" graduates.
2. As pastors retire and move, these graduates will be a higher and higher percentage of the application pool for years to come.
3. Many of these congregations, like it not, wrong or right, consist of an older crowd who does not want a rock-star preacher who is going to take them in a seeker-sensitive direction; but will simply care for them and preach the word, and calvinist pastors are often (not always) the one's who would lean in that direction.
So many churches may come down to choosing a person who fits their "style" of not trying to be too flashy, but who is a calvinist, which they may disagree with...or choosing a non-cal who feels the need to spice-up an older church, which may not be what they want.
(I am not saying that there are not non-cals who are godly men who preach the word, but I'm saying the theology of calvinism often causes those men to be more willing to simply preach and let God work rather than try to make big productions to draw people. Call it laziness, or call it trust in God, I think it is definitly there.)
1. For the past 15 or so years, Southern Seminary, and to some extent Southeastern Seminary have been producing a much higher number of "reformed" graduates.
2. As pastors retire and move, these graduates will be a higher and higher percentage of the application pool for years to come.
3. Many of these congregations, like it not, wrong or right, consist of an older crowd who does not want a rock-star preacher who is going to take them in a seeker-sensitive direction; but will simply care for them and preach the word, and calvinist pastors are often (not always) the one's who would lean in that direction.
So many churches may come down to choosing a person who fits their "style" of not trying to be too flashy, but who is a calvinist, which they may disagree with...or choosing a non-cal who feels the need to spice-up an older church, which may not be what they want.
(I am not saying that there are not non-cals who are godly men who preach the word, but I'm saying the theology of calvinism often causes those men to be more willing to simply preach and let God work rather than try to make big productions to draw people. Call it laziness, or call it trust in God, I think it is definitly there.)
This is so Lifeway! When they come to a difficult or controversial passage, they skip it. I've been using their material more than 25 years and this is something they have always done, even back when it was the Sunday School Board.
Smart man considering he employs faulty hermeunetics in dealing with Romans 9
I think someone on this thread needs to take the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13 to heart.
Smart man considering he employs faulty hermeunetics in dealing with Romans 9
I think someone on this thread needs to take the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13 to heart.
No, no Webdog! The church fathers have always been correct. You cannot interpret scripture outside the holy fathers and the great tradition of the mother church. You need to humble yourself and return to the true mother, only they hold the key to proper interpretion of scripture, they are infallible!
Robert Snow
New Member
It shows that Lifeway is often more interested in selling a product than confronting the evils of Calvinism. Good business is to appeal to as broad a market as possible. This maximizes profits.
Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.
Don't address at all and get dammed.
Go Luke's route and get dammed all who disagree.
Go Robert's route and get dammed by all who disagree.
Go the true scholars route and present both sides and get dammed by all who disagree.
So all you wise ones, what is LifeWay supposed to do? No matter what they do a bunch of folks are going to get mad. In a way, I don't blame them skipping over such a contentious issue.
Don't address at all and get dammed.
Go Luke's route and get dammed all who disagree.
Go Robert's route and get dammed by all who disagree.
Go the true scholars route and present both sides and get dammed by all who disagree.
So all you wise ones, what is LifeWay supposed to do? No matter what they do a bunch of folks are going to get mad. In a way, I don't blame them skipping over such a contentious issue.
Robert Snow
New Member
I don't think using Lifeway causes one to be dammed, as you put it. The teacher of my Sunday School class uses it, and I like it. That doesn't mean I agree with all of Lifeways decisions. I doubt there is any SS literature that everyone agrees with completely.
Good stuff.
I concur.......
SBC and Calvinsim
In trying to do our part to support the unity of the body of Christ, we sometimes avoid specifics with regard to our views of biblical doctrine. One tact is to embrace paradox, saying both views are true, i.e. Calvinist and Non-Calvinist. Another might be to avoid discussion by skipping chapter 9 in a study of Romans. All of these evasions serve the Devil, and not Christ. Our yes should be yes and our no, no.
Only when we Baptists reach a mutual understanding of scripture will we have the sort of unity that results in effect ministry for Christ.
1) Did God individually elect folks for salvation before creation or corporately, or does the Bible not say?
2) If it does not say whether the election before creation was individual or corporate, why teach as doctrine it was individual?
3) Does the Bible say how God chose us, unconditionally or through faith in the truth?
No intellectually honest person can claim the Bible teaches unconditional individual election before creation. So Calvinism simply adds and assumes things, disregarding the requirement of scripture to stick with what it says.
In trying to do our part to support the unity of the body of Christ, we sometimes avoid specifics with regard to our views of biblical doctrine. One tact is to embrace paradox, saying both views are true, i.e. Calvinist and Non-Calvinist. Another might be to avoid discussion by skipping chapter 9 in a study of Romans. All of these evasions serve the Devil, and not Christ. Our yes should be yes and our no, no.
Only when we Baptists reach a mutual understanding of scripture will we have the sort of unity that results in effect ministry for Christ.
1) Did God individually elect folks for salvation before creation or corporately, or does the Bible not say?
2) If it does not say whether the election before creation was individual or corporate, why teach as doctrine it was individual?
3) Does the Bible say how God chose us, unconditionally or through faith in the truth?
No intellectually honest person can claim the Bible teaches unconditional individual election before creation. So Calvinism simply adds and assumes things, disregarding the requirement of scripture to stick with what it says.