Think Wink.

Well, about March of 2005, I decided to put all of my questions about Calvinism to rest and to prove that it was false.  How was I going to do this?  I was going to study the “prooftexts” (ie Romans 9:1-23; Romans 8:28-30; Ephesians 1:4-6, 11-12) and show how they don’t teach Calvinism.  I was raised not to believe it and so I set out to show why I was right.  So I went to Wal-Mart and bought myself a composition notebook, which I still have to this day, grabbed my NRSV, NASB, and NIV Bibles and my Strong’s Concordance to look into the Greek language.  I even went to Study Light.org to get help with verb tenses.

So I dedicated the next month to just studying my Bible and to see what the text says.  I started with the prayer, “Lord, teach me the truth of these passages that I may know you more fully and worship you deeper than I ever had.”  So from March 26 through April 26, I spent four hours of every day studying these passages.  I was not preaching every Sunday so I could take this time to write down my thoughts.  Every night I prayed the same prayer.  I turned off all radio sermons, for I love to listen to Bott Radio because of all of the preachers, for that whole month to make sure that it was just God and myself and his word.  I stopped reading any book that wasn’t required.  I just studied my Bible for hours.  I tried to through in the curve ball of why pray.  I threw inthe knuckle ball of why witness.  I thought up of every question that I could to refute the doctrines.  I even studied texts that were to refute Calvinism, such as Ezekiel 33:18 and John 3:16.  All so I could vindicate my beliefs.  This was dangerous to do because I was in risk of reading my own non-calvinistic assumptions into the texts.  I knew that and that’s why I prayed.  I believe that God guarded my heart against those assumptions.

But God would not have it that way.  He answered all of my questions from the text.  Prayer isn’t so much about changing God as it is me.  God answers prayer not because I convinced him to but because he promised.  I witness because I don’t know who God has chosen.  I witness because Christ told me.  Romans 9 teaches unconditional election.  Romans 8 only works if the chain is secure with the full force of meaning for each word, not numbing them down to just a plan.  I came away with these convictions.

 Romans 9 and Ephesians 1 were pretty cut and dry.  But Romans 8 I almost got away with.  The link between calling and justification threw me.  If justification is by faith in Romans 5:1 and 10:10, then why is it here that those who get called are being justified.  I thought that God called all to repentance.  John Piper calls the calling in Rom. 8:29 “the watershed” of the whole theology in those three verses.  In my concordance I saw 1 Corinthians 1:23-24.  There the word was preached and the Jews and Greeks did not believe.  But in v. 24, the Jews and Greeks who were called believed.  I saw for the first time two different calls in Scripture.  That the “drawing” in John 6:44 and the “granting” in 6:65 might mean more than just wooing.  After all, the word for draw in John 6:44 is used by James 2:6 to “drag” people to court.  My eyes were opened by all of this new revelation.  I finally saw Acts 13:48 for what it really said, those appointed to eternal life were the ones who believed.  I finally was able to stop avoiding all of these verses because they taught Calvinistic doctrine and embraced them.

I didn’t refute anything.  I was rebuked.  I avoided parts of the Bible because they taught something in my 21st century world that I didn’t believe.  I was taught something that my word pictures didn’t agree with.  I was not reading all of God’s words but only that which I selected.  My love for the Bible has increased since then.  I prayed to God thanking him for the revelation he had given me.

But I didn’t know just what to do with it.  I didn’t know how to proceed.  I was greatful for the insight, but I will admit, I was scared by this.  What should I do?  That’s when I had a car wreck and I was given ten questions to answer.  But more on that tomorrow.

Are You A Calvinist?

The Nerve of Him

Some Interesting Bits