I still remember the moment that I came to true, saving faith in Jesus Christ. It was a complicated thing, growing up in church, labeling myself as Christian, and paying my respects and “honor” to God through singing, giving, and evangelizing. I remember asking Jesus into my heart in children’s church with a leader, I walked down the carpeted aisle to the altar to pray the sinner’s prayer (even more than once because I just was not sure that I was still saved the next week). I was taught never to utter the words, “oh my God,” but never imagined that every day I was taking the Lord’s name in vain, vandalizing the name “Christian”. Proclaiming Christianity, boasting worldliness, proud of my wickedness, self-righteous in my “ministry” at church. One part of me believed that I was innately good enough to be saved. In my pride, I believed that serving at church three times a week was proof of my salvation. That my emotional experiences during worship was true heart transformation. I was charismatic and a promising specimen for a full-time minister in my future, whatever that meant.
But another part of me, the deeper part, the part that was the easiest to suppress, believed that I was the worst sinner alive. I knew that my faith was ankle-deep and frankly, unable to keep me afloat. I would vacillate between over-confidence in my flesh, trusting that God would save me because I was somehow talented or useful to him, and overwhelming fear that my faith could not carry me through to the end. Because if the ball was in my court to choose him or my sin, I would choose my sin. Every. Time. A slave to wickedness. Nothing in me desired after righteousness, but there was a lot of me that desired applause and validation for putting on the show. But the truth was that if it was just God listening to me lead a congregation in worship, I wouldn’t have chosen that over theatre at school. If it was just about my convincing abilities or my outward appearances or usefulness, then of course a part of me believed that I could manipulate God to think I was a good person in the same way I had manipulated everyone around me. But God does not look at those things. God looks at the deepest thoughts, the most vile intentions, the selfish motivations. And that. Scares. Me. Fast forward to getting saved, I was forever changed when I fully trusted in Christ’s righteousness over mine. When salvation was no longer dependent on my goodness, I knew it was attainable, and that was the best news I have ever received in my life. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I ran down the hallway of my grandparents’ house and burst into my dad’s room. I could not stop talking about this amazing thing I had just learned that was so different from anything I had ever heard before. But it was Calvinist. Growing up believing the Arminian views by default, I did not GET the Gospel because a part of the Arminian version of the Gospel is that there is some small part (no matter how small or nuanced that part may be) of me that has to be different than the sinners sitting next to me. Why is it that I would choose God and they would not? And in a true evaluation of my own heart, I knew that I was no better than they. I was weak. As if I needed more evidence of this, I was diagnosed with chronic depression and severe anxiety. I was borderline agoraphobic for about half a year and my weakness was on display in what seemed like every waking moment. All of the confidence I had once boasted in within my flesh was taken away from me. But all along, I lifted up my humble cry, “Jesus, you are all I’ve got.” Watching him carry me through the highs and lows of my own imbalances strengthened my faith in him even more. That even in my weakness, yes even then, he is strong. I do not share this part of my testimony with many simply because testimonies are not always the appropriate time to argue doctrine. But the doctrines of grace are so near and dear to my heart. And without them, I would not be a believer in what Jesus Christ did for me today. So it is with great love for these doctrines and great pain that I say that we Calvinists need to do a bit better in stewarding this amazing understanding of God that we have. I am just as guilty of perpetuating the issues that I am about to address, so please do not hear this plea as a distant criticism, but as a repentance of the former things in my own life. My hope is that in these things that I had to experience the hard way, I can help another brother or sister avoid the same pitfalls, if the Lord should will it. So without further adieu, here are a few propositions I would like to make. #1. Let’s use articles as starting points. Articles are incredibly helpful in starting what should be a long journey of discovering the truth about a topic. For me, when I was first trying to understand the doctrines of grace, I relied heavily on articles and podcasts by people like John Piper, John MacArthur, and the men and women of The Gospel Coalition. I was in a unique place where I had no idea what to study, but had all the desire in the world to learn. While reading articles was a great way to get me acquainted with the hot topics in systematic theology and evangelical pop culture, I did not quite understand the purpose of articles (which ended up coming back to bite me). What ended up happening to me is that I started to rely on the articles and pop-level readings of my favorite pastors and teachers and did not develop what the Bible calls being “skilled in the Word of righteousness.” I could answer a lot of tough questions with the wisdom from podcasts like “Ask Pastor John,” but could not go to Scripture (save a few select verses my favorite pastors would use) to defend the doctrine that I was being taught. Being exposed to doctrine through TGC and Desiring God is helpful in many ways because as a new believer, we all have to start somewhere. But if all we have is an “article”-level understanding of our beliefs, we are functioning as immature believers according to what Scripture teaches. Maturity comes from understanding Scripture and training in how to discern it for ourselves through practice. So how does this pertain to Calvinism? Well, a lot of times as Calvinists (or Reformed or whatever title you would prefer to give the doctrinal stance), we are challenged by opposing viewpoints with Scripture that does not necessarily show up in a “TULIP” briefing. Not only is it important that we be able to address our brothers’ and sisters’ doubts and questions about our views, but it is also important that we be able to settle these issues in our own hearts and minds so that we develop a deeper understanding of the Word of God. Granted, some things are meant to be mysteries and we will not always understand everything perfectly, but part of the glory of our Bible is it’s clarity. We should always seek to have clarity on these confusing “trouble verses.” Many times when engaging in conversations with non-Calvinists, we are often going to be up against someone who has probably read a simplified article about the Five-Points. It is important that we engage in these conversations, not as a carbon copy of the easy-to-read John Piper article on Calvinism, but as someone who has studied the Scriptures and tested these beliefs just as much as our Arminian friends. Articles are meant to start a conversation and explain things in a succinct format. Conversations, however, are not meant to be this way. Studying, also, is not meant to be this way. We need to understand these things on a much deeper level than what an introductory article can offer us. #2: Take more of a “biblical theology” approach to studying the doctrines of Calvinism. What I do not want you to misunderstand here is that I do not value systematic theology. I do, very much. However, interpreting the Bible simply systematically can create blind spots and sometimes even an apathy to the verses that do not explicitly help our “system” of thinking. Systematic theology is great for allowing us to take a topic and put all of the key verses we have about it in a box that we label according to our conclusions. The problem with only doing this to inform our interpretation is that it does not take into account the real time revelation of these topics throughout redemptive history. For example, the doctrine of election is a theme we find in both the Old and New Testaments. However, if we look at the story of redemption from the beginning of Genesis all the way through to the end of Revelation, we will notice nuances that we may not understand simply from a systematic approach. We may even begin to ask harder questions like “How is the election of the nation of Israel specifically different from the election of believers in the New Testament?” When we build our theology on a topic, taking a biblical theology approach allows us to build upon the idea in the order in which God has revealed it to us throughout history. It helps us to understand the verses on these topics in their direct context, giving us a much fuller picture of the doctrine itself as it unfolds in real time. This practice, however, is not for the faint of heart. When we begin to study Scripture as it unfolds, we begin to ask questions that are not easily (or quickly) answered. And just as Jesus was misunderstood by some who studied the Old Testament writings, we may find ourselves struggling to reconcile teachings between the Old and the New Testaments (much like the Jewish believers did). But this struggle is also why I love biblical theology! Unlike systematic theology, biblical theology asks us to walk through the revelation of God step by step with the historical forefathers of the faith. It not only broadens our perspective from modern-day Christian to first-created man and the first Israelites called out of the world, but it also shows us that God’s plan of redemption, while culminated in the coming of Christ, started before our existence. Before we existed, God was working in amazing ways, calling on real people, and revealing himself intentionally. When we divorce topics from the narrative of God’s revelation it is easy to miss the important ways in which God chose to reveal the doctrines we cherish today. When we look at doctrines (like the doctrine of election) systematically, we often walk away with sound definitions and answers to our questions, which is a great thing! However, from there, if we were to examine these doctrines in the stories recorded for us in Scripture, we will walk away with a greater appreciation for God and what he has accomplished in all of time and in all types of situations. As a student studying the Bible full-time, I wrote a lot of papers on topics in theology. But to date, the hardest and most rewarding paper I ever wrote was a biblical theology on the doctrine of election, centered on the exegesis of a parable in Matthew about the marriage supper of the lamb. Talk about intimidating! I spent hours upon hours in the library, piling up every book I could get my hands on--from Genesis to Revelation. After all of my studies, when it came time to write my paper, I had trouble cutting my paper down to twelve pages from over twenty! I could not believe how much Scripture talked about election and the different ways words like “called” and “chosen” were used. By the end of it all, I looked at my paper to turn in and thought to myself, “I will never look at ‘election’ the same way again.” And I was right. While I am not saying to write a twenty-page paper on a doctrine of Calvinism to turn in for a grade, I AM saying that taking our time to sit in the tension of Scripture more often will broaden our understanding of the doctrines of Calvinism we already love and believe. This, in turn, will help us engage with non-Calvinists in a more helpful way by addressing more parts of Scripture. As we go through the narrative of Scripture, we learn not to ignore the hard parts that do not fit our systematic theology, but rather we learn to read them in light of their context. And remember: God himself chose the perfect context to illustrate and demonstrate his attributes. So let’s not ignore the narratives he gave us! #3: Engage in conversations with people who disagree with you. While I did not understand soteriology completely (who does anyways?), I was bold in what I believed about salvation being completely in God’s hands and not my own. In some ways, I was admittedly too bold. Instead of being humble about my views, I chose to be angry with people who disagreed with me. Because there are a lot of people who blindly believe from the Arminian standpoint, I tended to believe that everyone who disagreed with me simply had not read their Bibles. I was wrong. I quickly realized that it was not a matter of ignorance for everyone, but that some people, genuinely, had thought about it, and had not come to the correct conclusions. (Now, I understand that the language I am speaking in may seem arrogant because I say things like “I am correct about this and people who disagree about this are wrong.” I will talk about why I speak like this in my final point.) It is important that we are being sharpened in our beliefs constantly, and sometimes God uses people who disagree with you to either rebuke your bad theology, or strengthen your good theology. When I first met my now husband, one of my biggest fears was that he was not a Calvinist. We both had a similar background of false teachings, but on this one issue we had to agree to disagree. He was the first non-Calvinist that I had met who actually knew what his Bible said about the issues at hand. I remember him bringing Hebrews 6 to my attention and me having to collect myself in trying to explain away a passage that I had prematurely ignored. While I accused Arminians of ignoring large texts in Scripture, I had not realized that I had been doing the same thing! As mentioned earlier, I could define TULIP and give the “article” version of an explanation, but talking to a real person with real convictions about it required a depth that I was not prepared to give. I was happy to stay in my ignorant, puffed-up knowledge bubble, but I was unknowingly being selfish. I was blessed with being introduced to this truth and rather than try to talk to others about it, I chose to be angry and dismissive. Rather than try to learn more about it--not just for myself, but also for the benefit of others--I chose to smugly stay at surface-level. Thankfully, this man meant a lot to me and God began to reveal to me through conversations with Jake that I was not as solid on these doctrines as I should have been--especially for how much I believed them to be true. While it was not all me and my convincing (wink wink) arguments that ultimately swayed him to agree with me, I am thankful looking back that we have gone on this journey together in testing our biases to the Word and continuing to grow in our understanding and belief in these doctrines. #4: Do not be afraid to stand firm. A lot of people will say that Calvinists are cold and mean. They will equate what you believe with false presuppositions they have about Calvinism that are really just over-simplified versions that do not account for what you know and love about the doctrines of grace. You may be accused of many things you know that you are not, but do not allow those false accusations to make you bitter or reconsider your views. Just like with many things in today’s day and age, people will arrogantly cling to their ideas of Calvinism without a clue. They will mock the truth about God and call it gross or evil. They will say blasphemous things in which they will be held accountable like “I could never worship a God like yours.” And I am sadly talking about Christians. They refuse to accept the truth. We live in a society today in which truth is relative to the individual, so saying things like “I believe this, and you are wrong,” is seen as arrogant. But I want to explain to you why this is not so. What God’s Word says is truth. While there may be different interpretations of Scripture, not every interpretation is correct. When we read Scripture, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, using sound interpretive and hermeneutic principles, our goal is to come to the most accurate conclusions possible on what God’s Word is telling us. The Bible is understandable, clear, and 100% true in its contents. When we gain understanding and knowledge from the Word of God by using the correct means, what we have is truth. I believe in the doctrines of grace because I believe they are TRUE. This means that I believe that Arminianism is a false teaching that does not represent the God of Scripture, the Gospel preached in Scripture, and the state of fallen humanity as explained in Scripture. I am not arrogant for saying these things because my authority is not my own. However, I am indignant about these things because just like any false teaching, they have the potential for Satan to deceive. The difference in understanding God’s complete sovereignty in salvation was the difference in me believing the true Gospel. While I understand that not every person is like me, I know that I am not the only one Satan deceives with whisperings that we are not good enough for the Gospel to save us. I understand that the more reasonable Arminians do not say that salvation is explicitly contingent on our innate goodness (and the purpose of this article in particular is not about going into detail about the subtle dangers of Arminianism), but the problem, while subtle, is big enough to distort the Gospel we have been entrusted with. While it may be an unpopular opinion these days, it is important that we do not downplay our major disagreements for the sake of “unity.” There are many things we can agree to disagree about, and while this may not be an issue of orthodoxy necessarily, it is a HUGE deal. How we interpret these subtle doctrines dictates how we preach the Gospel, how we view our sin, and how we view our ability to save ourselves. For a believer who knows his or her own weaknesses, this makes all the difference in the world. So don’t be afraid to stand firm in what you believe about the doctrines of grace. You can be humble in knowing that your knowledge of these things does not come from you while still being confident enough to stand up for God’s truth found in Scripture. In a final note, my husband had an important point of observation from the perspective of someone newly embracing the soteriology of the reformed. So, in light of his wisdom, I wanted to dedicate this last point to his credit. #5: Embrace the wonder and mystery of Calvinism. One of the common misconceptions about Calvinists is that we have our soteriology down pat and that there is absolutely no room for awe and wonder at the mystery of salvation. While I know this is untrue of many (myself specifically), I think it is important that we make more of an effort to show others that while we believe in a system, we also believe that there is no way to put our God in a box! A pitfall we often unknowingly fall into is trying to define the mysterious nature of salvation. We try to use what Scripture explicitly says to argue in areas where Scripture is silent (i.e. the EXACT order of salvation, what the mystery of God’s will entails). Sometimes it can be interesting to attempt to wrap our minds around these difficult doctrines, but let’s not allow our attempts to distract from what we KNOW Scripture says. Admit when you know something is true but cannot adequately explain it. Marvel in that. Enjoy the infinite God we serve with awe and wonder. I think we will be doing that for a while so we should get used to it, eh? Thanks for musing with me. Until next time y'all.
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