My thoughts on salvation

Well, as a pastor I believe he should let his congregation know that he's a Calvinist. I wonder how many of your congregation would leave? I know I would.

I'm sorry if that sounds "cold", but if people don't know exactly what their pastor truly believes, then I think he's being deceptive. I know my church is very thorough in finding out what a new prospective pastor believes. We're an IFB church, and definitely NOT Calvinist. There are people who have openly discussed this in adult SS classes, and it is completely ridiculous to our congregation.

As I said somewhere before, I've been in Baptist churches since I was 3 years old, been saved since age 11, and have NEVER heard of a Calvinist Baptist. I must have been living in a shell I guess.

 

The Bible is pretty clear that by one man sin entered the world - Adam, and by one man forgiveness - Jesus Christ. So in our natural state none of us have a choice because we are all of Adam.

 

I always thought the church was the property of God. I do not see the Christian theme in "Thats what the pastor believes if you have a problem with that then you are welcome to leave." I would rather think a Christian church would be of the theme. "Let us look in the scripture and pray together on this."

 

LOL! Your entire post is priceless Tom.Thanks.

...Still waiting for that testimony.

 

Gotteshalt

Well aside from the Bible passages I assigned you to read?

Augustine,Gotteshalk,Bradwardine,Wycliffe...shall I go on?

 

Absolutely my testimony. I struggled for 20 years or more to avoid becoming a Christian. Praise God for Irresistible Grace!

Francis Thompson had the same experience.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hound-of-heaven/

Steve

 

Maybe this is another one of those differences between the situation in the USA and that here in the UK, but here the situation where a church appoints a pastor without knowing his theological standpoint, or a pastor accepts a call to a church when he doesn't agree with that church's statement of faith, is unusual in the extreme.

I fully agree with that part of your post where you say that prospective pastors should be open about their beliefs, but I am just wondering why you seem to have assumed that Ann's "hubby" has a church that doesn't already know of his reformed/Calvinist/Doctrines of Grace beliefs. You may not have meant it like this, but it seemed to me that you were treating such beliefs as if they were some kind of notifiable disease.

Some Baptist churches have calvinistic statements of faith. For example, there's the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London (where Spurgeon was pastor), Trinity Baptist Church, Montville, New Jersey (Pastor was, and maybe still is, Al Martin), and many others. Like you, I have never heard of a Calvinist Baptist, if by that you mean a church that calls itself something such as "Anytown Calvinist Baptist Church". But there are plenty that have "Reformed Baptist" or, like my church, "Grace Baptist" in their church name, and those that do are 99% certain to have a calvinistic statement of faith. You can find a directory of such church, by no means complete, to judge by the comparitively few listed in England, at: http://www.reformedreader.org/rbchurches.htm Such churches would expect their pastor to be a Calvinist.

 

Then your a universalist. Personally I think thats natural. most people are kind hearted that way. However some people go to Hell.....& all truly deserve it thru the sin of Adam. So, if God in His unbelievable mercy had not chosen some, then heaven would have none.

 

By ways only God knows. The better question is, "Do we trust God to make the best (and only) choice? Or, do we think that we could do a better job than God?

Is it not rebellion, the same sin that we're born with, to think that God is not capable of making a choice of this nature?

 

Ah, einie, menie, myney, mo......:wavey:

 

My question to you is why wouldnt you allow god to choose?

 

The Calvinist system of theology can not be inclusive of a free will. The only man, according to Calvinsim, to have a true free will was Adam. As decendents of Adam our will is tainted to such an extent that it is impossible for it to be expressed freely. Since Calvin dispenses with freedom of will so does he dispense with freedom of Choice. There is no choice on the part of the elect. God elects them and thus it is done. The elected person will then go on to do works of righteousness because they can not because they've made some sort of effort to do so. The decision of election and promotion of righteousness only happens from God. And in a sense God's soverniegnty supersedes human will and choice thus just as the non elect are automatons of evil and sin so are the elect automatons for righteousness.

 

There you go, with that question again.
You must have missed my post earlier.

Here is the answer, again.........
It is true, that only the elect, will get saved.
And it is true, that God only elected certain people.

But what Calvinists reject, is that fact that God saw the future of every single individual that will ever be born and “He saw” deep into their heart and was able to determine, every individual that was truly going to trust Christ and get saved and he elected those individuals........
Romans 8:29
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

and

1 Peter 1:2
“Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.”
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Election, is not unconditional.