Very True Aritcle

I find this to be a very strange statement. Guess who posts the most on the BB Missions/Witnessing/Evangelism forum? Little old me, a nasty Fundamentalist. Guess who talked about witnessing to Buddhists on the recent Buddhism thread? Yep, me again. Guess who just witnessed today to the guy who brought the water bottles for our church water machine, and gave him a Japanese NT and invited him to church? Yep, little old me.

Fundamentalists regularly emphasize getting out in the world to reach people for Christ. Do you witness for Christ regularly? I certainly hope so. But please don't criticize us Fundamentalists in the area of seeking to reach people for Christ until you know more about us.

 

I have actually read your grandfather's works, to a small degree, against Calvinism. While it is obvious he disagreed with the doctrine, I did not pick up a disdain against his Calvinistic brethren. A mark of all true Christians, as we both know, is to love our brother. I took a step away from these boards for a season because this so often seems to be left off in the debates. We must remember we are brethren, and not bite and devour one another.

I think some may have been offended at your writings in that John R. Rice was your grandfather. Perhaps that felt threatened by their perception of the authority of that. I think they missed your heart in seeking to bring honor to him as a faithful grandson.

I have found among my pastor friends who are IFB pastors, some over very large congregations, a great respect for Spurgeon. In fact, one aged pastor said to me, "I know he was a Calvinist, but he was so evangelisitic!" hahaha! What it represented to me was a misperception regarding doctrine, likely because of the behavior of some calvinists.

Good talking with you.

 

Pyle, Hugh F. Skimpy Skirts and Hippie Hair. Murfreesboro, Tenn: Sword of the Lord Pub, 1972.

 

One must be careful about "reading into" the old Baptist confessions. To get an understanding of what the Baptists meant by "elders", for example, one must rely on more than a couple of words in their confessions. Their understanding, as expressed in the works of William Rider, Benjamin Keach, Hercules Collins et al., is quite different from the common contemporary Reformed Baptist concepts of plurality of elders, ruling elders, aversion to the term "pastor", etc.

 

I think you would have to do a huge amount of deleting, and "reading into" the 1st and 2nd London Baptist Confessions of Faith (1646 and 1689 respectively), to think that they don't stand for the Reformed doctrines as summed up in the so-called "Five Solas", that salvation is:

For the Glory of God alone
Found in the Bible alone
By Christ alone
By Grace alone
Through Faith alone


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For example, Article 22 of the 1646 Confession:

FAITH is the gift of God, wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God; by which faith they come to know and believe the truth of the Scriptures, and the excellency of them above all other writings, and all things in the world, as they hold forth the glory of God in His attributes, the excellency of Christ in His nature and offices, and of the power and fulness of the Spirit in its [His] workings and operations; and so are enabled to cast their souls upon His truth thus believed.
Eph.2:8; John 6:29, 4:10; Phil.1:29; Gal.5:22; John 17:17; Heb.4:11,12; John 6:63.


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And paragraph 3 of Chapter 3 of the 1689:

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ,[7] to the praise of His glorious grace;[8] others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice.[9]
7. I Tim. 5:21; Matt. 25:34
8. Eph. 1:5-6
9. Rom. 9:22-23; Jude 1:4


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I am not sure your words about eldership are right. Certainly I have yet to come across a Reformed Baptist with an aversion to the term "pastor". (I have heard a few people, from a variety of churches - not just Reformed Baptists - who disagree with the use of the word "Pastor" as a title before a man's name, but that is not the same as having an aversion to the term itself). Also, there were Baptist churches way back in the 17th century with more than one elder, including Bedford, Luton, Farringdon, St. Alban’s, Portsmouth, Bessel’s Green, Ashford, Glazier’s Hall, Devonshire Square, Mile End Green, Norwich, Hooknorton, Bridgewater, and Bristol, and probably at other places.

 

Umm...what David Lamb said... :laugh:

 

Granddad always opposed the doctine, never the man. And his definition of hyper-calvinism was Calvinism that opposed evangelism in one way or another. I know that many Calvinists are very evangelistic. My best friend from college, a 5-pointer, supports us, has boxes of Japanese tracts sent to us, and has a number of evangelistic letter-writing projects that he does.

I'm with you, brother. I seldom post in these debate threads anymore unless I feel I can be a blessing or provide information.

Great! You do get it! I believe that "Honor your father and mother" in Jewish thinking (and thus the Bible) extends to the grandparents, too. One example is the case of the descendents of Jonadab in the OT, living in tents and rejecting wine. This is why I try to honor my grandfather on the BB.

Well said. :thumbs:

 

And there you have it! :thumbs:

 

Correct, not aversion, but often "Pastor" is restricted to those analogous to Presbyterian teaching elders. For many Reformed Baptists, a plurality of elders refers not merely to large churches' necessity of multiple pastors, as Cramp describes in Baptist History [see bolded text below], but to a polity similar to Presbyterianism, in that a group of elders governs the church. The seventeenth-century confessional use of the phrase "bishops or elders" did not mean the modern "plurality of elders" system mandated in many Reformed Baptists today.

Cramp's Baptist History:
"There was a plurality of elders in many of the churches. As numbers increased, they judged it conducive to profit to increase the number of teachers, and thus avoid the inconvenience and loss which must accrue from placing a large church under the care of a single pastor. Probably there were not more than a hundred and fifty churches in England during this period, and many of them were small. But there were two or more pastors at Bedford, at Luton, at Farringdon, at St. Alban’s, at Portsmouth, at Bessel’s Green, at Ashford [four]; at Glazier’s Hall, Devonshire Square, and Mile End Green, London; at Norwich, at Hooknorton, at Bridgewater, at Bristol, and doubtless at other places. This shows a very commendable care for the spiritual interests of the Church."