Have You Changed Your Mind

I was taught arminianism in college but I was learning calvinism from other sources simultaneously.
It was a real struggle for a while.
I had been raised believing arminian principles but then began to learn that I had been wrong about the time I started college.

As for how that had come about, I think the first thing was when I visited a friends church for a wednesday night Bible study and I actually saw the word "predestinate" in Romans 8. That was the first domino so to speak.

There were no problems caused immediately in our church but it did cause some disagreement with other churches.

 

==When I was saved I soon became an Arminian. However the more I studied the closer and closer to Calvinism I have gotten. Since I graduated from Seminary (2005) I have only become more convinced of the Biblical truth of Calvinism.

==Study, prayer.

==No. Off of this board, I rarely actually talk about particular atonement or election. Don't get me wrong anyone who talks to me for any length of time about these matters will quickly pick up on my beliefs. I don't hide them and if someone asks me about them I will gladly defend/explain them. However, off of this board, my focus tends to be wanting the church to get its act together and reach people for Christ. The Bible is very clear that we are to preach the Gospel. Churches need to stop worrying about the color of the carpet, choir robes, and fancy vans, and start being concerned with supporting missions and preaching the Gospel.

 

Like everybody else I started off Arminian. Finished Bible College in a very Arminian college in the Philippines, under very decidedly Arminian instructors, all inclined towards Clarence Larkin's dispensationalist views.
However, being naturally curious, I wondered often at the vehemence with which our instructors denounced Calvin, Calvinism, and Calvinists, most especially John Mc'Arthur.

So, I started listening to what John Mc'Arthur was preaching. One day I heard him preach on Romans 8:28-30, and latched on to the station for five consecutive days until he finished the series.

At the end of the series, I learned two things:

* God chooses;

* John Mc'Arthur did not hate the blood of Jesus Christ as we were told in Seminary.

Oh, a third one. John Mc'Arthur seemed to be preaching truth, and I seemed to be learning lies under instructors who probably swallowed the same lies under their instructors.

From then on, I was a limping, cross-eyed, quarter-baked Doctrine of Grace-er .

I believed God wanted to save mankind, but not all mankind wanted to be saved, and if somebody responded to the altar call, why, God chose that individual, because only the chosen will truly seek Christ.

At about this point I had been the "sent out" preacher to a mission church we started smack in the middle of a very depressed, drug infested, drunk infested, shantytown community behind what is the equivalent of the US congress in that Philippine city.

Sometimes I gave out altar calls especially when we had visiting preachers from other churches, most of the time I don't, and instead, every night just knelt down and asked the Lord's presence for His day, and for Him to take care of the filling of the church, as well as our finances, and lo and behold, almost every month somebody walked up to me and asked that a Bible study be started in their house, or their neighborhood, and in less than one year we became an organized, independent Baptist church with a starting membership of 80 adult souls.

As for finances ? I'd be happy to receive the promised support from the members of the "sending" church, yet, God in His love never emptied the coffers, and never let me go around with nothing in my wallet, and members ran to me for money help often.

Fast forward to the States.

In Maryland, we looked for an independent, fundamental, KJV-preferred, solemn music/songs, Baptist church, and couldn't find one for months, and finally found this strongly Calvinistic church.

I had two altercations with the pastor.

One over God electing definite people, not randomly from mankind, unto salvation. I believed man had a choice, but God is the one who opens the heart. Didn't go to church for over a whole two months and stayed home fuming at hardline Calvinism.

Eventually, I heard Mc'Arthur again, and Piper, and Boice, and started reading my Bible with my Bible college notes, versus what they were saying.

After ten Sundays, I was back in church.

Calvinist. Full Baked. Thankful to God that despite my sinful past (and you guys don't want to know what I've done in the past), He gave me the privilege to know Him, and to hope in Him with a lively hope.

Second altercation. Open communion.

Now, that one I coulnd't handle at that point, so we parted friends.

In due time, God led me to the Primitive Baptists.

And that's where I became a non-Calvinist Doctrine of Grace-er.

But that's not the OP's question.

Sorry for the long testimony.

Oh, yeah, by the way, our college president warned previously that if he hears any of his graduates became Calvinists, that he would strike out the name of that graduate from the roster.
Well, he now knows I am definitely in the Doctrine of Grace camp, with those 'Primitive Baptists who don't think smoking is a sin', so I guess my name ain't on the list no moh'. Hallelujah !!:godisgood:

 

1a. I won't touch the C/A thing anymore. I am tired of the hassle and endless unsolvable dispute.
1b. Speaking of eschatology, yes I have changed my views and am still in a state of flux. I am leaning towards mid-trib pre-mil but am not solid yet. There are still many things about which I have been trained (Larkinesque) which do not fit my recent studies.

2. The change came about by God's providence. Through a series of circumstances, I was exsposed to different view points and while some are clearly 'wresting of Scripture' there were some which have a ring of truth. These are they which I am still studying.

3. Yes. It did cause a problem. I submitted a thesis for my degree studies which was flatly opposed. I was even called into the school's directors office to discuss it at length. I won't go into the details but the subject of that paper is still causing a problem between views I still hold and the "official" position of my church and that school.

 

Wise man. :thumbs:

 

Glad you did not say, "Wise Guy"!:laugh:

 

Back around 1970, I borrowed a book from my pastor on Systematic Theology. It started with the existence of God and built on that. It was while reading that book that I was exposed to the Doctrines of Grace. I wasn't much of anything to that point, but bought the whole TULIP package. I was so enthusiastic about my discovery that people ran when they saw me coming.

In the late 1970s, my pastor preached on eschatology from a post-trib view. Several of us who had been taught only pre-trib confronted him. He held up his hands and said "guys, I won't argue about this. What I want you to do is find a clear, unequivocal scripture that is not subject to any other interpretation but pre-trib. Bring it back and we'll talk."

Couldn't find it. The clear, unequivocal scriptures were all post-trib.

So that's where I am right now. I'm looking at A-mil, since some folks I respect hold that view.

 

I was raised pre trib....but I have noticed that the same scripture twisters that believe arminianism tend to believe this as well, while most who learn the truth of Grace tend to become non dispensational and not pre trib.
NOt sure about all that yet... but it makes me wonder.
We have both pre and post in our church and I am sure it would not cause a stir either way.

 

Is the constant attacks on views held other than yours really all that necessary? "Scripture twisters"? Come on already...

 

Not all that disagree with me are scripture twisters.
Also, nothing was directed at your personally.
Are you saying you ARE a scripture twister?
It was a general statement and the OP specifically asked that this not become a debate.

So, as to the OP, have you, webdog always been of the free will persuasion or were you any different growing up?

 

Well, I'm not a calvinist and I am pre-trib, so yes, I did take that personally.

I have mentioned before here on the BB that I was a 24 hour calvinist. I was almost indoctrinated into it fully. An elder friend of mine is a calvinist, and I respect his exegesis of Scripture. After MUCH prayer and Scripture study trying to debunk the non calvinist way, TULIP would never sit right in my soul.

 

Well, it was not meant for you or any particular person, I am sorry if it looked like that.

Web, how things sits with us it no way to determine the correctness of a belief.
It didn't set right with me either at first, for a long time actually.
But it is right either way.
It is right because it is what the Bible teaches.

 

Like most believers, without studying either Arminianism or Calvinism, I was an Arminian by default.

The first time I encountered Calvinism I fought it. But over the years with more reading and studying of the Scriptures, I have fully embraced Calvinism.

J.I. Packer, John MacArthur, John Piper and RC Sproul all proved instrumental in my embracing of Calvinism and Reformed Theology.

 

As a Spirit indwelt believer...I'll have to disagree. There is nothing to gain for the "old man" within either way.

 

Common point.

Everyone started off "arminian (non calvinist" once saved.

Everyone "fought" calvinism. Why? What is gained, and what is there to fight?

Everyone caved in.

Hmmm.....

 

Pre-trib is attractive on many levels. Not only does it let us off the hook as soon as the going gets tough, finding pre-trib in the Bible is like unravelling a mystery. The pre-trib message isn't clear at all from scripture, so it makes you feel like a master of the Bible if you can interweave all the clues to make them come out to mean pre-trib.

IMO, it's the same thing with kingdom salvation. You have to really get complicated with scripture to make it work, and that makes you feel like you've got a special "inside view" of scripture that only the most brainy/spiritual people can grasp.

The one emotional hole in pre-trib is that one must wonder why God allowed Paul to be stoned and left for dead, Peter to get crucified upside-down, and countless saints to suffer horrible torture and death -- only to let some of the lamest Christians (myself included) off the hook when things get rough. That doesn't make for much of a testimony to those who are left, either, now does it? "Wow, they had such great faith, that God let them go AWOL!"

 

I don't know, 1 and 2 Thess. both seem pretty clear to me!

 

Am I supposed to be surprised?

"Here's how you know the Day of the Lord has not yet come. The man of sin must be revealed first, and you all know he hasn't yet been revealed. Of course, it makes absoltely no sense that I tell you this, since you'll have been raptured 3 1/2 years before he's revealed anyway, but I figure, what the heck?"

 

That is my story. If others had the same experience, then we share something in common.