When I refer to Piper in these upcoming posts, I am citing “What We Believe about the Five Points of Calvinism”, a position paper of the pastoral staff of Bethlehem Baptist Church, written by John Piper, and available from Piper’s website.

Outside of this treatise, my arguments will come from two sources: Scripture, and my own human reasoning. There are two things to keep in mind here:

1. I hold Scripture to be infallible in its original writings. This means that our modern translations could be slightly off on some wordings, but I believe that God has been faithful to preserve the root meaning of the text for our use.

   However, this also means that I believe nit-picking at words and such—while it can be tremendously helpful at times—is de facto a risky enterprise, and could lead us to reading a lot into a text that was never intended to be there. I have witnessed very smart, educated, well-intentioned readers and scholars mis-interpret literature (as confirmed by the authors themselves) in the past, so I understand the danger.

   That is to say, I heartily accept that seeking clarification in the original languages of scripture is both beneficial, and indeed, necessary in many cases, but I also caution scholars that one of the marks of a false teacher that Paul laid out to Timothy is “He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.” (1 Timothy 6:4b-5, NIV)

2. I understand myself to be human. This means that both my interpretation of said infallible Scriptures, and my own human reasoning should be examined in light of the Scriptures. I pray that I listen to the Holy Spirit well enough to properly see God through these two mediums, but I dare not consider myself infallible. I will state what I state as it if were fact, because I in all sincerity believe it to be so, but I also accept that I have made mistakes in the past (see my previous blog entries if you want proof of my fallibility!) and that I will make mistakes in the future.

   By this same reasoning, when I question Piper (or Calvinists in general) I do not intend to make him out to be evil nor purposely deceptive, (for I am sure that he believes he is faithfully perceiving the truth of God) but rather assert that he, too, is human and therefore inherently fallible.

Finally, I must also state that this doctrinal disagreement seems pointless to waste too much time on. Some of the most heated arguments occur between two side who will both categorically state that salvation is by grace alone through faith. While it may have further theological impact farther on down the road, if you are reading this (or interested in the debate) out of curiosity of whether or not you’re actually “saved”, simply ask yourself this:

Do you believe that Christ was the Son of God who died for the forgiveness of sins, and have you trusted that act to be the sole reason for your salvation?

If you’ve answered “yes,” both sides would probably agree that you’re saved. I certainly do.

Now, if that satisfies you, I would advise that you move along to other more pressing concerns in your mind rather than blindly plunging ahead into this endless circle of debate. If God ever lays it on your heart to revisit this issue, or if you’re up for a lot of smart people arguing against each other about where that faith came from, I suppose you could read on. I don’t want to say that the question isn’t a valid one, but I do want to say that there are much better things you could be thinking about, and much more useful ways you could be growing in your Christian walk.

In the question of Calvinism, ignorance is bliss, and I would argue that it’s not always necessarily a detrimental type of bliss.

So I got the results to my greek test…and lo and behold, I passed! Suprisingly, I did well enough that supposedly they put me in the top tier class of NT Exegesis I. Praise the Lord, this means 1 less class to take, at a savings of about $2400!

The temptation is to spend that money on a new MacBook Pro, right? Unfortunately, it can’t really work that way. Since I didn’t really earn anything, I won’t see a check for $2400, and that money that would have otherwise-been-spent will go to pay for sensible things like rent and food and other tuition.

I am, however, considering a MacBook yet again. The specs are good, the battery life good, noise—good, size: perfect. Unfortunately, I’d probably have to get parallels and run XP on it as well so I can use BibleWorks 7. Has anyone out there run XP in Parallels (or VMWare Fusion) on a Macbook (NOT a MacBook Pro) that could give me any word on performance?

Or, better yet, anyone want to buy me a MacBook Pro?

Update: It seems that Accordance Bible Software for OS X is pretty sweet, and comparable in price (at least for what I’ll be using it for) to BibleWorks. Maybe, just maybe, I won’t need windows after all…

I figure that I’ll certainly be behind some of my classmates entering school this fall, since I have no really formal Biblical training. (Unless you count a high school sunday school class and 18 years of listening to sermons)

So I decided that now was as good a time as any to start getting educated, and since I’ve had a few discussions about Calvinism/Arminianism in the past, I decided to start by reading John Piper’s position paper on the issue. If you aren’t familiar with the topic, [click here for a primer].

• Total depravity
• Unconditional Election
• Limited Atonement
• Irresistable grace
• Perseverance of the saints

These five points make up the most notorious bit of Calvinism, and are what people generally assume you to believe these days if you call yourself a Calvinist. This is not the whole entirety of what Calvin taught, but certainly the five points that have caused the biggest controversy, and the five that are in contrast to Arminianism.

Now, I am no expert on Arminianism. In fact, I’ve never read Remonstrances (although I hope to do it soon) and I don’t claim to be an Arminianist, because I’d hate to align myself with something that I don’t even know what it says. That being said, I’ve got some disagreements with Calvinism. I’ll be posting my way through the five points—please feel free to comment, and point out my logical fallacies. Please do not throw lots of scholarly references and high-faluting mumbo-jumbo at me, because I’m a simple guy, and I could care less what Saint whoever said 800 years ago unless it can be simply shown to be scriptural—and if it’s scriptural, just point at it in the Bible, and maybe comment that the idea started with said Saint holy-guy so he doesn’t come out of the grave and sue you for stealing his intellectual property.

I’ve got little respect for scholarship for scholarship’s sake alone: if the idea has merit, it shouldn’t have to stand solely on the reputation of some famous guy.

Such an innocuous title, sounds so easy, right? After all, this is standard content, so most “well-informed” Christians should be able to pass it, no problem-o. (Or so I thought)

The SBCT is something Trinity Evangelical Divinity School does to ensure that incoming Divinity students are up-to-speed enough on the Bible to not flounder their way through their first couple years. The idea: wonderful. The execution: maybe a little sketchy.

In case you’re an incoming Divinity Student at TEDS studying for your SBCT, and want some advice: read the Bible a lot. There’s really no way to cram for this test unless someone gives you all the questions, and I’m not going to do that. The content test focuses not on big, important things, as you might expect, but less-crucial minutiae. For example, you might be expected to know:

What region is [some random city] in?
What is the reationship between [some guy] and [some other guy]?
In what book is [some bible verse] written?
How would you describe [some OT king]?
and, my favorite,
What city/region is [some minor character] from?

Unfortunately, if you’re not good with names, locations, and marginal characters, this test could be a bugger. Thankfully, it’s all multiple-choice, and you get two attempts. While the test is randomly-chosen questions, you do get a bit of overlap, so if you fail the first time, hopefully you’ll know what gaps you have in your Biblical Content Knowledge.

Your studying philosophy should not be “what is crucial to life and doctrine?”, but “where was this guy from? where did this happen? who was he related to? what was his occupation?” I suppose at the end of the day it will certainly weed out anyone who’s not very familiar with the Bible, but unfortunately could weed out a whole lot of people who don’t have a Christian School eduction or a mind for random (often useless) facts.

If you’re going to take this test: good luck! At the worst, you have to end up paying about $600/credit hours for NT and/or OT review courses. $1800 because you didn’t know that one guy was a tentmaker? Yikes!

This all started a couple years ago for a few reasons:

1: There were a lot of people blogging with some seriously messed up ideas
2: I wanted to throw my 2 cents into the blogosphere
3: I wanted my 3 cents to be worth reading

Jeremiah 20:9 says “But if I say I will not mention Him, or speak any more in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire, like a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in, indeed, I cannot.”

Sadly, while that verse still resonates in my heart, I have lost some of the passion that it once inspired. I’m sure this is due largely to two things: less time reading the Word, and less time memorizing it. As I begin seminary this fall, my priorities and my time will be taking a serious turn, and I wanted to make this blog a reflection of that—a peek at the world from one who wants to be like Jesus, and tries to let Him shape me, but who still fights daily against a sinful nature and doesn’t always win.

Initially, my thought was to scrap the entire old blog, posts, design, and all, and turn it into something that only brilliantly reflects the pure things that are part of a pastor-to-be’s life, but then I realized that such an action would be fake, deceptive, and proud. If you want to go back and read some of the proud and/or sinful things I’ve written, they will serve as a reminder that no one is essentially good, and no one will arrive at the point of perfection this side of paradise. Hopefully, God will also grant me the humility to honestly examine the doubts, fears, and failures that I face during these next 3-4 years.

Thanks Greg for tossing my own words back to me to help me realize what a jerk I can be. This is one thing I’ve been convicted of increasingly more and more as time goes on—I’m a typical, egocentric, selfish, opinionated, jerk of an American. (And usually, those tend to go together somewhat)

Obviously, I’m not the foremost expert on everyone and everything in the world. Certainly, I rant and rave about others’ faults a lot. Don’t worry, I try to keep from talking about people I know, but that doesn’t eliminate the fact that everyone out there is an actual person, and I probably could do a lot better than going around calling people stupid. (A fact so poignantly demonstrated with my last post).

For one who hopes to be a pastor someday (I moved to Chicago for seminary today), I’ve just oh-so-brilliantly demonstrated that God does not call just perfect people, and that everyone—especially me—needs a very large helping of Grace, and a lifetime of sanctification.

Lord, make me humble, and teach me to love as you do.