The Reformation Study Bible

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Calvinism and Evangelism

Somebody just left a comment on this blog, but now I can't find it, asking for articles about Calvinism and whether or not it supports evangelism.

First, I recommend reading this article by Mafia don, Rhett Kelley. I would not dare to speak for Calvinists everywhere, but none that I know of would support this sort of "evangelism." So, really, first you must define what you're talking about. Another great piece about whether or not Calvinism kills evangelism is found here.

Next, I'd recommend reading anything written about the Gospel by any Calvinist. (Now, I'll grant you that there are Hyper-Calvinists who don't believe in evangelizing the lost, but that is not the run-of-the-mill, 5-point position at all.)

Next, short biographical sketches of great evangelists like Charles Spurgeon and George Whitefield would show you how Calvinism works out practically in our preaching. Also, any fair history of the Southern Baptists would show you that many of its founders, fervent evangelists all, were Calvinists.

Last, I just Googled "Calvinism and Evangelism" and was greeted with a plethora of articles. You might try that.

Catholic Church Admits to Centuries of Fraud and Deception (Sort of)

This link is to a story that ran a while back as a news item at SermonAudio.com.

The story is that there's this young girl, who partook of her first Mass as a good Catholic youth. Only, she's got this digestive problem which makes it impossible for her to digest wheat. Apparently, the local priest accomodated her by using a barley wafer, rather than the normal wheat-based version; and now higher-ups in the Catholic Church have "invalidated" her communion. You see, the wafer must be made in a precise, traditional way, or the whole deal is off.

This item garnered about five dozen comments. As always at SermonAudio, the comments were mostly juvenile, or else just outrageously stupid. This point was completely missed:

The story represents an admission by all parties that the Catholic Church is a big lie.

Hold on. Don't freak out: I'll explain how.

Even Catholic defenders and apologists have pointed out the truth that the Roman Catholic Church stands or falls with the Mass. If the Mass is what they say it is, then this necessarily validates Rome as the one, true Church on earth. If the Mass is not what they say it is, then everything else about her is also indefensible and false.

And let's be clear: what they say it is, is this. They say that during the Mass, the elements of bread and wine actually, physically, are transformed into the literal, physical flesh and blood of the man Jesus Christ. As documented in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, multitudes of Christians lost their lives in the Reformation period for refusing to confess that the bread actually becomes the Body. They said the bread remains bread, and this condemned them to death.

Now, in the news story in question, both parties (the girl's family and the Roman Church officials) have unwittingly admitted that there is no transformation of the substance of the bread. All sides have tacitly agreed that the bread remains merely bread.

If the wafer becomes flesh, then why worry what the wafer was baked out of?

During the Mass, the tiny cake of wheat ceases to be wheat and becomes human flesh, right?

So why would the family worry that the Mass would harm their daughter due to her inability to digest wheat?

Why would the first priest agree with that and have a wafer made of barley?

Why would the Church that has invalidated her First Communion not say, "Hey, just have faith and go ahead and partake. By the time she eats it, it's not wheat anymore anyway?"

(Which they are not saying, by the way. If she does eat, and then die, well then you can add that Wrongful Death lawsuit to the hundreds of sexual misconduct suits. Got to CYA.)

By admitting that the Mass would harm the girl's systems, they've all admitted that the bread remains bread. Thus, they've inadvertently admitted what we've all known all along: the Mass is a fiction. And thus, so is the Church that administers it.

Is Your Evangelism God Centered?

Postmillenialists may disagree with the last sentence in this video clip, but I believe the main thrust of what the gentleman says is on target.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Making Myself Irrelevant

I'm sick to death of the use of the word "relevant" in relation to Christian preaching. Either a church uses it to advertise ("Look how relevant we are!"), or a pastor is castigated with it ("His sermons aren't very relevant.")

In these usages, I surmise that "relevant" means something like: You can begin to use this stuff and put it in practice immediately. It's not all airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky preaching.

Well, I'm sick of it. I'm especially sick of the fact that the preachers who are loudest about their relevance seem to be the ones of the Emergent stripe, who have almost totally left off the systematic preaching of the Scriptures, in favor of topical sermonettes on how-to instructions that would fit perfectly well on an episode of Oprah.

When greater "relevance" is sought in preaching, one or more of the following may really be going on:

1. The preacher is so boring that it becomes impossible to grasp the fulness of his message, leaving the hearer with disjointed bits and pieces that cease to function together as a consistent truth. The boring preacher is another thing I'm sick of, but that's fodder for another post. It's tough to retain anything when you're nodding off.

2. The preacher has abandoned the Word in favor of trying to be relevant. (It's amazing how this works, but the one who chases "relevance" in his preaching is the one who has left behind the very thing that makes his preaching useful at all.) He has lots of good jokes and interesting stories, and he has developed his personal preaching style to an art form. He's interesting, but delivers nothing real.

3. The preacher has done a poor job of showing how the truths of the Word of God ought to effect his flock. Yes, pastor, this is part of your job description. You err if you simply exposit the Word, even faithfully, and fail to help your people see the application. Even doctrines like the Trinity and the Incarnation (and maybe especially ones like that) need to be presented in a way that elicits a change in your hearers. That's right: I said the Incarnation ought to have an observable effect on people who believe it. Shame on you if you leave the weighty doctrines of the Word under a glass case, behind a velvet rope. Encourage the people to reach out and touch it and grapple with it. It won't break.

4. Either the pastor or his congregation, or both, have lost sight of the power of the Word of God to effect immediate change with respect to our deepest need. What could be more relevant than eternal life? Than deliverance from hell? Than being transformed into the image of Christ? Than conquering the remaining motions of defeated sin? Pity the Christian who believes he's so advanced that the hearing of these things is no longer relevant in his mind.

5. The congregation is lazy. It can't maintain a train of thought for longer than a commercial break. It can't be bothered to really think anymore.

6. The congregation equates the presence of the Holy Spirit with their breaking out in goose-bumps. It's become so experience-oriented that it can no longer believe that the central act of Christian worship is the attentive, faith-filled hearing of the Word of God.

7. The congregation has to be entertained. This is just as much a tragedy as the boring pastor in #1 above. Both are evils to be despised in the churches. As a preacher, I refuse to try and compete with your satellite television, your Ipod, or your X-box. Stay at home if you're addicted to those things, and call upon them in the day of Judgment.

8. The congregation wants to attach Christ to their old lives; they don't want Christ to put their old lives to complete, utter, irretrievable death. Give me some tips about how to raise my kids. Help me be a better business man. Give my family some moral guidance. But don't talk to me about dying with Jesus, about what real repentance is, or why I might need to do it.

9. The congregation has developed itching ears, and can't stomach the preaching of doctrines which challenge the traditional teaching they've always received. All this talk about fallen man's depravity and moral inability to turn to God in faith...well, Preacher, that ain't they way I always heard it. God loves us enough to let us choose to go to hell if we want, didn't you know, Preacher?

I could mention more if I really sat and thought about it. I'm sure you could too. Give me Revival, not Relevance.

Calvin on Suppressing Predestination

"For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which, as nothing is omitted that is both necessary and useful to know, so nothing is taught but what is expedient to know. Therefore we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their God or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what is in any way profitable to suppress." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.21.3

Calvinism maintains True Evangelism

As I was browsing the book, By His Grace and For His Glory, I came across a quote that I really like and thought it was worthy to be quoted. Many men want to say that Calvinism kills Evangelism or that Evangelical Calvinism is an oxymoron. This quote speaks the opposite:

Why is Calvinism the only system that can maintain true evangelism without surrendering theological, biblical, and philosophical consistency? Two reasons suffice for an answer. One, the glory of God is the goal of Calvinism, and they system refuses to surrender to any truth that heightens awe and and reverence for His holiness. Two, for the Calvinist, the message of the gospel is the only method of evangelism. ~Tom Nettles, By His Grace and For His Glory

As I have been studying evangelism this semester to write my senior paper, I have come to the conclusion that the system known as calvinism, is the only system that truly maintains biblical evangelism. For these doctrines of grace do not cater to man's felt needs, but to man's greatest need. These doctrines do not enploy wordly principles to present its message, but are grounded in biblical theology. That is why I believe as Nettles does, that Calvinism maintains true evangelism.