Tag: Calvinism

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars: Chapter 7

Are we eternally secure? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The interesting fact about this question is everyone regardless thinks we should live the same way.

Christians have nearly always affirmed that it is necessary for an individual who has become a Christian to persist in faith over the remainder of that person’s life in order to attain final salvation. It is not enough to have had “faith,” however we might define pistis, but then to cease.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 3134-3136). Kindle Edition.

So you have someone who says they were a Christian and then lost their faith.

Calvinists: They were never really a Christian to begin with.

Arminians: They lost their salvation.

Both sides think you’re lost either way. Both sides also are going to be saying that if you’re a faithful Christian, you will live faithfully. That’s why I really think the question here comes down to trust and what is the basis of trust and both sides should say grace, and I suspect both sides majority would say grace.

Something interesting reading Bates is that this is where he does say the path takes a more individualistic turn, and that really makes sense. Bates does not contend that the whole community is likely to fall away. Instead, it will be some within that community who will fall.

Really, this is one chapter where there wasn’t much new that you won’t hear elsewhere in my opinion. I like Bates’s work, but when I personally gave him my final thoughts, I did say there is one big problem I had in this chapter. It is not a content problem, but a pastoral one.

If you tell people that you think they can lose salvation, and I am not disputing that, you will inevitably have readers who are concerned that they have done that. I have talked to several people who had been convinced that they had committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I think about people who are in Celebrate Recovery and try to be Christians but are struggling with issues of addiction. What about a teenage boy who is struggling with masturbation and/or pornography?

Granted, realizing that they could be cut off could get them to shape up, but also they need to know where the grace of God is present in their lives. How is God with them in the midst of their struggle? Does the man who has fallen into the trap of watching pornography again need to fear he has also disappointed God?

Bates’s book is commendable on many levels, but this is one area of the book where a pastoral perspective was definitely needed. If anything, I think Bates should actually write a whole book on this topic. There should be a book on practically living allegiance, dealing with setbacks, wrestling with moral issues, and learning how to accept grace and forgiveness in your own life. After all, these questions of salvation should not just be academic endeavors, but lived ones as well.

Next time, we’ll look again at the order of salvation.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars: Chapter 6 Part 6

Does regeneration come first? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Years ago, I remember thinking that something about Calvinism seemed odd to me. It looks as if God in the system regenerates someone, and then at that point that person repents. That seemed out of order. Looking at Bates’s work, I see he has the same concern.

Bates finds the evidence for the idea of regeneration coming first lacking. He starts with Grudem who goes to John 3:5 stating that one must be born of the water and of the spirit. Like Bates, I am unclear how this addresses the point. It says nothing about regeneration at all nor does it mention faith.

Next is John 6:44 and 65. These state that no one can come to the Father unless they are drawn to Him. An Arminian could say the exact same thing. There is nothing saying if the drawing is prior to faith or if it is simultaneous with it.

Bates then says that:

Scripture and early Christianity consistently describe humans as having sufficient free agency to respond to the gospel. As Alistair McGrath puts it, “The pre-Augustinian theological tradition is practically of one voice in asserting the freedom of the human will.”  Libertarian free will was everywhere presupposed in the early church prior to Augustine’s development of monergistic compatibilism in the fifth century AD.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 2991-2995). Kindle Edition.

This could very well be, but at this point, I would like to have seen some citations of the Fathers. That being said, McGrath is a serious scholar and I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In Colossians 2:13 we are said to be made alive in Christ. Bates will deal with this later on when he gets to the idea of imputed righteousness. At this point, order is not talked about. What is being said is that if we are in Christ, we are made alive. As Jesus said “Because I live, you shall live also.” (John 14:19)

Overall, Bates says none of the regeneration texts say anything about a pre-faith conversion.

As for the idea of the will being bound, Bates says that a monergistic idea is not presented in church history until Augustine. There seems to be an accepted idea of freedom of the will. I think he brings up a good point here in that we should always make sure we are not reading a theological system back into the text that could be foreign to the text.

Unfortunately, this is difficult for all of us because as soon as we come to a passage like 1 Thess. 4:17, we read into it debates we have today about the idea of a rapture instead of asking first “Were the first century Christians asking about this?” We read a text like Genesis 1 expecting it to tell us how old the Earth is without asking “Did the Jewish readers think that was the purpose of the text?” It’s always good to try to put yourself into the shoes of the audience.

We move on to chapter 7 and eternal security next.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars: Chapter 6 Part 5

So what about free will and sovereignty? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My principles on how this works out are pretty simple.

God is sovereign.
Man has free will.

“Okay. So how do you work those out?”

Don’t know. Don’t care. I just know both of them are taught in Scripture and on a practical basis, it makes no difference. Everyone lives as if they did have free will. All Christians agree to some extent at least that God reigns supreme over the universe He created. Is my day-to-day life going to change as a result of how I answer this question? Doubtful. There are far more important questions i have. I have my marching orders to go out and preach the gospel anyway, whether I do it freely or not, and whether God has predestined everyone who will believe or not.

But you’re here for Bates’s views, not mine.

He starts off with talking about Augustine who he says was the first one to really work out a soteriological system in church history and it has been the one adopted by most of the church. It’s called monergistic compatibalism. It says that God supplies everything that is lacking in personal salvation and organizes all the details to help people get saved.

This kind of system to some extent he says is still held by Calvinists and others today. The Reformers no doubt were very influenced by Augustine. Of course, a lot of non-Calvinists raise the question about God being the author of evil to some extent. If God is in charge of everything, how do we avoid God being the direct cause of evil and even of the human creature sinning?

Another system that came up later on was Molinism. Bates doesn’t say as much about this, but has it based on God’s middle knowledge. God knows what would have happened if X had happened instead of Y. Those wanting more on this should read the work of Tim Stratton for a positive viewpoint of it. I still have my own personal questions, but again, this is a topic I really don’t get involved with.

Bates does say that neither Jesus nor the apostles held to these views, but at this, I must offer some pushback. I am not saying this as one in agreement with these views, but could we get into problems if we say that Jesus or the apostles didn’t hold to the Trinity, in the sense that they didn’t come out quoting the Athanasiam Creed or something like that? We can all agree they weren’t speaking in those terms, but they had everything in their teaching that was needed for that system to flourish.

I don’t think we really can say for sure how they viewed these since their mission was never to spell out a doctrine of salvation, so much as just tell people what they needed to do to be saved. It is similar to how they never spelled out the nature of God, but they left enough for us to come to the conclusion I think they would have supported, the doctrine of the Trinity. That being said, the main emphasis Bates has in this is that the elect one ultimately is the Son. How we work that out, we should all strive to be faithful to Scripture in whatever we conclude.

And I hope we can all agree on that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars: Chapter 6 Part 4

Isn’t Romans 9 proof of election? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I don’t really do Calvinist debates anymore. I just find them uninteresting. I do know that if you do them, you will inevitably be taken to Romans 9. This chapter is about election. Right? Let’s see what Bates has to say about it.

A similar analysis to the one just carried out for Ephesians 1: 3– 14 could be undertaken for all purported examples of individual election unto final salvation in Scripture. That is, excluding the Son, there is not a single unambiguous example where God is said to have predestined an individual to eternal life or eternal damnation before they were born. Nary a one. Jacob? Esau? Pharaoh? Judas? Paul himself? Nope. All of these are chosen in advance by God for specific vocational purposes, but none are described as having been chosen before their own births— let alone before creation— for eternal life or condemnation. That is, God elects or chooses specific individuals for long-term or short-term tasks that relate to his overarching plans, but Scripture does not describe any person as singularly elect for final salvation.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 2770-2776). Kindle Edition.

Bates says Paul himself didn’t think he could take his salvation easy. In 1 Cor. 9, Paul talks about how he treats himself so that he himself will not be disqualified, and yet Paul has described a calling of his own. Bates also has another example of this not being for salvation, namely Esau.

Doesn’t the text say Esau was hated? Yes, but it’s in Malachi and it refers to the nations. God could choose only one nation. Esau in the narrative of Genesis is blessed abundantly still. Esau was chosen to be the one to serve Jacob, not the other way around.

What about Pharaoh? God knows in the text that Pharaoh will harden his heart against Him, but the first hardening takes place by Pharaoh himself. After enough time, God just, as I heard even a Calvinist say once, greases the wheels in the way the cart is already going. What was Pharaoh chosen for? Not to be passed over for salvation, but to display God’s glory through the world. The text of Romans says nothing about Pharaoh’s salvation. (Although considering the story in Exodus, it’s a pretty safe bet.)

What about the image of the potter? In this case, it is still vocational. Even vessels for wrath could still be reshaped and made into something more useful. Paul in this whole section is arguing for the well-being of Israel. Would it not be fitting to say that Israel has incurred God’s wrath for now, but in the end, they will be the recipients of salvation?

In conclusion, Bates sees nothing in the text about individual salvation. This is all about corporate identities and how one sees oneself in alignment with the group of the time. As someone who is not a Calvinist myself, I find that there is much to commend here and is definitely worthy of further research.

Next time, we will look at what he has to say about free-will in salvation.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 6 Part 3

What about Ephesians 1? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Some people think that Ephesians 1 speaks about individual election. Bates challenges that. If there is one individual who could be called elect, it would be Jesus the Christ and anyone who is in Him is elect. Thus far, I have not read anything about how Bates views free-will or God’s sovereignty in this. I suspect that is a more philosophical question he’s fine to just let the philosophers hash out amongst themselves.

The references to us throughout the text are indeed plural. This refers to a group of people who are in Christ. Not only that, but Bates says that the number is growing. The implication I gather is that if the number of the elect is growing, it can’t be a fixed number that has always been.

For predestination, Bates contends that God predestined the king individually. Those who are in Christ then are part of His community. There could be a parallel in that we are in Adam by representation and thus we choose either to remain in Adam or instead to be in Christ.

One of the mistakes we make in our understanding of Scripture often is that we come to the text and assume that it is answering our questions on our terms. First off, the text might not really care about our questions. Suppose we come to the text and say, “I want to know what God’s will for my life is”.

Now if someone asks me that question, I take them straight to Romans 8 and say that God’s will is to conform you to the likeness of Christ. I find the text to state that outright. If you are in Christ, then God’s will for your life is to conform you to the likeness of Christ.

“Yes, but should I get married? Should I go into ministry? What kind of job should I have? Where should I live? Should I have children?”

All fascinating questions, and none of them are answered in an individualistic level in the text. I find it strange so many people who say Sola Scriptura want to go beyond the text and leave that to personal emotions that they think God is using to speak to them, which is also not found in the text.  The text is not answering our questions.

So let’s suppose one wants to know about if slavery is wrong. Many an atheist will go to the Bible and see slavery is not outright forbidden and then say “There you have it! The Bible never condemns slavery!” In this case, they are using our terms. They are assuming that slavery in the ancient world in Israel was like slavery in the Civil War era of America. Note that they could be right on that hypothetically, but you don’t find that by going to the Bible, seeing where it mentions slavery, and then assuming that the meaning is the same. You have to actually do the research for that.

(And no, they’re not the same.)

Next time, we’ll start tackling more about the idea of individual election.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 6 Part 2

What does it mean to be in Christ? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Going with what Bates says, I will try to summarize his main points. I understand him to be saying that Christ is the elect one, especially since he piggybacks off of the work of Chadwick Thornhill, and insofar as we are in Christ, we are elect as well. The ancient world was much more group-oriented. You got your identity from the people that you were associated with. We are much more individualistic identity. You form who you are on your own.

So when are you an elect? When you are in Christ. Saying that a group is elect doesn’t mean that every individual in that group will keep those benefits. People can leave the group whenever they want and they will lose the benefits of being in the group. In the ancient world, if you got benefits from being a worshipper of a pagan deity and then you became a Christian and stopped worshipping that deity, you would lose the benefits that would come from being with that group.

Couldn’t it be both individual and group identity? Except, it isn’t. In the ancient world, they weren’t interested in asking about an individual and how they could know they were Christian. It was really easy to know. You had the benefits of being with the group and you were like your fellow compatriots in the Christian movement. If you were in the group and the group was Christian, you were Christian. Let’s make a syllogism of it.

All who are in the group are Christian.
John is in the group.
John is a Christian.

We also have writings such as the Dead Sea Scrolls that weren’t available to Trent or to the Protestant Reformers. What does Bates say about those?

The results? Historically based studies of election agree: out of some hundred possible examples, when it pertains to salvation, election is exclusively corporate in the New Testament and related noncanonical literature. Individual election is not a view Jews or early Christians can be demonstrated to have held regularly, if at all, during this era.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 2690-2694). Kindle Edition.

Going with Thornhill, Bates says that overwhelmingly, salvation is spoken of in terms of the group. Someone could point to people in the Gospels who join the group and become Christians, but that’s the point. This isn’t about the individual so much as it is about the welcoming of the group. The statement is more of a whosoever will. Anyone in the Gospels can join the group.

Personally, I hope we return to thinking like this more since I hold that individualism is one of the worst things that has happened to our society and has led to much chaos. Our identities do not work when we try to forge them in ourselves. We work better when we find where we fit in the body of Christ. We are made for community.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 6 Part 1

Does regeneration precede faith? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Bates begins looking at the order of salvation about Calvinism. While Bates in my reading has not yet said he is an Arminian, it is clear he is not a Calvinist. He does not get into the metaphysical issues such as the relationship between God and time. For my purposes, I do take that God knows all events past, present, and future. Concerning free will, I contend that God is sovereign, man has free will, and everything else is a jump ball.

One important aspect Bates brings out is that election in the Bible for salvation is normally seen as community-oriented rather than individual. Let’s consider two passages. In Phil. 1:6, we are told that what God began in you, He will bring to completion. There you go! Eternal security in the text.

Except the you there is not an individual. Paul is not writing to one person. He’s writing to a group. In Southern parlance where I live, we would properly say “Y’all.” That does not mean that every single person who starts on the journey in the church will finish it. It means that what God began working in the church he will bring to completion.

And to be fair, consider in the next chapter where he says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. There you go! A person has to work out their salvation. They are not eternally secure! Except once again, this is “Y’all.” The church is to work out their salvation.

He also points out that texts like Ephesians speak about Christ, not Jesus. Is there a difference?

“Christ” is not a personal name but rather an honorific title. 1 If we functionally reduce “Christ” in the decree to a personal name in order to locate salvation in an eternal person rather than in a messianic office that will eventually come to be filled by an eternal person who took on human flesh through a historical process, we are running against the grain of Scripture’s teaching on salvation. We cannot make the decree accurately refer in the exact messianic way Paul and Peter intend without drawing upon time-bound historical processes that occur later in the story. As we will see, the same is true for election more generally.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 2594-2599). Kindle Edition.

But are there not places in the text that speak of individuals being elect? What about Moses and Pharaoh in Romans 9? What about Jacob and Esau? This is the calling of individuals isn’t it?

Two things and we will expand on these next time.

First, if there is one individual who is called for election it is Christ and we who are in Him are considered to be saved. Jesus is the true elect one. Second, when we see people showing up who are said to be chosen on an individual level, that refers to people who are chosen for a specific vocation and not for salvation.

That’s for next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: 101 Reasons for Non-Belief 11-20

Have we come across a valid reason yet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have said I’m not going to go over every reason likely. I might touch here and there. For the 11th, the author is saying there are too many positions on religion so it’s too confusing. With all this, it’s impossible to make the right decision and be informed in doing so.

So naturally, the right decision is to say everyone else is wrong.

Sounds legit.

12 is that you can be a good person without God. This is again, something no one is arguing against. It’s also not the claim that morality is rooted in one religion, but that morality is rooted in one God. That God has shown Himself in general revelation so that all know about goodness.

14 has a section worth quoting.

Any text written or dictated by a Cosmic Über-entity should be unambiguous, understandable in any language, and without peer. In 2021, I adopted the short phrase, Cosmic Über-Entity as my replacement for God or deity. Any Entity that could create or is responsible for the four constants would have zero need for mere humans to worship it. The concept is absurd.

Which pretty much seems to mean God will do your thinking for you. These are the same people who want to live by their own freedom and reason. If something is absurd, it is the concept that the author has expressed in this section.

16 tells us that religion preys on people who are poor, uneducated, sick, etc. Pretty much, the dregs of society. Of course, this can apply to anything else out there. There are people of every social status and intellectual status in most every movement.

19 has this saying in it.

Outside of terrorism there is less murder and other crimes in non-Christian countries.

Outside of terrorism. Well, that’s nice to know. There’s also the claim that America is the mass-murder capital of the world. None of this is backed, but the author blames this on American evangelicalism and proof that God is not the source of our morality.

First off, none of this is cited. I am not saying it is all wrong, but some citation needs to be made for a claim like this. Second, the author needs to show that there is a correlation here. The reason that we have this problem is because of American Evangelicalism. Color me skeptical that evangelicalism really has much impact today on our culture. If anything, it is the lack of Christianity in our culture that I contend leads to our moral difficulties.

Finally, there’s a swipe at Calvinism and other beliefs where the victim is blamed. I do agree that this does work though for positions like the prosperity gospel and for The Secret. Either way, none of this really counts as a reason for non-belief. So far, our author is still not making any valid arguments whatsoever. I can’t say that I have been surprised by any of this.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

To A Friend Struggling With Faith

What do you do when you want to throw it all away? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

People on Facebook have been talking about someone who has said they just can’t believe in Christianity anymore even after years of being in apologetics and producing media on this. Now a number of people are coming out with their own views on the matter, which I understand and I don’t condemn. Some are blaming Calvinism, which I don’t care for, or presuppositionalism, which I also don’t care for, but i think there is something else going on here.

Now with so many people entering into this discussion, why am I jumping in? Do I think I have something to contribute that others do not? Indeed, I do, and this is not because of anything arrogant, but it is because of similar life circumstances. I can contribute that I have been through divorce as this person has.

Divorce is betrayal and rejection through and through. It is a pain that stabs at me every day still. Imagine what it is to think someone loves you so much that they want to share every aspect of themselves, nay, their very lives with you, and then in the end they reject you. You, the totality of you, all that is you, has been cast aside. You have been declared no longer worth it.

Now we all know theoretically that our identities should not be determined by other people, but you are a fool if you think that this doesn’t hurt. This leads to pain. Intense pain. I have said before there were times I would be ready to go to bed at night and see a bottle of Benadryl and briefly think, “You could.” I never came close, but it was there. There were some times I did think maybe I should check myself into a hospital for a few days. Again, never did.

I can say on my end, that I have a hard time today trusting people. I can say my thinking gets caught up in difficulties from time to time. I plan to date other women, but I also worry about self-control now seeing as I have been there before and as a divorced friend told me, “It’s easy to move on auto-pilot.” This is all real.  I also realize some people will look at me with a scarlet letter.

I fully understand if at those times it feels like God has abandoned you.

My friend wrote also about the Christian subculture and this is something I have the biggest problem with. People treat prayer like they can pray for an hour and it just comes so easily. People treat Scripture as a magic book and it’s such a joy to read every day and you learn something new. People talk about how you are supposed to feel as a Christian and that you are supposed to hear from God regularly and speak as if you have some secret hotline to God.

It’s individualism, and it’s a cancer in the church.

When people talk like this and suffering comes, they don’t know what to do then. After all, if your Christianity has been based on your emotions before, what happens when those emotions turn negative? When you don’t have them, what do you want? Do you want the emotions, or do you want what the emotions signify?

When I was married, there were times I had a deep feeling of love for my wife. There were also times that I did not. However, I always had a deep love for her. Today, I still want the best for her. The feeling was nice when it was there, but it wasn’t part of my diet to be expected.

What happens though if I focus more on the pointer instead of the reality the pointer pointed to? I am pursuing a feeling. It is like an addiction. If I have that feeling, then I love her. If I don’t, then I don’t. That leads to chaos. Would I want my love for my ex-wife to be based on a feeling?

The same can happen when we look at it in reverse. How do I know God loves me? If I base it on a feeling, what happens when that feeling goes away? Does God no longer love me? In the end, am I pursuing a feeling as a way of certainty?

I understand when my friend spoke about how if his son wanted comfort and to know that his Dad loved him, he would give it in a moment. I get that. It makes sense to us. It is easy to look at Matthew 7 and see about a son asking for bread or a fish. Doesn’t that apply here?

No. In Matthew 6, Jesus had been talking about food and clothing. The same is still going on in Matthew 7. Jesus is talking about provision for daily staples. This is not to say that God cannot give other things and that He doesn’t, but those are not promised.

So what if God did do what we ask and provided for us an experience of His love every time? Could we not get caught up in ourselves more? Could we not get caught up in experiences? What happens when that experience fades into the past? Do you need another hit.

The thing is, if I want to know if God loves me, and I understand that struggle, I need to trust what He has already said. It is written large in Scripture. How do I know I am one of His? Because I am trusting Him. I am not perfect, but I am striving.

What about pain? Pain can be the crucible that gets us more like Jesus. I can say that every pain I went through was horrible, when I was going through it. Years later, I look back and I am thankful I went through it. I suspect some time in the future, I will say “That divorce was horrible when I went through it, but I am a better and more holy man for it.” Hopefully, that will be when I am married to someone else. Maybe I will even have some of my own children with her.

I do want to say though that I get the silence of God. The problem is not really God, but it is a Christian subculture that is rooted in experience. Let’s also point to another sad reality about divorced people. We are quickly often isolated.

You used to do things with other people as a couple. It wasn’t you got together with your friends so much as you and your spouse got together with other couples. Those couples can like to hang out with you then, but, and I’m not saying everyone did this, when you become single, those couples can go away. Christians can also look at you in church as a lesser Christian.

Not only that, you have to explain your divorce so often to everyone. Divorce is treated like it’s the unpardonable sin and every time you have to repeat it, you live it all over again. The church is too often ready with condemnation instead of consolation. We are to mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep and when you are going through divorce or suffering with it, you are mourning and weeping. I am thankful some people did just that. I am thankful that I found DivorceCare. I am thankful I had people who had been divorced who walked with me through it and I hope someday I can do the same for someone else walking through divorce.

To my friend, I hope I got a lot of what is going on correct, not because I want to be right, although I do, but because I want you to understand that I can relate. I also see you are asking the question about Jesus and who He is and I think that is a great place to go. It’s really hard to say anything negative about Jesus and I think really looking at who He is is the way to go.

I also encourage you to not believe anything just to believe it. I have not done that with my Christianity. For every position I have a strong stance on, I have a litany of reasons for why I embrace it. There are some issues I don’t argue and I just don’t care about. (Calvinism vs. Arminianism being one of them.) Don’t believe anything just to be consistent or to fit in with the people or look good in popular culture.

Be real. If things suck, say they suck. If you are angry with God, be angry. No sense hiding it. If you want to cry, then cry. Mourn. I had a friend come by on my next to last day in Georgia who was in the area when I found out I had to clear out because of the divorce and he saw me bawling my eyes out and never thought less of me for it.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out and talk if you need it, and I encourage this to everyone else. Before trying to win someone back to Christianity, just be a friend. Listen. Care. Besides, I suspect if you do this right, the Christianity will fall back into place anyway.

I understand the crickets, but I am also thankful for them. They have caused me often to go back to what is more foundational and not transitory. They have pointed me to what I really believe and what it is rooted in and not being based on feelings means I have a firmer foundation I can rely on when things get hard, and they do.

Here for you, if you need me.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

What Does Scripture Mean By You?

Is there a problem with our language? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What does Scripture mean by you? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the great weaknesses of English can be our limited vocabulary. Consider that we have only oneword for love. A man can say he loves Jesus, his wife, his best friend, football, and pizza. He can be true in saying all of this and still mean something vastly different for each.

Another example is the word “you.” Here in the South, we have tried to correct this with the term, “Y’all.” (English was invented overseas, but we perfected it in the South.) Whatever you think of that term, it does clarify if you mean one person or a group of people.

So consider a passage like Philippians 1:6. In this, we read that He that began a good work in you will carry it to completion jn Christ Jesus. Readers who are more Calvinistic can see this as a statement on soteriology.

“See? When God begins His work in a man, He will bring it to completion. You are eternally secure.” Even those who hold to eternal security without going the way of Calvinism will use this to emphasize that.

However, that’s not what’s going on. This is about the church. The you refers not to an individual, but to the church as a whole. This doesn’t mean Calvinism and/or eternal security are false. It just means that this isn’t the right usage of the passage.

Now let’s go to the other side. In Philippians 2:12-13, we are told to work out your salvation in fear and trembling for it is God that works in you. At this, Arminians think they have a point.

“See? Your salvation isn’t secure. You have to work it all out.”

Unfortunately for them, it’s not the case again. This is the church needing to work out its own salvation. It’s not about individuals. This doesn’t mean Arminianism is true or false. It just means this isn’t the verse.

The problem is our culture is individualistic. We read the text as speaking to us as individuals, and sometimes it does, but we don’t need to assume that for a text. It requires work, but it’s worth it. It’s only looking at the word in the original language and/or careful study of the passage that can help us know what is meant.

Notice also that in all of this, no one viewpoint on soteriology was held to be true or false. I have my own opinions on that debate, but I choose to not enter into it. If anything, I chose this passage because that way I can’t be seen as going after one side and supporting another. I hold that both of them who use these passages use bad argumentation.

Next time you see you in the text, and I mean that individually now, check and see how it is used. Misread the text and you miss what God has for you in it and hold a false view instead.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth.)