"Recovering the gospel"?
THE FLOUNDERS: "RECOVERING"or COMPLICATING THE GOSPEL?
Charles said...
The Flounders on the other hand believe the gospel is so complicated that they must somehow "recover" it for all of us simple Southern Baptists!
I know of no group, Charles, more in need of "recovering" the Gospel than many, at least, of the Flounders themselves.
Have you ever heard one of them preach it? I mean, really preach the Gospel directly, specifically to lost, unbelievng sinners, purposely to win sinners to faith in Christ for salvation?
They talk a lot about it "to the choir" at "conferences" where they get "together for the Gospel;" they propose to "define" it; they claim they "defend" it; they profess that they are "committed" to it -- but do they really ever preach it or tell it to a lost sinner?
When a person, such as Tom Ascol of the Flounders, scolds a Pastor who says to an unbelieving, lost sinner, "Jesus died for you," -- or, like Spurgeon said in the closing words of his "Come and Welcome" sermon, "See on that bloody tree Jesus hangs; behold he pays his life a ransom for YOUR sins and mine. Believe on him, trust him, commit your soul to him and be saved" -- then that person surely needs to "recover" the Gospel.
Perhaps Ascol and other such Hybrid Calvinists simply testify for themselves when they say the Gospel needs to be "recovered." They seem to have so burdened their minds by trying to "box" the Gospel in a certain theological crate that they indeed have complicated the Gospel. Is the Gospel really so elusive?
I have lately seen where some Hybrids are using the expression, "Theology matters." But so does everything else on this earth! Money matters, food matters, toilet tissue matters! The fact is, however, the Gospel is not confined to any theological system as such, and so no particular school of "systematic theology" really "matters" so far as its being the exclusive source of the Gospel.
One does not have to hold to a particular theological "system" to hold to the Gospel.
If a particular theological system is the exclusive "box" in which to find the Gospel, how many of Ascol's Flounders-Friendlies would have ever been saved, since perhaps most of them heard the Gospel and were converted -- like Ernest Reisinger -- under what they now brand as "Arminianism"?
Spurgeon, you will recall, was converted in an Arminian Methodist Chapel where he heard a simple lay-member speak for a few minutes on Isaiah 45:22. Think of it! The most quoted preacher since the 1800s heard the Gospel in that "Arminian" circumstance and was saved!
Doesn't that tell you something about the fact that "the Word of God is not bound" (2 Tim. 2:9) to anyone's theology, anyone's denomination, anyone's ministry, anyone's anything?
There is a local elderly Christian brother who comes into my bookstore very often -- in fact, he was here yesterday -- to pick up Gospel tracts. I give him free tracts, and I have "ordained" or "adopted" him as our "official" bookstore missionary. He is a "miracle" of sorts.
He is a Veteran of World War II and always wears his WWII cap. He was in the First Wave of US troops at the Normandy invasion. He was a lost man at that time, and is grateful to the Lord for his preservation. He says he saw hundreds of legs, arms, heads, and bodies blown away on the beach at that dreadful scene.
I do not exaggerate one bit when I say that this aging brother is always spreading the Gospel at every opportunity, and he frequently tells me of professions which have been made by those to whom he has witnessed. No man or woman in this city, to my knowledge, spreads the Gospel more than this brother.
Yet, he does not hold to any "system" of theology as such, and he probably could not clearly explain to you the theological differences between "Calvinism" and "Arminianism" -- but I can tell you this: he can clearly present the Gospel in "no time flat" to a lost soul. And that is what matters most to him.
This brother would probably be astonished at the idea that the Gospel needs to be "recovered"! He might ask Tom Ascol and the Flounders "under what rock" they have been hiding their heads!
We provide a cap and a t-shirt which bears the symbol of Spurgeon's sermon set, "We preach Christ, and Him crucified," and when I have worn it, for instance at a restaurant, a curious waitress might look at it and ask, "What does it mean?"
That "invites" me to then proceed to tell how Jesus used the story of Moses and the Serpent in Numbers 21 to illustrate the simple Way of Salvation in John 3:14-18. Several of my bookstore customers also have done likewise. This story of Moses and the Serpent is the only Old Testament illustration Jesus ever used to present the Way of Salvation, or the New Birth. It is not a very "complicated" Gospel, but rather simple.
If Ascol and the Flounders want to "recover" the Gospel, I suggest they try John 3:14-18. It will serve them very well. They might even like to wear some of our t-shirts!
posted by Bob L. Ross @ 11:21 AM
3 Comments:
That is one of the hallmarks of Cals. They try to overwhelm you with their dynamic thought.
But, it doesn't work.
You can't hurl non-sense at someone no matter how forcefully it's done and expect the thinking person to buy it. That's where they fall down badly.
They use non-Scriptural authors as their core "base" and by some magical razzle-dazzle we're supposed to think some picked through verse which corresponds to "elect" and "depravity" bolsters their precepts and all the while they are completely disinterested in recognizing that the verse they quote is not put into proper context but is, instead, distilled to mean only what they want.
If one bothers to read the OT and NT carefully you can then recognize that absolutely none of the TULIP precepts have real validity. And, the most ridiculous precept of all is that man has no "free-will" or can't "choose".
These guys are the easiest group of, so-called, Christians to debunk.
Rick,
So why did Jesus die?
Was his death necessary?
Did the cross finish the act of salvation for those lost?
Why are the lost called lost if they can find their own way home?
Do you find it sad that if all are to be saved that the cross just couldn't do that?
You must be a dispensationalist the rest will get in after the rapture?
From one whose God is BIGGER THAN MAN and owes no man even salvation!
OVERWHELMED?
Rick said...
That is one of the hallmarks of Cals. They try to overwhelm you with their dynamic thought.
That may be the case with some of the "Cals," Rick, but those are generally the "novices" and "dogmatists" among them. It seems the Internet has been "blessed" with quite a number of this variety.
Calvinists, like other Christians, have as a part of their profession that the Holy Spirit reveals or enlightens, that spiritual things are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).
So the person who is a relatively mature Christian recognizes that he cannot "cram" things into others. He has learned that he must be patient and longsuffering (Col. 1:11), even as the Lord is longsuffering (2 Peter 3:9).
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