At a leadership meeting at my workplace one particular leader encouraged us to pray for those whom we might find difficult to lead. Whether that person is going through a difficult time, or are being particularly difficult themselves, we as leaders have a responsibility to shepherd and care for those who are entrusted to us. …
What makes for good preaching? How church history shows us that it’s bigger than topical vs. expository
What makes for good preaching? That is a huge question, and not one which I will solve in this post, but I do want to dive into one of the debates that is common when discussing this question and provide a different perspective, which I have come to over the past few months while diving …
Saved for What? Salvation Through the Eyes of Eastern and Western Christians
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him …
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The Christian Life: a Challenge that Ends in Glory
When I began reading Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, my goals were to become more clear on what he actually taught (as opposed to what others taught in his name), to find out whether I agreed with him, and to see what I could learn from him. Over several months I made my way …
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Augustine on Free Will, Grace, and Perseverance
Over the past year I have been especially dedicated to the task of learning the differences in the systems known as Calvinism and Arminianism, and in discovering where on that spectrum I fall. This task has prompted me to read not only the works of contemporary authors on the subjects, but also those of Calvin …
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God’s Sovereignty, God’s Goodness, and the Fall of Man
Calvin and Arminius are well known for their views on predestination, but I would argue that they cared less about that subject than they did about defending particular attributes of God’s nature which they felt were at risk of being overlooked, under-appreciated, or misrepresented. The attributes they sought to defend informed their arguments concerning predestination …
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Arminius on the Doctrine of Predestination
I first encountered the doctrine of predestination as described by Jacob Arminius in his “Public Disputations”, which opened his collected writings in Arminius Speaks: Essential Writings on Predestination, Free Will, and the Nature of God. After that first encounter, I honestly couldn’t detect any difference between his view and Calvin's. As I continued to read through …
Not Calvin vs. Arminius, but Calvin vs. the Papists
I began reading Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (a translation of the 1541 French edition) in order to understand his own perspective on what we know as the Calvinism vs Arminianism debate. I knew that Arminius actually came later, but I wanted to see what undergirded Calvin’s theology and how he reasoned against those …
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A study of Calvin and Arminius, My Motivations and Initial Thoughts
I decided a few months ago to dive head first into the works of John Calvin and Jacob Arminius with the hope of finally figuring out where I land on the spectrum between these two Reformers. I have been wrestling through the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate over the past several years, never, as of yet, …
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Wrestling with the Concepts of Election and Apostasy
I have been struggling to understand some things around the nature of Salvation, God’s disposition toward people, the means by which people are saved, the possibility of apostasy, and other things of that nature. Having just read or listened through Romans, Ephesians, Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, and 1 John, I want to try …
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Jesse Orloff 