“…typically, at least in my experience, people don’t come to Calvinism just by reading the Bible.” —Leighton Flowers
Non-Calvinists often accuse Calvinists of not reading their Bibles or getting their doctrines elsewhere. In this post I’ll show why that is not true.
I accepted Christ back in the early of 2010. During the first few years, others have asked me to watch that Amazing Grace documentary on Calvinism. I refused and said, “I don’t want to be brainwashed by John Calvin.” So I was on my own. No church, it was just me and the Holy Spirit. That was my mentality back then.
There was a time when I was going through Exodus on my own and what I read really bothered me. God hardening Pharaoh’s heart? No way. That’s not fair. That’s unjust. So I went online looking for other explanations and came across Chuck Smith. His non-reformed explanation made a lot of sense to me at the time, and so I went with his explanation. I’m sure many new Christians do this when reading Exodus on their own! The plain reading of Exodus is just too harsh and unjust to the carnal mind. Sometime in late 2012, I experienced the dark night of the soul. I literally encountered what Isaiah experienced in Isaiah 6. That was the beginning of my man-centered theology being transformed. The point here is this: I had no choice but to become a Calvinist had I not gone online searching for other explanations, but I did because I couldn’t accept a God who hardens people’s hearts as He pleases.
The reality is that many people resort to sources outside the Bible when they encounter teachings about God having total control over the heart, like I did at first. I am beyond certain that your Soteriology will be reformed if you actually believe what you read in the Bible. I dare say this because I have interacted with numerous Non-Calvinists, and the arguments they present to me are philosophically based and man-centered.
Last year I got this email from somebody that had just gone to a conference with a philosopher, and I’m not going to give you his name. I’m not going to give you any names. If you want to know the philosopher’s name, I might tell you if you ask me in the break, because I don’t think it’s any secret, but in this setting it might not be appropriate. Listen to this.
“This week I spent time with [blank].” So this philosopher teaches at an evangelical seminary. “He does not like Calvinism too much. He began to talk about how the mass majority of the exegetes,” now that’s Bible people, Bible interpreters as opposed to philosophers, “that the exegetes adopt Calvinistic interpretations while the mass majority of philosophers and apologists opt for Arminianism. We came to some fascinating conclusions, all of which I will not share, but he did say, ‘It is true Calvinists have the exegesis behind them, but we have philosophy and I think libertarianism,’“ that means free will understood as self-determination. “‘I think libertarianism trumps exegesis and must determine it.’ I said to him, ‘So we have to bring our theology to the text?” Answer, ‘Yes.’ He responded. ‘The ethical implications of Calvinism are too severe.’“
So a major evangelical philosopher says the exegesis is on the side of the Calvinists, philosophy is on the side of the Arminians, and you have to bring your philosophy to the text, otherwise, the conclusions you draw are too severe. —John Piper[1]
So, no. It’s not true that “people don’t come to Calvinism just by reading the Bible.” Many did actually. Here’s James White, and John Piper. There are countless faceless and ordinary people embracing Calvinism just by reading the Bible. I’ll update this post later to give examples. Below are Calvinists for your consideration.
“The Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience, by laying aside commentaries, and almost every other book, and simply reading the Word of God and studying it. The result of this was that the first evening I shut myself into my room to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously….But the particular difference was that I received real strength for my soul in doing so.” —George Muller
George Whitefield
“I embrace the Calvinistic scheme, not because Calvin, but Jesus Christ has taught it to me”
“My mind being now more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed, and drink indeed, to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light, and power from above.”
“Alas, I have never read anything that Calvin wrote; my doctrines I had from Christ and his apostles; I was taught them by God.”
“I get more true knowledge by reading the Book of God in one month than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.”
“In my early years I assiduously followed this threefold course: first, I read through the entire Bible three times a year (eight chapters in the Old Testament, and two in the New Testament daily.) I steadily persevered in this for ten years, in order to familiarize myself with its contents, which can only be done by consecutive reading. Second, I studied a portion of the Bible each week, concentrating for ten minutes (or more) each day on the same passage, pondering the order of it, the connection between each statement, seeking a definition of the important terms in it, looking up all the marginal references, being on the look-out for its typical significance. Third, I meditated on one verse each day; writing it out on a slip of paper in the morning, memorizing it, consulting it at odd moments through the day; pondering separately each word in it, asking God to open for me its spiritual meaning and to write it on my heart. The verse was my food for that day, meditation standing to reading as mastication does to eating. The more some such method as the above be followed out, the more shall we be able to say, ‘thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path’ [Ps 119:105].” —A.W. Pink
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Non-Calvinists often accuse Calvinists of not reading their Bibles or getting their doctrines elsewhere. In this post I’ll show why that is not true.
I accepted Christ back in the early of 2010. During the first few years, others have asked me to watch that Amazing Grace documentary on Calvinism. I refused and said, “I don’t want to be brainwashed by John Calvin.” So I was on my own. No church, it was just me and the Holy Spirit. That was my mentality back then.
There was a time when I was going through Exodus on my own and what I read really bothered me. God hardening Pharaoh’s heart? No way. That’s not fair. That’s unjust. So I went online looking for other explanations and came across Chuck Smith. His non-reformed explanation made a lot of sense to me at the time, and so I went with his explanation. I’m sure many new Christians do this when reading Exodus on their own! The plain reading of Exodus is just too harsh and unjust to the carnal mind. Sometime in late 2012, I experienced the dark night of the soul. I literally encountered what Isaiah experienced in Isaiah 6. That was the beginning of my man-centered theology being transformed. The point here is this: I had no choice but to become a Calvinist had I not gone online searching for other explanations, but I did because I couldn’t accept a God who hardens people’s hearts as He pleases.
The reality is that many people resort to sources outside the Bible when they encounter teachings about God having total control over the heart, like I did at first. I am beyond certain that your Soteriology will be reformed if you actually believe what you read in the Bible. I dare say this because I have interacted with numerous Non-Calvinists, and the arguments they present to me are philosophically based and man-centered.
So, no. It’s not true that “people don’t come to Calvinism just by reading the Bible.” Many did actually. Here’s James White, and John Piper. There are countless faceless and ordinary people embracing Calvinism just by reading the Bible. I’ll update this post later to give examples. Below are Calvinists for your consideration.
“The Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience, by laying aside commentaries, and almost every other book, and simply reading the Word of God and studying it. The result of this was that the first evening I shut myself into my room to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously….But the particular difference was that I received real strength for my soul in doing so.” —George Muller
George Whitefield
“I embrace the Calvinistic scheme, not because Calvin, but Jesus Christ has taught it to me”
“My mind being now more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed, and drink indeed, to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light, and power from above.”
“Alas, I have never read anything that Calvin wrote; my doctrines I had from Christ and his apostles; I was taught them by God.”
“I get more true knowledge by reading the Book of God in one month than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.”
“In my early years I assiduously followed this threefold course: first, I read through the entire Bible three times a year (eight chapters in the Old Testament, and two in the New Testament daily.) I steadily persevered in this for ten years, in order to familiarize myself with its contents, which can only be done by consecutive reading. Second, I studied a portion of the Bible each week, concentrating for ten minutes (or more) each day on the same passage, pondering the order of it, the connection between each statement, seeking a definition of the important terms in it, looking up all the marginal references, being on the look-out for its typical significance. Third, I meditated on one verse each day; writing it out on a slip of paper in the morning, memorizing it, consulting it at odd moments through the day; pondering separately each word in it, asking God to open for me its spiritual meaning and to write it on my heart. The verse was my food for that day, meditation standing to reading as mastication does to eating. The more some such method as the above be followed out, the more shall we be able to say, ‘thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path’ [Ps 119:105].” —A.W. Pink