From The Heart

-
I love this video clip of 20-year-old Joseph O'Brien on America's Got Talent.  What a difference it makes when your singing it from the heart!  

Most Popular Posts of the Week:

Destroying Calvinism in 28 Easy Steps (tiny version)

-
Image
Here is the tiniest-I-could-make-it version of "Fending Off Calvinism (a.k.a. Destroying Calvinism in 28 Easy Steps)"  (from my other blog) - which itself is the second half of a post called "Calvinism's Systematic Theology (and how to fend it off)" - about the fundamental errors of Calvinism that trap well-meaning Christians into a very bad, very deceptive, very tricksy theology.  I cut out as much as I could here, so check out the longer posts in the links above if you want a fuller picture and more information.   [Despite the title of this post, I know there's nothing easy about defeating or debating Calvinism.  It's such a tangled web of errors, with a cult-like vice-grip on people's minds, that it can't be defeated with just a few verses or rebuttals.  Its errors are so complex, interconnected, and deep-rooted that it needs to be completely dismantled idea by idea, wrong definition by wrong definition, misinterpreted verse by misinterpreted...
Read more

List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

-
I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various  "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist"  posts).  But instead of adding this huge list to all those posts, I am going to put it here, and I'll just provide a link on those posts to this one.  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.] So here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinist," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify ...
Read more

"Are Calvinists Saved?"

-
(I added some new notes to the end of this post, August 23, 2020.) Here's a video from  Beyond the Fundamentals  that's well-worth watching:   Are Calvinists Saved? The most thought-provoking part (for me) was when he asks (paraphrased) "How do Calvinists know they're saved, that Jesus died for them?" You see, I would say that I trust in the truths of the Bible.  I trust that when God says He loves all people and wants all people to be saved, He means He loves  all  people and wants  all  people to be saved.  I trust that when He says Jesus died for all people and all sins, He means that Jesus died for  all  people and  all  sins.  I trust that when He says that we will find Him if we seek Him with all our hearts, He means that we can seek Him and find Him.  I trust that when He commands us to choose whom we will serve, He means that we have to choose whom we will serve.  I trust that when He ...
Read more

Why Are Christians Apologizing For The Truth?

-
So there's this article out about Christians going to a gay pride parade and holding up signs saying they are sorry for how they treated the LGBTQ-community. It's one thing to apologize for making anyone feel unloved or unforgivable ... but it's another thing to apologize for sharing the truth.  And that's what this "apology" sounds like.  I think that it's not apologizing for mistreating LGBTQ-people; it's apologizing for the Bible.  It's watering down the message of the Gospel to make other people feel good about their sins.  It's denying our need to repent and seek righteousness.   It's denying God to please man. Should we really be softening the Gospel so that it doesn't offend people in sin when the Gospel is meant to offend people in sin?  When it's meant to cause people to reevaluate the way they are living and to change what's wrong so that they can get right with the Lord?  When it's meant to bring eternal li...
Read more

Pre-Chosen People? Is God's Call Irresistible?

-
Image
(Part of the "Predestination vs. Free-Will" series) John 6:37 :   “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”              This one confused me for awhile.   It sounded like Jesus is saying that all the people that God has pre-chosen to be believers are destined to come to faith in Him.   And that only those who are chosen by God will come to faith.              But I’m not sure if that’s what this is really saying.  
Read more

Updated: Alana L. 5Q (robots)

-
Image
Point #5 still (updated):  Q:  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."     Robots? As I said in the last post, I believe that  God gave us free-will and an awful lot of room to make real decisions that affect things - because He wanted real people, real relationships, not robots.  "Oh, but we don't think people are robots controlled by God," says the Calvinist. Oh, really?  Then I must have misunderstood:  John Calvin   ( Institutes of the Christian Religion,  book 1, chapters 16-17, bold added in all quotes ):  " ...  the counsels and  wills of men are so governed as to move  exactly in the course which he has destined ....   the devil, and the whole train of the ungodly...[cannot do any evil or even move a finger] unless in so far as [God] permits - nay, unless in so far  as he commands . " John Calvin  ( Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God ):   “ ... how foolish and frail [it...
Read more

The Most Terrifying Book in the Bible: Jeremiah

-
A Warning for the rebellious people of today (a repost): Okay, there are other terrifying parts of the Bible, particularly when hell is talked about - being separated from God forever, eternal fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth.   But Jeremiah has got to be one of the most terrifying books there is.   Because it blows our Western idea of God’s unending love and patience out of the water.   Of course, we all know that God is love and that His love is unending.   And we know that He is incredibly patient, pursuing sinners over lifetimes and history so that He can draw as many people as possible to Him.   But we – especially in America – seem completely unaware of God’s justness.   We are all about His grace and mercy, yet we forget His wrath and discipline.  
Read more

Ironic, Isn't it? The Hypocrisy of the #MeToo Culture!

-
Recently in the news , there's this judge who ruled that high school students have to share the showers with transgender students who identify as their sex, even if they are biologically the opposite sex (i.e. girls have to shower with people who have penises if the people who have penises call themselves "girls" and vice versa.) Isn't it ironic that a #metoo culture - where women are demanding that men who assaulted them or harassed them are punished for their lewd/offensive behavior against women - would allow a judge to force young girls to shower alongside naked penises? This judge then had the gall to tell families that if they don't like it then they can remove their children from the public school! So the parents - who pay for the schools with their taxes - have no say in protecting their naked girls from naked boys, from the emotional trauma or discomfort or potential physical trauma that comes with being forced to shower in extremely uncomfortable a...
Read more

Napoleon's view of Jesus

-
I love this quote from Napoleon about Jesus: "Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires.  But on what did we rest the creations of our genius?  Upon force.  Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him."  ( link ) Sadly, I think many Christians are more willing to die for Him than to really live for Him.  Dying for Him is usually theoretical, but living for Him would require a lot of actual, real-life changes. Will you be counted among the faithful ones?  The ones willing to die for Him and  live for Him?
Read more

Things My Calvinist Pastor Said #9: God Shows His Justice By Predestining People To Hell

-
Image
[This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown on this much longer post:  "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism,"  which was written last year but updated July 2020.  All memes were created with  imgflip .   And these are not exact quotes, but they are summaries of what he said (exact quotes from his sermons can be found here ).] 9.   "God shows His love by saving the elect.  And He shows His justice by damning the non-elect to hell."   (From my pastor's adult son, not my ex-pastor himself.)             That's strange, because my Bible says that God shows His love by saving sinners ( Romans 5:8 ), that we are all sinners ( Romans 3:23 ), and that God shows His justice by sending Jesus to the cross to pay for our sins ( Romans 3:25-26 ).  Actually, what really happened was this (taken from another  post of mine on this topic, edited a bit): My pastor's adult son (the c...
Read more