Since the new book was published in an eBook format, many have asked if it would ever be published in a paperback format. The answer to that question is "yes" and it is now available for pre-order and will ship out as soon as it is published (an expected date being late February, 2012). It was very encouraging to then learn that a gentleman named Randy, in hearing this, immediately placed an order for 40 books, as he wants to make them available to the students in his Bible class.

If you are able to use the eBook format, PLEASE consider supporting monergismbooks where it is available here. However, if you can only benefit from a paperback edition you can pre-order it here.

I just received this encouraging feedback on the book today: "Highly recommend. Samson gets right to the point in a very well organized book. It seemed that every time a question would pop into my head, I would turn the page and the answer to my question was waiting for me. I have recommended it to a number of my Arminian friends, but they are very resistant. I can identify with that because I know from past experience (as a libertarian free-will believer) I was predisposed to reject Calvinism. But what freedom is found when the blinders come off and the truth slaps you in the face. I pray that this book would get into the hands, then the hearts and minds of people everywhere."

God bless, JS

Carson's central thesis seems to be that the old tolerance, championed by a Modern (as opposed to Postmodern) society, assumed that there is a truth to be discovered, that right and wrong both exist and are worth searching for, but that it is a grievous crime against humanity to silence those who err or disagree by force or coercion. However, in one of the greatest “bait-and-switch” operations of modern history, a new tolerance has usurped its place, which wields the very hegemony that the old tolerance decried. I'm being simplistic, of course, in trying to distill and baldly assert what Carson was able to say with much more nuancing and documentation over the course of the book; but the case he lays out is compelling in its reasoning and striking in the categorical, black-and-white picture he paints of an overtly intolerant tolerance, that threatens not just to supersede, but entirely to subvert the tolerance of the past.

Ironically, the intolerance intrinsic to the new tolerance is totalitarian; it cannot stand any sincerely-held belief, no matter what its content. Drawing from Robert Bellah's book, The Good Society, Carson quotes a disillusioned Harvard graduate as saying, “They tell us it’s heresy to suggest the superiority of some value, fantasy to believe in moral argument, slavery to submit to a judgment sounder than your own. The freedom of our day is the freedom to devote yourself to any values we please, on the mere condition that we do not believe them to be true.” In other words, in the name of tolerance, the tolerance of any actual belief is utterly eviscerated. That is, any belief except the belief (of relativism and secularism) that drives the new tolerance.

This is the point that Carson continues to make throughout the book. Quoting representative and respectable proponents of the new tolerance, he demonstrates that it really and pervasively does intend to establish secular relativism as the only tolerable regime. He quotes, for example, The United Nations Declaration of Principles on Tolerance (1995): “Tolerance . . . involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism.” Or else Thomas A. Helmbock, executive vice president of the national Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity: “The definition of the new tolerance is that every individual’s beliefs, values, lifestyle, and perception of truth claims are equal. . . . There is no hierarchy of truth. Your beliefs and my beliefs are equal, and all truth is relative.” But not only does this open the door as widely to fascists or pedophiles as it does to philanthropists and champions of democracy; in actuality, it subtly closes the door to all of those whom it professes to be tolerating. When it rejects “dogmatism” and “truth claims” it is rejecting all those who believe that there is a truth and that they have it – that is, everyone but they themselves who believe in secular relativism.

Interestingly, Carson would suggest that while the ruse has largely deceived us who devised it, it has not been so effective with those for whom it was intended – that is, the “others” in our pluralistic global community, who are different from us ethnically, philosophically, and otherwise. When we are arrogant enough to make the claim that all cultures and truth-claims are equal, not only are we insulting Muslims, for instance, by saying that Buddhism is just as true as Islam, or feminists by saying that strongly patriarchal societies are just as valid as the one they envisage; but we are actually saying that our opinion that all truth claims are equal, which contradicts their opinion that their truth claim is superior, is not only true, but it is incontestable and intolerable to claim otherwise. Carson would suggest that this arrogant condescension is clearly perceived and found to be offensive by much of the world.

But not only has the new tolerance been found insulting to outside cultures; it is causing similar frustration within our own nation, which has resulted in an escalating polarity and discontent among us on a variety of levels. The frustration does not come from the advocates of the new tolerance having the opinions they do: it is their totalitarian refusal to give any other hearing an audience. To quote Carson: “The point is that, while claiming the moral high ground, the secularists are unambiguously attempting to push their own agendas. They have every right to do so, of course, but they do not have the right to assume that their stance is “neutral” and therefore intrinsically superior.” And elsewhere: “while the secularist wants all other religions to retreat into the private sphere, he or she insists that secularists have the right to control the public sphere because they are right — completely unaware that they are trying to impose their worldview on others who disagree with it. Others, they say, are intolerant because they say those with whom they disagree are wrong. But of course the secularists are no less insistent that those who disagree with them are wrong, yet never entertain a guilty wisp of thought suggesting that perhaps they themselves are intolerant.”

More alarming yet is the well-documented point that the oppression is not merely intellectual, but is increasingly beginning to be felt on campuses and in courts throughout the land. We are getting to the point where “You cannot say that something is wrong just because it offends anyone who can whisper in the ear of power. And in subtle ways, in the name of tolerance, state-sponsored coercion — the very criterion of what (the old) intolerance consists in — is brought to bear.”
I have so far concentrated on Carson's logical case against the new tolerance – that it is inconsistent, incoherent, and, ironically, intolerant. In much of the book, that is what Carson competently sets his sights on (and he does a much better job of it than my summary would lead one to conclude). But the book is more than just an exercise in critique or logic. Several subjects were broached in a stimulating but preliminary sort of way. His chapter on the historical conversation regarding tolerance took a step away from the trees to scan the wider forest, for a moment, and had a freeingly humbling effect. I realized that my own limited perspective in history is not adequate to address the complicated issues that the new tolerance touches upon; and it struck me that the same sort of historical myopia that I discovered in myself must really be necessary, to a large degree, for the ironic triumph of the new kind of intolerance. At the least, a step back for a historical survey would help impede the kind of naivety in which a kind of tyranny can grow virtually unrecognized. In a similar vein, Carson's musings on democracy as a political ideal, while brief and largely tangential to his thesis, were scintillating and left me craving a fuller-orbed exploration (perhaps in a future book?).

Much more could be said; but maybe it would be more to the point just to read Carson for himself. You don't have to be an academic to follow him, and while his writing is closely reasoned and sure to provide stimulation both for proponents and adversaries of the new tolerance, it also includes some practical suggestions and insights directed toward conservative Christians who don't usually engage in ideological discussions.

The Intolerance of Tolerance, by D. A. Carson,
available at Monergism Books at a 45% Discount - Limited Time only.

I think it is important to face up to this charge to see if it has any validity. To do this we need to understand how the Bible uses the concept "respecter of persons" and then let it interpret itself as to what it actually means, and then determine whether or not God would be guilty of it if unconditional election were true. Below is a wide sampling of its occurrence in the Scripture:

"Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour." (Leviticus 19: 15 KJV)

"Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous." (Deuteronomy 16: 19 KJV)

"For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means,
that his banished be not expelled from him." (II Samuel 14: 14 KJV)

"Wherefore now let the fear of the LORD be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts." (II Chronicles 19: 7 KJV)

"These things also belong to the wise. It is not good to have respect of persons in judgment." (Proverbs 24: 23 KJV)

"To have respect of persons is not good: for for a piece of bread that man will transgress." (Proverbs 28: 21 KJV)

"And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." (I Peter 1: 17 KJV)

"God is no respecter of persons." (Acts 10: 34)

"For there is no respect of persons with God." (Romans 2: 11)

"My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors." (James 2: 1-9 KJV)

Here we have multiple instances of this phrase in both the Old and New Testament. So what are these passages talking about? They are clearly warning the believer against showing favoritism or partiality, because they declare that God Himself does not show partiality or favoritism. And. most importantly, in each of these instances it means neither we nor God give special treatment to a person because of his position, merit, wealth, influence, social standing, authority or popularity. Thus 'respecter of persons' means we are not to favor one person over the other because of ANY superior personal trait in the one favored, and likewise we are not to show prejudice toward those who lack these characteristics.

So when God unconditionally elects a person in Christ does he first determine who he will choose based on their position, wealth, good looks, influence etc? No. By definition unconditional election means unconditional. It is not conditioned on ANYTHING in us or potentially in us. God does not stand to gain from currying anyone's favor ... even those who are in high positions ... because God gave them that position, wealth, authority or social standing to begin with. The Bible unambiguously teaches, therefore, that God is no respecter of persons in election. Those who are chosen are chosen "in Christ" not because God is thinking about what he has to gain by helping them over others.. God has no need for such things, so, by definition, his choosing us cannot be tainted with such a motive.

Let's take this a step further: it is actually those who defend CONDITIONAL election who make God a respecter of persons. This is because, if it were true that meeting some condition prompted God's decision to elect his people then His choice of them would be based on their wisdom, prudence, sound judgment, or good sense to believe. He would therefore be looking at the character or merit of that person and choosing them because of it. The Bible, on the contrary, declares that we are all ill-deserving and, as such, God reserves the right to have mercy on whom he will, which is not based in any way on the will of the flesh (John 1:13; Rom 9:15, 16). If God is basing his election on who will have faith then this would, in fact, make God a respecter of persons because these persons are meeting God's criteria in order to be chosen.

It is most ironic that those bringing this charge are the very ones who make God a respecter of persons by making God's love and election "conditional". It is the synergist who believes God shows favoritism or partiality because it is based on whether or not that person meritoriously meets the condition God gives him. In synergism God's love for his people is not unconditional but is given only when someone meets the right condition... i.e. whether someone has faith or not. He chooses them only if they believe in him. Isn't that favoritism? This conditional love is quite different than the love we expect from parents in everyday life. Consider, do you love your children because they do something for you? No, of course not. Don't you still love them even when they do something wrong? Of course. As an example, if your child rebelled against you and made you angry then soon after ran out into oncoming traffic would you run out to save him? or would you wait until he used his own will to prove his love to you first? No as a parent who loved their child you would run out to MAKE CERTAIN your child was not hit by a car regardless of the ebbs and flows of your relationship with him. Your love for him and your choice to save him are based on unconditional love. In fact we would consider the parent who first determined the love of their child as a condition to save them most unloving and cursed.

It is important that we further draw out these every day analogies to show how unreasonable this charge against unconditional election is. Consider the very world we live in. In God's perfect wisdom and because of the fall, for His own sovereign good purposes, some people are born into better families, richer countries, healthier bodies, better times, better conditions, more intelligence, etc. Others are born into AIDS, starvation and poverty. We see these "unfair" situations all around us. Does God have nothing to do with where people are born? Did people born into starvation have any say in the matter? Frankly I do not see the Arminian shaking his fist at God for being unfair here. Yet these conditions we see in the world are there because it is part of God's judgment due to the fall. Further, everyone is born equally guilty in Adam and so it is perfectly just that not all get the same benefits in this life when they are born. If this is true of everyday life why is it such a stretch to carry the same idea into eternity? it is hypocrisy not to recognize this inconsistency.

Next, let us consider the example of Jesus himself in Scripture. Jesus chose a specific time and place to come to earth and reveal himself and not other times. He healed some and not others. He raised Lazarus, his friend, but not everyone. There were other families in the world that were just as sad as Lazarus' family...many of them just faithful, just as godly. According to human unaided reason, Jesus singling Lazarus out for resurrection this might appear to show partiality or favoritism. Jesus actually had to power to raise people from the dead and you would think that if this was the case he would help EVERY family which experienced the death of a loved on. This would not be too hard for him. But Jesus did not do so.

By defining favoritism the way Arminians do you would think that Jesus would go around healing everyone, raising everyone, and making no distinctions and divisions whatsoever. Or, you would think he would at least give everyone the choice to have their loved ones raised. But the Jesus presented in the Bible is obviously not the Jesus of Arminianism or Universalism. He's a Jesus who chooses to bring certain people to life and leave others in their own rebellion. Matt 11:27 says, "...no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

Again Jesus himself plainly teaches that he makes distinctions again in Matt 20:1-16 in the parable of Laborers in the Vineyard when He gives full wages to the laborers who worked an hour. He concludes, "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' So the last will be first, and the first last." Does this sound like the picture of God painted by Arminians.

In the end the Bible teaches that God chooses to have mercy on some ill-deserving people out of the entire mass of ill-deserving people. God is not obligated, in any sense, to save anyone because none are his children by nature, but by grace when He mercifully adopts them into his family. The others are rebelling against him and reject him, so he leaves them to their own desire. God is all wise and always conspires with his own wisdom in choosing to do what he does. By definition God's choices are always good, even if you cannot see it. If God doesn't satisfactorily explain to you the good reasons He has for what he does, do you thereby condemn Him for it? Well, most of us don't explain all the good reasons we have for what we do to our own child. Am I therefore immoral? There's several answers I could give that my child would not understand. On what basis do you think you could understand any God-justifying reason there is?

God loves his people because he loves them. Is there some better reason OUTSIDE or ABOVE God that should make him do so? The Arminian would have us think so. But to say so is to profoundly misapprehend the nature of who God is. We know God is always good, so if he wills something to be so, it is right irrespective of whether you understand.

Next, consider your own life and how you think you should treat others. Is it is okay to treat your children any differently than you neighbors or do you treat them exactly the same?

The question really is not whether God shows favorites but IN WHAT SENSE does God not show favorites because God chose Abraham out of all the people's of the earth, not because he saw something good in him, nor because he earned God's favor, but because God chose to. He saves the poor, the wretched and the sinners of the earth according to his sovereign good pleasure in Christ.

FULL LENGTH AUDIO
Dr. James White writes: Today on a Mega Radio Free Geneva: John Samson and Emir Caner

"I bet John never expected to see himself mentioned quite like that before. But, we did have John Samson in studio today to talk about his new book from Monergism.com, Twelve What Abouts, which you can find here. We then went back to reviewing Emir Caner's sermon against Reformed theology, and then took calls on the topic for the last half hour." Here's the full 2 hour program.

Matt Redman explains how he plays the song on his guitar:

Here is a live version, with lyrics added:

John 3:19-20 states that natural men love darkness and will not come into the light. Left to themselves men will always choose to stay in darkness. Whether or not someone believes or rejects Christ, it depends completely on the disposition of the heart. Apart from a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, the Bible says our disposition is, by nature, hostile to God and we cannot understand spiritual truth (Rom 8:7 & 1 Cor 2:14). But thanks be to God, the new birth or regeneration, is where God, the Holy Spirit applies the redemptive blessings of Christ, which give us the spiritual life that empowers us to do what we must do (repent and believe the gospel), but cannot do (while in the flesh), because of our bondage to sin (John 6:63, 65).

It seems that Jesus believes it is critical to remind Peter of this truth as of first importance in Peter's "follow-up". Many in this day and age are reluctant to speak to a new Christian about God's sovereign grace in salvation for fear it is a hard truth. Yet when Peter makes his first confession of Christ, Jesus puts it first before all other truths.

The entire eBook is available for $4 at this link.

The long awaited eBook is now published and available. My prayer is that God will use this to change many hearts and minds and cause His people to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of His all conquering grace. - JS

Full details can be found here.

In C. S. Lewis’s fantasy world Perelandra, a place with no sin or evil, repetition is like “asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day.” Perfection has the concept of “enough,” where pleasure is complete and repetition is vulgar. For those of us who read and re-read writing how-to books like Harry Potter novels, we look for that sense of “enough,” where the formula works and we’re satisfied.

Douglas Wilson’s Wordsmithy offers no such promise, since it’s not his to give. Besides, it probably doesn’t exist outside the world of Forms. But Wilson provides a guide to the “writing life” that doesn’t simply excerpt good writing from classic literature to illustrate his principles but attempts to be the model of good writing itself.

For example, Wilson offers a real gem when warning against “writing by rules” for fear coming up with something “like verbal tapioca pudding made with skim milk. Our world already has too much verbiage in it that comes off like it was written by a committee or a computer—or maybe a committee of computers.” Or when mocking aspiring writers who quote the right people so they can be known as someone who quotes the right people. “They quote Austen like Mary quoted her 18th-century bromides, and were Austen here to see them do it, she’d slap them right into her next book, and it wouldn’t be pretty.”

To be clear, Wilson doesn't live in Greenwich Village and boast a contract with a New York publishing house. He’s a pastor in Moscow, Idaho, who started his own classical education movement and a college to follow. His periodical, Credenda Agenda, stirs up no small wrangles among Presbyterians. None of this slights Wilson. He has lived his own counsel: “Live an actual life, a full life, the kind that generates a surplus of stories.” He types with dirt under his fingernails.

Bad Form

Though Wilson never says so, writers quickly realize there is such a thing as bad style. But to perfect your style, you don’t spend all your time reading manuals. Wilson doesn’t include sections on brevity, unity, or usage. Rather he instructs us to get a life, read until our brains creak, get to know how language works by reading dictionaries, and learn a foreign language. In other words, Wordsmithy isn’t a manual on how to write a great novel so you can go home and write it this afternoon. Rather, if you want to be a writer, Wilson offers tips for what you do for the next 30 years.

The mindful reader will realize that to follow Wilson all the way will make you a certain kind of writer. He does not dispense generic tips. To be sure, any writer who wants to improve would need to follow the spirit of Wilson’s tips, but to be a Wilson-kind-of-writer means to value a certain rhetorical style. Maybe there’s a label for this school of writing, but if there is, I don’t know its name. I only have a sense of it, a rhythmic prose that follows the Austen-Chesterton-Wodehouse-Lewis line of quick wit and belly-laughs. You probably know the kind.

If an author is going to give us tips for a writing life, he only knows one kind of life, his own. He only knows to suggest certain books, the ones he's read. So we need to choose our writing manuals wisely, just like we need to choose our teachers wisely.

Let’s suppose, though, for a moment that you, like Mark Twain, despise writers like Jane Austen. “Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin bone,” Twain said. I can imagine that Twain would be impatient with Wilson as well. Does it follow, then, that we should neglect a book like Wilson’s? There certainly are other books like Stephen King’s On Writing, which gives writing lifestyle instructions without the Anglo-Saxon wit that Twain despised as flighty.

But here’s my case for Wilson’s Wordsmithy. Wilson doesn’t give tips for taking command of Lewis or Wodehouse, but he shows us a lifestyle that takes command of the English language. He doesn’t teach us to be mockers but to be deft wordsmiths.

You shouldn’t be as cranky as Twain anyway. Austen will make your nose snort with laughter, and so does Wilson. He’ll spin your head with prose and make you wonder how he did it. He won’t tell you how he did it, but he’ll write five more and then point to authors who do it all the time. He shows young writers still looking for their voice how to find one. You’ll read this book fast and go back to it again. Wilson has wisdom only a wise man knows.

John Starke is an editor for The Gospel Coalition and lead pastor of All Souls Church in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. You can follow him on Twitter.

Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life.

Question: If God is Sovereign, why pray? Answer: It is BECAUSE God is Sovereign that we do pray. He is Lord of all and can change things, even putting it on our hearts to pray that He would do so.

John Wesley said, “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” There is some truth there but its not the full story. Creation took place before there ever was a prayer meeting. God made His plans long before anything else ever existed. God gave a people to His Son in eternity past who in time will come to Him (John 6:37) and He did so when no one asked Him to. God is not merely a responder, He is a master planner. He is found even by those who never sought Him (Romans 10:20). Lets always be people of prayer but let us be forever thankful that God is not limited to our prayer life before He can act in this world; otherwise we would be Sovereign and not Him. - JS

From an article entitled, “What Difference Does it Make? A Discussion of the Evangelical Utility of the Doctrines of Grace,” Mark Webb writes:

The most casual Bible student admits that scripture indeed employs the language of election when speaking of God’s eternal purposes. Yet most seek to dodge the implications of that language by fleeing to the refuge of “conditional” election (i.e. that God’s choice, or election, of certain men to salvation is “conditioned” by his foreseeing faith in those men). I’ll leave the task of showing that this “time tunnel” hypothesis will not fly to the many excellent works on the subject. Better yet, see it yourself by getting out your Bible and thoroughly studying the many references of scripture concerning this subject. I intend to deal not so much with the proof of the doctrine as with its ramifications.

If “conditional” election is true—if God’s choice of me is determined by my choice of Him—the practical effect of this teaching is no different than if there were no election at all! The proof of this assertion is seen in the fact that the groups who hold this view seldom, if ever, mention the subject. And why should they? To what purpose? Since it’s taught that God has done all He can do to save, and now it’s up to man, the will of man becomes the determining and dominant factor in salvation. Whenever you make God’s choice of men to salvation hinge upon what He foresees in man—be it his work, his faith, or his choice—you have effectively undermined the whole concept of salvation by grace alone! Either salvation depends upon God’s free choice and good pleasure, which is the principle of “grace,” or it depends upon something man himself produces, which is the principle of “works.” It really matters not whether this “thing” which God foresees is something tangible, seen outwardly in the man’s life, or something intangible, seen inwardly only by God. It matters not whether it’s a huge thing, or whether it’s a tiny thing. So long as man’s part is the critical, determinative part, you have a system based upon “works” not grace.

Let me illustrate. Suppose you came to me and said, “Mark, I have a $15,000 car here. If you’ll pay me $15,000, I’ll give you the car.” We’d all agree, that’s not “grace,” that’s “works.” But suppose you said, “Mark, I’ve a $15,000 car here, and I’ll simply give you the car.” We’d all agree, that’s “grace,” not “works.” But now let’s try to mix the two concepts. Suppose you said, “Mark, here’s a $15,000 car. I’ll be $14,999 gracious to you if you’ll simply pay me $1.” Have we succeeded in mixing “grace” and “works?” No! For what’s the practical difference between that last offer and you simply saying, “Mark, here’s a $15,000 car—I’ll sell it for $1?”

Do you see? You’re still coming to me on the basis of “selling,” not “giving.” You’ve not changed your principle, you’ve simply lowered your price! This is precisely Paul’s point in Romans 11:5-6. An “unconditional” election is the only concept of election consistent with salvation by free grace!

Election Excludes Man’s Boasting

Scripture tells us in passages like Rom. 3:27, I Cor. 1:26-31, and Eph. 2:8-10, that God intentionally designed salvation so that no man could boast of it. He didn’t merely arrange it so that boasting would be discouraged or kept to a minimum—He planned it so that boasting would be absolutely excluded! Election does precisely that.

With my new book "Twelve What Abouts - Answering Common Objections Concerning God's Sovereignty in Election" due to be published in early January, 2012, I thought it would be helpful to provide something of a window as to my purpose in writing it. Here's an introductory chapter entitled "A Word to the Reader" - JS:

Question: WHY THIS BOOK?
Answer: For the glory of God

Question: WHO IS THIS BOOK WRITTEN FOR?
Answer: Christians who believe the Bible is the word of God and who wish to gain a biblical understanding of God’s electing grace in Christ.

Question: WHO WILL GAIN MOST FROM THE BOOK?
Answer: Those who are willing to test and examine their traditions and hold them up to the light of Scripture, the sole infallible rule of faith for the people of God.

This is not an easy process at times, more for emotional rather than intellectual reasons. Many of us have been told things by highly respected people in our lives (such as the person who led us to Christ, or a revered pastor or Bible teacher, or a father or mother in the faith) which, upon analysis, may not in fact be true. Sometimes, to actually test such statements can feel like an act of betrayal on our part. Yet, it is vital for all who desire to be led by the Spirit of truth to yield to His leading rather than maintain an emotional allegiance to what many call “theological love lines.”

A WORD ABOUT BIBLE INTERPRETATION
Hermeneutics is the science of biblical interpretation. One amongst many sound principles of interpretation is that we should build all doctrine on necessary rather than possible inferences.

A necessary inference is something that is definitely taught by the text. The conclusion is unavoidable. It is necessary.

A possible inference is something that could or might be true, but not something actually stated by the text. Some refer to this as the distinction between the implicit and the explicit.

An implication may be drawn from the text of scripture, but we then have to ask if the implicit interpretation is a NECESSARY ONE rather than a POSSIBLE one. We all have our theories, but a sound principle we should employ is to not believe or teach as doctrine something that is only a possible interpretation. We should build doctrine ONLY on necessary interpretation.

In practical terms, making these distinctions can sometimes be a difficult process because it means we have to take a step back and thoroughly analyze exactly why we think a verse teaches something. In other words, it means testing our traditions and doing a lot of thinking. Yet this is something we should do constantly.

All of us should be prepared to hold up our preconceived notions to the light of Scripture to see if these assumptions are valid or not. The result of this process often involves the killing of some sacred cows, but that’s a good thing, if what we have held to be true cannot actually be supported by the biblical text. We all have our blind spots and traditions but we are not always aware of them. Therefore, the serious Bible student asks questions of himself and of the text constantly in order to determine what the sacred text actually says and then he builds his thinking on that.

Here’s one text as an example: John 20:19 says, “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Many people read this passage and conclude that Jesus walked through the locked door in order to present Himself to His disciples.

But does the text actually say that? No, it does not. The text MIGHT be teaching that. It is certainly a possible inference drawn from the text, but by no means a necessary one. There are other possible explanations.

Concerning this verse the ESV Study Bible says (correctly in my opinion), “Some interpreters understand the doors being locked to imply that Jesus miraculously passed through the door or the walls of the room, though the text does not explicitly say this. Since Jesus clearly had a real physical body with flesh and bones after he rose from the dead… one possibility is that the door was miraculously opened so that the physical body of Jesus could enter, which is consistent with the passage about Peter going through a locked door some time later (see Acts 12:10).”

To state the principle again: we should build all doctrine on necessary rather than possible inferences, on the explicit and not the implicit. All else is speculation.

Another sound rule of Bible interpretation is that we should interpret the unclear passages in Scripture in light of the clear. Though all Scripture is God breathed, every passage is not equally clear (easy to understand). Even the Apostle Peter struggled with Paul’s writings at times, as he found some of it “hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:16)

When determining what the Bible teaches on a particular topic, we should find the passages which CLEARLY address the issue at hand and make this the starting point of our doctrine, rather than an obscure (or less than clear) passage. Once that which is clear is firmly grasped and understood, then we should proceed to study the passages which at first seem to be unclear, using the other interpretive rules.

These distinctions I make are not mine in terms of origin. They are carefully thought out methods or rules of interpretation employed by all sound teachers of the Bible. Of course, none of us follow our own interpretive rules consistently, which is why Christians and even scholars make mistakes, and why, even with the exact same Bible in front of us, we do not all see things the same way. We ALL have our blind spots and traditions.

One more thing: If there is a contradiction between two views, at least one of them is wrong. God is not confused even if we are. He is not the author of confusion. Our task as students of the Bible and disciples of Christ is to search out the Scriptures to find out what they actually teach.

HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT IT?
The opening verses of Proverbs 2 say:

1 My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding…

The promises of verses 5 and 6 are conditional upon heeding the requirements set forth in verses 1 through 4.

When God opens the eyes to see the beauty of Christ and His gospel, it is entirely His work. He opens our blind eyes to give us the miracle of spiritual sight. Yet once we are disciples of Christ, spiritual growth is not automatic. For this to happen, we have to pursue God, asking Him to open up our understanding, while searching out the Scriptures. This is not to be some half hearted attempt at spiritual progress. Indeed, this is no trivial pursuit. God rewards those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Note the requirements listed here in these verses: we are told to receive and treasure God’s word, make the ear attentive, incline the heart, call out for insight, raise the voice for understanding, seek it like silver, search for it as for hidden treasures… THEN (for those who fulfill these conditions) the promise is made that God will bring understanding of the fear and knowledge of Himself. He will give us His wisdom, knowledge and understanding. I trust that this is your strong desire.

The words of these verses have been used as a prayer of mine over a number of decades now, and I hope you the reader will make it your prayer too as we take this journey into the Scriptures. The phrase “mouth of God” in verse 6, is a clear reference to the Scriptures. This is how we are called to live, not by bread alone, but “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)

May each of us be led by the Holy Spirit, knowing that as we continue in His word, we shall be seen to be His true disciples, experiencing the reality of Jesus’ promise that “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31, 32)

Question: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK?
Answer: That each Christian who reads it will enjoy more of their blessed inheritance in Christ, knowing the Father’s love, grace and mercy in ways they might never have known before.

Interested?

If so, then please read on…

Response: Thank you for your excellent question. Actually we really don't even need a controversial issue. All human beings, apart from grace, are in bondage to sin and cannot do otherwise. You were born with the inability to perfectly obey the 10 commandments, correct?. And are you now saying now that a person can come to faith, apart from grace, and apart from the work of the Holy Spirit? Being "born this way" does not alleviate us or responsibility. If you can obey all of God's commands by yourself, with your own boasted free will, then you frankly don't need Christ, and could save yourself. But Christ came precisely because we cannot help ourselves. It is a matter of mercy, not obligation because we meet some condition. Consider this example: if you borrowed $100 million from the bank to start a new company and instead you squandered it all in a week of wild living in Las Vegas, does your inability to repay the bank alleviate you of the responsibility to do so? No, of course not. Likewise we all fell in Adam and are responsible for all of our subsequent sins and failure to live up to God's righteous demands. Our inability to lift a finger toward our own salvation, after the fall, does not alleviate us from the responsibility to obey. Otherwise, using your logic, God would be obligated to forgive us all because the fall rendered us morally impotent. But, as I have demonstrated, inability does not alleviate responsibility.

In other words, the church is to command all men everywhere (even the unregenerate) to yield to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That is, obey Him who has authority over all things. At the same time the commands are too much for us to bear ... we all owe a debt we cannot repay. When God enables men to see in the commands their woeful inadequacy and how far they fall short of God, they will turn to their only hope, Jesus Christ. When God shows ill-deserving sinners that, from our own natural resources we cannot obey His commands (Rom 3:19, 20; 1 Cor 2:14), we then, by grace, turn to God alone for mercy. And yet God is not obligated to save anyone. He would be just to send us all to the lake of fire. But he has mercy on many in Jesus Christ, in spite of our rebellion.

‎You rightly quote, "No man can come to Me unless the Father who send Me draw him" - John 6:44 .... Take a look just before this verse to verse 37 which is in the same immediate context .... it says "ALL THAT THE FATHER GIVES TO BE WILL COME TO ME." Not some but ALL. This means that ALL persons that the Father draws will believe. Come to me means "believe in me". This create a syllogism which makes the non-Reformed understanding of the verse, frankly, untenable.