TULIP Trouble

On By Dave MallinakIn Apologetic, Calvinism, Gospel Conversations, Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, Issues Facing the Church3 Comments

The relation of divine sovereignty to human responsibility is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. It is plain from Scripture in any case that both are real and that both are important. Calvinistic theology is known for its emphasis on divine sovereignty – for its view that God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:11). But in Calvinism there is at least an equal emphasis upon human responsibility. (John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, p. 14)

I open with this quote because, first, John Frame is a well-known Calvinist, and second, because he accurately describes here the mysterious interaction between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in salvation. Recently, I placed as the tenth on my list of things I wish would change among Independent Baptists, “overstated anti-Calvinism.” In my explanation of that objection, I said that quite often, in their haste to refute Calvinists, many Independent Baptists caricature Calvinism. In response to that article, some friends asked me to explain my objections to Calvinism, which resulted in an initial post in which I objected to the way Calvinists tend to blur the paradox between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in their presentation of the gospel. Now, I want to raise before you the primary proof that in Calvinism, this paradox is either blurred or ignored.

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The TULIP does not account for man’s responsibility at all. Period. It gives no consideration to man’s responsibility, and nothing in it would give anyone the idea that man is responsible before God to repent and believe the gospel. If a person learning the TULIP were to take that as the summary of Christian doctrine, they would conclude that man has no part in God’s plan for our salvation other than to wait and hope that God might save him. The TULIP is an effective mnemonic device, for sure. But as far as a summary of Christian doctrine, it falls woefully short. One could argue that the TULIP only gives one side of the coin – later, I will contend that it also goes beyond Scripture in its attempt to describe God’s sovereignty in salvation. But supposing that the TULIP does give one half of the truth, half the truth is not the truth.

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The Thanksgiving that Changed My Life

On By Dave MallinakIn Enjoying God, Joy, Personal, Thanksgiving2 Comments

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (I Thessalonians 5:18)

More than thirty years ago, God used a time of turmoil to bring a Thanksgiving revival into my life. It happened like this.

From my sophomore year of high school, I committed to attend Fairhaven Baptist College to prepare for the ministry. Our church did a lot with Fairhaven, but my pastor was a graduate of Hyles-Anderson College, and we also did a lot in Hammond.

I graduated from high school in 1989. That summer, Roger Voegtlin preached his now-famous sermon, “Why I am not 100% for Jack Hyles.” My parents had me listen to a recording of that sermon and then told me that they thought Dr. Voegtlin was wrong to preach it and asked me not to attend college there.

I was happy to comply. I loved my freshman year at Hyles and developed enough loyalty to Hyles that Fairhaven became public enemy number one. But at the end of that year, my pastor had me listen to the Paula Hyles tapes. Those tapes turned my world upside down. They confirmed the truth of the accusations against Jack Hyles. My pastor told me that he and about fourteen other staff members were resigning from their teaching positions. My parents insisted that I not return to Hyles for my second year of college.

That summer, I worked midnights washing dishes at Denny’s Restaurant. I didn’t handle midnights very well. I could hardly stay awake during the day – sometimes, I fell asleep eating breakfast. My work week ran from Tuesday to Saturday night. So, I would work all night Friday night until Saturday morning, shower and go out visiting until the late afternoon on Saturday, sleep a few hours, work overnight Saturday until Sunday morning, shower, and go to church all day Sunday. Needless to say, my spiritual life was a wreck. I couldn’t stay awake to read my Bible or pray, and I couldn’t stay awake in church.

Near the end of that summer, I caught my pastor in an immoral act. He, of course, denied that I was seeing what I was seeing. He played the victim as if I were trying to destroy his ministry by saying what I saw him doing.

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The Ooze From the Hyles Dumpster

On By Dave MallinakIn Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, Issues Facing the Church, Justice1 Comment

A week ago, the Fundamental Baptist Podcast, hosted by David Baker, posted an episode in which Dave Hyles refuted his sister Linda’s now-famous claims about her father Jack Hyles. This has been a long time coming. Linda gave her TED talk in 2012 – more than a dozen years ago. So one might wonder why Dave waited so long to answer it. Maybe he had other affairs to attend to…

There is a reason why we keep our dumpsters out of sight, far removed from our places of business. Besides those especially ripe fragrances that surround it, we find ourselves stepping carefully, the closer we get, lest we step into a puddle that wasn’t caused by any rain. The liquids that ooze out from beneath the dumpster have a way of staying on your shoes, and nobody wants to track that around.

Even so, it seems impossible to come near the Hyles airspace without getting a little dumpster jam on your clothes. It’s a stench you can’t shake, and nobody wants to smell like that. And the Fundamental Baptist Podcast is like a steaming mess of toxic fumes. As just one sample of the rotting mess from this podcast, neither David Baker nor Dave Hyles believes repentance to be a necessary step to restoration – “We start the restoration process before they repent.” Vintage. Don’t nobody look at 2 Corinthians 7:8-12.

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A Critical View of Calvinism

On By Dave MallinakIn Calvinism, Gospel Conversations, Hot Topics, Issues Facing the Church2 Comments

Let me say at the outset that I won’t be interacting with the various Calvinist viewpoints or offering a nuanced critique of hyper-Calvinism v. “high” Calvinism v. “strict” Calvinism. I saw a comic strip on Twitter/X where a Calvinist poked fun at his fellow Calvinists about some of the high-handed intermural debate that goes on between Calvinists themselves. The comic said, “Brothers and sisters are natural enemies, like Arminians and Calvinists, or Lutherans and Calvinists, or Catholics and Calvinists, or Calvinists and other Calvinists.

This isn’t a strange thing. Our church is committed to exclusively using the King James Bible – a position most would describe as “King James Only.” But amongst King James Onlyists, that isn’t nearly enough. I don’t say that the King James Version is inspired, so I’m not really King James Only – I only “use” the King James. And this statement is made with thick scorn heaped upon my head.

Our nuanced opinion is a design feature, fed in part by our unique individuality and in part by our fallenness. And though the work of redemption ought to teach us to hold our viewpoints in humility, we all have those lines that “you shall not pass.” And woe unto that man that crosses our carefully-drawn line.

That said, a hyper-Calvinist will argue that man’s salvation and sanctification and really everything in life is all dictated by God, that man has no choice in anything, that even the suggestion that we should respond to the Gospel is a corruption of the Gospel. “High” Calvinism believes in evangelism because God commands it, but considers it more of a scavenger hunt in search of the elect. According to high Calvinism, God has no desire to save the non-elect. He calls all men to faith and repentance, but for the non-elect, this call only demonstrates that their condemnation is just. God doesn’t love all men, and the atonement of Christ is not available to all men. In other words, the universal offer of the Gospel is more a theory than a reality.

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Can We Expect a Special Whisper from the Holy Ghost?

On By Dave MallinakIn Cessationism, Continuationism, Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, The Holy Spirit2 Comments

With apologies for an exceptionally long post…

I have argued that the quest for a “special whisper” from the Holy Spirit amounts to a search for further revelation. God’s Word is sufficient. The Holy Spirit works through the Word and through wisdom acquired from the Word to lead us in our decisions. And so, while God may direct us in extraordinary ways, we shouldn’t expect this. After all, extra ordinary isn’t ordinary.

Nonetheless, I have had a few questions about Bible verses suggesting that the Holy Spirit will give a tangible word of guidance in the more critical decisions. I promised to take time with these passages, so here goes.

Here are some specific questions I have been asked:

(from Missionary Matt Northcutt) What do you do with passages that seem to indicate that God does, indeed, give peace as an arbiter as we follow Him in faith (such as Is. 26:3, Phil. 4:6-7, and Col. 3:15)?

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He Shall Direct Thy Paths, Part 4

On By Dave MallinakIn Cessationism, Continuationism, Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, The Holy Spirit4 Comments

In three posts, I have sought to establish from the Bible that God does guide us, that we are taught to trust Him to guide us, and that we shouldn’t look for tangible signs of His leading. But does that mean God never gives us what I have called a “special whisper” or some token of His leading?

I do not say this. I say that we shouldn’t look for it, that we should trust God to lead us in the absence of any kind of sensational guidance. But I have had some experiences in my own life that could only have been the Lord. My experiences are not authoritative but are very real and meaningful to me. Let me share three of them and then get down to the brass tacks of how God communicates His will for our lives.

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I was in my fourth year of ministry as an Assistant Pastor at Berean when God began to work on me about becoming a pastor. I did not realize that God was the one at work until the very end of that period of wrestling. Initially, I thought my desire to pastor was a pride issue, as if I presumed on this calling. Ultimately, God helped me see that He was calling me into this ministry. Within a few weeks of surrendering to this call, I met with my pastor to discuss it with him. Though God’s dealing in my heart was very real to me, I came to that meeting believing that God’s call would be confirmed or denied when I told my pastor. To my surprise (and horror), he said to me that he had been praying for this very thing for some time and that he was praying that God would make me the pastor at Berean. After I got past that shock, I met with him again about a week later, and he repeated this desire. A month later, on a fateful September evening, we received word that my pastor had tragically drowned. In the moment when I received word of his death, I had a very concrete thought that has never left me: “This is what I have been preparing you for.” I didn’t (and don’t) believe that experience was authoritative. I didn’t tell the church or anyone besides my wife. When the church formed a pulpit committee and began the search for a new pastor, I offered no hint of these phenomenal words of guidance. I waited for the church to ask me to be the candidate. When they asked, I said nothing about what our former pastor had said, and I said nothing about what I believed the Lord said to me. If these thoughts came from the Lord, I knew the church would vote me in as the next pastor. If they were merely voices in my head, the church would decline. When they took the vote, it was confirmed to me that this was, in fact, from the Lord.

Continue reading “He Shall Direct Thy Paths, Part 4” →

He Shall Direct Thy Paths, part 3

On By Dave MallinakIn Cessationism, Continuationism, Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, The Holy Spirit1 Comment

You might wish God would communicate every step you should take each day. Anytime you had choices, God would telegraph His will for that decision. God would make His choice known if you had to decide between McDonald’s and Denny’s, pick between mowing the lawn or washing the car, or take the job at the bank or the local flour mill. Such a deal!

Now, you might be thinking that this would be wonderful. You would never make a wrong choice again. You would immediately know God’s first choice in a spouse, in a job, in a house, in a car, in a church, and so on down the line. This plan, it would seem, would be the very best way to keep all God’s children in line.

So, why doesn’t God provide us with a CPS – the celestial version of a GPS? First, we have to say that since God doesn’t equip each of us with our own personal ephod, it must be contrary to His will to give us this kind of direction for our every decision. In fact, such micro-direction wouldn’t help us grow into maturity or measure up to the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13-15). Divine micro-managing would keep us in a perpetual childhood, which must be contrary to God’s will.

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You might object that nobody wants this kind of guidance for every little inconsequential decision. We only need God’s clear direction for the major decisions we have to make. And that is fair enough. Of course, we don’t always know when a decision qualifies as “major.” Some decisions would obviously count, like choosing a life’s partner or a life’s calling. But major decisions sometimes sneak up on us. Without recognizing the significance of the decision, we take a step and then learn, to our horror, that we can’t walk it back. The guy who lost his leg in a motorcycle accident didn’t know what a fateful decision he made when he chose to go riding that day.

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He Shall Direct Thy Paths, part 2

On By Dave MallinakIn Cessationism, Continuationism, Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, Preaching and Teaching3 Comments

In the initial post on God’s guidance, we argued that we can be sure of God’s leading in our lives. Besides the many places in Scripture that teach us to look for His direction, we can add that the entirety of Scripture would lead us to believe that God will guide us.  God is our Father; we are His sons and daughters by adoption. If a good father directs His children, how much more can we look to our Heavenly Father to lead us and guide us in the way we should go? “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” God isn’t moving the football, concealing His will, or being tricksy or coy with us. Since God wants His children to do His will, we can be sure that God will guide us and not withhold the information we need like a catty secretary.

We know this also because God’s Holy Spirit indwells us, and a vital part of His ministry includes teaching and instructing us.

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. (I John 2:27)

The Bible doesn’t teach us to look for the same method or means of guidance as we see men in the early church receiving. Remember that the Holy Spirit worked more overtly and sensationally then. Without the entire canon of Scripture, God allowed men to walk by sight. 

In our day, God expects us to live by faith, looking to His Word more than we look for signs or sensations. So, we don’t look for God to speak to us now the way He spoke to the men of that day. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for God to guide us at all.

Continue reading “He Shall Direct Thy Paths, part 2” →

He Shall Direct Thy Paths

On By Dave MallinakIn Cessationism, Continuationism, Independent Baptists, Preaching and Teaching, The Holy Spirit8 Comments

My article series on things I wish would change among Independent Baptists provoked a fair amount of discussion and raised more than a few questions. In particular, the article on “Holy Spirit Kookery” gave a little heartburn to a few readers. As one commenter asked,

How would a man know if he is called to preach if God does not lead him through the Spirit?

How could I have perfect peace that my wife was God’s choice for me if He did not impress this upon me by His Spirit?

As I have committed to answering these and similar questions, I invite you to hop aboard, buckle up, and keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times. The question, as I see it, is not whether the Holy Spirit directs us, but how, and how do we know He is the one leading us and not just our baser impulses or (worse yet) an evil spirit back of those voices in my head.  

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