02.28.07
Interesting Word: “Strumpet”
From time to time i’ve come across interesting words that i don’t often hear in everyday, modern conversation. When i came across one today in some reading i was doing, i got the idea of making a category devoted to bringing out those words and their definitions for the benefit of my (few) readers, and so i can have a record to look back at the words i found interesting.
The first one of those is from something i was reading in Calvin’s commentary (in English) on Amos 2:
“A strumpet will, indeed, readily admit a son and a father without any difference, for she has no shame; and no fear of God restrains abandoned women given up to filthiness.”
Strumpet (strŭm’pĭt)
noun
a prostitute, harlot; an adultress.
Possibility of three etymological sources (not necessarily mutually exclusive):
- From Latin struprata, femanine participle of struprare, “to have illicit sexual relations with.”
- From Late Latin strumpum, “dishonor, violation.”
- From Middle Dutch strompe, “a stocking,” or strompen, “to stride or stalk.”
Calvin v. (Some) Calvinists on the Interpretation of 2 Peter 3:9
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Take a look at the video (right at 9 minutes long). You might be surprised at what it really says. Try to listen dispassionately as an objective observer and see how the arguments “sound.” Basically, what you’re going to find is a rather standard-fare exlanation from a conservative Calvinist point of view on why what the Holy Apostle Peter says in his second epistle doesn’t mean what it really sounds like it means.
What this group is doing, really, is to present an interpretation of 2 Peter 3:9 that keeps Arminians from being able to use this verse as a prop for their views. (FYI, conservative Calvinism typically has two enemies they oppose: the twin evils of Arminianism and Romanism; if they accuse you of being either one, you’re on their hit-list!) The problems is that the presentation here makes use of very flawed hermeneutics in order to do what it accomplishes. In fact, to be very honest, the Arminian has a more honest approach (with more respect for the text itself) than the Calvinist does at this point.
Now, i agree that 2 Peter 3:9 should be interpreted in a way that keep Arminians from being able to use it to prop up their own “elect because selected” kind of interpretation. However, there is another way to come at this text that is both thoroughly Calvinistic (though, not in keeping with the Owenist interpretation of it), and that takes seriously what our Father Peter was saying.
Listen to what Calvin says about this text:
Not willing that any should perish. So wonderful is his love towards mankind, that he would have them all to be saved, and is of his own self prepared to bestow salvation on the lost. But the order is to be noticed, that God is ready to receive all to repentance, so that none may perish; for in these words the way and manner of obtaining salvation is pointed out. Every one of us, therefore, who is desirous of salvation, must learn to enter in by this way.
But it may be asked, If God wishes none to perish, why is it that so many do perish? To this my answer is, that no mention is here made of the hidden purpose of God, according to which the reprobate are doomed to their own ruin, but only of his will as made known to us in the gospel. For God there stretches forth his hand without a difference to all, but lays hold only of those, to lead them to himself, whom he has chosen before the foundation of the world (Calvin’s Commentaries, 2 Peter).
Now, tell me that some rough and rowdy Calvinist out there (who learnt Reformed Theology from some online discussion or email group) wouldn’t say of Calvin’s words there (“he would have them all [from mankind] to be saved”), “That sounds Arminian!” But really, it is Calvin himself who says that God reveals in 2 peter 3:9 that he would have all men, all mankind, even without distinction between elect and reprobate, to be saved, and he is, of himself, prepared to bestow it upon the lost. That is to say, he has mercy on sinners as sinners, not just on sinners as elected. He actually and effectually saves only those who approach him repentantly, in humble faith. And the elect are the only ones, who by God’s grace, will do that. Yet that fact being what it is, it doesn’t mean that Peter is saying that God only desires the salvation of the elect in that verse. Even Calvin sees how ridiculous such an interpretation would be.
Is it even possible that Calvin would be guilty of Arminianism? Leaving aside the question of whether Calvin is right, can it be properly said that the view that Calvin himself held is out of bounds in a Reformed and Calvinistic context? Can those of us who say that God truly and properly desires the salvation of all men be said to be Arminian when Calvin himself says that very thing?
Bottom line, the verse in question speaks only of God’s revealed will in the Gospel, and according to the revealed will of the Gospel, he desires all men to repent (else he would not have commanded all to repent, Act. 17:30–what kind of God would we be talking about who commands something that he does not desire in any sense to see come to pass?). Calvin himself shows that election and reprobation are not seen in this text; so to import it (as the resource above does) is to practice eisegesis rather than exegesis.
I sympathize with the purpose of these videos, but the means by which they try to accomplish their end is to defer automatically to the decree of God in order to explain something that plainly has to do with the revealed will or precepts of God. The plain meaning of the text shouldn’t be abandoned for a contorted and contrived one just because it is perceived that to affirm it would be to give ground to the Arminians. That’s a wrong-headed attitude when it comes to Scripture interpretation. It is to get the cart before the horse–or, more to the point, the system before Scripture
More comments to follow, and some specifics about what the problem is with this interpretation.
Why Protestants Are So Festidious About Catholicism
I was writing some comments about the doctrine of merit on another blog, and i had a thought: what if the reason Protestants (Reformed ones especially) are so festidious about their differences with Romanism is that they are so very much like them in so many ways?
One statement that i often make when i am teaching about the history of Protestantism and especially about what it means to be Reformed is that “Reformed” is an adjective, and it has to describe something. We can’t just be “Reformed”; we have to be a Reformed something. Adjectives modify nouns, and while the noun may be almost always assumed with the use of a word like “Reformed,” it is still there. But what *IS* that noun? Some people might say Christians; what we are is “Reformed Christians,” but then that makes Romanists “Non-Reformed Christians”–and that’s true, as far as it goes, since we are cut from the same bolt, after all. But the same thing is true on the other side as well: Romanists are, as they are most often referred to, Roman Catholics, but they don’t own the word “Catholic” (cf. Second Helvetic Confession’s discussion of the Holy Catholic Church), and so we are Reformed Catholics.
But in discussing this issue of merit and seeing how traditional Reformed Protestants formulate their understanding of Christ’s work, it is plainly obvious that, while Romanism and Reformed Protestantism have strong differences over how they would explain people are saved from God’s wrath and curse, we also have lots of overlap, including the idea of merit that is through-and-through soaked into the fabric of Reformedom. They might not like the terminology of “congruent” and “condign” merit, but the formulation of Christ earning merit in order to give to his people is itself condign merit (the condign merit of Christ given to his people). “A Rose by any other name,” and all that. They might not affirm the Roman doctrine of receiving either condign or congruent merit from the saints (no self-respecting Protestant would!); they might not call it “condign merit” (anyone know any Reformed folks that throw that term around in anything but a perjorative way?), but it is condign merit nonetheless.
Now, i have met a few fringe Protestants (thinking about it, it really might be hard to characterize them as being Protestants in the proper sense) who deny the doctrine of rewards at all, but when the majority of Reformed Protestants speak of God rewarding us for doing works that, in themselves, do not “merit” the reward given them, they are, ipso facto, speaking of congruent merit, even if they would never think about using that term. You can’t get around it.
Western Christians, whether Roman or Reformed Catholics, cannot get away from the mindset that distinguished Western thought from Eastern. We are part and parcel of the same broader culture; the theological concerns (i.e., legal issues, issues of freedom, and issues concerning respect and dignity of individuals, &c.) that gave rise to Medieval Romanist explanations are the same concerns that Reformed Protestants have, even if they give a tweaked answer to those questions. Let’s face it: while Reformed Prostestants love to hate Romanism as a system of doctrine (let’s hope it’s not Romanists as people), they hold to a system that is an awful lot like it in a great many ways. But in the final analysis, all that means is that they have to go to great lengths to emphasize those differences that exist, which are, by comparison to differences even to Eastern Christians, relatively minor.
02.27.07
How I Got Where I Am
I am a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), but this is a very long way from where i actually started. From my birth, i was a Southern Baptist. (Actually, to be very technical, i was nothing until i made a profession of faith and was baptized at age 6, but that’s another topic for another day.) The college i attended before i went into seminary (then North Greenville College, now North Greenville University) was a college supported by the South Carolina Baptist State Convention. Even while i was in college, i served a local SBC congregation as an associate pastor of youth, and i was ordained by that church.
Even as a Southern Baptist, though, i was growing as a minister, and i continued to study. The first major shift i made was in embracing the Doctrines of Grace. Having been a full-blown Arminian (almost Pelagian), a committed Charismatic, and even approaching an Open Theist, coming to understand God’s sovereignty made a profound impact on me personally, and on my ministry and preaching.
Once i left college, though, and went on to Erskine Seminary (btw, as a random fact, on the front page of the seminary site, i am actually the guy–facing right in the picture–directly to the right of the black guy in center), i was confronted with an environment that was much more ecumenical (one could say “catholic”) than the Southern Baptist context i had been in for some years before. While i had always affirmed it, while in seminary, i had to come explicitly to recognize that the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is larger than just one denominational tradition. In that context, i went through my second major theological shift: embracing the truth of Covenant Theology. I found the truth of God’s Covenant to be foundational to the proper understanding of Scripture, and i also found that, while not all denominations hold to the doctrine of the Covenant, the great majority of Churches throughout the world have a practice in keeping with the truth of the Covenant.
In other words, by being confronted with Scripture in a way i hadn’t before, and being confronted with loving, caring, sincere Christians while in seminary, i came to broaden my understanding of Christianity and actually became a committed Presbyterian. The denomination i actually joined was the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP); Erskine Seminary is their denominational seminary (even though the majority of the people who go there are from other denominational traditions). Under Stuart Latimer, the pastor of the ARP Church we joined (also a former Baptist, though not a Southern Baptist), i learned quite alot and he challenged me to be a better minister as i continued to prepare myself for ministry as a Presbyterian.
So, after i finished seminary, the PCA seemed a perfectly reasonable choice to look at alongside other ministry opportunities in the ARP. Several churches were in dialogue with me, but i felt the Lord’s call to this particular PCA congregation that i now pastor. This is really a very nice little congregation; the people are very friendly, and it provides me great freedom to study at my own pace and in my own way. I also have enjoyed my time in Westminster Presbytery, as there are lots of great men in this presbytery, with many years of experience in ministering to God’s people. They have some interesting requirements, though. One that is a major requirement in Westminster Presbytery is holding twenty-four hour, six day creation. While i’m not really all that rigid on creation views, my default mode is twenty-four/six, so i don’t have a problem affirming it.
All told, though, i praise the Lord for what he’s done in my life. I don’t know what he has in store for me in the future, but i am immensely thankful for where i am now. Looking back, it seems like so long ago that i was a Southern Baptist and even Arminian. It just goes to show me how fundamental the change has been–that i can’t even imagine still being there at this point in my life. It also shows me that sanctification isn’t just a process that cleanses us from personal sin acts; it is a process that fundamentally remakes us, body, soul, mind, and heart. Thank the Lord for that.
You Have to Start Somewhere…
I had long resisted the urge to create a blog. The blogs that i frequent are often updated (for the most part). Knowing what a good blog looks like from others i read, I didn’t want to start something that i won’t be consistent in keeping up–and i know that i have a tendency to let unnecessary things (like a forum to pour forth words that probably no one will care to read) fall by the wayside.
But here is my first attempt at it. We’ll see how successful i am. One thing is for sure: i don’t have any lack of opinions to express. The question is whether i’ll be disciplined enough to put them down and share them–and whether anyone will care enough to read them.
We shall see.
