Here’s the specific passage (1 Cor. 3:3-7) which refers to Paul and Apollos, although reading the whole chapter helps us to understand Paul’s mindset here.
> …for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
Luther, for his part, wasn’t too keen on having a denomination named after himself, either. Here’s his take on it, from “A Sincere Admonition to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion”
> I ask that people make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine. Neither was I crucified for anyone. St. Paul, in I Corinthians 3, would not allow the Christians to call themselves Pauline or Petrine but Christian. How then should I – poor stinking maggot-fodder than I am – come to have people call the children of Christ by my wretched name? Not so, my dear friends; let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christian.
So, brothers and sisters, what are your thoughts? How do we reconcile titles like “Calvinist” and “Arminian” – which have become almost synonymous with the concepts they represent – with the teaching of 1 Corinthians 3?
I have only heard John Piper and Douglas Wilson. Any more I should receive wisdom from?
Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian are all the same but have diff names
Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will" gives a wholehearted defense of predestination, and as far as I'm aware, the two men considered themselves to have the same position on this issue as each other. Why did this particular belief come to define "Calvinism" when the chief reformer Luther seems to have already articulated this position?
Are there any Calvinists/Reformed/etc who not only believe that the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:1-11) are active today and that all Christians can receive them if they desire them (1 Cor 14:1), but have received them in their own lives and have put them to use?
I don't need you to accomplish my plan. I do love you though, so much that I died for you, which I WOULDN'T have done if it didn't bring me MAX GLORY. Oh, did I say I didn't need you? I actually DO need you to go to hell for MAX GLORY POWER. So I guess I actually didn't love and die for YOU specifically... Shoulda been elect amirite?
Really, I am so thankful to God for bringing me out of a theological system of works salvation with no assurance. I grew up in the churches of Christ movement, basically modern day Pelagians. No joke. Eventually, after some searching and with a little help from the Westminster Confession, I came to realize from the Bible that God was so much more powerful than I ever thought. This absolutely terrified me at first, but now this is my source of greatest joy and comfort. I realized that salvation wasn't about what I could do for God, but what God has already done for me! I realized that I don't need to sweat to get to heaven, but that I could just surrender. Three years on, I struggle with sanctification every day, but at the end of the day I have peace and contentment. Glory be to God!
I’m designing a Requiem setting in a part of the world where Protestant Christianity is much more prevalent than Catholicism. The book says the Lancea are influential and active in just about any religion of the book, but I’m curious about how they’d interact with the idea that people are destined for heaven or hell at birth and nothing can change this. that concept seems like it totally undermines the Lancea’s raison d’etre, so I’m curious how they’d reconcile that idea if they were active in sects that held that belief.
Read this great quote from John Newton, writing to a young Baptist pastor, about his attitude toward Arminians - and thought I would share:
>You say, ‘I have aimed to displease the Arminians’, I had rather you had aimed to be useful to them, than to displease them. There are many Arminians who are so only for want of clearer light. They fear the Lord, and walk humbly before him. And as they go on by an increasing acquaintance with their own hearts and the word of God, their objections and difficulties gradually subside. And in the Lord’s time (for he is the only effectual teacher) they receive the doctrines of grace which they were once afraid of.
>
>Now these should not be displeased, by our endeavoring to declare the truth in terms the most offensive to them which we can find, but we should rather seek out the softest and most winning way of encountering their prejudices. Otherwise we make a parade, and grow big with a sense of our own wisdom and importance, but we shall do little good. Our Lord you know taught his disciples as they were able to bear it, he did not aim to displease them though it is pretty plain they had a good deal of the Arminian spirit in them for some time after they began to follow him.
>
>You will perhaps say, 'An humble Arminian! Surely that is impossible.' I believe it not more impossible to find a humble Arminian, than a proud and self-sufficient Calvinist. The doctrines of grace are humbling, that is in their power and experience, but a man may hold them all in the notion, and be very proud. He certainly is so, if he thinks his assenting to them is a proof of his humility, and despises others as proud and ignorant in comparison of himself.
Lord, keep us humble!
I can’t imagine holding this view and thinking about the reprobates without wanting to weep all the time. Sure, Calvinists hold the view that no one deserves God’s mercy because we’re “disgusting beyond imagined.” But, God knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to create in the first place. There is no reason for Him to create anything, especially if he knew how much disdain he would have for unrepentant sinners who can’t even chose him.
I am not sure how people can be calvinists without some severe cognitive dissonance. Most do not see what we see at all. And these people can be very loving, kind, and compassionate towards others (even when the God they believe in isn’t).
I belong to a church where there is a presence of Calvinism among the preacher as well as some of the elders and deacons. but then there are also many that identify as Arminian and then some that probably have no idea what the difference is. Everyone gets along great, I’ve never heard anyone argue soteriology, and Calvinism is never really preached aside from a few things I don’t think most people would pick up on (penal substitution, etc). Does anyone else belong to a church like this and has there ever been division among the members?
...but only if God wills it.
