28/7/12
S: Romans 9:25-26 Concerning the Gentiles, God says in the prophecy of Hosea,
“Those who were not my people,
I will now call my people.
And I will love those
whom I did not love before.
And,
“Then, at the place where they were told,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called
‘children of the living God.’”
O: We were once strangers, foreigners to God's chosen nation, but now we've become naturalised citizens! We have been adopted by God to be part of His family! We did not first choose Him but He chose us! He knew us in advance and chose us to become like His Son! What a wonderful privilege!
A: Now that we have received such wonderful grace, that while we were yet sinners, God loved us so much that Christ died for us, let us love Him back and follow Him!
P: Thank You, Father, that while we were still your enemies, you first loved us! Thank You for Your forgiveness! May I never forget that and remain motivated to follow You! In Jesus' name, amen!
Note: I am highlighting one side of the Calvinist/Arminian debate in this post, that is, God's election. I personally believe both in God's election and human free will -- it is both that we choose God and God chose us.
Here is a pro-Calvinist (God's election) article.
Here is a pro-Arminian (human free will) article.
Here is an article that seems to have a view similar to mine.
Different sincere followers of Christ can have different interpretations of that truth, especially in secondary matters, and we must not allow that to break our fellowship, as Romans 14 points out.
A tragedy in the past is that churches have split and even wars fought between Christians because of secondary doctrinal matters.
When I was doing my Ph.D., I joined the Graduate InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (now known as Graduate Christian Fellowship) and was amazed to find Arminians and Calvinists, Catholics and Baptists, Methodists, Assemblies of God, Eastern Orthodox, etc. all united in Christ working together to reach the campus for Christ.
It was a beautiful picture of the united body of Christ!
After our meetings, we often repaired to a coffeeshop or something and many times, there were theological arguments over some of these very issues. But they were done in a spirit of brotherhood and never split the fellowship because of the good attitude.
By the way, I certainly am not saying that you must not discuss disputed topics. For example, I wrote this reflection some time ago.
Note: this is using the SOAP method. For more information, see this page (not written by me.)
Totally agree with you. Rather than dwell over differences, we can do much more as a united community of Christians by focussing on our common belief in Christ.
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