Let's see with our heart, these things our eyes have seen
And know the truth must still lie somewhere in between
Blues for Allah-Grateful Dead
In the years in between us leaving the Catholic church and joining an Evangelical fellowship, we tried to figure things out on our own, to worship in Spirit and in Truth.
At this point I, as well as my husband, were pretty sure about the premillenial dispensational theology. (I find it interesting in retrospect, that that is what is mainly taught on TBN and such, so I wonder how much of that played into why we could have come to such conclusions.) Also, due to all my reading I was increasingly convinced that Calvin was onto something with the fact that God does predestine certain individuals to salvation. This in some way helped me deal with the problem of evil since Calvinists believe that God has every single thing under His control and the evil is definitely a part of the plan and not just senseless. It's not really a good answer to the problem, but I was satisfied with it for awhile.
Theology dominated most of my husband's and my conversations at the time and we loved talking about it. I brought up the Calvinism thing to him. He saw my points, but also believed that the Bible seemed to say we could choose, too. It's both was his thinking and he for the most part was okay with the paradox of it. I was not, but it wasn't important for me that he agreed 100% with me on this. I did pass on the dispensational/Calvinist pastor's teachings to him and he listened to them too.
We were doing Bible study with the kids most nights from a children's Bible story book since they were all so little. I even remember once doing communion at home. It was a very sweet time.
One day while reading the book of Acts during lunch, I became convicted that I wasn't baptized correctly. Baptism was a huge hot button issue for me at the time and would continue to be so. It concerned me greatly that Christendom could not agree on age, mode, or meaning of this ritual. I called my husband at work and told him my fears. He assured me that I had been baptized. However, I hadn't been immersed and I was somehow afraid that this technicality would be a big issue in eternity. So when he got home that night, I asked him to baptize me in our kiddie pool that was big enough for full immersion. I felt that I had taken a great step of obedience.
I really enjoyed this time it was full of discovery and just pure leaning on the Spirit and each other. I figured this was just fine and was happy for things to stay this way.
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteSo far, so good...
ReplyDeleteEnjoying the read Alice! Never have caught the attraction of Calvinism. I have always thought that one should not separate God's predestination and foreknowledge. Consider this from Romans 8:
ReplyDelete"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters."
This speaks to me of people who love God. It seems to indicate that these who love God are predestined to be conformed into His image. Perhaps predestination is based on the foreknowledge of who would return His love? And really, how can love be love if one does not have a choice to not love?
ReplyDeleteThis speaks to me of people who love God. It seems to indicate that these who love God are predestined to be conformed into His image. Perhaps predestination is based on the foreknowledge of who would return His love? And really, how can love be love if one does not have a choice to not love?
All good points, I can't really argue with that.