Sunday, May 30, 2010
NOTE FROM: REV. LONDA
I have been doing a study on Monergism & Synergism Theologies. I thought it very interesting & wanted to share with you. Monergism Theology as Regeneration Theology & Synergism Theology as Reformation Theology So, please enjoy.
MONERGISM & SYNERGISM
Monergism vs. Synergism
by John Hendryx
If anyone makes the assistance of grace [to believe the gospel] depend on the humility or obedience of man
and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble,
he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and,
"But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). - Council of Orange
My aim in this essay is to show from Scripture that faith is the result of regeneration, not the cause of it. A corresponding aim is to show that the opposite view is unscriptural and harmful to our understanding of the Gospel. Monergism and synergism are terms that may or may not be familiar to you but are of immense importance to evangelicals if we hope to maintain fidelity to the Scriptures as we enter the new millennium. This God-honoring but largely forgotten truth is critical to the blessing and renewal of the Church and key to understand if we are to successfully reform our thinking along biblical lines. These words describe two very distinct views of God's saving grace - the process wherein God changes a person from "dead in sin" to "alive in Christ."
To introduce you to this Scriptural doctrine let me begin by asking some questions that should help us begin to think about this issue: (1) What is man's part and God's part in the work of the new birth? (2) Why is it that one unregenerate person believes the gospel and not another? Does one make better use of God's grace? (3) Apart from the grace of God, is there any fallen person who is naturally willing to submit in faith to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? (4) In light of God's word, is our new birth in Christ an unconditional work of God's mercy alone or does man cooperate in some way with God in the work of regeneration (making it conditional)? Your answer to these questions will reveal where you stand on this issue. In the following paragraphs I hope to convince you of the deep importance of a biblical understanding of this issue to the health of our churches. This is because, for various reasons, a majority of modern evangelicals have abandoned the biblical position and thus thrown out the most important Scriptural truth that was recovered in the Reformation of the sixteenth century.
Synergism
Before defining monergism, we should start on more familiar ground to 21st century man by explaining the more familiar "synergism", which the majority of our churches teach today. Synergism is the doctrine that the act of being born again is achieved through a combination of human will and divine grace. (From Greek sunergos, working together : sun-, syn- + ergon, work). The Century Dictionary defines synergism as
"...the doctrine that there are two efficient agents in regeneration, namely the human will and the divine Spirit, which, in the strict sense of the term, cooperate. This theory accordingly holds that the soul has not lost in the fall all inclination toward holiness, nor all power to seek for it under the influence of ordinary motives."
Synergism: A Belief That Faith Arises Out of An Inherent Capacity of the Natural Man.
In other words, synergists believe that faith itself, a principle standing independent and autonomous of God's action of grace, is something the natural man must add or contribute toward the price of his salvation. Unregenerate man, in this scheme, is left to his freewill and natural ability to believe or reject God. Synergists teach that God's grace takes us part of the way to salvation but that the [fallen, rebellious] human will must determine the final outcome. It does this by reaching down into an autonomous principle within in its fallen unrenewed nature in order to either produce a right thought or create a right volition toward God. But, the Scriptures are clear that as long as the natural man hates God he will not come to Him. In this system, then, grace is merely an offer or a help but does not do anything to change man's heart of stone or natural hostility to God. This means that God will only look favorably upon and reward those natural men who are able to produce or contribute faith, independent of God's inward gracious call or spiritual renewal. This is a subtle, but serious, error that is plaguing the church of the 21st century. It is a misapprehension of the biblical teaching concerning the depth of our fallen nature and the radical grace needed to restore us. This leads me to believe that one of the greatest challenges facing the church today is its re-evangelization. While many evangelicals may understand the doctrine of "sola fide" (faith alone), that we must place our faith in Christ to be saved, it seems many have abandoned the biblical concept of "sola gratia" (grace alone). The Synergistic Conception of "Sola Fide" therefore must, by definition, draw on nature to cooperate with God's grace as the human fulfillment of a condition. Why do people believe this? I can only guess it is because by nature we want to maintain an island of righteousness, a last bastion of pride in thinking that he can still contribute something, be it ever so small, to our own salvation. It would involve great humility on our part to admit this. If the Church took more efforts to search the Scriptures and reform her doctrine on this point, I am convinced that a great deal of blessing would be restored and God would remove much of the current worldliness in our midst.
How is Monergism Different?
In contrast, historic Christianity, as best explained by Augustine and the Reformers, would reject the above position and honor the more biblical position of monergism. This position teaches that salvation is entirely a work of God; That man can contribute nothing toward the price of his salvation and that one is saved wholly and unconditionally by grace through faith. That faith itself is a gift of God (Eph 2:8, John 1:13, 2 Tim 2:25, Phil 1:29, Hebrews 12:2, 1 John 5:1, Rom 3:24, Ezekiel 11:19-20; Ezekiel 36:26-27) which is not the cause, but the witness of God's regenerative grace having worked faith in the inner man. This gracious act of God was based on nothing meritorious in the individual, but rather, entirely on God's sovereign good pleasure (Eph 1:5). It was not because God knew which persons would believe of their own free will, for there are no persons which fit that description. This is because apart from grace their is no delight or inclination to seek God (in man's unregenerate nature). And since those dead in sin will not seek God (Rom 3:11), regenerative grace precedes justifying faith. God must, in effect, raise them from the dead- (see Eph 2:5, Col 2:13).
Regeneration is the Work of God Alone
To get a better hold on this concept we should first define the meaning of the term "monergism" and then explore how it relates to the doctrine of regeneration (new birth). The word "monergism" consists of two main parts. The prefix "mono" signifies "one", "single", or "alone" while "ergon" means "to work". Taken together it means "the work of one". The Century Dictionary's definition of monergism is helpful here:
"In theol., The doctrine that the Holy Spirit is the only efficient agent in regeneration - that the human will possesses no inclination to holiness until regenerated, and therefore cannot cooperate in regeneration."
Very simply, then, monergism is the doctrine that our new birth (or "quickening") is the work of God, the Holy Spirit alone, with no contribution of man toward Christ's work, since the natural man, of himself, has no desire for God or holiness (ROM 3:11,12; ROM 8:7; John 3:19, 20). The unregenerate man, in his bondage, desires sin more than he desires God so as to always choose according to the corrupt desires of his fallen nature. Due to the unspiritual man's natural love of sin, and inability to save himself out of his love of sin, the Holy Spirit, in light of Christ's work of redemption, must act independently of the human will in His merciful work of regeneration, or none would be saved. Thus, monergism is just another way of more fully understanding the doctrine of "salvation by grace alone" (sola gratia). It must be stressed that the grace of God is the only efficient cause in initiating and effecting the renewal of our fallen will leading to conversion (John 1:13).
Monergistic regeneration is God's merciful response to the consequences of our fall in Adam which has resulted in natural man's moral inability. We must be clear that it does not apply to the entire process of salvation, but only to the first step in bringing a person to faith in Christ. It is only in God's power to bring to life a person who is spiritually dead. This means that a man’s soul is utterly passive (if not hostile) until it has been regenerated. But when regenerated the disposition of his heart which once loved darkness is changed. He willingly turns to embrace the Savior since his hatred of God has been transformed to a love for Him (Ezekiel 11:19-20). In other words, God doesn't do the believing for us but empowers and restores us by the Holy Spirit to delightfully respond in faith and obedience. Man will not and cannot offer any help in renewing himself spiritually without this grace. We can do nothing spiritual, including turning to Christ in faith, apart from God's grace which is grounded in the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. Later in this essay I will answer how this relates to preaching repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Note, I would like to clear up a common confusion about regeneration and justification. Regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit which brings us into a living union with Christ, only refers to the first step in the work of God in our salvation. It is universally agreed among evangelicals, myself included, that the second step, faith in Christ, must be exercized by the sinner if one is to to be justified (saved). Therefore, justification is conditional (on our faith) ... but our regeneration (or spiritual birth) is unconditional; an expression of God's grace freely bestowed, for it is unconstrained and not merited by anything God sees in those who are its subjects. Regeneration and Justification, although occurring almost simultaneously are, therefore, not the same. Regeneration, has a causal priority over the other aspects of the process of salvation. The new birth (regeneration), therefore, is what brings about a restored disposition of heart which is then willing to exercize faith in Christ unto justification (Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26).
The Counsel of Orange (529) was held to deal with a controversy in the church that had to do with degree to which a human being is able to contribute to his/her own salvation. The clarity of its expression on this matter would have me reproduce one of its articles here. Canon 7 states:
"If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, or that we can be saved by assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the effectual work of the Holy Spirit, who makes all whom He calls gladly and willingly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray from the plain teaching of Scripture by exalting the natural ability of man, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5)."
Are There Any Biblical Examples of Monergism?
As you read the following texts that convey the illumining, regenerative work of the Holy Spirit in our salvation, keep in mind the general principle that "no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3). This means that only the Spirit can illumine our darkened mind since the "natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor 2:14).
When the church was in its infancy, Luke records in Acts that when Lydia was taught the gospel by Paul (Acts 16:14b): “the Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul". What happened to Lydia (and Paul on the Road to Damascus) is what happens to everyone who comes to faith in Christ. If the Lord "opens our heart", the Holy Spirit is doing a supernatural work upon our closed heart, so that we "will give heed". The passage makes clear that resistance is no longer thinkable because the desire now is to give heed since the Spirit has taken what was once a dark heart and illumined the understanding. If the Lord "opened Lydia's heart to give heed" and then the Bible recorded that she still resisted, it would be a contradictory and nonsensical statement, yet this is what synergists would have us believe. If God overcame the will in the example of Lydia then there should be no further debate as to whether He does this in everyone who comes to faith in Christ. If hostile sinners are to believe, God must initiate the making our heart of stone into a heart of flesh:
"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. Ezekiel 36:26-27
If God takes away our heart of stone, as this passage underscores, and then gives us a heart of flesh, we will infallibly come to believe and obey. There is no possibility or thought of resistance after the fact. Indeed fallen humans resist the Holy Spirit every day they live in unbelief, but God can sovereignly make His influences irresistible by changing the disposition of our hardened hearts which transfers us from death to life. The following passage even goes further by showing a unity between God's granting ability to come to Him with the work of the Spirit who alone gives life:
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. "But there are some of you who do not believe." ...65 And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father." John 6:63-65
This gift of life is what we speak of in the inaugural work of God in regeneration. This verse clearly unites the Spirit, who gives life, and God who grants His people to come to Him. The words, "for this reason" point us back to the previous text. The flesh alone, without the life of the Spirit, profits nothing, according to Jesus own words. The passage carries a universal negative to the possibility of anyone naturally coming to Christ on their own ... but the Spirit gives the life, which is another way of saying, only that which is granted by the Father comes to Him. The words of Christ themselves carry the power of life as the Spirit works in and through them.
In 1 Thessalonians 1:5 Paul speaks plainly of the Spirit working with the word as the only means the Thessalonians came to know the Savior. Word alone is not enough to transform our heart: He says, "...for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction." Later, in the same epistle, Paul thanks God for the faith that enabled the Thessalonians to believe:
"For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. I Thess. 2:13 (...which effectually worketh also in you that believe.)
Notice that it is man's reception of the Gospel that is the explicit grounds for which Paul is thanking and glorifying God! Paul gives God all the glory for man's initial reception of the Gospel, and correspondingly thanks God for it. In his second letter to the same church Paul reminds them again who deserves thanks for their faith:
"But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thessalonians 2:13)
Our entire salvation, from first to last, is due to God alone, "the author and perfector of our faith" (Heb 12:2), for from Him and to Him and through Him are all things ... and, therefore, all the praise, glory, thanks and honor for our new life is to be given to God alone. We must conclude that it is not scriptural to thank and praise God for His "95%" in salvation, and then give man credit for the last remaining bit. If God is thanked for man's new life in Christ, it must be because He alone is perceived as responsible for it
Jesus Himself explains this divine process in a similar instance when speaking with Simon Peter. Over and above all the other contrary voices which believed Jesus to be either John the Baptist or a mere prophet, Peter confesses, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" . Jesus, responded to Peter's confession: "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." The gospel of John picks up on this same language of flesh and blood when expressing how a person cannot convert himself without being born again: "who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13) If we are "born of God", and not of our will, then it isn't our faith which God's responds to, rather it is grace which infallibly gives rise to our faith in response to God.
John Piper, in his exegesis of 1 John 5:1 says this:
"In the New Testament God is clearly active, creating a people for himself by calling them out of darkness and enabling them to believe the gospel and walk in the light. John teaches most clearly that regeneration precedes and enables faith. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God" ...The verb tense make's john's intention unmistakable: Every one who goes on believing [present, continuous action] that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God [perfect, completed action with abiding effects]. " Faith is the evidence of new birth, not the cause of it."
The following verses written by the Apostle Paul further drives home the point that we are saved because of God's internal purpose, not because of anything He has seen in us:
"...who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time..."2 Timothy 1:9
"It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy." Romans 9:16 1:13)
How often do you hear your pastor use this kind of biblical language and do serious exegesis of such passages? The Scriptures are filled with such pictures of Christ's work in our salvation, so why aren't our churches? Are we afraid that it might offend our sensibilities? Our pride? So instead of a full-orbed gospel that comes from the whole counsel of Scripture we have traded it for a kind of half-gospel. We do this by pulling out verses which we like that have enough biblical truth to get our attention yet we avoid the equally important passages which expose our utter spiritual impotence apart from grace. The absence of such a prominent biblical concept from our pulpits may explain our both anemic lack of influence in our world and the horrifying reality that 80 to 90% of those "making a decision for Christ" fall away from the faith. This is not to say that we should only speak of such things, but the only faithful church is the one which teaches exegetically through every verse in the Bible, not only topically, as some are in the habit of.
What About Free Will?
Some have asked, if this is the case, have we no free will? It is clear that the natural man does indeed have a "freewill" to act according to his nature, that is, to choose according to his greatest natural desires, but he is morally incapable and unwilling to choose God on our own because he is "dead in sin", "loves the darkness" and "cannot understand" the things of God because "they are spiritually appraised." (1 Cor 2:14, Rom 8:7, John 3:19). Our greatest affections, therefore, determine what we choose to follow. And although mankind can do many "good things" he is spiritually impotent and unable to do any redemptive good since his "freewill" is bound, which really amounts to no freedom at all. Man will always choose what he desires most, and without the regenerative grace working in us by the Holy Spirit there is no desire for God. So, while we were yet in active rebellion against God (so it would have been completely just of God to pour His wrath on all of us), yet, taking pity on us, He was still willing to show his great love and affection toward us by bearing the punishment and wrath we deserved and then apply the benefits of the atonement on His elect; those He had given His Son from eternity (John 17:9). J.I Packer said,
"It is staggering that God should love sinners, yet it is true. God loves creatures that have become unlovely and (one would have thought) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the objects of his love to call it forth; nothing in us could attract or prompt it. Love among persons is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves people because he has chosen to love them ... and no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign good pleasure. - (from Knowing God p.124)
So, here we clearly see that faith is not the cause of God's choosing us, but the result of it. Justification, of course, is the result of faith, but faith is inevitable result of God's efficacious and regenerative grace.
One Must First Be Able to Hear If One Is to Respond
To further drive home the point, the Scripture teaches that in order for someone to believe the word of the gospel, they must first be able hear and understand what it says. In contrast to the synergistic scheme, the biblical position of monergism teaches that prior to being born again we all have an uncircumcised ear and a heart of stone. We were blind and taken captive by Satan to do his will (2 Tim 2:26). A fallen person with an uncircumcised ear, therefore, has no earthly way of hearing spiritual things much less understanding and believing the gospel (1 Cor 2:14). Our ears must first be supernaturally opened and a new heart given us (Ezek 11:19) so that we are even willing to hear God's word and come into vital union with Christ through faith. A man could more easily see without eyes or speak without a tongue than turn to Christ apart from the gracious, life-giving work of God in his soul. Our Lord asks, "Do men gather grapes from thorns?" No, every tree will only bring forth fruit from its own kind. What can be done then since we can naturally only produce bad fruit? In the work of the cross Christ gives TO US the very thing that He demands OF US. Our Lord tells us in Matt 12:33 that He must "Make the tree good, and his fruit will be good." In other words, the nature of the tree (corrupt or good) determines what kind of fruit it will have, so to bring forth good fruit it must be changed (we must be born again) or no good fruit (including faith) will be forthcoming. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Luke 8:8; Matt 13:9)
Now if our ear is truly uncircumcised, if our eyes are truly blind and our heart is really hardened as stone, how can we even desire to turn to Christ? One must first have their ear circumcised (without hands, Col 2:11) before they could possibly even hear and respond to the gospel since an uncircumcised ear, by nature, cannot hear spiritual truths … Similarly if they would come willingly, one must first have one's heart of stone be made a heart of flesh ( a change of nature); likewise, one must first have his eyes opened if he is to see. That is why Jesus says we must first be born again if we are to see the kingdom of God. "Flesh gives birth to flesh but Spirit gives birth to spirit." (John 3:6) Those born of the Spirit, have the disposition of their hearts changed so that they delightfully believe the gospel as the first act of a newborn babe. The conclusion might be surprising to some but this means that regeneration is what actually produces faith and not the other way around. J.I. Packer says it this way:
"Infants do not induce, or cooperate in, their own procreation and birth; no more can those who are 'dead in trespasses and sins' prompt the quickening operation of God's Spirit within them."
How Does this Relate to Preaching Repentance and Faith in Jesus Christ?
The preaching of the Word of God, therefore, is central to the salvation of His people. When spoken in the power of the Holy Spirit, the word of God has the power to graciously open people's eyes, unplug their uncircumcised ears, change the disposition of their hearts, draw them to faith, and save them (James 1:18, 1 Peter 1:23, 25). The word of God does not work in an "ex opere operato" (automatic) fashion, rather, it is the work of the Holy Spirit sovereignly dispensing grace (John 3:8), quickening the heart THROUGH THE WORD to bring forth life. So the written word itself is not the material of the spiritual new birth, but rather its means or medium. "The word is not the begetting principle itself, but only that by which it works: the vehicle of the mysterious germinating power"(ALFORD). It is because the Spirit of God accompanies it that the word carries in it the germ of life. The life is in God, yet it is communicated to us through the word. The gospel declares that repentance and faith (commands of God) are themselves God's working in us both to will and to do (2 Tim 2:25, Eph 2:5, 8) and not something that the sinner himself contributes towards the price of His salvation. Repentance and faith can only be exercised by a soul after, and in immediate consequence of, its regeneration by the Holy Spirit (1 John 5:1; Acts 16:14b; Acts 13:48; John 10:24-26; Ezekiel 36:26-27; John 6:37; John 1:13; 1 Cor. 4:7; 1 Cor. 15:10; Jas. 1:17; John 3:27). From this we must conclude that mere rational arguments are not enough to save anyone. In our evangelism (as believers) we are "partners" with the Holy Spirit, heralding the gospel and exerting ourselves for their salvation but in complete dependence on the Spirit to do the actual converting. We pray because we believe God can actually renew our rebellious hearts. If natural men could deliver themselves then there would be no need to pray for them.
To those without the regenerating work of the Spirit it is impossible to understand the word and believe the gospel (1 Cor 2:14). Although natural (unregenerate) man, apart from the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, has an incapacity to the embrace the gospel due to his revulsion of it, he is still responsible to obey it. Moral Inability (like a debt we cannot repay) does not alleviate responsibility.
As we reflect more deeply upon this, however, it is important that synergists consider the following question: Why does one man embrace Christ while another man rejects Him? If two men hear the gospel preached to them why is it that one man ultimately believes and not another? What natural ability did the one man have or autonomously produce that the other did not? What good thing in his nature moved him to accept the gift of forgiveness and embrace Christ as his Savior? Did he make better use of the grace God gave to him than the other man? The scriptures declare there is only one reason for rejecting the gospel; because one is wicked. There is also only one reason a man embraces Christ: the grace of God. Anything less than salvation by grace alone leaves man with a basis for boasting (Eph 2:8,9). If synergism is embraced, then there is the very real but subtle danger that men could boast that they made use of God's grace or had more wisdom than the man who rejected Christ. They could boast that they are different for, unlike others, they responded to Christ. The autonomous natural man would, then, ultimately determine His own salvation, not God. The Scriptures declare, however, that God does not quicken anyone based on some good thing He sees in them, but rather, it is due to His loving, merciful, good pleasure alone (John 1:13, Rom 9:16, Eph 1:5, 9,11, Luke 10:21, Acts 13:48). Don't get me wrong: We certainly must respond in faith to Christ to be justified, but it is grace itself which enables us to be obedient to the gospel. This position alone strips the pride of man and gives glory to God alone for our new life.
C.H. Spurgeon once described the folly of trusting in natural ability by praying as a synergist would if he was consistent with his beliefs:
"Lord...If everybody has done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Spirit given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not - that is the difference between me and them.' That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that. Ah! When they are preaching and talking slowly, there may be wrong doctrine; but when they come to pray, the true thing slips out; they cannot help it."
( C.H. Spurgeon Freewill-- A Slave).
Thomas Watson, the Puritan divine once said, "God does not choose us for faith but unto faith". To erroneously believe the reason for our salvation resides in natural man himself is little different from the same meritorious or Roman Catholic Counter-Reformational system taught at the Council of Trent where Rome consciously denounced the teaching of monergism and embraced synergism. It was this very teaching of Rome that was so loudly protested against by the Reformers as discussed in The Bondage of the Will By Martin Luther.
Our wretched fallen estate prior to God's gracious act of regeneration in which we are only hostile to God and love darkness, keeps us from turning to Christ in faith. Synergism falls short because although God extends His gracious offer in that scheme, it still leaves us in our old nature with its corrupt desires to take hold of grace. We all believe that men may come if they will, but the "if they will" is the problem. C.H. Spurgeon beautifully explains this concept:
The question is, are men ever found naturally willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? We declare, upon Scriptural authority, that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ. You reply, that men sometimes are willing, without the help of the Holy Spirit. I answer-Did you ever meet with any person who was? Scores and hundreds, nay, thousands of Christians have I conversed with, of different opinions, young and old, but it has never been my lot to meet with one who could affirm that he came to Christ of himself, without being drawn. The universal confession of all true believers is this-"I know that unless Jesus Christ had sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, I would to this very hour have been wandering far from him, at a distance from him, and loving that distance well." With common consent, all believers affirm the truth, that men will not come to Christ till the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them.
In light of the overwhelming scriptural evidence for monergism, therefore, to believe that God merely gives us enough grace to choose for or against him is without evidence from the text. It would also leave salvation entirely in the hands of natural man by setting faith over against grace as an independent, autonomous, (ultimate, not penultimate) principle.
I say this often but I think it is worth repeating: in order to make sense of this doctrine we must first understand what exactly the condition of fallen man is. Most errors in regard to the doctrine of salvation have their roots in an deficient, unbiblical view of the moral and spiritual status of natural man prior to God's work of grace. At the fall mankind incurred the penalty of spiritual and physical death and deservedly became subject to the wrath of God. The effects of sin on the will and entire person made men inherently and totally corrupt, utterly incapable of choosing or doing that which is acceptable to God. With no recuperative powers to enable him to recover himself, man is hopelessly lost in sin. Man's salvation is thereby wholly dependent God's mercy and grace through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ (with the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit) alone (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:1-19; John 3:36; ROM 1:18; 3:23; 6:23; 1 Cor. 2:14; Eph. 2:1-3; 1 John 1:8). The theologians call it total depravity for a reason; not because man is as bad as he could be but because his unwillingness and inability to come to God, apart from grace, is total. If man's inability were merely physical handicap then he would not be culpable for his rejection of the gospel. But the inability I speak of is a moral inability. The difference can be seen in the analogy of a man who borrows a large sum of cash. He wickedly squanders all of his money in one night of riotous living. His inability to repay the debt does not alleviate him of his responsibility to do so. Therefore he is culpable for his inability, which is like unto the condition of man after the fall.
Synergistic Counter-Arguments
Some might further argue that passages which command or invite belief prove that man has the ability to believe while in the flesh. But all of these commands such as "If thou art willing" and "whosoever believes", "choose life" are in the subjunctive mood. A conditional statement asserts nothing indicatively. Note that God also calls humanity to keep the 10 commandments, but it does not therefore, necessarily follow that man has the power to keep the commandments. A command does not imply the ability to fulfill it. The commands of God, rather, are meant to bring us to a knowledge of our impotence. With striking clarity, Paul teaches that this is the intent of Divine legislation (ROM 3:20, 5:20, Gal 3:19,24). God cures man's pride by the publication of the Law. God commands us to believe and obey but the purpose of this is to bring us to despair so that we will recognize our utter inability to do so driving us to Christ's mercy. When man recognizes that even humility itself is a gift of grace then and only then it is evident that God is truly working grace in a man. The law was never designed to confer any power but to strip us of our own, enabling us to recognize that salvation is a work of God alone. So if someone were to ask how one might be saved, the clear answer is "to believe in Christ" with the understanding that the opening of our understanding and desire to believe is itself God's gracious gift.
At first, many people might fight against this idea because it goes against everything they have ever been taught at their church. But I would challenge you to question your presuppositions. Carefully and prayerfully read the Scripture references I have given you because this is important. Remember that the affects of the fall on the mind and will rendered mankind wholly incapable and unwilling to come to God, where we would always reject Him if left to our own unregenerate nature. Being spiritually dead, the Scripture teaches that it is impossible for man to respond, no matter how attractive God is (1 Cor 2:14). Man's nature and disposition must first be changed (made alive Eph 2:5, born again John 3:3). To say that we would ever come to God by our own choice without God first making this effectual is to underestimate the depth and totality of man's fall. We were spiritually dead. Dead men will not respond to pleading and reasoning alone (ROM 8:7) but only when coupled with the effectual call of Jesus who raises him spiritually, as He did the physical Lazarus. Yes, we must command man to repent and believe and we thus proclaim the Gospel to him, but the Holy Spirit has to enable and efficaciously draw him through our preaching if he is to come willingly (John 6:37, John 6:44, John 6:64,65 Ezekiel 11:19-20).
Our honor as believers is to preach Christ crucified and watch God do the work in regenerating a persons' soul through the quickening of the Holy Spirit. It is God alone that regenerates the dead or fallen spirit of His elect as we proclaim His word. He awakens poor sinners to a life of faith that they will see that Jesus, not in part, but in whole, has taken our sin upon Himself on the tree. His finished redemptive work is sufficient to put away our sins for all time. This is why world missions are so critical since the unregenerate can only come to Christ through hearing the word of God (Romans 10:13-15) by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. (There are, however, notable exceptions to this rule. For instance, probable biblical historical examples of apostles or prophets, such as the Apostle Paul and John the Baptist, who received direct revelation. Or perhaps in cases of supernatural revelation to those who die as elect infants or invalids who would not otherwise naturally have the capacity to understand or grasp much of anything, let alone God's word. People can and have been saved by direct revelation and God defines who of these will hear His voice. Physical inability is no more a hindrance to God than spiritual inability. God created us, so why would it be difficult for God to whisper in the ear of an unborn soon-to-be-miscarried baby and have he or she understand enough to be reconciled with God? ). In ordinary cases, however, God works concurrently with His church through prayers and the proclamation of His word to bring home His elect from every "tribe and language and people and nation."(Rev 5:8)
I hope this leads people to see that the biblical case for monergism is overwhelming, a constant theme that seasons the entire Bible. Synergism appears to be a system of theology that is forced awkwardly on the Scriptures - trying to read into the Word a hermeneutic governed by a theological predisposition that is most likely the result of man's unending desire to contribute something to his own salvation. Synergists would be hard pressed to find real biblical evidence to back their position. I must emphasize, however, that I know many sincere brothers & sisters that hold to the synergistic position. My prayer is that all the Lord's people would go back to the Scriptures to earnestly seek God's will in this crucial matter.
"The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." ... He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." John 6:63-65
I conclude by giving you this comparison chart between monergism and synergism which may be helpful to you in grasping the contrast of systems which greater clarity.
End of Article
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If you still have questions regarding monergism see the following articles:
Some Helpful References to Monergism from Church History
This is a list of references which show that monergism is the historic teaching of the Church among her greatest preachers, theologians and church confessions. Click here to view the history of monergism.
Answering the Critics of Monergism
This is an article which answers one of the most asked questions by synergists who like to claim indwelling and regeneration of the Holy Spirit are the same. This article provides answers with a exegetical study linked to the end of the article.
Synergist Responds to My Challenge
Synergist attempts to answer some of these questions: Why is it that one unregenerate person believes the gospel and not another?
What principle in him made him choose what he did? Was he able to generate a right thought, produce a right affection, create right belief, while at the same time man #2 did not have the natural wherewithal to come up with the faith to be saved? If they both made use of the same grace, did one make better use of it than the other?
Does Monergism Rob Humanity of Free Will?
A Recent Debate With A Synergist on this issue...
More Answers to Criticisms of Monergism
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More articles on the topic of Monergism:
The New Genesis: The Holy Spirit and Regeneration by R.C. Sproul
Regeneration by J.I. Packer
Two Views of Regeneration by John Hendryx
Monergism vs. Synergism by John Hendryx
Honest Answers for Common Objections to Monergistic Regeneration by John Hendryx
John 3:16, Man's Desires and the New Birth By John Hendryx
Regeneration: What Does It Mean To Be Born Again? By Wayne A. Grudem
Regeneration Precedes Faith by Dr. R.C. Sproul
The Pelagian Captivity of the Church by R.C. Sproul
A Defense of Monergistic Regeneration by Gannon Murphy**
Regeneration by Michael Bremmer
Regeneration and Conversion by Samuel Hopkins
This excerpt comprises a cogent discussion of regeneration and exemplifies American Puritan teaching on this subject. Hopkins’s main thesis is that the Holy Spirit sovereignly regenerates the unbeliever. He attacks the Catholic concept of synergism, whereby man cooperates with God in salvation and sanctification. Hopkins identifies regeneration as the work of God alone through the Holy Spirit. Also included is a very interesting discussion of the role of Scripture in the process of regeneration. His position is this: in the actual process of regeneration, God works directly through the Holy Spirit; the Scripture acts as a catalyst in the process, being indispensable (sine qua non) to the reaction without actually entering into it.
Articles on Irresistable grace
Articles on Regeneration
by John Hendryx
If anyone makes the assistance of grace [to believe the gospel] depend on the humility or obedience of man
and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble,
he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and,
"But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). - Council of Orange
My aim in this essay is to show from Scripture that faith is the result of regeneration, not the cause of it. A corresponding aim is to show that the opposite view is unscriptural and harmful to our understanding of the Gospel. Monergism and synergism are terms that may or may not be familiar to you but are of immense importance to evangelicals if we hope to maintain fidelity to the Scriptures as we enter the new millennium. This God-honoring but largely forgotten truth is critical to the blessing and renewal of the Church and key to understand if we are to successfully reform our thinking along biblical lines. These words describe two very distinct views of God's saving grace - the process wherein God changes a person from "dead in sin" to "alive in Christ."
To introduce you to this Scriptural doctrine let me begin by asking some questions that should help us begin to think about this issue: (1) What is man's part and God's part in the work of the new birth? (2) Why is it that one unregenerate person believes the gospel and not another? Does one make better use of God's grace? (3) Apart from the grace of God, is there any fallen person who is naturally willing to submit in faith to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? (4) In light of God's word, is our new birth in Christ an unconditional work of God's mercy alone or does man cooperate in some way with God in the work of regeneration (making it conditional)? Your answer to these questions will reveal where you stand on this issue. In the following paragraphs I hope to convince you of the deep importance of a biblical understanding of this issue to the health of our churches. This is because, for various reasons, a majority of modern evangelicals have abandoned the biblical position and thus thrown out the most important Scriptural truth that was recovered in the Reformation of the sixteenth century.
Synergism
Before defining monergism, we should start on more familiar ground to 21st century man by explaining the more familiar "synergism", which the majority of our churches teach today. Synergism is the doctrine that the act of being born again is achieved through a combination of human will and divine grace. (From Greek sunergos, working together : sun-, syn- + ergon, work). The Century Dictionary defines synergism as
"...the doctrine that there are two efficient agents in regeneration, namely the human will and the divine Spirit, which, in the strict sense of the term, cooperate. This theory accordingly holds that the soul has not lost in the fall all inclination toward holiness, nor all power to seek for it under the influence of ordinary motives."
Synergism: A Belief That Faith Arises Out of An Inherent Capacity of the Natural Man.
In other words, synergists believe that faith itself, a principle standing independent and autonomous of God's action of grace, is something the natural man must add or contribute toward the price of his salvation. Unregenerate man, in this scheme, is left to his freewill and natural ability to believe or reject God. Synergists teach that God's grace takes us part of the way to salvation but that the [fallen, rebellious] human will must determine the final outcome. It does this by reaching down into an autonomous principle within in its fallen unrenewed nature in order to either produce a right thought or create a right volition toward God. But, the Scriptures are clear that as long as the natural man hates God he will not come to Him. In this system, then, grace is merely an offer or a help but does not do anything to change man's heart of stone or natural hostility to God. This means that God will only look favorably upon and reward those natural men who are able to produce or contribute faith, independent of God's inward gracious call or spiritual renewal. This is a subtle, but serious, error that is plaguing the church of the 21st century. It is a misapprehension of the biblical teaching concerning the depth of our fallen nature and the radical grace needed to restore us. This leads me to believe that one of the greatest challenges facing the church today is its re-evangelization. While many evangelicals may understand the doctrine of "sola fide" (faith alone), that we must place our faith in Christ to be saved, it seems many have abandoned the biblical concept of "sola gratia" (grace alone). The Synergistic Conception of "Sola Fide" therefore must, by definition, draw on nature to cooperate with God's grace as the human fulfillment of a condition. Why do people believe this? I can only guess it is because by nature we want to maintain an island of righteousness, a last bastion of pride in thinking that he can still contribute something, be it ever so small, to our own salvation. It would involve great humility on our part to admit this. If the Church took more efforts to search the Scriptures and reform her doctrine on this point, I am convinced that a great deal of blessing would be restored and God would remove much of the current worldliness in our midst.
How is Monergism Different?
In contrast, historic Christianity, as best explained by Augustine and the Reformers, would reject the above position and honor the more biblical position of monergism. This position teaches that salvation is entirely a work of God; That man can contribute nothing toward the price of his salvation and that one is saved wholly and unconditionally by grace through faith. That faith itself is a gift of God (Eph 2:8, John 1:13, 2 Tim 2:25, Phil 1:29, Hebrews 12:2, 1 John 5:1, Rom 3:24, Ezekiel 11:19-20; Ezekiel 36:26-27) which is not the cause, but the witness of God's regenerative grace having worked faith in the inner man. This gracious act of God was based on nothing meritorious in the individual, but rather, entirely on God's sovereign good pleasure (Eph 1:5). It was not because God knew which persons would believe of their own free will, for there are no persons which fit that description. This is because apart from grace their is no delight or inclination to seek God (in man's unregenerate nature). And since those dead in sin will not seek God (Rom 3:11), regenerative grace precedes justifying faith. God must, in effect, raise them from the dead- (see Eph 2:5, Col 2:13).
Regeneration is the Work of God Alone
To get a better hold on this concept we should first define the meaning of the term "monergism" and then explore how it relates to the doctrine of regeneration (new birth). The word "monergism" consists of two main parts. The prefix "mono" signifies "one", "single", or "alone" while "ergon" means "to work". Taken together it means "the work of one". The Century Dictionary's definition of monergism is helpful here:
"In theol., The doctrine that the Holy Spirit is the only efficient agent in regeneration - that the human will possesses no inclination to holiness until regenerated, and therefore cannot cooperate in regeneration."
Very simply, then, monergism is the doctrine that our new birth (or "quickening") is the work of God, the Holy Spirit alone, with no contribution of man toward Christ's work, since the natural man, of himself, has no desire for God or holiness (ROM 3:11,12; ROM 8:7; John 3:19, 20). The unregenerate man, in his bondage, desires sin more than he desires God so as to always choose according to the corrupt desires of his fallen nature. Due to the unspiritual man's natural love of sin, and inability to save himself out of his love of sin, the Holy Spirit, in light of Christ's work of redemption, must act independently of the human will in His merciful work of regeneration, or none would be saved. Thus, monergism is just another way of more fully understanding the doctrine of "salvation by grace alone" (sola gratia). It must be stressed that the grace of God is the only efficient cause in initiating and effecting the renewal of our fallen will leading to conversion (John 1:13).
Monergistic regeneration is God's merciful response to the consequences of our fall in Adam which has resulted in natural man's moral inability. We must be clear that it does not apply to the entire process of salvation, but only to the first step in bringing a person to faith in Christ. It is only in God's power to bring to life a person who is spiritually dead. This means that a man’s soul is utterly passive (if not hostile) until it has been regenerated. But when regenerated the disposition of his heart which once loved darkness is changed. He willingly turns to embrace the Savior since his hatred of God has been transformed to a love for Him (Ezekiel 11:19-20). In other words, God doesn't do the believing for us but empowers and restores us by the Holy Spirit to delightfully respond in faith and obedience. Man will not and cannot offer any help in renewing himself spiritually without this grace. We can do nothing spiritual, including turning to Christ in faith, apart from God's grace which is grounded in the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. Later in this essay I will answer how this relates to preaching repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Note, I would like to clear up a common confusion about regeneration and justification. Regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit which brings us into a living union with Christ, only refers to the first step in the work of God in our salvation. It is universally agreed among evangelicals, myself included, that the second step, faith in Christ, must be exercized by the sinner if one is to to be justified (saved). Therefore, justification is conditional (on our faith) ... but our regeneration (or spiritual birth) is unconditional; an expression of God's grace freely bestowed, for it is unconstrained and not merited by anything God sees in those who are its subjects. Regeneration and Justification, although occurring almost simultaneously are, therefore, not the same. Regeneration, has a causal priority over the other aspects of the process of salvation. The new birth (regeneration), therefore, is what brings about a restored disposition of heart which is then willing to exercize faith in Christ unto justification (Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26).
The Counsel of Orange (529) was held to deal with a controversy in the church that had to do with degree to which a human being is able to contribute to his/her own salvation. The clarity of its expression on this matter would have me reproduce one of its articles here. Canon 7 states:
"If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, or that we can be saved by assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the effectual work of the Holy Spirit, who makes all whom He calls gladly and willingly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray from the plain teaching of Scripture by exalting the natural ability of man, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5)."
Are There Any Biblical Examples of Monergism?
As you read the following texts that convey the illumining, regenerative work of the Holy Spirit in our salvation, keep in mind the general principle that "no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3). This means that only the Spirit can illumine our darkened mind since the "natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor 2:14).
When the church was in its infancy, Luke records in Acts that when Lydia was taught the gospel by Paul (Acts 16:14b): “the Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul". What happened to Lydia (and Paul on the Road to Damascus) is what happens to everyone who comes to faith in Christ. If the Lord "opens our heart", the Holy Spirit is doing a supernatural work upon our closed heart, so that we "will give heed". The passage makes clear that resistance is no longer thinkable because the desire now is to give heed since the Spirit has taken what was once a dark heart and illumined the understanding. If the Lord "opened Lydia's heart to give heed" and then the Bible recorded that she still resisted, it would be a contradictory and nonsensical statement, yet this is what synergists would have us believe. If God overcame the will in the example of Lydia then there should be no further debate as to whether He does this in everyone who comes to faith in Christ. If hostile sinners are to believe, God must initiate the making our heart of stone into a heart of flesh:
"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. Ezekiel 36:26-27
If God takes away our heart of stone, as this passage underscores, and then gives us a heart of flesh, we will infallibly come to believe and obey. There is no possibility or thought of resistance after the fact. Indeed fallen humans resist the Holy Spirit every day they live in unbelief, but God can sovereignly make His influences irresistible by changing the disposition of our hardened hearts which transfers us from death to life. The following passage even goes further by showing a unity between God's granting ability to come to Him with the work of the Spirit who alone gives life:
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. "But there are some of you who do not believe." ...65 And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father." John 6:63-65
This gift of life is what we speak of in the inaugural work of God in regeneration. This verse clearly unites the Spirit, who gives life, and God who grants His people to come to Him. The words, "for this reason" point us back to the previous text. The flesh alone, without the life of the Spirit, profits nothing, according to Jesus own words. The passage carries a universal negative to the possibility of anyone naturally coming to Christ on their own ... but the Spirit gives the life, which is another way of saying, only that which is granted by the Father comes to Him. The words of Christ themselves carry the power of life as the Spirit works in and through them.
In 1 Thessalonians 1:5 Paul speaks plainly of the Spirit working with the word as the only means the Thessalonians came to know the Savior. Word alone is not enough to transform our heart: He says, "...for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction." Later, in the same epistle, Paul thanks God for the faith that enabled the Thessalonians to believe:
"For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. I Thess. 2:13 (...which effectually worketh also in you that believe.)
Notice that it is man's reception of the Gospel that is the explicit grounds for which Paul is thanking and glorifying God! Paul gives God all the glory for man's initial reception of the Gospel, and correspondingly thanks God for it. In his second letter to the same church Paul reminds them again who deserves thanks for their faith:
"But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thessalonians 2:13)
Our entire salvation, from first to last, is due to God alone, "the author and perfector of our faith" (Heb 12:2), for from Him and to Him and through Him are all things ... and, therefore, all the praise, glory, thanks and honor for our new life is to be given to God alone. We must conclude that it is not scriptural to thank and praise God for His "95%" in salvation, and then give man credit for the last remaining bit. If God is thanked for man's new life in Christ, it must be because He alone is perceived as responsible for it
Jesus Himself explains this divine process in a similar instance when speaking with Simon Peter. Over and above all the other contrary voices which believed Jesus to be either John the Baptist or a mere prophet, Peter confesses, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" . Jesus, responded to Peter's confession: "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." The gospel of John picks up on this same language of flesh and blood when expressing how a person cannot convert himself without being born again: "who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13) If we are "born of God", and not of our will, then it isn't our faith which God's responds to, rather it is grace which infallibly gives rise to our faith in response to God.
John Piper, in his exegesis of 1 John 5:1 says this:
"In the New Testament God is clearly active, creating a people for himself by calling them out of darkness and enabling them to believe the gospel and walk in the light. John teaches most clearly that regeneration precedes and enables faith. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God" ...The verb tense make's john's intention unmistakable: Every one who goes on believing [present, continuous action] that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God [perfect, completed action with abiding effects]. " Faith is the evidence of new birth, not the cause of it."
The following verses written by the Apostle Paul further drives home the point that we are saved because of God's internal purpose, not because of anything He has seen in us:
"...who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time..."2 Timothy 1:9
"It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy." Romans 9:16 1:13)
How often do you hear your pastor use this kind of biblical language and do serious exegesis of such passages? The Scriptures are filled with such pictures of Christ's work in our salvation, so why aren't our churches? Are we afraid that it might offend our sensibilities? Our pride? So instead of a full-orbed gospel that comes from the whole counsel of Scripture we have traded it for a kind of half-gospel. We do this by pulling out verses which we like that have enough biblical truth to get our attention yet we avoid the equally important passages which expose our utter spiritual impotence apart from grace. The absence of such a prominent biblical concept from our pulpits may explain our both anemic lack of influence in our world and the horrifying reality that 80 to 90% of those "making a decision for Christ" fall away from the faith. This is not to say that we should only speak of such things, but the only faithful church is the one which teaches exegetically through every verse in the Bible, not only topically, as some are in the habit of.
What About Free Will?
Some have asked, if this is the case, have we no free will? It is clear that the natural man does indeed have a "freewill" to act according to his nature, that is, to choose according to his greatest natural desires, but he is morally incapable and unwilling to choose God on our own because he is "dead in sin", "loves the darkness" and "cannot understand" the things of God because "they are spiritually appraised." (1 Cor 2:14, Rom 8:7, John 3:19). Our greatest affections, therefore, determine what we choose to follow. And although mankind can do many "good things" he is spiritually impotent and unable to do any redemptive good since his "freewill" is bound, which really amounts to no freedom at all. Man will always choose what he desires most, and without the regenerative grace working in us by the Holy Spirit there is no desire for God. So, while we were yet in active rebellion against God (so it would have been completely just of God to pour His wrath on all of us), yet, taking pity on us, He was still willing to show his great love and affection toward us by bearing the punishment and wrath we deserved and then apply the benefits of the atonement on His elect; those He had given His Son from eternity (John 17:9). J.I Packer said,
"It is staggering that God should love sinners, yet it is true. God loves creatures that have become unlovely and (one would have thought) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the objects of his love to call it forth; nothing in us could attract or prompt it. Love among persons is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves people because he has chosen to love them ... and no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign good pleasure. - (from Knowing God p.124)
So, here we clearly see that faith is not the cause of God's choosing us, but the result of it. Justification, of course, is the result of faith, but faith is inevitable result of God's efficacious and regenerative grace.
One Must First Be Able to Hear If One Is to Respond
To further drive home the point, the Scripture teaches that in order for someone to believe the word of the gospel, they must first be able hear and understand what it says. In contrast to the synergistic scheme, the biblical position of monergism teaches that prior to being born again we all have an uncircumcised ear and a heart of stone. We were blind and taken captive by Satan to do his will (2 Tim 2:26). A fallen person with an uncircumcised ear, therefore, has no earthly way of hearing spiritual things much less understanding and believing the gospel (1 Cor 2:14). Our ears must first be supernaturally opened and a new heart given us (Ezek 11:19) so that we are even willing to hear God's word and come into vital union with Christ through faith. A man could more easily see without eyes or speak without a tongue than turn to Christ apart from the gracious, life-giving work of God in his soul. Our Lord asks, "Do men gather grapes from thorns?" No, every tree will only bring forth fruit from its own kind. What can be done then since we can naturally only produce bad fruit? In the work of the cross Christ gives TO US the very thing that He demands OF US. Our Lord tells us in Matt 12:33 that He must "Make the tree good, and his fruit will be good." In other words, the nature of the tree (corrupt or good) determines what kind of fruit it will have, so to bring forth good fruit it must be changed (we must be born again) or no good fruit (including faith) will be forthcoming. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Luke 8:8; Matt 13:9)
Now if our ear is truly uncircumcised, if our eyes are truly blind and our heart is really hardened as stone, how can we even desire to turn to Christ? One must first have their ear circumcised (without hands, Col 2:11) before they could possibly even hear and respond to the gospel since an uncircumcised ear, by nature, cannot hear spiritual truths … Similarly if they would come willingly, one must first have one's heart of stone be made a heart of flesh ( a change of nature); likewise, one must first have his eyes opened if he is to see. That is why Jesus says we must first be born again if we are to see the kingdom of God. "Flesh gives birth to flesh but Spirit gives birth to spirit." (John 3:6) Those born of the Spirit, have the disposition of their hearts changed so that they delightfully believe the gospel as the first act of a newborn babe. The conclusion might be surprising to some but this means that regeneration is what actually produces faith and not the other way around. J.I. Packer says it this way:
"Infants do not induce, or cooperate in, their own procreation and birth; no more can those who are 'dead in trespasses and sins' prompt the quickening operation of God's Spirit within them."
How Does this Relate to Preaching Repentance and Faith in Jesus Christ?
The preaching of the Word of God, therefore, is central to the salvation of His people. When spoken in the power of the Holy Spirit, the word of God has the power to graciously open people's eyes, unplug their uncircumcised ears, change the disposition of their hearts, draw them to faith, and save them (James 1:18, 1 Peter 1:23, 25). The word of God does not work in an "ex opere operato" (automatic) fashion, rather, it is the work of the Holy Spirit sovereignly dispensing grace (John 3:8), quickening the heart THROUGH THE WORD to bring forth life. So the written word itself is not the material of the spiritual new birth, but rather its means or medium. "The word is not the begetting principle itself, but only that by which it works: the vehicle of the mysterious germinating power"(ALFORD). It is because the Spirit of God accompanies it that the word carries in it the germ of life. The life is in God, yet it is communicated to us through the word. The gospel declares that repentance and faith (commands of God) are themselves God's working in us both to will and to do (2 Tim 2:25, Eph 2:5, 8) and not something that the sinner himself contributes towards the price of His salvation. Repentance and faith can only be exercised by a soul after, and in immediate consequence of, its regeneration by the Holy Spirit (1 John 5:1; Acts 16:14b; Acts 13:48; John 10:24-26; Ezekiel 36:26-27; John 6:37; John 1:13; 1 Cor. 4:7; 1 Cor. 15:10; Jas. 1:17; John 3:27). From this we must conclude that mere rational arguments are not enough to save anyone. In our evangelism (as believers) we are "partners" with the Holy Spirit, heralding the gospel and exerting ourselves for their salvation but in complete dependence on the Spirit to do the actual converting. We pray because we believe God can actually renew our rebellious hearts. If natural men could deliver themselves then there would be no need to pray for them.
To those without the regenerating work of the Spirit it is impossible to understand the word and believe the gospel (1 Cor 2:14). Although natural (unregenerate) man, apart from the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, has an incapacity to the embrace the gospel due to his revulsion of it, he is still responsible to obey it. Moral Inability (like a debt we cannot repay) does not alleviate responsibility.
As we reflect more deeply upon this, however, it is important that synergists consider the following question: Why does one man embrace Christ while another man rejects Him? If two men hear the gospel preached to them why is it that one man ultimately believes and not another? What natural ability did the one man have or autonomously produce that the other did not? What good thing in his nature moved him to accept the gift of forgiveness and embrace Christ as his Savior? Did he make better use of the grace God gave to him than the other man? The scriptures declare there is only one reason for rejecting the gospel; because one is wicked. There is also only one reason a man embraces Christ: the grace of God. Anything less than salvation by grace alone leaves man with a basis for boasting (Eph 2:8,9). If synergism is embraced, then there is the very real but subtle danger that men could boast that they made use of God's grace or had more wisdom than the man who rejected Christ. They could boast that they are different for, unlike others, they responded to Christ. The autonomous natural man would, then, ultimately determine His own salvation, not God. The Scriptures declare, however, that God does not quicken anyone based on some good thing He sees in them, but rather, it is due to His loving, merciful, good pleasure alone (John 1:13, Rom 9:16, Eph 1:5, 9,11, Luke 10:21, Acts 13:48). Don't get me wrong: We certainly must respond in faith to Christ to be justified, but it is grace itself which enables us to be obedient to the gospel. This position alone strips the pride of man and gives glory to God alone for our new life.
C.H. Spurgeon once described the folly of trusting in natural ability by praying as a synergist would if he was consistent with his beliefs:
"Lord...If everybody has done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Spirit given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not - that is the difference between me and them.' That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that. Ah! When they are preaching and talking slowly, there may be wrong doctrine; but when they come to pray, the true thing slips out; they cannot help it."
( C.H. Spurgeon Freewill-- A Slave).
Thomas Watson, the Puritan divine once said, "God does not choose us for faith but unto faith". To erroneously believe the reason for our salvation resides in natural man himself is little different from the same meritorious or Roman Catholic Counter-Reformational system taught at the Council of Trent where Rome consciously denounced the teaching of monergism and embraced synergism. It was this very teaching of Rome that was so loudly protested against by the Reformers as discussed in The Bondage of the Will By Martin Luther.
Our wretched fallen estate prior to God's gracious act of regeneration in which we are only hostile to God and love darkness, keeps us from turning to Christ in faith. Synergism falls short because although God extends His gracious offer in that scheme, it still leaves us in our old nature with its corrupt desires to take hold of grace. We all believe that men may come if they will, but the "if they will" is the problem. C.H. Spurgeon beautifully explains this concept:
The question is, are men ever found naturally willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? We declare, upon Scriptural authority, that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ. You reply, that men sometimes are willing, without the help of the Holy Spirit. I answer-Did you ever meet with any person who was? Scores and hundreds, nay, thousands of Christians have I conversed with, of different opinions, young and old, but it has never been my lot to meet with one who could affirm that he came to Christ of himself, without being drawn. The universal confession of all true believers is this-"I know that unless Jesus Christ had sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, I would to this very hour have been wandering far from him, at a distance from him, and loving that distance well." With common consent, all believers affirm the truth, that men will not come to Christ till the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them.
In light of the overwhelming scriptural evidence for monergism, therefore, to believe that God merely gives us enough grace to choose for or against him is without evidence from the text. It would also leave salvation entirely in the hands of natural man by setting faith over against grace as an independent, autonomous, (ultimate, not penultimate) principle.
I say this often but I think it is worth repeating: in order to make sense of this doctrine we must first understand what exactly the condition of fallen man is. Most errors in regard to the doctrine of salvation have their roots in an deficient, unbiblical view of the moral and spiritual status of natural man prior to God's work of grace. At the fall mankind incurred the penalty of spiritual and physical death and deservedly became subject to the wrath of God. The effects of sin on the will and entire person made men inherently and totally corrupt, utterly incapable of choosing or doing that which is acceptable to God. With no recuperative powers to enable him to recover himself, man is hopelessly lost in sin. Man's salvation is thereby wholly dependent God's mercy and grace through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ (with the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit) alone (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:1-19; John 3:36; ROM 1:18; 3:23; 6:23; 1 Cor. 2:14; Eph. 2:1-3; 1 John 1:8). The theologians call it total depravity for a reason; not because man is as bad as he could be but because his unwillingness and inability to come to God, apart from grace, is total. If man's inability were merely physical handicap then he would not be culpable for his rejection of the gospel. But the inability I speak of is a moral inability. The difference can be seen in the analogy of a man who borrows a large sum of cash. He wickedly squanders all of his money in one night of riotous living. His inability to repay the debt does not alleviate him of his responsibility to do so. Therefore he is culpable for his inability, which is like unto the condition of man after the fall.
Synergistic Counter-Arguments
Some might further argue that passages which command or invite belief prove that man has the ability to believe while in the flesh. But all of these commands such as "If thou art willing" and "whosoever believes", "choose life" are in the subjunctive mood. A conditional statement asserts nothing indicatively. Note that God also calls humanity to keep the 10 commandments, but it does not therefore, necessarily follow that man has the power to keep the commandments. A command does not imply the ability to fulfill it. The commands of God, rather, are meant to bring us to a knowledge of our impotence. With striking clarity, Paul teaches that this is the intent of Divine legislation (ROM 3:20, 5:20, Gal 3:19,24). God cures man's pride by the publication of the Law. God commands us to believe and obey but the purpose of this is to bring us to despair so that we will recognize our utter inability to do so driving us to Christ's mercy. When man recognizes that even humility itself is a gift of grace then and only then it is evident that God is truly working grace in a man. The law was never designed to confer any power but to strip us of our own, enabling us to recognize that salvation is a work of God alone. So if someone were to ask how one might be saved, the clear answer is "to believe in Christ" with the understanding that the opening of our understanding and desire to believe is itself God's gracious gift.
At first, many people might fight against this idea because it goes against everything they have ever been taught at their church. But I would challenge you to question your presuppositions. Carefully and prayerfully read the Scripture references I have given you because this is important. Remember that the affects of the fall on the mind and will rendered mankind wholly incapable and unwilling to come to God, where we would always reject Him if left to our own unregenerate nature. Being spiritually dead, the Scripture teaches that it is impossible for man to respond, no matter how attractive God is (1 Cor 2:14). Man's nature and disposition must first be changed (made alive Eph 2:5, born again John 3:3). To say that we would ever come to God by our own choice without God first making this effectual is to underestimate the depth and totality of man's fall. We were spiritually dead. Dead men will not respond to pleading and reasoning alone (ROM 8:7) but only when coupled with the effectual call of Jesus who raises him spiritually, as He did the physical Lazarus. Yes, we must command man to repent and believe and we thus proclaim the Gospel to him, but the Holy Spirit has to enable and efficaciously draw him through our preaching if he is to come willingly (John 6:37, John 6:44, John 6:64,65 Ezekiel 11:19-20).
Our honor as believers is to preach Christ crucified and watch God do the work in regenerating a persons' soul through the quickening of the Holy Spirit. It is God alone that regenerates the dead or fallen spirit of His elect as we proclaim His word. He awakens poor sinners to a life of faith that they will see that Jesus, not in part, but in whole, has taken our sin upon Himself on the tree. His finished redemptive work is sufficient to put away our sins for all time. This is why world missions are so critical since the unregenerate can only come to Christ through hearing the word of God (Romans 10:13-15) by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. (There are, however, notable exceptions to this rule. For instance, probable biblical historical examples of apostles or prophets, such as the Apostle Paul and John the Baptist, who received direct revelation. Or perhaps in cases of supernatural revelation to those who die as elect infants or invalids who would not otherwise naturally have the capacity to understand or grasp much of anything, let alone God's word. People can and have been saved by direct revelation and God defines who of these will hear His voice. Physical inability is no more a hindrance to God than spiritual inability. God created us, so why would it be difficult for God to whisper in the ear of an unborn soon-to-be-miscarried baby and have he or she understand enough to be reconciled with God? ). In ordinary cases, however, God works concurrently with His church through prayers and the proclamation of His word to bring home His elect from every "tribe and language and people and nation."(Rev 5:8)
I hope this leads people to see that the biblical case for monergism is overwhelming, a constant theme that seasons the entire Bible. Synergism appears to be a system of theology that is forced awkwardly on the Scriptures - trying to read into the Word a hermeneutic governed by a theological predisposition that is most likely the result of man's unending desire to contribute something to his own salvation. Synergists would be hard pressed to find real biblical evidence to back their position. I must emphasize, however, that I know many sincere brothers & sisters that hold to the synergistic position. My prayer is that all the Lord's people would go back to the Scriptures to earnestly seek God's will in this crucial matter.
"The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." ... He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." John 6:63-65
I conclude by giving you this comparison chart between monergism and synergism which may be helpful to you in grasping the contrast of systems which greater clarity.
End of Article
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If you still have questions regarding monergism see the following articles:
Some Helpful References to Monergism from Church History
This is a list of references which show that monergism is the historic teaching of the Church among her greatest preachers, theologians and church confessions. Click here to view the history of monergism.
Answering the Critics of Monergism
This is an article which answers one of the most asked questions by synergists who like to claim indwelling and regeneration of the Holy Spirit are the same. This article provides answers with a exegetical study linked to the end of the article.
Synergist Responds to My Challenge
Synergist attempts to answer some of these questions: Why is it that one unregenerate person believes the gospel and not another?
What principle in him made him choose what he did? Was he able to generate a right thought, produce a right affection, create right belief, while at the same time man #2 did not have the natural wherewithal to come up with the faith to be saved? If they both made use of the same grace, did one make better use of it than the other?
Does Monergism Rob Humanity of Free Will?
A Recent Debate With A Synergist on this issue...
More Answers to Criticisms of Monergism
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More articles on the topic of Monergism:
The New Genesis: The Holy Spirit and Regeneration by R.C. Sproul
Regeneration by J.I. Packer
Two Views of Regeneration by John Hendryx
Monergism vs. Synergism by John Hendryx
Honest Answers for Common Objections to Monergistic Regeneration by John Hendryx
John 3:16, Man's Desires and the New Birth By John Hendryx
Regeneration: What Does It Mean To Be Born Again? By Wayne A. Grudem
Regeneration Precedes Faith by Dr. R.C. Sproul
The Pelagian Captivity of the Church by R.C. Sproul
A Defense of Monergistic Regeneration by Gannon Murphy**
Regeneration by Michael Bremmer
Regeneration and Conversion by Samuel Hopkins
This excerpt comprises a cogent discussion of regeneration and exemplifies American Puritan teaching on this subject. Hopkins’s main thesis is that the Holy Spirit sovereignly regenerates the unbeliever. He attacks the Catholic concept of synergism, whereby man cooperates with God in salvation and sanctification. Hopkins identifies regeneration as the work of God alone through the Holy Spirit. Also included is a very interesting discussion of the role of Scripture in the process of regeneration. His position is this: in the actual process of regeneration, God works directly through the Holy Spirit; the Scripture acts as a catalyst in the process, being indispensable (sine qua non) to the reaction without actually entering into it.
Articles on Irresistable grace
Articles on Regeneration
THEOLOGY - MEANING
Theology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to:navigation, search
Albert the Great, patron saint of Roman Catholic TheologiansTheology is the study of a god or, more generally, the study of religious faith, practice, and experience, or of spirituality.
Contents [hide]
1 Definition
2 History of the term
3 Religions other than Christianity
3.1 Analogous discourses
4 Theology as an academic discipline
4.1 Theology and ministerial training
4.2 Theology as an academic discipline in its own right
4.3 Theology and religious studies
5 Criticism
6 See also
7 Footnotes
[edit] Definition
Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity",[1] Richard Hooker defined "theology" in English as "the science of things divine".[2] The term can, however, be used for a variety of different disciplines or forms of discourse.[3] Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument (philosophical, ethnographic, historical, spiritual and others) to help understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote any of myriad religious topics. Theology might be undertaken to help the theologian
understand more truly his or her own religious tradition,[4]
understand more truly another religious tradition,[5]
make comparisons between religious traditions,[6]
defend or justify a religious tradition,
facilitate reform of a particular tradition,[7]
assist in the propagation of a religious tradition,[8] or
draw on the resources of a tradition to address some present situation or need,[9]
draw on the resources of a tradition to explore possible ways of interpreting the world,[10] or
explore the nature of divinity without reference to any specific tradition.
[edit] History of the term
Main article: History of theology
Theology translates into English the Greek theologia (θεολογία) (from theos (θεός) meaning god and logos (λόγος) meaning word, discourse, or reasoning, plus the abstract substantive suffix ia), which had passed into Latin as theologia and into French as théologie. The English equivalent "theology" (Theologie, Teologye) had evolved by 1362.[11] The sense the word has in English depends in large part on the sense the Latin and Greek equivalents had acquired in Patristic and medieval Christian usage, though the English term has now spread beyond Christian contexts.
Greek theologia (θεολογια) was used with the meaning "discourse on god" in the fourth century B.C. by Plato in The Republic, Book ii, Ch. 18.[12] Aristotle divided theoretical philosophy into mathematike, physike and theologike, with the latter corresponding roughly to metaphysics, which, for Aristotle, included discourse on the nature of the divine.[13]
Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of such discourse: mythical (concerning the myths of the Greek gods), rational (philosophical analysis of the gods and of cosmology) and civil (concerning the rites and duties of public religious observance).[14]
Theologos, closely related to theologia, appears once in some biblical manuscripts, in the heading to the book of Revelation: apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy, "the revelation of John the theologos." There, however, the word refers not to John the "theologian" in the modern English sense of the word but—using a slightly different sense of the root logos, meaning not "rational discourse" but "word" or "message"—one who speaks the words of God, logoi toy theoy.[15]
Some Latin Christian authors, such as Tertullian and Augustine, followed Varro's threefold usage,[16], though Augustine also used the term more simply to mean 'reasoning or discussion concerning the deity'[17]
In Patristic Greek Christian sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout and inspired knowledge of, and teaching about, the essential nature of God.[18]
In some medieval Greek and Latin sources, theologia (in the sense of "an account or record of the ways of God") could refer simply to the Bible.[19]
The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of academic study, dealing with the motionless, incorporeal reality (as opposed to physica, which deals with corporeal, moving realities).[20]. Boethius' definition influenced medieval Latin usage.[21]
In scholastic Latin sources, the term came to denote the rational study of the doctrines of the Christian religion, or (more precisely) the academic discipline which investigated the coherence and implications of the language and claims of the Bible and of the theological tradition (the latter often as represented in Peter Lombard's Sentences, a book of extracts from the Church Fathers).[22]
It is in this last sense, theology as an academic discipline involving rational study of Christian teaching, that the term passed into English in the fourteenth century,[23] though it could also be used in the narrower sense found in Boethius and the Greek patristic authors, to mean rational study of the essential nature of God - a discourse now sometimes called Theology Proper.[24]
From the 17th century onwards, it also became possible to use the term 'theology' to refer to study of religious ideas and teachings that are not specifically Christian (e.g., in the phrase 'Natural Theology' which denoted theology based on reasoning from natural facts independent of specifically Christian revelation [25]), or that are specific to another religion (see below).
"Theology" can also now be used in a derived sense to mean "a system of theoretical principles; an (impractical or rigid) ideology."[26]
[edit] Religions other than Christianity
In academic theological circles there is some debate as to whether theology is an activity peculiar to the Christian religion, such that the word "theology" should be reserved for Christian theology, and other words used to name analogous discourses within other religious traditions.[27] It is seen by some to be a term only appropriate to the study of religions that worship a deity (a theos), and to presuppose belief in the ability to speak and reason about this deity (in logia)—and so to be less appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently (religions without a deity, or that deny that such subjects can be studied logically). ("Hierology" has been proposed as an alternative, more generic term.[28])
[edit] Analogous discourses
Some academic inquiries within Buddhism, dedicated to the rational investigation of a Buddhist understanding of the world, prefer the designation Buddhist philosophy to the term Buddhist theology, since Buddhism lacks the same conception of a theos. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of "theology" is appropriate, can only do so, he says, because "I take theology not to be restricted to discourse on God ... I take 'theology' not to be restricted to its etymological meaning. In that latter sense, Buddhism is of course atheological, rejecting as it does the notion of God."[29]
Within Hindu philosophy, there is a solid and ancient tradition of philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, of God (termed "Brahman" in some schools of Hindu thought) and of the Atman (soul). The Sanskrit word for the various schools of Hindu philosophy is Darshana (meaning "view" or "viewpoint"). Vaishnava theology has been a subject of study for many devotees, philosophers and scholars in India for centuries, and in recent decades also has been taken on by a number of academic institutions in Europe, such as the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Bhaktivedanta College.[30] See also: Krishnology
Islamic theological discussion that parallels Christian theological discussion is named "Kalam"; the Islamic analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be the investigation and elaboration of Islamic law, or "Fiqh." "Kalam ... does not hold the leading place in Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for 'theology' in the Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several disciplines, and to the usul al-fiqh as much as to kalam." (L. Gardet)[31]
In Judaism, the historical absence of political authority has meant that most theological reflection has happened within the context of the Jewish community and synagogue, rather than within specialized academic institutions. Nevertheless, Jewish theology historically has been very active and highly significant for Christian and Islamic theology. It is sometimes claimed, however, that the Jewish analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be Rabbinical discussion of Jewish law and Jewish Biblical commentaries.[32]
[edit] Theology as an academic discipline
The history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves. For example, Taxila was an early centre of Vedic learning, possible from the 6th century BC or earlier;[33] the Platonic Academy founded in Athens in the 4th century BC seems to have included theological themes in its subject matter;[34] the Chinese Taixue delivered Confucian teaching from the 2nd century BC;[35] the School of Nisibis was a centre of Christian learning from the 4th century AD;[36] Nalanda in India was a site of Buddhist higher learning from at least the 5th or 6th century AD;[37] and the Moroccan University of Al-Karaouine was a centre of Islamic learning from the 10th century,[38] as was Al-Azhar University in Cairo.[39]
Modern Western universities evolved from the monastic institutions and (especially) cathedral schools of Western Europe during the High Middle Ages (see, for instance, the University of Bologna, Paris University and Oxford University).[40] From the beginning, Christian theological learning was therefore a central component in these institutions, as was the study of Church or Canon law): universities played an important role in training people for ecclesiastical offices, in helping the church pursue the clarification and defence of its teaching, and in supporting the legal rights of the church over against secular rulers.[41] At such universities, theological study was initially closely tied to the life of faith and of the church: it fed, and was fed by, practices of preaching, prayer and celebration of the Mass.[42]
During the High Middle Ages, theology was therefore the ultimate subject at universities, being named "The Queen of the Sciences" and serving as the capstone to the Trivium and Quadrivium that young men were expected to study. This meant that the other subjects (including Philosophy) existed primarily to help with theological thought.[43]
Christian theology’s preeminent place in the university began to be challenged during the European Enlightenment, especially in Germany.[44] other subjects gained in independence and prestige, and questions were raised about the place in institutions that were increasingly understood to be devoted to independent reason of a discipline that seemed to involve commitment to the authority of particular religious traditions.[45]
Since the early nineteenth century, various different approaches have emerged in the West to theology as an academic discipline. Much of the debate concerning theology's place in the university or within a general higher education curriculum centres on whether theology's methods are appropriately theoretical and (broadly speaking) scientific or, on the other hand, whether theology requires a pre-commitment of faith by its practitioners, and whether such a commitment conflicts with academic freedom.[46]
[edit] Theology and ministerial training
In some contexts, theology has been held to belong in institutions of Higher Education primarily as a form of professional training for Christian ministry. This was the basis on which Friedrich Schleiermacher, a liberal theologian, argued for the inclusion of theology in the new University of Berlin in 1810.[47]
For instance, in Germany, theological faculties at State universities are typically tied to particular denominations, Protestant or Roman Catholic, and those faculties will offer denominationally-bound (konfessionsgebundenes) degrees, and have denominationally-bound public posts amongst their faculty; as well as contributing ‘to the development and growth of Christian knowledge’ they ‘provide the academic training for the future clergy and teachers of religious instruction at German schools.’[48]
In the U.S.A. several prominent colleges and universities were started in order to train Christian ministers in the U.S. Harvard,[49] Georgetown University,[50] Boston University,[51] Yale,[52] Princeton,[53] Brown University,[54] and Mercer University[55] all had the theological training of clergy as a primary purpose at their foundation.
Seminaries and Bible colleges have continued this alliance between the academic study of theology and training for Christian ministry. There are, for instance, numerous prominent US examples, including The Catholic Theological Union in Chicago,[56] the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley,[57] Criswell College in Dallas,[58] the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,[59] Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois,[60] and Dallas Theological Seminary.[61] Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri.
[edit] Theology as an academic discipline in its own right
In some contexts, theology is pursued as an academic discipline without formal affiliation to any particular church (though individual members of staff may well have affiliations to different churches), and without ministerial training being a central part of their purpose. This is true, for instance, of several Departments in the United Kingdom, including the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds.[62]
[edit] Theology and religious studies
In some contemporary contexts, a distinction is made between theology, which is seen as involving some level of commitment to the truth of the religious tradition being studied, and religious studies, which is not. If contrasted with theology in this way, religious studies is normally seen as requiring the bracketing of the question of the truth of the religious traditions studied, and as involving the study of the historical or contemporary practices or ideas those traditions using intellectual tools and frameworks that are not themselves specifically tied to any religious tradition, and that are normally understood to be neutral or secular.[63] In contexts where 'religious studies' in this sense is the focus, the primary forms of study are likely to include:
Anthropology of religion,
Comparative religion,
History of religions,
Philosophy of religion,
Psychology of religion, and
Sociology of religion.
Theology and religious studies are sometimes seen as being in tension;[64] they are sometimes held to coexist without serious tension;[65] and it is sometimes denied that there is as clear a boundary between them as the brief description here suggests.[66]
[edit] Criticism
Whether or not reasoned discussion about the divine is possible has long been a point of contention. As early as the fifth century BC, Protagoras, who is reputed to have been exiled from Athens because of his agnosticism about the existence of the gods, said that "Concerning the gods I cannot know either that they exist or that they do not exist, or what form they might have, for there is much to prevent one's knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of man's life."[67]
In his two part Age of Reason, the American revolutionary Thomas Paine, wrote, "The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing."[68]
The atheist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach sought to dissolve theology in his work Principles of the Philosophy of the Future: "The task of the modern era was the realization and humanization of God - the transformation and dissolution of theology into anthropology."[69] This mirrored his earlier work The Essence of Christianity (pub. 1841), for which he was banned from teaching in Germany, in which he had said that theology was a "web of contradictions and delusions".[70]
In his essay "Critique of Ethics and Theology" the logical-positivist A.J. Ayer sought to show that all statements about the divine are nonsensical and any divine-attribute is unprovable. He wrote: "It is now generally admitted, at any rate by philosophers, that the existence of a being having the attributes which define the god of any non-animistic religion cannot be demonstratively proved... [A]ll utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical."[71]
In his essay, "Against Theology", the philosopher Walter Kaufmann sought to differentiate theology from religion in general. "Theology, of course, is not religion; and a great deal of religion is emphatically anti-theological... An attack on theology, therefore, should not be taken as necessarily involving an attack on religion. Religion can be, and often has been, untheological or even anti-theological." However, Kaufmann found that "Christianity is inescapably a theological religion".[72
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to:navigation, search
Albert the Great, patron saint of Roman Catholic TheologiansTheology is the study of a god or, more generally, the study of religious faith, practice, and experience, or of spirituality.
Contents [hide]
1 Definition
2 History of the term
3 Religions other than Christianity
3.1 Analogous discourses
4 Theology as an academic discipline
4.1 Theology and ministerial training
4.2 Theology as an academic discipline in its own right
4.3 Theology and religious studies
5 Criticism
6 See also
7 Footnotes
[edit] Definition
Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity",[1] Richard Hooker defined "theology" in English as "the science of things divine".[2] The term can, however, be used for a variety of different disciplines or forms of discourse.[3] Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument (philosophical, ethnographic, historical, spiritual and others) to help understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote any of myriad religious topics. Theology might be undertaken to help the theologian
understand more truly his or her own religious tradition,[4]
understand more truly another religious tradition,[5]
make comparisons between religious traditions,[6]
defend or justify a religious tradition,
facilitate reform of a particular tradition,[7]
assist in the propagation of a religious tradition,[8] or
draw on the resources of a tradition to address some present situation or need,[9]
draw on the resources of a tradition to explore possible ways of interpreting the world,[10] or
explore the nature of divinity without reference to any specific tradition.
[edit] History of the term
Main article: History of theology
Theology translates into English the Greek theologia (θεολογία) (from theos (θεός) meaning god and logos (λόγος) meaning word, discourse, or reasoning, plus the abstract substantive suffix ia), which had passed into Latin as theologia and into French as théologie. The English equivalent "theology" (Theologie, Teologye) had evolved by 1362.[11] The sense the word has in English depends in large part on the sense the Latin and Greek equivalents had acquired in Patristic and medieval Christian usage, though the English term has now spread beyond Christian contexts.
Greek theologia (θεολογια) was used with the meaning "discourse on god" in the fourth century B.C. by Plato in The Republic, Book ii, Ch. 18.[12] Aristotle divided theoretical philosophy into mathematike, physike and theologike, with the latter corresponding roughly to metaphysics, which, for Aristotle, included discourse on the nature of the divine.[13]
Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of such discourse: mythical (concerning the myths of the Greek gods), rational (philosophical analysis of the gods and of cosmology) and civil (concerning the rites and duties of public religious observance).[14]
Theologos, closely related to theologia, appears once in some biblical manuscripts, in the heading to the book of Revelation: apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy, "the revelation of John the theologos." There, however, the word refers not to John the "theologian" in the modern English sense of the word but—using a slightly different sense of the root logos, meaning not "rational discourse" but "word" or "message"—one who speaks the words of God, logoi toy theoy.[15]
Some Latin Christian authors, such as Tertullian and Augustine, followed Varro's threefold usage,[16], though Augustine also used the term more simply to mean 'reasoning or discussion concerning the deity'[17]
In Patristic Greek Christian sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout and inspired knowledge of, and teaching about, the essential nature of God.[18]
In some medieval Greek and Latin sources, theologia (in the sense of "an account or record of the ways of God") could refer simply to the Bible.[19]
The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of academic study, dealing with the motionless, incorporeal reality (as opposed to physica, which deals with corporeal, moving realities).[20]. Boethius' definition influenced medieval Latin usage.[21]
In scholastic Latin sources, the term came to denote the rational study of the doctrines of the Christian religion, or (more precisely) the academic discipline which investigated the coherence and implications of the language and claims of the Bible and of the theological tradition (the latter often as represented in Peter Lombard's Sentences, a book of extracts from the Church Fathers).[22]
It is in this last sense, theology as an academic discipline involving rational study of Christian teaching, that the term passed into English in the fourteenth century,[23] though it could also be used in the narrower sense found in Boethius and the Greek patristic authors, to mean rational study of the essential nature of God - a discourse now sometimes called Theology Proper.[24]
From the 17th century onwards, it also became possible to use the term 'theology' to refer to study of religious ideas and teachings that are not specifically Christian (e.g., in the phrase 'Natural Theology' which denoted theology based on reasoning from natural facts independent of specifically Christian revelation [25]), or that are specific to another religion (see below).
"Theology" can also now be used in a derived sense to mean "a system of theoretical principles; an (impractical or rigid) ideology."[26]
[edit] Religions other than Christianity
In academic theological circles there is some debate as to whether theology is an activity peculiar to the Christian religion, such that the word "theology" should be reserved for Christian theology, and other words used to name analogous discourses within other religious traditions.[27] It is seen by some to be a term only appropriate to the study of religions that worship a deity (a theos), and to presuppose belief in the ability to speak and reason about this deity (in logia)—and so to be less appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently (religions without a deity, or that deny that such subjects can be studied logically). ("Hierology" has been proposed as an alternative, more generic term.[28])
[edit] Analogous discourses
Some academic inquiries within Buddhism, dedicated to the rational investigation of a Buddhist understanding of the world, prefer the designation Buddhist philosophy to the term Buddhist theology, since Buddhism lacks the same conception of a theos. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of "theology" is appropriate, can only do so, he says, because "I take theology not to be restricted to discourse on God ... I take 'theology' not to be restricted to its etymological meaning. In that latter sense, Buddhism is of course atheological, rejecting as it does the notion of God."[29]
Within Hindu philosophy, there is a solid and ancient tradition of philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, of God (termed "Brahman" in some schools of Hindu thought) and of the Atman (soul). The Sanskrit word for the various schools of Hindu philosophy is Darshana (meaning "view" or "viewpoint"). Vaishnava theology has been a subject of study for many devotees, philosophers and scholars in India for centuries, and in recent decades also has been taken on by a number of academic institutions in Europe, such as the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Bhaktivedanta College.[30] See also: Krishnology
Islamic theological discussion that parallels Christian theological discussion is named "Kalam"; the Islamic analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be the investigation and elaboration of Islamic law, or "Fiqh." "Kalam ... does not hold the leading place in Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for 'theology' in the Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several disciplines, and to the usul al-fiqh as much as to kalam." (L. Gardet)[31]
In Judaism, the historical absence of political authority has meant that most theological reflection has happened within the context of the Jewish community and synagogue, rather than within specialized academic institutions. Nevertheless, Jewish theology historically has been very active and highly significant for Christian and Islamic theology. It is sometimes claimed, however, that the Jewish analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be Rabbinical discussion of Jewish law and Jewish Biblical commentaries.[32]
[edit] Theology as an academic discipline
The history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves. For example, Taxila was an early centre of Vedic learning, possible from the 6th century BC or earlier;[33] the Platonic Academy founded in Athens in the 4th century BC seems to have included theological themes in its subject matter;[34] the Chinese Taixue delivered Confucian teaching from the 2nd century BC;[35] the School of Nisibis was a centre of Christian learning from the 4th century AD;[36] Nalanda in India was a site of Buddhist higher learning from at least the 5th or 6th century AD;[37] and the Moroccan University of Al-Karaouine was a centre of Islamic learning from the 10th century,[38] as was Al-Azhar University in Cairo.[39]
Modern Western universities evolved from the monastic institutions and (especially) cathedral schools of Western Europe during the High Middle Ages (see, for instance, the University of Bologna, Paris University and Oxford University).[40] From the beginning, Christian theological learning was therefore a central component in these institutions, as was the study of Church or Canon law): universities played an important role in training people for ecclesiastical offices, in helping the church pursue the clarification and defence of its teaching, and in supporting the legal rights of the church over against secular rulers.[41] At such universities, theological study was initially closely tied to the life of faith and of the church: it fed, and was fed by, practices of preaching, prayer and celebration of the Mass.[42]
During the High Middle Ages, theology was therefore the ultimate subject at universities, being named "The Queen of the Sciences" and serving as the capstone to the Trivium and Quadrivium that young men were expected to study. This meant that the other subjects (including Philosophy) existed primarily to help with theological thought.[43]
Christian theology’s preeminent place in the university began to be challenged during the European Enlightenment, especially in Germany.[44] other subjects gained in independence and prestige, and questions were raised about the place in institutions that were increasingly understood to be devoted to independent reason of a discipline that seemed to involve commitment to the authority of particular religious traditions.[45]
Since the early nineteenth century, various different approaches have emerged in the West to theology as an academic discipline. Much of the debate concerning theology's place in the university or within a general higher education curriculum centres on whether theology's methods are appropriately theoretical and (broadly speaking) scientific or, on the other hand, whether theology requires a pre-commitment of faith by its practitioners, and whether such a commitment conflicts with academic freedom.[46]
[edit] Theology and ministerial training
In some contexts, theology has been held to belong in institutions of Higher Education primarily as a form of professional training for Christian ministry. This was the basis on which Friedrich Schleiermacher, a liberal theologian, argued for the inclusion of theology in the new University of Berlin in 1810.[47]
For instance, in Germany, theological faculties at State universities are typically tied to particular denominations, Protestant or Roman Catholic, and those faculties will offer denominationally-bound (konfessionsgebundenes) degrees, and have denominationally-bound public posts amongst their faculty; as well as contributing ‘to the development and growth of Christian knowledge’ they ‘provide the academic training for the future clergy and teachers of religious instruction at German schools.’[48]
In the U.S.A. several prominent colleges and universities were started in order to train Christian ministers in the U.S. Harvard,[49] Georgetown University,[50] Boston University,[51] Yale,[52] Princeton,[53] Brown University,[54] and Mercer University[55] all had the theological training of clergy as a primary purpose at their foundation.
Seminaries and Bible colleges have continued this alliance between the academic study of theology and training for Christian ministry. There are, for instance, numerous prominent US examples, including The Catholic Theological Union in Chicago,[56] the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley,[57] Criswell College in Dallas,[58] the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,[59] Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois,[60] and Dallas Theological Seminary.[61] Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri.
[edit] Theology as an academic discipline in its own right
In some contexts, theology is pursued as an academic discipline without formal affiliation to any particular church (though individual members of staff may well have affiliations to different churches), and without ministerial training being a central part of their purpose. This is true, for instance, of several Departments in the United Kingdom, including the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds.[62]
[edit] Theology and religious studies
In some contemporary contexts, a distinction is made between theology, which is seen as involving some level of commitment to the truth of the religious tradition being studied, and religious studies, which is not. If contrasted with theology in this way, religious studies is normally seen as requiring the bracketing of the question of the truth of the religious traditions studied, and as involving the study of the historical or contemporary practices or ideas those traditions using intellectual tools and frameworks that are not themselves specifically tied to any religious tradition, and that are normally understood to be neutral or secular.[63] In contexts where 'religious studies' in this sense is the focus, the primary forms of study are likely to include:
Anthropology of religion,
Comparative religion,
History of religions,
Philosophy of religion,
Psychology of religion, and
Sociology of religion.
Theology and religious studies are sometimes seen as being in tension;[64] they are sometimes held to coexist without serious tension;[65] and it is sometimes denied that there is as clear a boundary between them as the brief description here suggests.[66]
[edit] Criticism
Whether or not reasoned discussion about the divine is possible has long been a point of contention. As early as the fifth century BC, Protagoras, who is reputed to have been exiled from Athens because of his agnosticism about the existence of the gods, said that "Concerning the gods I cannot know either that they exist or that they do not exist, or what form they might have, for there is much to prevent one's knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of man's life."[67]
In his two part Age of Reason, the American revolutionary Thomas Paine, wrote, "The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing."[68]
The atheist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach sought to dissolve theology in his work Principles of the Philosophy of the Future: "The task of the modern era was the realization and humanization of God - the transformation and dissolution of theology into anthropology."[69] This mirrored his earlier work The Essence of Christianity (pub. 1841), for which he was banned from teaching in Germany, in which he had said that theology was a "web of contradictions and delusions".[70]
In his essay "Critique of Ethics and Theology" the logical-positivist A.J. Ayer sought to show that all statements about the divine are nonsensical and any divine-attribute is unprovable. He wrote: "It is now generally admitted, at any rate by philosophers, that the existence of a being having the attributes which define the god of any non-animistic religion cannot be demonstratively proved... [A]ll utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical."[71]
In his essay, "Against Theology", the philosopher Walter Kaufmann sought to differentiate theology from religion in general. "Theology, of course, is not religion; and a great deal of religion is emphatically anti-theological... An attack on theology, therefore, should not be taken as necessarily involving an attack on religion. Religion can be, and often has been, untheological or even anti-theological." However, Kaufmann found that "Christianity is inescapably a theological religion".[72
SYNERGISM - REFORMATION THEOLOGY
Excerpt from a Synergistic Statement of Faith
"We believe that when an unregenerate person exercises saving faith in Christ, which is illustrated and described as such in the New Testament, he passes immediately out of spiritual death into spiritual life." Stonebriar Community Church, Pastored by Chuck Swindoll, click here for source.
This simply does not stand up next to the Text of Scripture:
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all..."This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." John 6:63, 65
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Ezekiel 36:25-27
"...it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." - Rom 9:16
Related Quotes:
"How can it be said that the weakness of the human will is aided so as to enable it to aspire effectually to the choice of good, when the fact is, that it must be wholly transformed and renewed?" - John Calvin
"We ought always to beware of making the smallest claim for ourselves." - John Calvin
"The nature of the Divine goodness is not only to open to those who knock. but also to cause them to knock and ask." - Augustine
"You may be quite certain that if you love God it is a fruit, not a root." - C.H. Spurgeon
"We are not born again by repentance or faith or conversion: we repent and believe because we have been born again." - John Murray
"As grace led me to faith in the firstplace, so grace will keep me believing to the end. Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace." - J.I. Packer
"Regeneration, however it is described, is a divine activity in us, in which we are not the actors but the recipients." - Sinclair Ferguson
"Grace alone makes the elect gracious; grace alone keeps them gracious; and the same grace alone will render them everlastingly glorious in the heaven of heavens." - Augustus Toplady
"Without the Holy Spirit there would be no new birth, no illumination, no understanding or affection for the gospel, and thus no faith -- in other words, no Christians." - J.W. Hendryx
“To make human action the cause of divine blessing is to overturn the whole nature of salvation.” - Iain Murray
"...nor of the will of the flesh" (Jn. 1:13). The Bible declares there are only two states of being: flesh and Spirit, and that it is only those who are born of the Spirit (Jn. 3:3, 6:63) who will come to Jesus (Jn. 6:65). The native resources of the flesh are, therefore, morally impotent to meet God's humbling requirement to believe the gospel. (1:13) - J.W.H
"Grace itself teaches humility. The Apostle said, 'What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it why do you boast as if you had not received it? (1 cor 4:7) thus, even our ability to understand, to know, to discern, to hear, and to believe God's word, are all gifts we have received, not attainments we may boast in." J.W.H
"Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law... Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart." Ps 119:18, 33-34
"We believe that when an unregenerate person exercises saving faith in Christ, which is illustrated and described as such in the New Testament, he passes immediately out of spiritual death into spiritual life." Stonebriar Community Church, Pastored by Chuck Swindoll, click here for source.
This simply does not stand up next to the Text of Scripture:
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all..."This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." John 6:63, 65
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Ezekiel 36:25-27
"...it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." - Rom 9:16
Related Quotes:
"How can it be said that the weakness of the human will is aided so as to enable it to aspire effectually to the choice of good, when the fact is, that it must be wholly transformed and renewed?" - John Calvin
"We ought always to beware of making the smallest claim for ourselves." - John Calvin
"The nature of the Divine goodness is not only to open to those who knock. but also to cause them to knock and ask." - Augustine
"You may be quite certain that if you love God it is a fruit, not a root." - C.H. Spurgeon
"We are not born again by repentance or faith or conversion: we repent and believe because we have been born again." - John Murray
"As grace led me to faith in the firstplace, so grace will keep me believing to the end. Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace." - J.I. Packer
"Regeneration, however it is described, is a divine activity in us, in which we are not the actors but the recipients." - Sinclair Ferguson
"Grace alone makes the elect gracious; grace alone keeps them gracious; and the same grace alone will render them everlastingly glorious in the heaven of heavens." - Augustus Toplady
"Without the Holy Spirit there would be no new birth, no illumination, no understanding or affection for the gospel, and thus no faith -- in other words, no Christians." - J.W. Hendryx
“To make human action the cause of divine blessing is to overturn the whole nature of salvation.” - Iain Murray
"...nor of the will of the flesh" (Jn. 1:13). The Bible declares there are only two states of being: flesh and Spirit, and that it is only those who are born of the Spirit (Jn. 3:3, 6:63) who will come to Jesus (Jn. 6:65). The native resources of the flesh are, therefore, morally impotent to meet God's humbling requirement to believe the gospel. (1:13) - J.W.H
"Grace itself teaches humility. The Apostle said, 'What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it why do you boast as if you had not received it? (1 cor 4:7) thus, even our ability to understand, to know, to discern, to hear, and to believe God's word, are all gifts we have received, not attainments we may boast in." J.W.H
"Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law... Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart." Ps 119:18, 33-34
MONERGISM - REGENERATION THEOLOGY
Monergism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to:navigation, search
An illustration of Article XVIII, "Of Free Will," of the Augsburg Confession, which reads "...[M]an's will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness ..."[1] Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (March 2008)
Monergism describes the position in Christian theology of those who believe that God through the Holy Spirit works to effectually bring about the salvation of individuals through spiritual regeneration without cooperation from the individual. Monergism is most often associated with Calvinism (e.g., Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed) and its doctrine of irresistible grace and in particular with historic doctrinal differences between Calvinism on the one hand and Arminianism on the other.
This position is often presented in contrast to synergism, the belief that God and individuals cooperate for salvation. Lutherans generally adhere to a modified and less stringent form of monergism.
Contents [hide]
1 Statement of the doctrine
2 Opposition to monergism
3 References
4 External links
[edit] Statement of the doctrine
Monergism states that the regeneration of an individual is the work of God the Holy Spirit alone, as opposed to synergism, which, in its simplest form, argues that the human will cooperates with God's grace in order to be regenerated. To the synergist, faith may arise from unregenerated human nature. Salvation is not complete until the individual performs some action(s). According to monergism, faith in Christ only springs from a heart first renewed by God. Among various arguments, proponents believe 1 Corinthians 12:3 to mean that no one can possibly confess Jesus as Lord apart from the Holy Spirit's prompting and conviction.
Since faith is infinitely beyond all the power of our unregenerated human nature, it is only God who can give the spiritual ears to hear and eyes to see the beauty of Christ in the gospel. God alone disarms the hostility of the sinner turning his heart of stone to a heart of flesh. It is God, the Holy Spirit, alone who gives illumination and understanding of His word that we might believe; It is God who raises us from the death of sin, who circumcises the heart; unplugs our ears; It is God alone who can give us a new sense, a spiritual capacity to behold the beauty and unsurpassed excellency of Jesus Christ. The apostle John recorded Jesus saying to Nicodemus that we naturally love darkness, hate the light and WILL NOT come into the light (John 3:19, 20). And since our hardened resistance to God is thus seated in our affections, only God, by His grace, can lovingly change, overcome and pacify our rebellious disposition. The natural man, apart from the quickening work of the Holy Spirit, will not come to Christ on his own since he is at enmity with God and cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14). Shining a light into a blind man's eyes will not enable him to see, because eyesight first requires a set of healthy eyes. Likewise, reading or hearing the word of God alone cannot elicit saving faith in the reader (1 Thess 1:4, 5) unless God plows up the fallow ground of our hearts and the Spirit "germinates" the seed of the word, opening our eyes to see Christ's true beauty and excellency and uniting us to Him through a Spirit-wrought faith. The problem is not with the Word or God's Law but with man's prideful heart. The humility required to submit to the gospel is, therefore, not prompted by man's will but by God's mercy (Rom 9:16) since no one can believe the gospel unless God grants it (John 6:63, 65). As an example of how the Spirit uses the means of the spoken word to disarm closed hearts, the Book of Acts records the work of the Holy Spirit during the preaching of the apostles and, in one instance, states that "the Lord opened her [Lydia's] heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul," (Acts 16:14). The Spirit must likewise give all His people spiritual life and understanding if their hearts are to be opened and thus respond to Christ in faith. God commands all people everywhere to repent and believe the gospel, so the monergist believes in heralding the gospel indiscriminately. But no one will hear it UNLESS the Spirit gives them ears to hear.
[edit] Opposition to monergism
Synergists typically believe that God wills human beings to follow Him and leads people into the decision, but He does not determine the choice for the individual. Some synergists believe that because man is made in the "image and likeness of God," he has the ability to make free choices for good or for evil. Other synergists believe fallen man is by default unable to do good but God has extended grace to all people which gives them the ability to have faith in Christ (see prevenient grace). Either way, synergists believe individual salvation is a matter of individual, not divine, choice. Synergists look to various Biblical passages, such as the parable of the talents and the passage "If today you hear the voice of God, harden not your heart."
Some synergists believe that monergism is fatalistic. The argument is largely predicated on moral considerations, namely that there is no necessity to live in a godly and decent way and obey God's law if one cannot have an influence on his or her personal salvation.
Another argument against monergism is that it is comparable to the lottery; for the human being, the eventual outcome of grace could just as well be the result of drawing a lot or a divine whim.
[edit] References
1.^ See Augsburg Confession, Article XVIII: Of Free Will
[edit] External links
Monergism.com - Contains articles explaining and defending Calvinistic monergism.
A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God by Jonathan Edwards
Two Views of Regeneration (chart) by John Hendryx
The Work of the Trinity in Monergism by John Hendryx
Jesus Teaches Monergistic Regeneration by John Hendryx
The New Genesis by R.C. Sproul
A Defense of Monergistic Regeneration by Gannon Murphy
Monergistic Regeneration 2-Part MP3 Lecture by Art Azurdia
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monergism"
Categories: Calvinist theology | Christian Pneumatology | Christian soteriology | Islamic philosophy | Lutheran theology
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to:navigation, search
An illustration of Article XVIII, "Of Free Will," of the Augsburg Confession, which reads "...[M]an's will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness ..."[1] Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (March 2008)
Monergism describes the position in Christian theology of those who believe that God through the Holy Spirit works to effectually bring about the salvation of individuals through spiritual regeneration without cooperation from the individual. Monergism is most often associated with Calvinism (e.g., Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed) and its doctrine of irresistible grace and in particular with historic doctrinal differences between Calvinism on the one hand and Arminianism on the other.
This position is often presented in contrast to synergism, the belief that God and individuals cooperate for salvation. Lutherans generally adhere to a modified and less stringent form of monergism.
Contents [hide]
1 Statement of the doctrine
2 Opposition to monergism
3 References
4 External links
[edit] Statement of the doctrine
Monergism states that the regeneration of an individual is the work of God the Holy Spirit alone, as opposed to synergism, which, in its simplest form, argues that the human will cooperates with God's grace in order to be regenerated. To the synergist, faith may arise from unregenerated human nature. Salvation is not complete until the individual performs some action(s). According to monergism, faith in Christ only springs from a heart first renewed by God. Among various arguments, proponents believe 1 Corinthians 12:3 to mean that no one can possibly confess Jesus as Lord apart from the Holy Spirit's prompting and conviction.
Since faith is infinitely beyond all the power of our unregenerated human nature, it is only God who can give the spiritual ears to hear and eyes to see the beauty of Christ in the gospel. God alone disarms the hostility of the sinner turning his heart of stone to a heart of flesh. It is God, the Holy Spirit, alone who gives illumination and understanding of His word that we might believe; It is God who raises us from the death of sin, who circumcises the heart; unplugs our ears; It is God alone who can give us a new sense, a spiritual capacity to behold the beauty and unsurpassed excellency of Jesus Christ. The apostle John recorded Jesus saying to Nicodemus that we naturally love darkness, hate the light and WILL NOT come into the light (John 3:19, 20). And since our hardened resistance to God is thus seated in our affections, only God, by His grace, can lovingly change, overcome and pacify our rebellious disposition. The natural man, apart from the quickening work of the Holy Spirit, will not come to Christ on his own since he is at enmity with God and cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14). Shining a light into a blind man's eyes will not enable him to see, because eyesight first requires a set of healthy eyes. Likewise, reading or hearing the word of God alone cannot elicit saving faith in the reader (1 Thess 1:4, 5) unless God plows up the fallow ground of our hearts and the Spirit "germinates" the seed of the word, opening our eyes to see Christ's true beauty and excellency and uniting us to Him through a Spirit-wrought faith. The problem is not with the Word or God's Law but with man's prideful heart. The humility required to submit to the gospel is, therefore, not prompted by man's will but by God's mercy (Rom 9:16) since no one can believe the gospel unless God grants it (John 6:63, 65). As an example of how the Spirit uses the means of the spoken word to disarm closed hearts, the Book of Acts records the work of the Holy Spirit during the preaching of the apostles and, in one instance, states that "the Lord opened her [Lydia's] heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul," (Acts 16:14). The Spirit must likewise give all His people spiritual life and understanding if their hearts are to be opened and thus respond to Christ in faith. God commands all people everywhere to repent and believe the gospel, so the monergist believes in heralding the gospel indiscriminately. But no one will hear it UNLESS the Spirit gives them ears to hear.
[edit] Opposition to monergism
Synergists typically believe that God wills human beings to follow Him and leads people into the decision, but He does not determine the choice for the individual. Some synergists believe that because man is made in the "image and likeness of God," he has the ability to make free choices for good or for evil. Other synergists believe fallen man is by default unable to do good but God has extended grace to all people which gives them the ability to have faith in Christ (see prevenient grace). Either way, synergists believe individual salvation is a matter of individual, not divine, choice. Synergists look to various Biblical passages, such as the parable of the talents and the passage "If today you hear the voice of God, harden not your heart."
Some synergists believe that monergism is fatalistic. The argument is largely predicated on moral considerations, namely that there is no necessity to live in a godly and decent way and obey God's law if one cannot have an influence on his or her personal salvation.
Another argument against monergism is that it is comparable to the lottery; for the human being, the eventual outcome of grace could just as well be the result of drawing a lot or a divine whim.
[edit] References
1.^ See Augsburg Confession, Article XVIII: Of Free Will
[edit] External links
Monergism.com - Contains articles explaining and defending Calvinistic monergism.
A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God by Jonathan Edwards
Two Views of Regeneration (chart) by John Hendryx
The Work of the Trinity in Monergism by John Hendryx
Jesus Teaches Monergistic Regeneration by John Hendryx
The New Genesis by R.C. Sproul
A Defense of Monergistic Regeneration by Gannon Murphy
Monergistic Regeneration 2-Part MP3 Lecture by Art Azurdia
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monergism"
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Friday, May 28, 2010
Lynn Jenkins - Southeast Kansas
Don’t Like “Business as Usual” in Washington? Tell me How You’d Like to Change it
Folks around the nation feel like Washington simply is not listening. The American people want one thing, but Congress does another. It’s time for that to change. This week, my Republican colleagues in the House and I introduced “America Speaking Out,” a project to engage people across the nation from all party affiliations and give them a voice in creating a new agenda for the nation.
Over the course of the next few months, I invite you to join me to chart a new path forward. You can start by attending the town hall meetings that I will host over the Memorial Day district work period to listen to Kansans’ ideas. Instead of a traditional town hall where you ask the questions and I do most of the talking, I want you to do most of the talking while I listen to your ideas. Next week, I’ll be hosting townhalls in Parsons and Topeka.
Parsons
Municipal Auditorium
Tuesday, June 1, at 5:00 p.m. CST
Topeka
Topeka and Shawnee County Library
Monday, June 7, at 9:00 a.m. CST
If you cannot make it out to the town hall meetings, I hope you will visit the America Speaking Out website at www.AmericaSpeakingOut.com to submit your policy solutions, debate the ideas posted by others and share the debate with friends and neighbors. For more information about America Speaking Out, click here to visit a special page on my website.
The genius of America does not lie in Washington. So, rather than continuing down a path dictated by special interests and Washington politicians, America Speaking Out will give you a new opportunity to lend your ideas to the creation of a new national policy agenda. I hope you will join me in this new project, and I look forward to hearing from you as we work to move our state and nation forward.
As Debt Hovers Near $13 Trillion, Nancy Pelosi Refuses to Even Discuss a Budget
The national debt is hovering near a staggering $13 trillion. And despite a warning from University of Maryland Economist Carmen Reinhart who communicated this week that “fiscal austerity” is needed now, leaders in Washington decided to continue spending your money and refused to even discuss a budget. Every year since the Congressional Budget Act became law in 1974, the House has completed its budget, but it appears this year Nancy Pelosi will break that streak.
When families, small businesses and farmers and ranchers face economic challenges, they are forced to tighten their belts and to sit down and develop a strict budget to live within. Yet, as the federal government of the United States of America is facing an astronomical $13 trillion debt, Democrat leaders have punted their own responsibility to develop a budget. That is unacceptable. Click here to watch my remarks at a press conference with Republican leaders earlier this week.
You can also help restore fiscal responsibility in Congress by participating in the YouCut project and telling Congress what wasteful government spending you would like to see eliminated. Speaker Pelosi appears set in her spending ways, but this week Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told the Democrat committee chairmen to “find something to cut.” I am hopeful this means the Democrat majority is serious about getting our nation’s fiscal house in order because the longer the tough decisions are ignored, the worse the consequences will be. That’s why it is so imperative that the House develop a responsible budget that gets our debt and deficits under control and stops the out of control spending.
Honoring our Nation’s Heroes on Memorial Day
On Monday, we will have the opportunity to give thanks and remember all of the brave men and women who have fought bravely and have made the ultimate sacrifice defending our nation. From the Revolutionary War to the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we owe the men and women who have fought to defend our freedom a debt of gratitude.
I am deeply honored to be attending 124th Memorial Day Ceremony at the Leavenworth National Cemetery and also attending the dedication of the USS Arizona Memorial in Atchison. Whether you are in Pittsburg, Hiawatha, Lawrence or Iola, I hope as you enjoy this holiday weekend that you will take time to reflect and give thanks to the men and women in the military who risk their lives protecting our freedoms.
Spending Time in Kansas
In addition to honoring our nation’s veterans on Memorial Day in Atchison and Leavenworth, I look forward to spending time with Kansans next week. On Tuesday morning, I am heading to Baxter Springs to tour Wolkar Drug with Brian Caswell. Later Tuesday, I am going to speak with the Rotary chapter in Pittsburg before heading to Parsons to host my first America Speaking Out town hall meeting. Thursday, I am heading back to Atchison to spend some time talking with the Atchison Chamber of Commerce and Workforce Development Board.
Kansas Visitors in Washington
Earlier this week, I was so glad to spend some time with Cheryl Brown-Henderson. She was recently appointed Superintendent of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka. Alan MacDonald, Connie Pressley, Jason Lanning, Cindi Bodine, Melissa Chavez and Bryan Neal with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association stopped by this week to discuss issues affecting them in Kansas. Mike Crow from Topeka, Wendy Harm from Topeka, Kip Spray from Great Bend, Bob and Nick Totten from Topeka, Brian Hansen from El Dorado, Steve Sloan from Pittsburg and Woody Moses from Topeka stopped by with the Kansas Contractors Association to talk about transportation issues.
FOLLOW ME ONLINE
Folks around the nation feel like Washington simply is not listening. The American people want one thing, but Congress does another. It’s time for that to change. This week, my Republican colleagues in the House and I introduced “America Speaking Out,” a project to engage people across the nation from all party affiliations and give them a voice in creating a new agenda for the nation.
Over the course of the next few months, I invite you to join me to chart a new path forward. You can start by attending the town hall meetings that I will host over the Memorial Day district work period to listen to Kansans’ ideas. Instead of a traditional town hall where you ask the questions and I do most of the talking, I want you to do most of the talking while I listen to your ideas. Next week, I’ll be hosting townhalls in Parsons and Topeka.
Parsons
Municipal Auditorium
Tuesday, June 1, at 5:00 p.m. CST
Topeka
Topeka and Shawnee County Library
Monday, June 7, at 9:00 a.m. CST
If you cannot make it out to the town hall meetings, I hope you will visit the America Speaking Out website at www.AmericaSpeakingOut.com to submit your policy solutions, debate the ideas posted by others and share the debate with friends and neighbors. For more information about America Speaking Out, click here to visit a special page on my website.
The genius of America does not lie in Washington. So, rather than continuing down a path dictated by special interests and Washington politicians, America Speaking Out will give you a new opportunity to lend your ideas to the creation of a new national policy agenda. I hope you will join me in this new project, and I look forward to hearing from you as we work to move our state and nation forward.
As Debt Hovers Near $13 Trillion, Nancy Pelosi Refuses to Even Discuss a Budget
The national debt is hovering near a staggering $13 trillion. And despite a warning from University of Maryland Economist Carmen Reinhart who communicated this week that “fiscal austerity” is needed now, leaders in Washington decided to continue spending your money and refused to even discuss a budget. Every year since the Congressional Budget Act became law in 1974, the House has completed its budget, but it appears this year Nancy Pelosi will break that streak.
When families, small businesses and farmers and ranchers face economic challenges, they are forced to tighten their belts and to sit down and develop a strict budget to live within. Yet, as the federal government of the United States of America is facing an astronomical $13 trillion debt, Democrat leaders have punted their own responsibility to develop a budget. That is unacceptable. Click here to watch my remarks at a press conference with Republican leaders earlier this week.
You can also help restore fiscal responsibility in Congress by participating in the YouCut project and telling Congress what wasteful government spending you would like to see eliminated. Speaker Pelosi appears set in her spending ways, but this week Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told the Democrat committee chairmen to “find something to cut.” I am hopeful this means the Democrat majority is serious about getting our nation’s fiscal house in order because the longer the tough decisions are ignored, the worse the consequences will be. That’s why it is so imperative that the House develop a responsible budget that gets our debt and deficits under control and stops the out of control spending.
Honoring our Nation’s Heroes on Memorial Day
On Monday, we will have the opportunity to give thanks and remember all of the brave men and women who have fought bravely and have made the ultimate sacrifice defending our nation. From the Revolutionary War to the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we owe the men and women who have fought to defend our freedom a debt of gratitude.
I am deeply honored to be attending 124th Memorial Day Ceremony at the Leavenworth National Cemetery and also attending the dedication of the USS Arizona Memorial in Atchison. Whether you are in Pittsburg, Hiawatha, Lawrence or Iola, I hope as you enjoy this holiday weekend that you will take time to reflect and give thanks to the men and women in the military who risk their lives protecting our freedoms.
Spending Time in Kansas
In addition to honoring our nation’s veterans on Memorial Day in Atchison and Leavenworth, I look forward to spending time with Kansans next week. On Tuesday morning, I am heading to Baxter Springs to tour Wolkar Drug with Brian Caswell. Later Tuesday, I am going to speak with the Rotary chapter in Pittsburg before heading to Parsons to host my first America Speaking Out town hall meeting. Thursday, I am heading back to Atchison to spend some time talking with the Atchison Chamber of Commerce and Workforce Development Board.
Kansas Visitors in Washington
Earlier this week, I was so glad to spend some time with Cheryl Brown-Henderson. She was recently appointed Superintendent of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka. Alan MacDonald, Connie Pressley, Jason Lanning, Cindi Bodine, Melissa Chavez and Bryan Neal with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association stopped by this week to discuss issues affecting them in Kansas. Mike Crow from Topeka, Wendy Harm from Topeka, Kip Spray from Great Bend, Bob and Nick Totten from Topeka, Brian Hansen from El Dorado, Steve Sloan from Pittsburg and Woody Moses from Topeka stopped by with the Kansas Contractors Association to talk about transportation issues.
FOLLOW ME ONLINE
PRAYER REQUEST
Please pray for Crispin Nisbett, he is having problems in his life. One is finding a christian WOMEN. He's so down on him self, very down on life also.
Thank You,
Rev. Londa
Thank You,
Rev. Londa
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Pauls farewell to the Ephesians Elders
17From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. 18When they arrived, he said to them: "You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. 19I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews. 20You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. 21I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
22"And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.
24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
25"Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. 26Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. 28Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.[a] Be shepherds of the church of God,[b] which he bought with his own blood. 29I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.
32"Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 33I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. 34You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "
36When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. 37They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. 38What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.
22"And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.
24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
25"Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. 26Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. 28Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.[a] Be shepherds of the church of God,[b] which he bought with his own blood. 29I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.
32"Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 33I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. 34You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "
36When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. 37They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. 38What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
SACK LUNCHES
Sack Lunches
I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned
seat. It was going to be a long flight. 'I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,' I thought.
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle
and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation.
'Where are you headed?' I asked the soldier seated nearest to me.
'Petawawa. We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Afghanistan .'
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time...
As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask his buddy if
he planned to buy lunch. 'No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn't be worth five bucks.
I'll wait till we get to base.'
His friend agreed.
I looked around at the other soldiers.. None were buying lunch so I
walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. 'Take a lunch to all those soldiers.' She grabbed my arms
and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears; she thanked me. 'My son was a
soldier in Iraq ; it's almost like you are doing it for him.'
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers
were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which do you like best - beef or chicken?'
'Chicken,' I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner
plate from first class.
'This is yours, thanks.'
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane,
heading for the rest room.
A man stopped me. 'I saw what you did. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.' He handed me twenty-five dollars.
Soon after I returned to my seat. I saw the Flight Captain
coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked. I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the
numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand and said, 'I want to shake your hand.'
Quickly unfastening my seatbelt I stood and took the Captain's hand. With a booming voice he said, 'I was a soldier and I was a military
pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.' I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the
passengers.
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm.
When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just
inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another
twenty-five dollars!
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their
trip to the base. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five
dollars. 'It will take you some time to reach the base.. It will be about time for a sandwich. God Bless You.'
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their
fellow travelers.
As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only
give them a couple of meals. It seemed so little...
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made
payable to 'The United States of America ' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'
That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.'
May God give you the strength and courage to pass this along to
everyone on your email buddy list....
Let us pray...
Prayer chain for our Military... Don't break it!
Please send this on after a short prayer.. Prayer for
our soldiers Don't break it!
Prayer:
'Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect
them as they protect us. Bless them and their
families for the selfless acts they perform for
us in our time of need. Amen.'
Prayer Request: When you receive this, please stop for
a moment and say a prayer for our troops around the world.
Do not let it stop with you. Of all the gifts you could give a Marine, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, & others deployed in harm's way,
prayer is the very best one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know that this has been around before but every day we should pray for our miltary who is fighting for your & my freedom. Pray to God to protect them.
Rev. Londa
I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned
seat. It was going to be a long flight. 'I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,' I thought.
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle
and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation.
'Where are you headed?' I asked the soldier seated nearest to me.
'Petawawa. We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Afghanistan .'
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time...
As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask his buddy if
he planned to buy lunch. 'No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn't be worth five bucks.
I'll wait till we get to base.'
His friend agreed.
I looked around at the other soldiers.. None were buying lunch so I
walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. 'Take a lunch to all those soldiers.' She grabbed my arms
and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears; she thanked me. 'My son was a
soldier in Iraq ; it's almost like you are doing it for him.'
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers
were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which do you like best - beef or chicken?'
'Chicken,' I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner
plate from first class.
'This is yours, thanks.'
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane,
heading for the rest room.
A man stopped me. 'I saw what you did. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.' He handed me twenty-five dollars.
Soon after I returned to my seat. I saw the Flight Captain
coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked. I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the
numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand and said, 'I want to shake your hand.'
Quickly unfastening my seatbelt I stood and took the Captain's hand. With a booming voice he said, 'I was a soldier and I was a military
pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.' I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the
passengers.
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm.
When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just
inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another
twenty-five dollars!
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their
trip to the base. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five
dollars. 'It will take you some time to reach the base.. It will be about time for a sandwich. God Bless You.'
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their
fellow travelers.
As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only
give them a couple of meals. It seemed so little...
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made
payable to 'The United States of America ' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'
That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.'
May God give you the strength and courage to pass this along to
everyone on your email buddy list....
Let us pray...
Prayer chain for our Military... Don't break it!
Please send this on after a short prayer.. Prayer for
our soldiers Don't break it!
Prayer:
'Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect
them as they protect us. Bless them and their
families for the selfless acts they perform for
us in our time of need. Amen.'
Prayer Request: When you receive this, please stop for
a moment and say a prayer for our troops around the world.
Do not let it stop with you. Of all the gifts you could give a Marine, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, & others deployed in harm's way,
prayer is the very best one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know that this has been around before but every day we should pray for our miltary who is fighting for your & my freedom. Pray to God to protect them.
Rev. Londa
AUL
On The Docket
Dr. Yoest in US News: Postpone Kagan Nomination
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, AUL’s President & CEO, is making headlines with her letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy urging that the Kagan confirmation hearings be postponed until the Clinton Library releases information from her time as a White House lawyer and domestic policy aide. The US News and World Report feature "Washington Whispers" reports: “AUL President Charmaine Yoest wrote: ‘We are deeply concerned that the Senate Judiciary Committee will have insufficient time to review Elena Kagan's record before commencing her hearing on June 28, 2010. Therefore, we request that you provide whatever time is needed for members to thoroughly prepare for the hearing, even if it requires postponing the hearing date.’” Click here to read the full text of Dr. Yoest’s letter.
Oklahoma Becomes the 6th State to Opt Out of Taxpayer-Funded Abortion
AUL applauds the Oklahoma legislature’s decision to turn down the federal government’s plan for taxpayer-funded abortion—making theirs the sixth state legislature to do so. On Monday, the lawmakers sent a bill to Gov. Brad Henry to opt the state out of the abortion mandate created by the new federal health care law.
“More than 70 percent of voters oppose the use of public funds for abortion; that’s why the state-by-state opt-out movement continues to gain momentum,” said AUL spokesman Matthew Faraci. “Oklahoma’s leadership on this issue serves as an example to other states looking to pass similar laws.”
So far, the opt-out bills in Arizona and Tennessee have become law, while bills in Florida, Mississippi, and Missouri are pending action. For more information on the opt-out efforts across the country, click here.
Catch up with the Kagan File
Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan want you to think that, with no judicial experience, she has no record on abortion. But readers of AUL’s Kagan File aren’t fooled. Every weekday morning, the blog update from AUL’s legal team spotlights memos and other information from the nominee’s lengthy paper trail, giving new insights into her extreme views.
If you’ve missed an installment of The Kagan File, the AUL Blog now features a summary of all the research from the first two weeks.Click here to read what the nominee’s boosters don’t want you to know, including her support of a national pro-abortion organization, her admiration for radical activist Israeli Judge Aharon Barak, her efforts at Harvard Law School to promote international law at the expense of American constitutional law, and her many years working for pro-abortion officials.
Dr. Yoest in US News: Postpone Kagan Nomination
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, AUL’s President & CEO, is making headlines with her letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy urging that the Kagan confirmation hearings be postponed until the Clinton Library releases information from her time as a White House lawyer and domestic policy aide. The US News and World Report feature "Washington Whispers" reports: “AUL President Charmaine Yoest wrote: ‘We are deeply concerned that the Senate Judiciary Committee will have insufficient time to review Elena Kagan's record before commencing her hearing on June 28, 2010. Therefore, we request that you provide whatever time is needed for members to thoroughly prepare for the hearing, even if it requires postponing the hearing date.’” Click here to read the full text of Dr. Yoest’s letter.
Oklahoma Becomes the 6th State to Opt Out of Taxpayer-Funded Abortion
AUL applauds the Oklahoma legislature’s decision to turn down the federal government’s plan for taxpayer-funded abortion—making theirs the sixth state legislature to do so. On Monday, the lawmakers sent a bill to Gov. Brad Henry to opt the state out of the abortion mandate created by the new federal health care law.
“More than 70 percent of voters oppose the use of public funds for abortion; that’s why the state-by-state opt-out movement continues to gain momentum,” said AUL spokesman Matthew Faraci. “Oklahoma’s leadership on this issue serves as an example to other states looking to pass similar laws.”
So far, the opt-out bills in Arizona and Tennessee have become law, while bills in Florida, Mississippi, and Missouri are pending action. For more information on the opt-out efforts across the country, click here.
Catch up with the Kagan File
Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan want you to think that, with no judicial experience, she has no record on abortion. But readers of AUL’s Kagan File aren’t fooled. Every weekday morning, the blog update from AUL’s legal team spotlights memos and other information from the nominee’s lengthy paper trail, giving new insights into her extreme views.
If you’ve missed an installment of The Kagan File, the AUL Blog now features a summary of all the research from the first two weeks.Click here to read what the nominee’s boosters don’t want you to know, including her support of a national pro-abortion organization, her admiration for radical activist Israeli Judge Aharon Barak, her efforts at Harvard Law School to promote international law at the expense of American constitutional law, and her many years working for pro-abortion officials.
U,S, - NO MORE HAVING A GUN
No more hunting for you guys or carrying a handgun.
Subject:Fw: Very Serious Warning
While you were watching the oil spill, the New York failed terrorist bombing and other critical crises, Hillary Clinton signed the small arms treaty with the UN.
OBAMA FINDS LEGAL WAY AROUND THE 2ND AMENDMENT AND USES IT.
IF THIS PASSES, THERE could BE WAR
On Wednesday Obama Took the First Major Step in a
Plan to Ban All Firearms in the United States
On Wednesday the Obama administration took its first major step in a plan to ban all firearms in the United States . The Obama administration intends to force gun control and a complete ban on all weapons for US citizens through the signing of international treaties with foreign nations. By signing international treaties on gun control, the Obama administration can use the US State Department to bypass the normal legislative process in Congress. Once the US Government signs these international treaties, all US citizens will be subject to those gun laws created by foreign governments. These are laws that have been developed and promoted by organizations such as the United Nations and individuals such as George Soros and Michael Bloomberg. The laws are designed and intended to lead to the complete ban and confiscation of all firearms. The Obama administration is attempting to use tactics and methods of gun control that will inflict major damage to our 2nd
Amendment before The Naive US citizens even understand what has happened.
Obama can appear before the public and tell them that he does not intend to pursue any legislation (in the United States) that will lead to new gun control laws, while cloaked in secrecy, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is committing the US to international treaties and foreign gun control laws. Does that mean Obama is telling the truth? What it means is that there will be no publicized gun control debates in the media or votes in Congress.We will wake up one morning and find that the United States has signed a treaty that prohibits firearm and ammunition manufacturers from selling to the public. We will wake up another morning and find that the US has signed a treaty that prohibits any transfer of firearm ownership. And then, we will wake up yet another morning and find that the US has signed a treaty that requires US citizens to deliver any firearm they own to the local government collection and destruction center or face imprisonment. This
has happened in other countries, past and present!
THIS IS NOT A JOKE NOR A FALSE WARNING.
As sure as government health care will be forced on us by the Obama administration through whatever means necessary, so will gun control. Read the Article U.S. reverses stance on treaty to regulate arms trade WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States reversed policy on Wednesday and said it would back launching talks on a treaty to regulate arms sales as long as the talks operated by consensus, a stance critics said gave every nation a veto. The decision, announced in a statement released by the U.S. State Department, overturns the position of former President George W. Bush's administration, which had opposed such a treaty on the grounds that national controls were better. View The Full Article Here
Click on the link below for further acknowledgement..
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE59E0Q920091015
Please forward this message to others who may be concerned about the direction in which our country is headed. This is a very serious matter! Silence will lead us to Socialism!!!
Subject:Fw: Very Serious Warning
While you were watching the oil spill, the New York failed terrorist bombing and other critical crises, Hillary Clinton signed the small arms treaty with the UN.
OBAMA FINDS LEGAL WAY AROUND THE 2ND AMENDMENT AND USES IT.
IF THIS PASSES, THERE could BE WAR
On Wednesday Obama Took the First Major Step in a
Plan to Ban All Firearms in the United States
On Wednesday the Obama administration took its first major step in a plan to ban all firearms in the United States . The Obama administration intends to force gun control and a complete ban on all weapons for US citizens through the signing of international treaties with foreign nations. By signing international treaties on gun control, the Obama administration can use the US State Department to bypass the normal legislative process in Congress. Once the US Government signs these international treaties, all US citizens will be subject to those gun laws created by foreign governments. These are laws that have been developed and promoted by organizations such as the United Nations and individuals such as George Soros and Michael Bloomberg. The laws are designed and intended to lead to the complete ban and confiscation of all firearms. The Obama administration is attempting to use tactics and methods of gun control that will inflict major damage to our 2nd
Amendment before The Naive US citizens even understand what has happened.
Obama can appear before the public and tell them that he does not intend to pursue any legislation (in the United States) that will lead to new gun control laws, while cloaked in secrecy, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is committing the US to international treaties and foreign gun control laws. Does that mean Obama is telling the truth? What it means is that there will be no publicized gun control debates in the media or votes in Congress.We will wake up one morning and find that the United States has signed a treaty that prohibits firearm and ammunition manufacturers from selling to the public. We will wake up another morning and find that the US has signed a treaty that prohibits any transfer of firearm ownership. And then, we will wake up yet another morning and find that the US has signed a treaty that requires US citizens to deliver any firearm they own to the local government collection and destruction center or face imprisonment. This
has happened in other countries, past and present!
THIS IS NOT A JOKE NOR A FALSE WARNING.
As sure as government health care will be forced on us by the Obama administration through whatever means necessary, so will gun control. Read the Article U.S. reverses stance on treaty to regulate arms trade WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States reversed policy on Wednesday and said it would back launching talks on a treaty to regulate arms sales as long as the talks operated by consensus, a stance critics said gave every nation a veto. The decision, announced in a statement released by the U.S. State Department, overturns the position of former President George W. Bush's administration, which had opposed such a treaty on the grounds that national controls were better. View The Full Article Here
Click on the link below for further acknowledgement..
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE59E0Q920091015
Please forward this message to others who may be concerned about the direction in which our country is headed. This is a very serious matter! Silence will lead us to Socialism!!!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
VICTORY IS ASSURED
To have victory is to abide in the presence of the power of God. If we abide in the right place with God & remain there. God can do all things in our lives!
Matthew 3:15-17 (Jesus was being baptized)
15) But Jesus answered & said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" Then he allowed Him.
16) Then Jesus when He had been baptized, came up immediately from the water; & behold, the heavens were opened to Him, & He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove & alighting upon Him.
17) And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
There was a Holy Majestic power that fell on Jesus when He received the Holy Spirit. It actually changed Jesus. There He was anointed with the Power of God. Jesus submitted to the power of God, which is the Holy Spirit. Jesus had more & more power as He submitted to the Holy Spirit. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness & He became ready for what was ahead of Him.
Matthew 4
Satan Tempts Jesus
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:
‘ He shall give His angels charge over you,’
and,
‘ In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’
7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’
8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”
11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
Jesus Begins His Galilean Ministry
12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
15 “ The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles:
16 The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death
Light has dawned.”
17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Four Fishermen Called as Disciples
18 And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
21 Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
Jesus Heals a Great Multitude
23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. 24 Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them. 25 Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
That empowerment had so much of an affect upon Him that people saw it & flocked to hear Him. As He grew there also became a great blessing in the land.
We must yield to the Holy Spirit as Jesus did & abide there. This will accomplish the purpose of God to yield & submit until our being is saturated with God. To bring knowledge of the truth & of the Gospel for humanity.
Psalms 46:10
Be still, & know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!
To live in a tranquility of God, to listen & know He is God. He moves us by His might power of the Holy Spirit. On our part it just takes abiding in God. To listen to Gods voice. To be controlled by the Spirit of God, To hear His voice, to be in that place which brings us LIFE, POWER, & VICTORY.
You will still have to go through things but now you have the Power of the Holy Spirit to go through it. Satan is going to come after you because you are one of God children.
In Christ Name,
Rev. Londa
Matthew is from the 21 century bible. All other is from the New KJV
Matthew 3:15-17 (Jesus was being baptized)
15) But Jesus answered & said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" Then he allowed Him.
16) Then Jesus when He had been baptized, came up immediately from the water; & behold, the heavens were opened to Him, & He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove & alighting upon Him.
17) And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
There was a Holy Majestic power that fell on Jesus when He received the Holy Spirit. It actually changed Jesus. There He was anointed with the Power of God. Jesus submitted to the power of God, which is the Holy Spirit. Jesus had more & more power as He submitted to the Holy Spirit. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness & He became ready for what was ahead of Him.
Matthew 4
Satan Tempts Jesus
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:
‘ He shall give His angels charge over you,’
and,
‘ In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’
7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’
8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”
11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
Jesus Begins His Galilean Ministry
12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
15 “ The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles:
16 The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death
Light has dawned.”
17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Four Fishermen Called as Disciples
18 And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
21 Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
Jesus Heals a Great Multitude
23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. 24 Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them. 25 Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
That empowerment had so much of an affect upon Him that people saw it & flocked to hear Him. As He grew there also became a great blessing in the land.
We must yield to the Holy Spirit as Jesus did & abide there. This will accomplish the purpose of God to yield & submit until our being is saturated with God. To bring knowledge of the truth & of the Gospel for humanity.
Psalms 46:10
Be still, & know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!
To live in a tranquility of God, to listen & know He is God. He moves us by His might power of the Holy Spirit. On our part it just takes abiding in God. To listen to Gods voice. To be controlled by the Spirit of God, To hear His voice, to be in that place which brings us LIFE, POWER, & VICTORY.
You will still have to go through things but now you have the Power of the Holy Spirit to go through it. Satan is going to come after you because you are one of God children.
In Christ Name,
Rev. Londa
Matthew is from the 21 century bible. All other is from the New KJV
Monday, May 24, 2010
AMBER ALERT
AMBER ALERT!!! Edmonton, KY little girl 3years old, picked up by a man driving a grey car, licenseplate:Q72B381.Put this as your status. It could save her. This kidnapping is recent so do it. 3 seconds will not kill you. If it were your child, what would you do????
FLEMING HEALTH CARE UPDATE
As the author of H Res 615, a resolution calling on Members of Congress to enroll in the public Health Care plan, I have an important update.
Due to an overwhelming response from Americans across the country to my office, the health bill recently signed into law will indeed require members of Congress to abandon their federal health benefits and enroll in the newly created exchanges.
While those of us who supported this important requirement have won the first round, we have not won the war.There is a move afoot to “fix” the language of this provision.
That's why it is important for me to communicate with you and provide you with information as it is available to me.
A great way to do this is to follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/repjohnfleming Just click the 'Like' button at the top of my Facebook page.
Please sign up today....let’s be sure this provision isn’t undone! www.facebook.com/repjohnfleming
Together, we can make sure the people’s voice is heard.
Sincerely,
JOHN FLEMING, M.D.
Member of Congress
P.S. If you’d like more information, please take a minute to visit my newly redesigned website at www.fleming.house.gov or follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/repfleming
As the author of H Res 615, a resolution calling on Members of Congress to enroll in the public Health Care plan, I have an important update.
Due to an overwhelming response from Americans across the country to my office, the health bill recently signed into law will indeed require members of Congress to abandon their federal health benefits and enroll in the newly created exchanges.
While those of us who supported this important requirement have won the first round, we have not won the war.There is a move afoot to “fix” the language of this provision.
That's why it is important for me to communicate with you and provide you with information as it is available to me.
A great way to do this is to follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/repjohnfleming Just click the 'Like' button at the top of my Facebook page.
Please sign up today....let’s be sure this provision isn’t undone! www.facebook.com/repjohnfleming
Together, we can make sure the people’s voice is heard.
Sincerely,
JOHN FLEMING, M.D.
Member of Congress
P.S. If you’d like more information, please take a minute to visit my newly redesigned website at www.fleming.house.gov or follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/repfleming
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