Calvinist's are so negitive...

on ask Pastor John today a guy wrote in and asked why Calvinists are so negative. are they? here is what i think is going on, the arminian tends to think about God as all Loving. it seems to come out in every debate i have ever heard. that unless there is a free will choice then God is not loving. i have heard them say things like this, "imagine you come home to your wife and bring a beautiful bunch of flowers, now if she has to force you to buy those flowers she will not feel loved. its only when she knows you bought them of your own free will that she knows you love her." and i have heard this, "imagine you and your wife are on an island your entire life, now until you get off the island and have other choices of women, your wife will never know if you truly love her." now, i could go on for hours about whats wrong with those two analogy's, but this is not what i am getting at though so ill try and stick to it. the problem is this, Arminian theology paints a loving God who would not break this so call "love code" thing that they use to debate with. if thats how they see God then how do you think they see a group of people who say God is not that way, not good i'm sure. so i think we need to try and keep that in mind when we talk and debate with Arminian's. that way we can be loving to!

Institutes of the Christian Religon

i have wanted to read Calvin's Institutes for some time now. well, i finally bought a two volume set tonight. i have read only two pages so far so i do not have much to write about but i wanted to do a small introduction.

The book was written as an introductory textbook on the Protestant faith for those with some knowledge of the Christian Faith, he ended up addressing it to the King of france as a kind of Christain apoligetic. First published in 1536 Calvin was just 27 years old, and save for a few revisions it remains pretty much the way he first penned it to this day. after reading just a taste of he work in the institutes i can see why it has rfemained one of the staples of the Christian faith. Calvin's writing is very deep and thoughtful, but not to hard to grasp. so far i have found it more reader friendly then Jonathan Edwards Religious Affections, but time will tell. i will post more about the theology of the Institutes as i get into them. so till then...ttfn