TULIP and the "L-word"

All things seem to cycle on the internet and these past days there seems to be renewed energy regarding the Calvinist-Arminian debate. By now you know I'm a Calvinist - well not really, I hold to Reformed Theology which includes the Doctrine of Election (I really don't know much about Calvin himself). I find value in the conversation but I'm amazed at the venom spewed from both sides of this ... and I also find many not engaging in the ugliness but equally wrong not allowing themselves to hear what the other side is saying because it sounds "hateful", "ugly", etc.. Sadly it is too often hateful or ugly but I know many who attribute those characteristics to anyone on the "other side" regardless of how gracious the other attempts to be.

Ok - that aside, here's today's dump ... first Jacob Hantla posts this great quote from Iain Murray's The Cross: The Pulpit of God's Love.

It is necessary for believers to understand the special nature of God's love for them. 'The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me' (Gal 2:20), is not a statement that gives security to all. To deny the special love of God, and to believe that Christ loves all men equally, is to suppose that Christ has done no more for those the Father has given to him than for mankind at large. But if Christians are no more loved than those who will finally be lost, the decisive factor in salvation becomes, not God's grace and love, but something in them, and their perseverance becomes dependent upon themselves. To widen the atonement, and to speak of it only in terms of general love, is to take away its saving power. The believer in Christ needs to know that the love which embraces him is eternal, almighty, and immutable. It does not hang upon his faith for it went before faith.

Then John Piper hits the blogsphere with these videos:

• TULIP, Part 1
• TULIP, Part 2
• TULIP, Part 3
• TULIP, Part 4
• TULIP, Part 5
• TULIP, Part 6
• TULIP, Part 7
• TULIP, Part 8
• TULIP, Part 9

And then John Owen:

To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.

Technorati Tags: Calvinism