Listening to the Giants

As I finished reading this biography on John Wycliffe, this simple fact hit me hard. John Wycliffe lived as a Roman Catholic priest. John Wycliffe died as a Roman Catholic Priest. Or to say it another way: The Morning Star of the Reformation was a Roman Catholic. Sort of ironic, don’t you think? So here is the $144,000 question I want to try to answer: Can a Roman Catholic be a Christian? Well….before I give my answer, I need to make a couple general statements. First, please understand I am not intentionally trying to pick a fight or offend any Roman Catholic. I mean it. I was very hesitant to write this blog post because I have many family members that I love dearly that are Roman Catholic. Second, the main issue is the gospel. This is always the main issue. The only way that Roman Catholics and Christians are the same (i.e. they belong or identified as the same group) is if their understanding of the gospel is the same. So before we can answer the primary...

The life of John Wycliffe (1324-1384) WYCLIFFE’S TIMES In Wycliffe’s day Rome ruled England and Europe with an iron fist.  One hundred years earlier, Pope Innocent III had humbled King John of England. The king had done things that displeased the pope, so the pope excommunicated him and issued a decree declaring that he was no longer the king and releasing the people of England from obeying him. The pope further ordered King Philip of France to organize an army and navy to overthrow John, which Philip began to do with great zeal, eager to conquer England for himself. The pope also called for a general crusade against John, promising the participants remission of sins and a share of the spoils of war. The Scriptures was forbidden in the common languages of the people in Wycliffe’s day. One of Wycliffe’s enemies, Knyghton, a canon of Leicester, complained that by translating the Scriptures into English and thus laying it “open to the laity and to women who could read”. This...

To begin, I want to be clear on one thing: Though in this post I encourage all pastors to be “scholars”, I am not referring to men with multiple degrees or the priority of doing your graduate work overseas. Rather, a scholar is simply “a learner person” or “a specialist in a given branch of knowledge”. All pastors can and should pursue a reasonable and self-defining level of biblical scholarship. It is without debate that John Calvin is the standard par excellence for the Pastor-Scholar. One author wrote, “As far as John Calvin was concerned, almost nothing was more urgent for the church than the reformation of pastoral ministry. For centuries, most ministers had been shockingly ignorant of the Scriptures and thus ill-equipped to preach the gospel. As Calvin said in one debate with a Catholic cardinal (pretending to defend the Protestant cause before God): “Those who were regarded as the leaders of faith neither understood Thy Word, nor greatly cared for it. They drove...

P erseverance of the Saints Definition:  The Perseverance of the Saints means that all those who are truly born again will be kept by God's power and will persevere as Christians until the end of their lives, and that only those who persevere until the end have been truly born again. Did John Calvin teach this doctrine? Absolutely. Calvin’s Commentary on I John 3:9 1 John 3:9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. “ And he cannot keep on sinning ” Here the Apostle ascends higher, for he plainly declares that the hearts of the godly are so effectually governed by the Spirit of God, that through an inflexible disposition they follow his guidance.” Later on: “John speaks here far otherwise; for he not only shews that we cannot sin, but also that the power of the Spirit is so effectual, that it necessarily retains us in continual obedience to righteous...

I rresistible Grace Definition : “It is the work of the Holy Spirit by which He inwardly calls the elect of God and enables them to respond in faith to the gospel of Christ. This special work of the Spirit cannot be resisted and thus cannot fail. It so changes the heart of the sinner that he comes freely and willingly to Christ for salvation.”  Did John Calvin teach this doctrine? Yes, he did. Calvin’s Commentary on John 6:41-45 Unless the Father draw him .  To come to Christ being here used metaphorically for believing, the Evangelist, in order to carry out the metaphor in the apposite clause, says that those persons are drawn whose understandings God enlightens, and whose hearts he bends and forms to the obedience of Christ. The statement amounts to this, that we ought not to wonder if many refuse to embrace the Gospel; because no man will ever of himself be able to come to Christ, but God must first approach him by his Spi...