Arminian to Calvanist in six months

My 82-year old father, GB, is an exceptional man. After 25 years of working as a pastor in India, he is in Auckland with us. Initially, when he came in January 2009, he was skeptical about Reformed theology. But by God’s grace, the following factors have caused him to change his opinion.

• His love for the word of God and desire to conform to it.
• Having had to leave his ministry in the hands of Reformed Baptists (How this came to be, though most amazing, is beyond the purview of this post), and having resigned himself to live out the rest of his days in his daughter’s home, he had to now scrutinize the doctrine of this new “denomination”.
• Sovereign Grace Church (Lunn Ave in Mt. Wellington, Auckland): The faithful preaching of Pastor Bala and Pastor Alfie Orr, visits of Pastor Orr to discuss theology and things, visits of Pastor Bala to discuss the India ministry, the love of the church, the prayer sessions.
• The videos of the nine messages containing the Parting Words of Counsel of  Pastor Al Martin. GB was firmly of the impression that we were advocating a disguised version of a Once-saved-always-saved-so-you-can-sin-as-much-as-you-want gospel.  Pastor Al Martin’s was clearly another pastor who like him was moving on to another chapter of his life after having spent many decades striving for godliness and faithfulness to the word in his church.
• Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones: He had been reading Studies in the Sermon on the Mount even before he came here. (This along with the entire ministry of John MacArthur was a bridge that we shamelessly used to woo him to the other side. ) GB now has several of the Romans series and is thoroughly delighted by them.
• The messages of John Piper on the subject of the New Birth
• The visit of cousin Prabhu from California who spent many hours during that week to go through doctrinal concepts and Bible passages with GB.

Right now he is enjoying the concluding pages of Chosen By God by R.C. Sproul.

It has been a while since we looked at the following videos as a family. I’m sure it will be a good refresher for the children and good for GB too:

• Irreconcilable Differences: featuring host John Ankerberg and a panel comprising John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and James Kennedy.
• Amazing Grace: The History & Theology of Calvinism

Father GB’s song: Yesuvae Neer-dhaam

An old Lutheran song in GB’s hymnal (by Nicolaus L. von Zinzendorf, first published in 1778 )

[My father, feeling that Tamil hymns and lyrics, generally, do not have the depth that English hymns have, has for his church hymnal, identified some good hymns, translated many hymns and choruses from English, and composed some lyrics. He has recorded the accompaniment for all the songs in the hymnal, and these are available in MP3 format. I will try to showcase some of them in this blog from time to time. All recordings have been done at home using very simple equipment. These songs may not be copied without permission.]

Here is a recording of the song Yesuvae Neer-dhaam sung by GB himself.

Father GB’s song: Sabaiyum Peruganum

Song composed by Gnana Bhaktamitran.

[My father, feeling that Tamil hymns and lyrics, generally, do not have the depth that English hymns have, has for his church hymnal, identified some good hymns, translated many hymns and choruses from English, and composed some lyrics. He has recorded the accompaniment for all the songs in the hymnal, and these are available in MP3 format. I will try to showcase some of them in this blog from time to time. All recordings have been done at home using very simple equipment. These songs may not be copied without permission.]

Here is a recording of the song Sabaiyum Peruganum sung by Prathiba Surendar and Amala George (members of EBA in Madurai) and accompanied by GB himself.

Baptism in Conversion

My father Gnana Bhaktamitran speaking to the church after a baptism (Madurai India)

Wrong practices are often born when good men overreact to other wrong practices. That is how, perhaps, was born the notion that baptism is dispensable.

At the outset, please allow me to confess that I am not a theologian, but how can any Christian escape theology; our lives are worked around growing in the knowledge of God and delighting in Him.

Baptismal regeneration must have been the heresy that led to the error of baptism being treated so lightly. It is fairly easy to prove that baptism is not dispensable. But my fear is that we have perhaps over shot the right position in the matter of baptism out of a genuine desire to avoid the heresy of baptismal regeneration.

I lament the relegation of baptism to the status of a good-to-do option—almost dispensable. I think this is unbiblical.

• Baptism was the culmination of the conversion experience as we see in the book of Acts and served as an initiation into the church, the people of God.
• Baptism is a command of Jesus
• Jesus, our greatest Example, was baptised.

The latter two points are easy to understand and should suffice, even if the first point were not true, to make baptism mandatory in the life of a Christian.

The first point needs some explanation.

Christmas–to celebrate or not

A young brother from EBA, the independent church that my father GB pastors, was taken aback when he realised that John Piper celebrates Good Friday, Easter, and Christmas. I wish to answer him in such a way that he is encouraged and God is glorified.

I have so much to say on this matter, and my mind is jammed up like a typewriter when you press several keys all at once. Let me start by stating the bad news and the good news.

The bad news is that:

• the devil, let’s give him his due, has succeeded in bringing in the most convolutely interwoven confusions into the kingdom of God on earth, and
• over the ages, we Christians have messed up every single doctrine that was ours to preach or practice, every single one.

The good news is that

• God has done everything right to save those whom He has set apart for Himself, and
• Satan cannot thwart the purposes of God; the gates of Hades will not prevail over the true church of God.

So we can approach any subject of difficulty with boldness and joy.

The world celebrates Christmas as a holiday to spend with family. It is a time of much commercial activity. Christmas balls, alcohol, gifts, family, Santa clause, Christmas trees, decorations, snow, carols, music, laughter, feasts, mistletoe, heartache, nostalgia, excitement, and Christmas cards; some of these things are good. In south India, the list must include late-night carol singing, achu-muruku, Kanchipuram silk, kal-kals, plum cake, lighted cardboard stars hanging outside houses and on trees, and biriyani. From what I remember of Christmas in Delhi, Chrysanthemums play a big part. In Auckland, Christmas in The Park is a big event, and Christmas parades on the streets are not uncommon. Somewhere in all this commotion, some remember that Jesus, the God of the Christians, was born in Bethlehem in a stable and laid in a manger.

Christians deal with Christmas in one of the following ways:

a. Participating in worldly x-mas celebrations in every way like their non Christian counterparts, attending balls and enjoying drinks with their mates and so on.

b. Very devoutly, for the most part, remembering the nativity part of the redemption story– how God came to live among us and died to redeem us.

c. Celebrating it as a cultural occasion to spend with family. Christmas brings with it many family traditions, memories, feelings of nostalgia, etc.

d. Lamenting the terrible affront the celebration of Christmas has become to the name of Christ. Sometimes using this as an occasion to shake traditional people to take a look at their commitment to the Lord.

e. Realising the great potential this season affords for evangelisation and sharing the gospel with non Christian friends.

Godly people have taken positions b, c, d, or e or a combination of these.

Below are the views of my father GB, John MacArthur, and John Piper. All these men think differently and they all want to do what brings glory to the Lord.

Massacre of The Innocents: Contraceptives (for married couples and those contemplating marriage)

Dear Young People,

Children are always a gift from God. Some children are born in a planned way. Children are sometimes conceived unexpectedly. Whichever way they come, they are all gifts. No child is a ‘mistake.’

This article is written in the hope that it will help young couples in our assembly who want to plan their babies carefully to do so without inadvertently harming a child in the womb. Contraceptives are useful for planning, but some of the contraceptives available today actually kill the child shortly after conception.

In the first part of the article, Massacre of The Innocents, we studied the subject of abortion. This part on contraceptives forms the concluding part of the same article Massacre of The Innocents because some contraceptives, instead of preventing conception, actually kill newly conceived babies. So as Christians who value human life, we must arm ourselves with this information.

Massacre of The Innocents: Abortion

Dear Young People,

Thousands of innocent people are secretly killed everyday, and you rarely hear about this terrible massacre. They are the only group of human beings on the face of this earth who have no rights of their own. The law does not protect them.

Who are these unknown people? These are the unborn children who are killed in the womb for the convenience of their guardians. It is estimated that the number of unborn children killed in the world each year is 30 million.

Clothes for princesses Part 2

Dear princesses,

In this lesson we look at dressing decently with modesty

Dressing with modesty
Is there a girl who does not like to be attractive and dress fashionably? It is not wrong to be attractive. The godly woman of Proverbs 31 dressed well. Sarah was attractive, and so were many other saints in the Bible. In this lesson, we will stress that you do not have to dress indecently to be attractive.

Clothes for princesses Part 1

Dear young women,

As Christian young ladies, you are princesses, because you are children of the King.
Let us, in this lesson, look at how you can be beautiful on the inside and on the outside.

If we must name one woman in the Bible who had outward and inward beauty in perfect balance, it is Sarah. Isn’t it interesting that her name meant ‘my princess’?

Pornography hurts

Dear Young People,

Pornography refers to pictures and films (and even writing) that aims at creating sexual desires in people. Pornography affects men more than it does women, especially pictorial pornography. So this lesson is especially important for the young men in our assembly. Most of these ideas are taken from a writeup by a person called Edward Fudge who has given us permission to use his article.