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Join Michael Patton, Tim Kimberley, JJ Seid and Sam Storms as they continue their new series on the Church. This is a topic hotly debated today. What really does it take to be a church? Can three people meet at a coffee shop and call themselves a church? Do churches need to have elders? What about an online church?
There are so many questions being asked today about the Church in the 21st century. This series seeks to dive into the prominent issues of Ecclesiology (the study of the Church).
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7 replies to "Theology Unplugged: Church (Part 2) – Local vs. Universal"
Hey Mike why were the comments section of the MacArthur post disabled? The question you asked was, “is JM losing his voice? Well if you listened to tonight’s session the answer is NO WAY. JM was as clear and compelling as ever. “You CANNOT be calvinistic and charismatic at the same time. Even Calvin would agree, you gotta drop one or the other”. Has MacArthur lost his voice? Listen to session 7 and you be the judge.
Great Stuff
Thank Heaven for JM
Hard to believe anyone takes John MacArthur seriously on ANYTHING, given that he actually believes garbage like Alexander Hislop’s book “The Two Babylons” represents an accurate account of church history. Not to mention that Grace Community Church has many cult-like characteristics. He’s basically the 21st century Jack Hyles.
@Anastasios-so your problem is with Hislop and his hatred of Roman Catholics. I dont know how JM fits in here. Have you been to Grace church and saw for yourself the cult like features or did you read about Grace in Hislops book. Are you RC?
No, I’m not RC actually. I’d far sooner cross the Bosporus than the Tiber, actually (but John MacArthur calls the Eastern Orthodox church false, too. And the Lutherans–the confessional ones in fact! He’s called them a “false sacramental church”. Yet Calvin himself got along cordially with Luther, and believed in the sacraments, even if he had his own views on them that differed from Luther’s). MacArthur needs to pick up something written by one of the Mercersburg theologians (Schaff or Nevin) and realize that what Calvin ACTUALLY taught, and what modern “fundy-calvinists” such as himself teach, couldn’t be farther removed. Calvin probably had more in common with the RC church than he would have with MacArthur, who is practically a gnostic (have you read what MacArthur said about the blood of Christ?). MacArthur’s dispensationalism doesn’t help here at all, either–that’s a 19th century novelty that ironically ORIGINATED from some alleged charismatic manifestations in the Irvingite movement. MacArthur’s own eschatology comes from a source he himself regards as demonic!
I doubt Calvin would have even let MacArthur into Geneva, given that MacArthur’s so strongly anti-pedobaptist. Calvin himself believed very strongly in infant baptism and, if anything, considered it far a _more_ important part of his own theology than predestination was. He didn’t consider Anabaptists (he would have seen MacArthur as one) to be part of the church at all. So the whole phenomenon of “Calvinist Baptists” completely baffles me, and MacArthur is one of the most galling of the lot. I have never encountered anyone who had a more incoherent theology, yet still seemed 100% sure of himself and willing to judge others in a true spirit of being a know-it-all.
I thank God for men like John MacArthur who love the Word of God and will defend it no matter what. We need The Lord to raise up some for the next generation, which I am confident He will. Few men are left who will stand on The Word even amid horrible criticism and even slander. Paul told Timothy that in the last days that people would not stand for sound doctrin but would instead prefer preachers who would tickle their ears. The only way people can stomach MacArthur and R.C. Sproul and Spurgeon and Whitefield and other like minded men is if they too love God’s truth.
I urge all my brothers and sisters to pray that Jesus Christ will raise up more like them.
God bless you all.
This will be a very interesting series.
I think visible vs invisible is getting muddled.
So are you saying you guys take universal church and invisible church to be the same thing?
I don’t think that makes sense.
If the invisible church is made up of visible people, then it’s not really invisible, it’s just unknown, or unable to be defined. It’s like the undefined sum of the visible local churches. They are visible, like wheat among weeds, but you just don’t know who they are. See what I mean?
Having that def of invisible church makes for problems when discussing with Catholics because we don’t have that same def of the term. Invisible church in Catholic terms means the saving grace, power, love, virtue, etc. of the Church. Things that truly are invisible. People, bishops, canon law, sacraments, and things you can see make up the visible church. So it’s like a body and soul arrangement. Like the incarnate Christ. An invisible soul and a visible body.
Anyway, already a difference in terms! (:
About Hislop, he recanted evrything he wrote in his book, he wrote a follow up to it correcting everything he wrote.