I Don't Get It?

What is up with this huge affection for the "Church Fathers"? I appreciate John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards and many others. They are out of this world I wish I could be like that kind of a guy. However, they had their time. We have ours! I was not born in 1509 like John Calvin. I was born in 1977. I live in a world that is so not like John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. My fear is that we are developing an unhealthy admiration for these men. I do not believe that Jonathan Edwards is the greatest American mind in the history of evangelicalism. My thought is this. Instead of reading his giant two-volume work. I did read it, and it took me two years to work through it. Get your nose into the Text. The reformation is over. We live in an anti-doctrinal age, more importantly an anti-Biblical age. So instead of reading 1500's let us live in 2008.

I want to challenge you. Do a word search in the Bible, and I guarantee you will not find the name John Calvins or Jonathan Edwards in the Bible. I am not against "Reformed Theology" or "Calvinism". Why do we have to label ourselves as "Reformed" or "Calvinistic". I heard John Piper say that the value of being a Reformed person is that, "Not a bird falls from the sky without your heavenly father knowing it". That is a value that is achieved from being a student of God's word. I believe that everything is ordained by a Sovereign God! That does not make me Reformed, but Exegetical.

In conclusion, I am so thankful for John Calvin, Edwards and others. I am just concerned for a lot today that hold too tightly to their words, and not the Holy Text. My aim is to help us question our love for the Text. Let us be better students of the Word and not man!