As for tornadoes: God can undoubtedly send a tornado anywhere he wants, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a tornado is just fast moving air.
Excellent observation.
Posted on 03/07/2012 10:24:56 AM PST by marshmallow
MINNEAPOLIS (ABP) – An author and preacher popular in Calvinist circles says it is no accident that recent killer tornadoes followed paths that ravaged some communities while others were spared.
“Why would God reach down his hand and drag his fierce fingers across rural America killing at least 38 people with 90 tornadoes in 12 states, and leaving some small towns with scarcely a building standing, including churches?” John Piper of Desiring God ministries wrote in a blog March 5.
Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, said it is wrong to ascribe power capable of causing an estimated $2 billion worth of property damage to Mother Nature or the devil.
“God alone has the last say in where and how the wind blows,” Piper said. “If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command.”
Piper said he doesn’t know why if God has a quarrel with America that he wouldn’t show his displeasure in Washington or Hollywood instead of places like Henryville, Ind., but that “every deadly wind in any town is a divine warning to every town.”
(Excerpt) Read more at abpnews.com ...
Hey, you’re DOUR! You may not make jokes.
Had you been raised in a hyper-Calvinist church; you would have understood the dour comment and likely agreed.
I know a now elderly guy who grew up in the Christian Reformed Church where the Gospel was never preached. He and his parents were faithful members and attenders.
His expression regarding the CRC was, “I was raised in the CRC, but praise God, I got saved.”
I'm just trying to understand what you mean by the word "disaster". You said that all disasters are "the work of God".
If the proximate cause of the loss of the life of a child is a murderer and not a tornado, is that "a disaster"?
You are in error........
I’ve heard the dour appelation all my life. I do understand it.
David Brainerd is my first cousin, seven times removed. That makes Jonathan Edwards an in-law.
Explanation: while I’ve heard the term, no one has ever applied it specifically to me.
I wasn’t applying the term ‘hyper-Calvinist’ to you.
I was referring to hyper-Calvinist churches. I thought I was very clear. If I was going to apply that term to you, it would have been very clear.
Typical of a theological determinist.
The alternative is the handwringing God.
But I think he is talking about chastisement for the nation which our saints declare can happen.
I didn’t think that you had, at any rate, I don’t feel any ill-will with what has been said.
Dour is not an attribute I would ever ascribe to John Piper. Perhaps you should look at just one of Piper's sermons - this is a man full of joy. Why? Because God has control of every situation ("don't waste your cancer!" was his catch phrase after coming down with prostate cancer).
The alternative view is that God was in some way surprised by the storms that went through the heartland. Perhaps he wanted to help - but he couldn't? Or worse yet he wouldn't?!
That is a pretty small god if you ask me...
If I were you, I would be angry at letting myself believe not just a false-hood, but believing something 180° out of sync from the truth.
If you understood your pastor - or anyone else to say that Piper believes that God causes "bad things [to] happen to people because they have done something wrong", then either you - or he - misunderstood.
Piper's number one goal in life is to be HAPPY - describing himself as a Christian hedonist. What he strives to impart from his teaching is that only in God will we realize a life of satisfaction and joy. Every other pursuit that comes before our enjoyment of God, God will tear down. Why - because he hates people having fun, or because he is vindictive?
No. We will agree I'm sure that a good parent won't let their children eat nothing but ice cream. In the same way, God directs us away from meaningless pursuits and towards himself - as the ultimate satisfaction.
And sometimes, God will bring a storm, or a death, or a cancer to bring us to a point of helplessness - the bottom of relying on self. And from here we find that HE is more precious that even life or health or possessions. It's all his anyway - even our children.
Piper likes to quote this from CS Lewis:
"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
2 And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
KJV
His/her posts are already a delight to read.
Tell me what was delightful or inspiring about the article posted today?
I think God can do that, but I God just allows bad things to happen.
It’s like any good parent, God lets things happen to us, and we have to figure out how to get through those situations.
If God was always intervening and stopping bad things, we wouldn’t grow much.
My family is suffering lots of horrible things right now: husband with cancer and possible job loss, 1 daughter with a brain injury, and my other daughter with possible degenerative movement disorder. I don’t think God has caused these events, but I do think we have to learn how to deal with the situation. I don’t know why we are having to go through these things. However, bad things happen to good people.
“And if he’s going to be a theological determinist in the Calvinist tradition, what he says must also be true about each hemorrhoid that pops out and the exact number and depth of thrusts of the knife wielded by a serial killer or the steak knife of someone sitting in Ruth’s Chris.”
At the church I left a few years back, a Calvinist teacher said that if you pick your nose, it was because God, before time, decided He would make you pick your nose at just that moment.
So I asked, “Does that mean God makes us sin?” The teacher said yes. The pastor said no, but that the teaching could continue - which helped push me out the door.
As for tornadoes: God can undoubtedly send a tornado anywhere he wants, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a tornado is just fast moving air.
As for tornadoes: God can undoubtedly send a tornado anywhere he wants, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a tornado is just fast moving air.
Excellent observation.
It just amazes me how Christians will spout off that God is in control, until something happens that offends their sensibilities. Then God had nothing to do with it....
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