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How Strong A Calvinist Was Spurgeon?


Miss Daisy

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My pastor quotes A LOT from Spurgeon. Wasn't Spurgeon a Calvinist? If so, how strong a proponent was he? All five points? Some? None?

I don't know if I read it on here or elsewhere that Spurgeon helped bring many to Christ but in his church his altar calls were 'tolerated' by the congregation, but Calvinistic churches don't have altar calls, or didn't.

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Spurgeon was a schizophrenic Calvinist.

He preached at least two messages defending the 5 points of Calvin point by point.

But he preached many messages promoting the freewill of men to choose Christ.

He openly admitted the lack of alignment of freewill vs unconditional election, but said it was not a prOBlem for him.

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Spurgeon believed the Calvinist view of predestination and election, as well as the call to spread the Gospel. He readily admitted he didn't understand how the two worked together as God's plan but was content to simply follow what he believed he saw in Scripture. Spurgeon saw a specific election and a general call to election in Scripture, which he said he didn't understand, but he believed some folks were specifically elected by God while others were somehow made elect through the sharing of the Gospel.

 

Spurgeon is quoted by many pastors and he has many good sermons and writings worth reading. As with all human authors Spurgeon wasn't perfect, and as with all things from man, we have to check what they spoke/wrote with the Word of God.

 

Unless your pastor is quoting Spurgeon on a point you think is unbiblical, I wouldn't be concerned about quotes from Spurgeon.

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To me, a concern with Spurgeon is that he seems to lean toward Replacement Theology. Granted, I haven't read many of his actual sermons, but I do have his Morning and Evening Devotionals. I've found that he applies a lot of what is only for Israel to the church in those devotionals. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's the way it appears to me.

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Spurgeon's fame came primarily from his poetic turn of phrase, not so much from his "theological stand".
He was not a theologian, but a preacher.

As with any other preacher - or theologian - he gets some stuff wrong.

By the way, I am in no way demeaning preachers in favour of theologians - in my book a good preacher is worth more than a great theologian.

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Personally I think every Christian is actually a "theologian."  Not the kind of theologian that wears doctoral regalia and strings together sentences of $50 words that make your head spin.  Theology is simply the study of God -- or in other words, trying to know more about God, and that should be the goal of every Christian.  We do that by studying His Word and praying and applying what we learn!  I don't like the "gulf" that the term seems to create in Christian circles.

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