About a decade ago, a friend of mine invited me to attend a Bible conference in Louisville, Kentucky for a few days and I was game - I recognized some of the names on the list of speakers and I am always up for learning more about the Bible.
The conference was called Together For The Gospel.
At the time, I didn't know much about Calvinism's distinctives. Nor did I know that all of the speakers at this conference were Calvinists.
(Now I know that Calvinists are a tight-knit group. Hard-core Calvinists like John Piper never share a stage with non-Calvinists.)
If you've ever heard me rant about Calvinism, you might find this next statement unbelievable, but my general impression of Calvinism after listening to several days of preaching and perusing all their books in the conference bookstore was incredibly positive.
I think the word I used was "impressive".
And what most impressed me was the speakers' knowledge of the Bible. In every sermon these men were pulling verses from all over the Old and New Testaments to support their various points and doctrines.
It was persuasive.
But only because I was not being a Berean, nor was I aware that this habit of pulling verses from various books of the Bible in order to support a particular doctrine - what is termed "proof-texting" - is highly problematic to say the very least.
I am no longer impressed with anyone's ability to flip through a concordance and then pull verses out of their original contexts.
In fact, these days it immediately triggers my BS detector.
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