On your web site, you have a post entitled "Hyper Calvinism Revisited" (21 February) in which you misrepresent me (and, by extension, misrepresent those with whom I fellowship). If you are going to refute what I say, then at least refute what I say, rather than your misrepresentations of me. If you are a man of integrity, you will post my defense on your web site or at least tell your readers where you falsely accused me and publicly recant your false accusations. However, since I do not believe you are a man of integrity, I'm not holding my breath.

I have never said that Christians must be willing to condemn these people to the fires of hell itself and if they don't they're not Christians. I myself don't condemn them to the fires of hell! So if what you said were true, I'd have to say that I'm not a Christian! I have never condemned anyone to the fires of hell itself. Give evidence for your accusation or tell everyone that you have falsely accused me. Among the unregenerate, we do not know who is and who is not elect. It is not for us to know or to judge whether an unregenerate person is going to go to heaven or to hell. And among those who used to be heretics who have died, I don't know if God saved them later on in their lives before they died. So I don't know if they are in heaven or hell. I do not know if anyone in the "Heterodoxy Hall of Shame" is in hell right now. God could have saved them after they made the quotes I mentioned. What I do know is that they were unregenerate. And what I do know is that those people who are alive right now who believe in universal atonement are unregenerate. Christians do not judge whether or not unregenerate people are going to hell. They do not condemn anyone to hell. What they do do is judge a person who confesses a false gospel to be currently unregenerate. That's a far cry from condemning them to hell. So will you tell everyone you have falsely accused me?

   how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:20-21) How do you separate repentance toward God and faith in Christ in this passage?

   For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. (Titus 2:11-14) Saving grace teaches us to live sensibly and righteously; and the people of God in Christ are without question described as "zealous for good deeds."

   10. "Sorry, but White clearly does not have his exegetical ducks in a row. I recommend he read Kasemann, Fitzmyer, Esler, and Witherington. That should run the gauntlet for him, and maybe throw in a healthy dose of Cranfield for the grammar."

   Well, it would be quite a trick for Dr. White to line up all these ducks in a row. Kasemann is a liberal Lutheran duck, Fitzmyer is a liberal Catholic duck, Witherington is an Evangelical Arminian duck, Esler is another liberal duck (subspecies: Anatidae Sanders), while Cranfield is a Barthian duck.
   In addition, only two of the five (Esler, Witherington) belong to the sociorhetorical school of criticism. So it would, indeed, be no small feat to point all these ducks in the same direction. However, a quack like Holding may have just the right birdcall to make it happen.

Now through Feb. 31: Give to help support the Society for the Preservation of Calvinists Displaced by Social Science Scholarship. For details see http://www.aomin.org

Is there unrighteousness with God? Hardly. "Why not choose me?" -- Esau. At the very least it may be said in reply, "Because look what happens if you do!" Now obviously we are using mere number of saved here as an exemplary hypothesis -- the multiplicity of possibilities and events is much, much more involved, to a degree that blows Job out of the water and into the orbit of Pluto and beyond. Only God can manage the multiplicity! That's why Paul's final answer is the same as it was to Job: "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" In other words, what do you know?
But we have not covered every aspect as yet. The crux of election is Romans 9:16 --

So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

It is our contention that Romans 9 may be better understood in terms of the rubric of primary causality. But we anticipate the objection that we would be thereby reading into the text a concept not found therein. Our answer is that we would not expect it to be found within Romans 9 or any explanation offered by Paul -- because such an "explanation expectation" would be the product of a Western low-context mind rather than a Hebrew high-context one, like Paul's.

This is yet another disappointing answer, amounting to the braying of "how do we know" with as yet no actual answer to the concept in question. A proper answer to these points would be, such as, "Hebrew block logic does not exist in reality, because..." or, "Hebrew block logic does not apply to these particular passages, because..." That it is poetry frankly makes not an ounce of difference, unless White wishes to produce some argument from credentialed social-science sources showing that expressions of mind shifted in poetic format. It remains that Paul is not making a logical argument, any more than God made one (or had to) before Job.

"And these are ancient things."
--1 Chronicles 4:22
Yet not so ancient as those precious things which are the delight of our souls. Let us for a moment recount them, telling them over as misers count their gold. The sovereign choice of the Father, by which He elected us unto eternal life, or ever the earth was, is a matter of vast antiquity, since no date can be conceived for it by the mind of man. We were chosen from before the foundations of the world. Everlasting love went with the choice, for it was not a bare act of divine will by which we were set apart, but the divine affections were concerned. The Father loved us in and from the beginning. Here is a theme for daily contemplation. The eternal purpose to redeem us from our foreseen ruin, to cleanse and sanctify us, and at last to glorify us, was of infinite antiquity, and runs side by side with immutable love and absolute sovereignty. The covenant is always described as being everlasting, and Jesus, the second party in it, had His goings forth of old; He struck hands in sacred suretyship long ere the first of the stars began to shine, and it was in Him that the elect were ordained unto eternal life. Thus in the divine purpose a most blessed covenant union was established between the Son of God and His elect people, which will remain as the foundation of their safety when time shall be no more. Is it not well to be conversant with these ancient things? Is it not shameful that they should be so much neglected and even rejected by the bulk of professors? If they knew more of their own sin, would they not be more ready to adore distinguishing grace? Let us both admire and adore tonight, as we sing--

"A monument of grace,
A sinner saved by blood;
The streams of love I trace
Up to the Fountain, God;
And in His sacred bosom see
Eternal thoughts of Love to me."

Anyone who says that people who believe in universal atonement are saved is taking sides with Satan, calling God a liar and is not a Christian.

   There are no footnotes attached. No names given. But a paragraph has been added into the middle of Dave Hunt's desperate attempt to escape Acts 13:48 that, when you consider what it says, is one of the most amazing examples of "destroy the foundations of your entire life's work just because you detest the freedom of God that is proclaimed in 'Calvinism'" I've ever seen. When I read it I had to sit back and catch my breath. Yes, the following paragraph appears in the second edition of WLIT?

   The Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as comments from early church writers, indicate that the first 15 chapters of Acts were probably written first in Hebrew. The Greek would be a translation. Some scholars claim that going back to a "redacted Hebrew" version, based upon word-for-word Greek-Hebrew equivalents, would render Acts 13:48 more like "as many as submitted to, needed, or wanted salvation, were saved." Furthermore, even if "ordained" were the correct meaning, these Greeks still would have had to believe the gospel and accept Christ by an act of their own faith and will, as all of Scripture testifies (p. 264)

The proper social definition of "mercy" brings an interesting twist to, for example, the great Calvinist keystone in Romans 9: "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." Understood as the NT writers wrote it, this means: "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that pays His debt of personal obligation to us as our patron."