Christmas

Charles Wesley, “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”

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In light of the current Christmas season of 2023, we posted yesterday on Arminian churchman Charles Wesley (brother of John Wesley) and his Christmas carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” As that post mentioned, Charles…

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Roy Ingle, “Christmas & Missions”

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‘Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon…

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A Christmas Invitation for the World

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Every single individual alive today, as well as each one in future generations, is graciously invited by God their Creator to join the throng of the redeemed who, writes Jacob Arminius (1559-1609), are incited “to…

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Merry Christmas

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We will be taking a break from debate for the rest of this week. This week is a week to focus on the gift of our Lord Jesus, Emmanuel. He is God who dwelt among…

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For God so Loved the World

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Merry Christmas all. This post was first published by Dr. Olson on the 8th of Decemeber, hence it being an “Advent Meditation”. However, we felt that it was such a wonderful expression of God’s love through Christ that it would be perfect for Christmas day:

by Roger E. Olson

For God so loved the world . . . that He couldn’t stay away. Yes, to academics and scholars it sounds simplistic and even smacks of folk religion. But if you strip from it any connotation of God being “lonely” or absent it’s an apt statement of the gospel itself. And it nicely expresses the essence of Arminian theology: that God’s love for the whole world demonstrated in the incarnation and cross stands at the center of theology as its critical principle.

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Merry Christmas!!!

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This year, for Christmas, we are taking a step back from the debate. We’ve posted on this a couple of times, but I wanted to emphasize now for the Christmas season: we at SEA believe that Calvinists are our Christian brothers, and we have every expectation of worshiping our common Lord and King, Jesus Christ with them for all of eternity.

Christmas is unique in that it is the day of the year that we celebrate who Christ is: fully human and fully God. It is the celebration of the incarnation of God on the earth, when God came down here with us and got His hands dirty with our mess.

This is belief that we hold in common with Calvinism. So let us stand together this Christmas and celebrate Emmanuel: God with us. For He is with us, and calls us to be one people.

Merry Christmas!

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Enjoying The Good News Of Christ

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[The following post was authored by Ben Henshaw, and has undergone some revision with the author’s permission for inclusion here.]

Calvinists often argue that God’s love has failed if Christ’s atonement was made for all and yet not all are saved. I find it strange that Calvinists, who are so quick to criticize Arminians for holding to a man centered religion, argue that unless man responds to God’s love in saving faith, then His love for them has somehow failed. How is it that they feel comfortable equating the success or failure of God’s love with man’s response to that love? Is the nature or validity of God’s love dependant on man’s response? Doesn’t that seem a little man centered?

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John 1:1-17; a Christmas Devotional

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Many believe that there are only two tellings of the Christmas story in Scripture: Luke 3, and Matthew 1-2. But there is a third telling: John chapter one.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him as life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

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