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A Four-Week Study Guide

For a small group or four evenings with a friend, assuming a mixed group — some Calvinists, some not, some unsure.

How to run a session (75–90 minutes). Open with the prayer. Read every text aloud before anyone comments. Teach for no more than twenty minutes; the outline is a spine, not a script. Then discuss, and close with the reading and prayer.

Ground rules. We read the Bible, not score points. State the other view as its defenders state it. One text at a time. Nobody has to change his mind tonight. What is said here stays here.

Session 1 — God's sovereignty and human responsibility

Texts: Genesis 50:20; Isaiah 10:5–7; Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27–28; Philippians 2:12–13; James 1:13–15; Deuteronomy 30:19.

Teaching outline

  1. Two errors, not one. Deism says God left; determinism says creatures do nothing. Scripture avoids both: God rules, and people act, choose, obey, and rebel.
  2. The Bible's pattern. Joseph's brothers intended evil; God intended it for good (Gen 50:20). Assyria is God's staff and is judged for its arrogance (Isa 10:5–7). The cross was "according to the definite plan of God," and wicked men did it (Acts 2:23) — one event, two intentions, two kinds of agency.
  3. Decree and command. God commands what he forbids and forbids what he permits. The distinction is biblical; the question is whether it can carry the weight the system puts on it. See the two wills.
  4. What the casebook claims. God's sovereignty is absolute over history and decisive in salvation. What is denied is that it means every creaturely choice was fixed in a single decree such that the sinner could not have done otherwise. James 1:13–15 and Deuteronomy 30:19 treat the sinner's will as a real cause.

Discussion questions

  • Where does Scripture say God causes a person's sin, rather than using it?
  • Acts 2:23 says the cross happened by God's plan and by wicked hands. Does that make the killers less guilty?
  • Philippians 2:12–13 joins "work out your salvation" with "God works in you." Is that monergism, synergism, or something else?

Take-home reading

Prayer

Lord, you rule the nations and know our hearts. Keep us from a God too small to be sovereign and too small to grieve. Teach us to trust your rule without blaming you for our sin, through Jesus, delivered up by your plan and by wicked hands. Amen.

Session 2 — The drawing of John 6

Texts: John 6:35–40; 6:44–45; 6:63–65; John 12:32.

Teaching outline

  1. The setting. A crowd that ate bread follows Jesus for more. He claims to be the bread of life. The discourse argues with a murmuring synagogue crowd; it is not a lecture on the mechanics of conversion.
  2. The "giving" (6:37, 39). The Father gives a people to the Son. The text does not say when, or that it is an eternal decree of individuals; in John the giving is tied to the cross and to those who come. And 6:37 ends with a promise to whoever comes.
  3. The "drawing" (6:44). Helkō means to draw or drag — force-language, and the casebook does not pretend otherwise. But force can be moral: God draws "with cords of kindness" (Hos 11:4), and the Son draws "all people" when lifted up (John 12:32). If drawing is effectual by definition, 12:32 either teaches universalism or must be explained away.
  4. The parallel (6:45). "They will all be taught by God" (Isa 54:13). The drawing is explained by the teaching: the Father draws by teaching, through the Son. "Everyone who has heard and learned comes" describes the means, not a guarantee of an inward operation on everyone present.
  5. The condition (6:40). "This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life." Believing separates those who come from those who do not (6:36, 64).

Discussion questions

  • Read 6:35–40 slowly. Where does the passage say the Father gives only certain individuals?
  • If "draw" means "make willing," what does John 12:32 mean? If it means "attract," does anything in John 6 break?
  • The crowd has "seen" Jesus and still does not believe (6:36). What does that say about the sufficiency of what they saw?
  • If you are a Calvinist in the room: what would it look like for this text to mean something else?

Take-home reading

Prayer

Father, you draw us to your Son, and we would not come otherwise. Thank you for the teaching that calls us and the Spirit who opens our ears. Keep us from arguing about your drawing instead of coming to the one lifted up. Amen.

Session 3 — Romans 9 and Israel

Texts: Romans 9:1–5; 9:6–13; 9:14–18; 9:19–24; 9:25–33. Background: Genesis 25:23; Malachi 1:2–3; Exodus 33:19; Exodus 9:16; Jeremiah 18:1–11.

Teaching outline

  1. The question. "Has the word of God failed?" (9:6). Israel's Messiah came, and Israel did not receive him. Paul defends God's faithfulness; he is not writing a treatise on eternal decrees.
  2. Descent was never the point. Not all physical descendants are Israel (9:6–9). Isaac, not Ishmael; Jacob, not Esau. The election is historical and corporate: a line, a nation, a remnant.
  3. Jacob and Esau (9:10–13). Genesis 25:23 says "two nations are in your womb." Malachi 1:2–3 — "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" — was written a millennium after the twins died and concerns Edom: covenantal language about peoples, not a decree of eternal destinies for two newborns.
  4. Mercy and hardening (9:14–18). "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy" (Exod 33:19) is God's self-declaration after the golden calf: mercy is free. "I raised you up" (Exod 9:16) is Pharaoh, a historical agent who hardened himself before God hardened him. The passage teaches God's freedom, not arbitrariness.
  5. The potter (9:19–24). The imagery comes from Jeremiah 18, where the potter reworks the clay and the outcome is conditional: "if that nation turns, I will relent." Paul defends God's right over the clay; he does not say the vessels of wrath were made to sin, and 9:22 says God "endured with much patience" them.
  6. The conclusion (9:25–33). Hosea's "not my people" become God's people — Gentiles included; Isaiah's remnant is preserved. Israel did not attain because they pursued righteousness by works rather than faith (9:30–33; 10:1–4). Paul's explanation of Israel's failure is unbelief, and his prayer is that they may be saved (10:1).

Discussion questions

  • What question is Paul answering in 9:6? "Why are some individuals saved?" or "why did Israel reject her Messiah?"
  • If 9:13 is about individuals, why quote a text about Edom written a thousand years later?
  • How do 10:1–4 and 11:20–23 explain Israel's failure and the branches broken off?
  • What is the strongest Calvinist argument from this chapter, and does the corporate reading answer it?

Take-home reading

Prayer

Lord, you have not rejected your people, and your word has not failed. Thank you for grafting us in, contrary to expectation. Keep us from reading your freedom as arbitrariness, or your mercy as something owed. Amen.

Session 4 — The extent of the atonement and the free offer

Texts: John 3:16; 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9; 1 John 2:2; Hebrews 2:9; Matthew 23:37; Revelation 22:17. Confessional: Canons of Dort, Second Head, Articles 5 and 8.

Teaching outline

  1. The question. Did Christ die for every person, or only for the elect? The Reformed answer is "sufficient for all, efficient for the elect." The casebook's answer: the atonement is unlimited in provision, and application is conditioned on faith.
  2. The texts. "God so loved the world" (John 3:16) — the same Gospel uses kosmos for the fallen creation. "Who desires all people to be saved" (1 Tim 2:4), in a letter about prayer for all kinds of people. "Not wishing that any should perish" (2 Pet 3:9). "The propitiation for the whole world" (1 John 2:2). "Tasted death for everyone" (Heb 2:9).
  3. The offer. Dort itself says the promise is to be published "to all persons promiscuously and without distinction" (Second Head, Art. 5). The 1948 OPC report said God "desires the repentance and salvation of the impenitent and reprobate." If that is true, the atonement cannot be definite in the way the system says.
  4. The two wills. The system holds this together with a revealed will that all be saved and a secret will that only the elect be saved. That is a real distinction with real defenders — and it makes the offer a statement God does not mean in the same sense he commands it.
  5. Hyper-Calvinism is the honest edge. If Christ did not die for a person, the offer to that person is false. Hyper-Calvinists saw this and stopped offering. The majority report is right about the offer, the minority about the inconsistency.

Discussion questions

  • If Christ did not die for a person, can you say to that person, "Christ died for you"?
  • What does kosmos mean in John 3:16? In 1 John 2:15? How do you decide?
  • Dort says the promise is published to all. What is its content for a non-elect person?

Take-home reading

Prayer

Lord, you so loved the world that you gave your only Son. Make us people who offer him freely to everyone, without qualification, because we believe the offer is true. Amen.

After the four weeks

If the group continues, the next step is history: where the system came from, and how the church read these texts before Augustine. See Augustine before and after.

If you were the only non-Calvinist in the room, you probably learned more than you taught. The goal was never to win the room; it was to read the texts honestly, with the door open. See talking to a Calvinist friend.