Bounds on Prayer

[JM]

Over the years I've come to distrust most works by non-Calvinists including E.M. Bounds pop work on prayer. Am I being too harsh? Should I reconsider reading his work?

(Non-Calvinists need not answer.)

Thanks,

JM

 

[twin1954]

Over the years I've come to distrust most works by non-Calvinists including E.M. Bounds pop work on prayer. Am I being too harsh? Should I reconsider reading his work?

(Non-Calvinists need not answer.)

Thanks,

JM

The reading of fiction can be stimulating.

I would recommend that one only read the works of no-cals when he is fully grounded and can discern the error in the work. But even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally. There are some nuggets in their writings but how much trash do we have to dig through to find it?

 

[AndOne]

Over the years I've come to distrust most works by non-Calvinists including E.M. Bounds pop work on prayer. Am I being too harsh? Should I reconsider reading his work?

(Non-Calvinists need not answer.)

Thanks,

JM

Hi, JM -

I'm with you on this one. I read Bounds a few years ago and found it to be quite disheartening from a Calvinist point of view. I can't read anything theological that was written by a non-Calvinist with the exception of Richard Baxter.

aO (formerly Behe's Boy)

 

[JM]

The two groups, Arminians and Calvinists, view everything so differently....

 

[JM]

From A W Pink:

"it should be said that God’s will is immutable, and cannot be altered by our crying. When the mind of God is not toward a people to do them good, it cannot be turned to them by the most fervent and importunate prayers of those who have the greatest interest in Him—"Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth" (Jer. 15:1). The prayers of Moses to enter the promised land is a parallel case.

Our views respecting prayer need to be revised and brought into harmony with the teaching of Scripture on the subject. The prevailing idea seems to be, that I come to God and ask Him for something that I want, and that I expect Him to give me that which I have asked. But this is a most dishonoring and degrading conception. The popular belief reduces God to a servant, our servant: doing our bidding, performing our pleasure, granting our desires. No; prayer is a coming to God, telling Him my need, committing my way unto the Lord, and leaving Him to deal with it as seemeth Him best. This makes my will subject to His, instead of, as in the former case, seeking to bring His will into subjection to mine. No prayer is pleasing to God unless the spirit actuating it is, "not my will, but thine be done". "When God bestows blessings on a praying people, it is not for the sake of their prayers, as if He was inclined and turned by them; but it is for His own sake, and of His own sovereign will and pleasure. Should it be said, to what purpose then is prayer? it is answered, This is the way and means God has appointed, for the communication of the blessing of His goodness to His people. For though He has purposed, provided, and promised them, yet He will be sought unto, to give them, and it is a duty and privilege to ask. When they are blessed with a spirit of prayer, it forebodes well, and looks as if God intended to bestow the good things asked, which should be asked always with submission to the will of God, saying, Not my will but Thine be done" (John Gill).

 

[lesliedellow]

Over the years I've come to distrust most works by non-Calvinists including E.M. Bounds pop work on prayer. Am I being too harsh? Should I reconsider reading his work?

(Non-Calvinists need not answer.)

Thanks,

JM

You sound as if you have got a bad case of, "We are the only true Christians," if you are automatically distrustful of anybody who doesn't share your theology.

 

[AndOne]

You sound as if you have got a bad case of, "We are the only true Christians," if you are automatically distrustful of anybody who doesn't share your theology.

I don't think so. If we were really like that we wouldn't bother to read folks like Bounds or Wesley to begin with.

 

[twin1954]

You sound as if you have got a bad case of, "We are the only true Christians," if you are automatically distrustful of anybody who doesn't share your theology.

It isn't a matter of we are the only true Christians but one of answering the question, Is the knowledge of God in Christ as He is revealed in the Scriptures just a matter of higher learning and better understanding( we got something that they don't) or is it eternal life? John 17:3

 

[dhh712]

You sound as if you have got a bad case of, "We are the only true Christians," if you are automatically distrustful of anybody who doesn't share your theology.

I feel that whoever preaches that God is subservient to our own will and will do whatsoever we ask of Him at our bidding (what seems to have been how the book was described in a previous post) are in fact not true Christians and should be called out for the liars that they are. There are many theological topics about which Christians can have different views, but that which transfers sovereignty from the hands of God into those of humans is one which has deceptively assumed for itself the name of Christianity when it has in fact been spawned from the lies of Satan.

 

[JM]

You sound as if you have got a bad case of, "We are the only true Christians," if you are automatically distrustful of anybody who doesn't share your theology.

I'm not talking about salvation, rather, the consistently bad often horrible advice I find in the writings of Arminians.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Over the years I've come to distrust most works by non-Calvinists including E.M. Bounds pop work on prayer. Am I being too harsh? Should I reconsider reading his work?

bro, I wouldn't call it harsh, more like discerning and recognizing that there is only so much time in a day, why waste time with writings full of half truths, when a person can use the same time reading Scripture or writings that line up closer with Scripture? Why read E.M. Bounds on prayer, when so many great Calvinists have written so much on prayer? Like James Hastings for example or the beloved "The Valley of Vision". Yeah really like E.M. who?

 

[Keachian]

Give me Bunyan any day:

Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God hath promised, or according to the Word, for the good of the church, with submission, in faith, to the will of God.