Tag: interview

News Flash: Tune in to an Interview of Bob Hayton on the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Broadcast with Chris Arnzen

~ Bob Hayton ~ 9 Comments

Interview Details: Live
call-in radio broadcast
Date: Monday 3/8/10
Time: 6-7pm EST / 5-6pm CST
Host: Chris Arnzen
Interviewee: Bob Hayton
Subject: Reforming
Fundamentalism through
Reformed Theology
Station: WNYG-1440 AM
On-Line: www.rcnam.com
& click “Long Island 1440 AM”

 

I’ll be LIVE on the air with Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron radio, on Monday 3/8 at 6pm EST / 5pm CST. Here is the teaser that Chris is sending out about the interview. Please tune in and feel free to call in with your questions or comments.

Bob Hayton, founder of Fundamentally Reformed (see www.FundamentallyReformed.com), will address the theme: “Reforming Fundamentalism Through Reformed Theology”.

Bob is a former Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB), who now embraces Reformed Theology. He blogs to: 1) spread a passion for Jesus Christ, 2) help people harmed by extreme fundamentalism, 3) encite wider reform in fundamentalism & beyond, and 4) defend his theological positions. Bob also operates the “King James Only?” blog spot, the King James Only Research Center web site and other helpful blog spots and web sites.

According to our guest, Bob Hayton, “Often in fundamentalism, doctrine and Biblical exegesis are downplayed, ignored, or avoided. Topical or shallow messages prevail. Church members learn their do’s & don’ts but not what the Bible actually says (the arguments Biblical authors use, the context of favorite proof texts, or Bible doctrines in general). While fundamentalists claim to be standing on the Bible alone, rare is the church that actually opens itself up to Biblical scrutiny. For instance, it is an assumed thing that the Bible will not actually be shown to teach Calvinism, post-tribulational rapture, or covenant theology. So anyone who would espouse one of these positions or another similar position is immediately identified as a heretic and the church never actually carefully reviews what the Bible says on the matter…

“Fundamentalists assume that their practices, standards, and positions are Biblical to the point of reading into the Bible what is not there to support their traditions and viewpoints… while fundamentalists claim to be the stalwart defenders of true doctrine, they are in fact the defenders of old-fashioned (actually late 1800’s early 1900’s) tradition…”

Tune or log into this live, controversial, call-in broadcast and learn how Bob Hayton discovered and made the journey to embrace Reformed Theology, the *truly* old “Old Time Religion”.

To call in with questions, dial 631-482-8300. You can listen live to the broadcast at www.rcnam.com [you will have to click “Long Island 1440 AM”]. And the audio file will be freely available soon at sharpens.org.

A Commentary for Children?? Author Nancy Ganz Explains

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

Nancy Ganz has written a commentary series for children on the first four books of the Bible. Shepherd Press’ blog recently shared a four part interview with Nancy about her books. I plan on reviewing the first book in the near future, but thought I’d share excerpts from this interview series for my readers.

The commentaries were birthed out of a Sunday School curriculum that Ganz developed. They are written in a clear easy style that children can comprehend. The books look like they would make the perfect material for Family Bible Time, or as others call it, Family Worship.

I’m selectively choosing some answers and questions from the original four part interview. I encourage you to read the entire interview as it is both a blessing to read as well as an insight into the perspective of these books.

Jay Younts (Shepherd Press) – Nancy, as a follow up – tell us when you actually decided to write these commentaries.

Nancy Ganz – I decided to write this book when I was sitting in the National Arts Centre Theatre in the capital of Canada. The National Ballet Company of Canada was performing The Nutcracker and I was thinking, “The world takes a silly little story like this and tells it to the children so beautifully and meaningfully that they remember it for the rest of their lives. The church takes the most beautiful and meaningful story ever told–the salvation of God’s people–and somehow turns the most exciting events and amazing facts in all human history into unimaginably boring lessons. How is this possible?” It was that thought in that moment which motivated me to write this book in this way.

JY – I have always appreciated your title for the series – Herein Is Love. Would you tell our readers why you chose to emphasize love in the title?

NG – Each of the commentaries is part of the “HEREIN IS LOVE” series, because God’s LOVE shines forth in every book of the Bible, in every chapter of every book of the Bible! This is part of a New Testament quote: “Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us – and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (I John 4:10). That has to be one of the most important verses in the entire Bible.

JY – …what is the value of children being familiar with the book of Leviticus?

NG – The book of Leviticus is essential to understanding the New Testament. How can you understand what John the Baptist means when he says about Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” if you don’t understand the place of the sacrificial lamb in the 0ld Testament? God was impressing upon us the severity of our sin and our need of a Savior by the continual shedding of blood, morning and evening, day after day, year after year. Sometimes I feel sick just thinking about all the bloodshed. Good. That is what I am supposed to feel. Sin is sickening and the price it required was much more than the blood of innocent animals. It required the blood of the Holy Son of God.

Why did God give us the book of Leviticus? He wanted to impress something awful upon us. And He wanted us to recognize the Lamb of God and His Sacrifice, when He laid down His life upon the cross for us. This wasn’t an accident. It didn’t just happen. God was showing us the blueprints of His Great Plan (in books like Leviticus) many hundreds of years before Jesus Christ even entered this world.

JY: We tend to look at the first books of the Bible as dry academic history. By contrast, your prose in retelling these stories is both lively and conversational. Why is this important for children?

NG: God imparts biblical history to us, not in a dry academic way, but through the exciting lives of real people. God’s truth is revealed to us in a very stimulating way–in peoples’ stories. There are some dry facts communicated too (such as long lists of numbers in the book called Numbers) but this never lasts very long. One time in Russia, my husband and I were having a tour of the Jewish Ghetto that was liquidated in WWII. The historian was imparting to us historical facts: lists of the numbers of people exterminated in different places and the dates when the massacres took place. At the end of the tour I asked the man to recount for us his personal story of that terrible time. At first he refused, saying it was unimportant. I contradicted him and said his personal memories were of utmost importance to me and to the world. I do not remember a single statistic that he told us, but I remember his story almost word for word. That is how God has imparted historical information to us–in the midst of exciting stories. This is not just important for children. It is important for all of us!

Here are links to the entire interview: part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. I recommend these books and encourage everyone to take advantage of a special offer from Shepherd Press.

UPDATE: Special Offer from Shepherd Press – From now through Wednesday March 10, use coupon code FRGANZ4 to get the set of all 4 children’s commentaries for $29.95, a savings of $16 off the normal set price, and $23 off the price of each book individually. More details about this discount is available below.

The sale will run today through Wednesday, March 10th. The code is FRGANZ4.

Using the coupon code from the Fundamentally Reformed Blog, purchase the Herein is Love Set for only $29.95!

You may need to be logged in to the website for the coupon code to work.

To enter the coupon code, add the Herein is Love Set to your shopping cart. Click “View Cart” on the right side of your screen. At the bottom of the shopping cart page is a field titled “Redeem a discount coupon.” Enter the coupon code there and click “Submit”. Then proceed with the checkout process.

This is a limited time offer. The coupon code may be used once per customer. Up to three sets may be purchased at the discounted price.

Mining the Archives: Why Pray the “Sinner’s Prayer”?

~ Bob Hayton ~ 7 Comments

From time to time, I’ll be mining the archives around here. I’m digging up Bob’s best posts from the past. I’m hoping these reruns will still serve my readers.

Today’s post was originally published December 10, 2005.

I wrote the following as a comment to a post by Jason Janz over at Sharper Iron. The post provided excerpts from an hour and a half long interview of Mark Dever that Jason conducted. I commented on the brief excerpt below. What follows that quote is my original comments (posted back before their site crashed and lost many of their old posts). Note: I’ve updated the link to point to the current page which contains the interview. The excerpts are no longer included in that post.

Jason Janz: And if they did, then you would or wouldn’t lead them in a prayer per se?

Mark Dever: What do you mean if they “did it?”

Jason Janz: If they said “I believe.”

Mark Dever: Well, wonderful. Let’s watch. We’ll see….

I listened to much of this interview a few weeks back. Mark Dever is very interesting to listen to! This interchange, though, stuck out the most to me. Dever’s “What do you mean if they ‘did it’?” is simply amazing. He seems to come from a tradition that is not inundated with the “1,2,3 pray after me” menatlity, like most of fundamentalism is.

I see a big question raised by Jason’s question, “And if they did, then you would or wouldn’t lead them in a prayer per se?”: what would the prayer do? If they said “I believe” or if they, presumably, responded favorably to an “invitation” (a modern notion, with its roots in Charles Finney, a rank arminian, openly heretical on the doctrine of the atonement), or were convicted by a sermon and were directed to trust in Jesus and then had faith, what would praying for salvation or praying to be saved do? If all who genuinely believe are saved, as John 3:16, Acts 16:31, and etc. teach, then why does anybody need to pray for salvation?

Is there any example of any evangelist or of Christ himself ever directing someone to ask for salvation or to pray anything like a “sinner’s prayer”? The “sinner’s prayer” so often cited was a story Jesus told, and certainly someone praying the kind of prayer the publican prayed manifested genuine faith. That is why I believe that sometimes people will naturally pray some kind of prayer, as an expression of faith. Much like someone might stand and say “I believe”. But what happened first, the prayer or the belief?

Rom. 10:14 would clearly say the belief. It is important to see that Rom. 10:14 comes right on the heels of vs. 13 and provides much to help us in interpreting vs. 13. It seems to force us to see “saved” as referring to ultimate salvation. For all who believingly pray on the Lord/worship the Lord (trace the phrase “call on the Lord” in the Old Testament or New Testament and see how it is used of worship often, and often describes those who are saints. 1 Cor. 1:2–the saints are those who continually are calling on the Lord.) will be ultimately saved at the resurrection/judgment. I think it is clear that “saved” in Romans 10 refers to glorification. And I believe this is substantiated by vs. 14 saying how can they call if they have not believed (first)? Vs. 10 gives the correct order in time concerning justification, while the order given in vs. 9 is paralleling the quote of Moses discussed in vs. 5-8. I believe vs. 11 is more correctly translated by the ESV’s “put to shame” rather than the KJV’s “ashamed” (the KJV has something similar for the translation of the same greek word in 1 Pet. 2:6). Vs. 11 really is not paralleling the english idea of shame in the sense of “everyone who believes will not be ashamed of the gospel, but will eventually confess Christ before men”. But rather is saying “everyone who believes in the cornerstone will not be destroyed by the coming flood of judgment, they will not be put to shame by the judgment coming”.

Think about it. When someone is praying the “sinner’s prayer” they may have already believed, but really are still unsure that mere simple faith in Christ will be enough to save them, so they add the prayer in hopes that this will really work. So then, are we really making our converts two-fold more the child of hell by giving them assurance based on a prayer (a work that they did)? If they have believed, they should be encouraged that belief alone is all that is needed since we have such a wonderful Savior. They may want to pray a prayer of thanks for God’s already having saved them, as they are already united to Jesus Christ by faith. They should further be encouraged to live for Jesus, and warned that their faith will be proven genuine by their fruits. Then they should be baptized and added to the fellowship of believers, their local church.

For more on “the sinner’s prayer”, see my later post: “The Sinner’s Prayer Problem“.

“Deliberate Simplicity: How the Church Does More by Doing Less” by Dave Browning

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments


The book is quite intriguing, with a catchy title: Deliberate Simplicity. A while back I heard about a church in Washington that had locations in several countries (and continents). At the time it seemed as if they all were piped in by video feed to one location. That impression led me to be quite skeptical, I must admit.

As I browsed through, and read much of the book, my interest was piqued. Christ the King Community Church aims to be deliberate about three emphases: worship, small groups, and outreach. More than that, they intentionally choose to not make anything else a priority. They encourage ministry to be initiated and fueled by individuals, but they shy away from packing the lives of their members chuck full of programs and church functions. Keeping the main thing, the main thing, this church movement has had a global impact.

With a criticism of the status quo, and an emphasis on new methods for church growth, it would be easy to write this off as another emergent church phenomenon. But upon reading the various emphases covered in Dave Browning’s book, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. Some valid criticisms are raised against Christians isolating themselves in a counterculture of their choosing. Meanwhile the spotlight is shone on the importance of outreach. What’s more, they aim to spread not by building megachurches which attract seekers, but by focusing on small groups where people are encouraged to go out and find the lost. The worship services stress authentic, real worship, that doesn’t cater to the lost, but lovingly shares the truth with them. Their honest, passionate message is reaching thousands across our nation and around the world. For that reason alone, Browning’s book is worth a look.

I was able to ask Dave, the author and a founding pastor of CTK, a few questions about his book, and he was kind enough to answer them. This is my first time actually giving questions to an author, so I’m afraid my “interview” isn’t all that insightful. I do thank Dave Browning for being kind enough to reply. After you read the Q & A, I encourage you to check out the book for yourself, and consider picking up a copy.

Q: I like your focus on being deliberately simple in how we “do church”. Does your emphasis on a multi-site, and even multi-country model take away from that simplicity?

A: It has become harder for us as we have continued to expand. But that is not to say it can’t be done. It just may take more work and discipline. The two words through which we try to filter our organization are “virtuous” and “empowering.” Whatever we do we want it to be virtuous and empowering.

Q: Would you consider yourself a proponent of the Emergent church philosophy? Will the principles in your book help all kinds of churches, not primarily those more open to an Emergent church perspective?

A: I don’t consider myself Emergent, but I can’t say that I am an expert on that word either. What I have sensed about where I’m coming from, relative to other restless young leaders, is that my learning style has been action/reflection instead of reflection/action. We have gone out and done it first, and then tried to figure out how to describe it. That has been a pretty messy process, but rich in divine discovery. When the process is non-linear it sometimes defies the neat categories. In some ways, CTK is like a can on the shelf without a label on it. You have to open it up and look inside to figure out what it is. I kind of like that. I do think that there are applicable principles that can apply across the theological spectrum.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a positive review.

This book is available for purchase at the following sites: Amazon.com or direct from Zondervan.

I'm Famous

~ fundyreformed ~ 8 Comments

I guess I’m famous. Anyone being interviewed is right?

Shaun Tabbat, who also attends Bethlehem Baptist, recently interviewed me. I’ve just recently met Shaun and discovered we have many similar interests. I think you’ll enjoy this little interview. If I can get away with it, I might borrow his concept and start interviewing some of my favorite bloggers (er, Biblio-Bloggers, that is).

Now it’s off to the Minnesota State Fair for the day….