Lately, about the last 3 years I suppose, I've heard from the American Fundamentalists bringing up somethings that I believe I've learned from Stephen Tong but I'm sure were quite popularly known at the time already:
- Love the Sinners, hate the sin. A phrase attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. However, the fundamentalists, even R.C. Sproul, attacked this by saying something like "God doesn't send sin to hell, but sinners to hell." So this is beyond the boundary of language. Should we not love the sinners whom we preach the Gospel to? Tong said, if one does not love the sinners, one has no right preaching the Gospel to them. While it is true that God sends sinners and not sin to hell, this fact is a mere understatement, and off topic: maybe used against post modernists but even so, there are better weapons against such.
- God will not give you more than you can handle. This is mainly from 1 Corinthians 10:13. Nevertheless, the fundamentalists took it the wrong way, calling the Corinthians quote as referring to "temptation" and nothing to do with what you are ABLE. They would cross that out, saying that it is NOT US, not about our Ability, but God. They point to the verses in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9. They erred in one major stand a basic reformed Christian shouldn't: that ALL is of God, ALL is of God's grace. Thus, the harmonization of 1st & 2nd Corinthians, as if they need harmonizing but thanks to the lacking of these, we must clarify in terms of harmonization for their sakes, is that it is grace upon grace. John 1:16. What they thought we have ABILITY in (1 Corinthians 10:13), is but God's grace as they called it in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9. What I call grace in 2 Corinthians, is the new grace that is upon the already given grace. And thus the infinite increasing of grace.