Peter Masters on Christian Guidance

[satz]

http://www.puritanboard.com/f48/critique-new-calvinism-49365/

This thread that was posted on the article by Dr Peter Masters reminded me of something else I read on this board a long, long time ago. In the article, Dr Masters lists, as one of the ills of new calvinism "They reject the concern for the personal guidance of God in the major decisions of Christians (true sovereignty), thereby striking a death-blow to wholehearted consecration". I recall reading abit about Dr Master's views on christian decision making on another thread long ago.

I guess his views are also contained in this book:
Steps for Guidance in the Journey of Life

Does anyone know if Dr Masters views on the topic are avaliable on the internet, or failing that does anyone know what they are?

 

[Jie-Huli]

Hello, Mark.

I am not aware of Dr Masters' views on guidance being posted on the internet. He has given the subject a full treatment in the book you have mentioned, "Steps for Guidance" and I would certainly commend it to you as a very good and practical treatment of how to seek God's guidance on specific decisions in life, from the traditional reformed perspective.

One of Dr Masters' chief purposes in this book is to refute the teachings of Gary Friesen, whose book "Decision Making and the Will of God" has gained much popularity in reformed circles in recent years. Mr Friesen argues basically that Christians have no duty to seek God's specific will in making personal decisions (such as whom to marry, where to live, which calling to pursue, etc.) - the Christian's sole duty is to obey the moral commands in the Bible and as long as his decision does not violate any of God's moral commands, he is free to choose whichever way he likes in life's decisions and need not bother himself whether the choice is God's will or not. I read Mr Friesen's book years ago, and remember that he even suggests that when God let Adam name the animals He was very interested in seeing Adam's creativity in the process and likewise God takes pleasure in seeing how we will use our creativity and freedom of choice in life's decisions.

Dr Masters, on the other hand, affirms resolutely that (i) God does have a specific will for our decisions and (ii) it is our duty to seek to know His will in these decisions and obey it. In particular, Dr Masters discusses a number of steps we should undertake to seek God's guidance on the great decisions of life. These are not artificial, man-made gimmicks, but are based rather on solid Biblical principles with many Scriptural examples. Dr Masters provides many practical illustrations and argues persuasively that to deny the duty to seek God's will in specific decisions will weaken Christian consecration tremendously, as human autonomy takes centre stage in so many decisions which have an immense impact on the course of one's life.

Bear in mind that Dr Masters is an absolute cessationist who is one of the most stalwart opponents of the Charismatic movement around today, so his views definitely do not have anything to do with seeking any kind of "special revelation" from the Spirit or the sort of casual "The Lord told me this" ideas so common in modern evangelicalism. He is simply defending the traditional view of seeking God's guidance that was held by the Puritans and indeed, I believe, by almost all Christians up until the latter part of the 20th Century.

Certainly I believe Dr Masters' position gives much greater recognition to the sovereignty of God in every aspect of our lives than the Friesen view.

I hope this brief summary is somewhat helpful to you.

Kind regards,

Jie-Huli

 

[JonathanHunt]

Jie-Huli,

You are quite the dab hand at pithy summary. Well said. I have yet to read the new edition of PM's book (I have the last two editions as well lol)