This week, on the Word of the Lord endures forever, we move further in our adventure in the book of Acts, with David's prophecy, both Lord and Christ,

life together, healing of the lame man, and Peter's second sermon, Part 1.

Join me, Pastor Will Whedon, for the Word of the Lord endures forever, your daily 15-minute verse by verse, Bible study on demand.

Listen at thewordendours.org or on your favorite podcast provider.

So here's a verse from Malachi chapter 1.

I have loved you, says the Lord, but you say how have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob's brother, declares the Lord?

Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I hated. I've laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals in the desert.

Now that I've loved Jacob, but Esau I hated. Does that particular passage do what Calvinist Theologians say it does?

Which is, since double predestination. If we look at the larger context of Malachi, do we find this verse talking about Jacob's salvation or Esau's salvation?

Welcome back to issues, et cetera. I'm Todd Wilkin. Joining us to respond to the Calvinist proof text of Malachi 1, verse 2 and 3.

Dr. Jordan Cooper, executive director of Justin Sinner, president of the American Lutheran Theological Seminary, and author of several books, including The Great Divide, a Lutheran evaluation of Reformed Theology.

Dr. Cooper, welcome back.

Thanks for having me back, Todd. Just by way of refresher, what do we mean by Calvinist?

Yeah, so when we're talking about Calvinism, we're speaking about the branch of the Protestant Reformation that was neither Lutheran nor Anabaptist.

So at the time of the Reformation, you had a number of groups that distinguish themselves as under the broader tent of what people call Protestantism generally.

So we had the Lutheran Reformation, which was they often called the conservative Reformation, meaning that the Lutheran Reformation was intent on retaining what was best and what was good throughout the tradition of the church, essentially being the Catholic church with the errors that developed in the, especially the later Middle Ages dealt with.

And on the other hand, you had the Anabaptist, who were the more radical group, kind of said, throughout tradition, start over from the beginning.

The Calvinist tend to be the group that's kind of in the middle that does reject more tradition than we do, but not to the same extent that someone like the Anabaptist would.

So the name Calvinist comes from the Reformed John Calvin, who was French, but was most well known for his work of Reformed in the city of Geneva, Switzerland.

And if you think about those who are Calvinistic today, you know, if you think of a church body or denomination that would be Calvinistic, you think of Presbyterian something like the PCA, the Presbyterian Church of America, or those churches that consider themselves Reformed.

So the Dutch Reformed churches.

And those people that consider themselves Calvinists really go beyond just those churches as well.

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