It all started in 1995 at a commons table in the education building at UCF. I was an Arminian who ate lunch three times a week with three hyper-Calvinists. I’m a glutton for punishment. The battle waged for months as they threw out their Calvinist verses and I retorted with my Arminian ones. I held my ground.

Then the day came that they told me that I wasn’t saved because I didn’t believe “the truth.” So, I agreed to go to a conference that they had urged me to attend—just to get more ammunition for my arsenal. It was the 1995 Defending the Faith conference sponsored by Ligonier Ministries. I signed up to volunteer in the bookstore so that I could attend for free. I wasn’t paying for this stuff.

I reported to my volunteer position as scheduled and quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be all bad. I was taking over the spot for a tall, dark, and handsome fellow. While I was in a room full of people with bad theology, at least one of them was graced with some good looks.

So, as he was leaving, I inquired, “Where are you off to?”

He replied, “RTS. I have a class in an hour.”

So I responded, “RTS? [Note: this stands for Reformed Theology Seminary.] That must mean you’re a Calvinist, which means you believe in Limited Atonement. How can you believe that stuff and call yourself a Christian?”

I’ve always preferred the subtle approach. Yet, this was the line that sealed my fate as the future Mrs. McGregor Scott. I highly recommend it if you are single. (Unless the guy is an Arminian.) The doctrine of Limited Atonement was my last holdout (as I claimed to be a four-point Calvinist) but it was the means that got me my first lunch of many to follow with my future husband.

Over a meal the next day, he explained how Christ’s blood is effective for the elect. Another term to describe this is “particular redemption.” He communicated grace to me during that lunch, setting me free from the belief that all Calvinists forsook the Great Commission, lacked love, and emphasized divine sovereignty to the exclusion of human responsibility.

I suspect that the love part was easy to exude, as he confessed later that he knew that day that he would marry me.

Hyper-Calvinism is as much a threat to biblical theology as any other heretical doctrine. It is essentially a rejection of historical Calvinism. While I maintain that good theology is essential, Paul reminds us in First Corinthians 13 that without love we are “sounding brass” and “clanging cymbals.” My hope is that I may think rightly in order that I might live rightly before Him.

Good theology is crucial. And it doesn’t hurt the state of affairs of a single girl either.