October 5 2011

1 John Chapter 5 – Tricky passage explanation

This is a resource I wrote up for my Bible Study. We have been studying 1 John for the last few weeks and on the summary week (tonight) I took on the task of getting my head around some of the tricky verses that come up in chapter 5. If you don’t know the first letter of John, I highly recommend you read it and the following blog entry might not make much sense until you do.

For the sake of reference, here is 1 John chapter 5:

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.9 We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. 19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. 20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

 

There are lots of tricky concepts in chapter 5 of 1 John (and indeed throughout the whole letter) but from this last chapter I want to offer some explanation for two of the most trickiest. 

  1. The testimony of the water, the blood & the Spirit. (5:6-12)
  2. The sin that leads to death. (5:16-17)

 

 The testimony of the water, the blood and the Spirit. (5:6-12)

 This passage gets us asking a few questions:

  • What is the “water” and the “blood”?
  • Why is it important that Jesus didn’t just come by water?
  • How do the water the blood and the Spirit testify about Jesus?
  • Why is it important that there are three that testify?

 The first and most important thing to say about this passage is that although all this talk about water and blood is interesting, it isn’t actually the point of the passage. It’s easy to get distracted by the part of the passage that is the most confusing (and therefore the most interesting), but the most important thing is to see where John is going in all this. This will not only help us avoid getting distracted by peripheral issues, but it will also give us the context to help us understand why he is using such odd language.

 John states his main point in verse 13:
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Whatever his argument is, the purpose of it is to help Christians have confidence in the truth of the fact that they have eternal life. In John 20:31, he writes that his purpose for writing the gospel record is so that people can HAVE life. In this letter, his audience is those who have now responded to the gospel and his purpose is that those that have life can KNOW that they have it. The next verse (v14) goes on to talk about the confidence we should have in prayer as a result of this “knowledge”, and the final verses of the letter (v18-20) are all about what we “know”. It even concludes with the purpose of Jesus coming is so that we may know him who is true (which is possibly why there is a final warning against idols – or “false” gods).

So the point of all these tricky verses is to give us confidence in the truth of who Jesus is and the truth of the life that he gives. Okay. So how does he get to that point?

Well, he sets up a picture of the Testimony of God (v9-10). The false teachers that John is refuting were teaching the idea that Jesus did not come in the flesh (see 1 John 4:2-3, 2 John 1:7). They believed that the flesh and everything physical was evil and so the Son of God could never have taken on a human body. They taught that Jesus only appeared to have a human body, but was really just a spirit. John believes this is completely anti-Christian (that’s why it’s the teaching of the antichrist) and throughout the letter uses lots of different arguments to show that it is false. 

In chapter 5 he sets up a picture of a courtroom, where the Testimony of God is given about the fact that Jesus is the Son of God and that life is found in the Son (v9-12). It’s not just John’s opinion, it’s God’s opinion and so we can have full confidence in it. In fact, John says in v10, if you don’t believe this testimony then you’re not calling John a liar, you’re calling God a liar.

So in this imaginary courtroom, John describes three witnesses who stand up and testify about this Testimony of God. The three are: the water, the blood and the Spirit.

Now, there are lots of theories about what the water and the blood mean. Some say it’s referring to the water and blood that spilled from Jesus side at the crucifixion (John 19:24), others say the water is his baptism and the blood is his death, still others try to argue that the water is the sacrament of baptism and the blood is the sacrament of communion (a big stretch if you ask me!).

For me, the best explanation is none of these. I think the best fit is the concept that the water is referring to Jesus’ physical birth and the blood is referring to his physical death.

Water is a common image used of birth and creation (think of the waters that the Spirit hovered over in Genesis 1:2) and in John’s gospel (3:5-6), John uses the concept of being “born of water” as a way of describing being physically born, or “born of the flesh”. In this passage, Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he has to experience two births in order to see thekingdomofGod. He has to have a physical birth (born of water) and he has to have a spiritual birth (born of the Spirit).

I think this is what John is meaning when he uses the same language in 1 John 5:6. Here he says that Jesus “came by water”, meaning Jesus had a physical birth. This is exactly the concept that the false teachers were denying, and John pushes the point by talking about “blood” – another fleshy concept that the false teachers would have hated. This is probably referring to Jesus’ physical death, a death that was proven when the blood flowed from his side. Blood is used throughout the New Testament as a reference to Jesus’ death (including in 1 John 1:7), and so we can safely say this is what John is meaning here.

It makes sense too. He is arguing that the Testimony of God is that Jesus came in the flesh and two of the witnesses are the physical birth of Jesus (the water) and the physical death of Jesus (the blood). But it’s not just historical events the witness to Jesus, but God himself proclaims this testimony about Jesus through his Spirit. This is why John says in 1 John 5:6-7 that the Spirit testifies along with the water and the blood. This could be referring to Jesus’ baptism (John 1:32-34) or more likely where Jesus says that he will send the Spirit of truth who will testify about him (John 15:26-27). Either way, John’s courtroom scene is completed with three witnesses – the water, the blood and the Spirit, and these three are in agreement (1 John 5:7).

But why is it important that there are three witnesses? Well for that we need to understand one of the most important Old Testament laws in regard to courtroom justice. In Deuteronomy 19:15 the law states that a truth was not able to be established if there is only one witness. There had to be two or three.

“One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

This law is re-enforced by Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17 when he teaches about how we should respond when a brother sins against us, and Paul uses this principle when talking about proving his ministry (2 Corinthians 13:1-3) and also when bringing a charge against an elder (1 Timothy 5:19).

The idea is that although one witness may be telling the truth, it can only be validated or established as true and reliable when “two or three” witness to it. This is possibly what Jesus is talking about when he says: “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.” (Matthew 18:19-20)

In relation to John’s argument, it means that in the imaginary courtroom scene that he is describing “there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.” Do you see what he’s arguing? It’s John’s way of saying that the testimony that Jesus is the Son of God is reliable and is an established truth that we can have full confidence in.

And this in the end is his goal remember? He writes all of it, painting this elaborate courtroom scene, so that we can have confidence that God’s testimony about Jesus is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

 

The sin that leads to death. (5:16-17)

Like the “water and the blood”, there are a few suggestions as to what John is talking about when he talks of the sin that leads to death. Some say it’s the unforgiveable sin of “blasphemy against the Spirit” Jesus talks about in Matthew 12:31-32 (a tricky passage in itself) or the sin of “lying to the Holy Spirit” that instantly kills Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11, or even the sin of taking communion without acknowledging Jesus which seems to have been judged by God with sickness and death in 1 Corinthians 11:29-30.

These are all big stretches to squeeze into the context of 1 John and so the best and simplest way of understanding what John is talking about is to look at the letter itself.

Just before talking about the “sin that leads to death” John writes in v12, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” This is the two distinct groups that he keeps going on about throughout the whole letter. There are two camps. In one camp is the Christ who gives life, and in the other camp there is the antichrist who gives death.

So what is the “sin that leads to death”? It is the sin that leads you away from Christ.

More specifically, it’s the sin that John keeps going on about – The sin of denying that the Son of God came in the flesh. This is the sin that leads people away from the truth of the gospel and so leads them to death.

Before talking about this sin, he encourages us to pray for a fellow believer who has sinned (v16). This fellow believer (or “brother”) believes the Testimony about God, has come to Jesus and has been given eternal life. This is a believer that John describes as being “born of God” (v18) and therefore will not continue sinning. John says that God will keep him safe and the evil one cannot harm him and earlier in the letter, John says that if a believer does sin then Jesus speaks on our defence and he atones for all of our sin by his death (1 John 2:1-2).

This is why, when we see a believer committing a sin, we are right to pray and ask God to give them life. God has promised to forgive them and give them life because all of their sin, past, present and future, has been dealt with by Jesus.

Then John makes a distinction. He refers to this sin that leads to death – this sin of rejecting Jesus consistently and deliberately – and he clarifies that he is not saying we should pray for that sin. Notice, he doesn’t exactly tell us we must not pray for that sin, but rather he clarifies, saying that the sins he is instructing us to pray for are specifically the sins of a believer. These are the sins we can have confidence God will forgive, and again remember, this is what this section of the letter is about – confidence in God.

That’s what John is referring to in the previous verses:

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15)

John is saying, when we ask God to forgive the sins of a believer and give them life rather than death, we can have confidence that he will give us what we ask. This is true, not because we are special, but because we are asking “according to his will” (v14). It is God’s will that he gives life to those that believe in Jesus. It is God’s will that anyone born of God will not continue to sin.

This is the sin that we should pray to God about. There is lots of sin that leads to death around us. Everywhere we look we see people rejecting Jesus, and John is saying we can’t have confidence that God will give life to every sinner. Maybe we should pray that God forgives. Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we should pray that people repent and that God has mercy. This passage actually doesn’t answer that issue. The point of John’s concluding words in 1 John is to encourage us to pray for Christians having full confidence that God will give them life.

The most important thing is to test our hearts and see which camp we are actually in. Are we committing the sin that leads to death by rejecting Jesus, the Son of God who came in the flesh? Or are we in danger of following false teachers who preach a false gospel about a false God?

We need to always be diligent to keep ourselves from these paths that lead away from eternal life and lead straight to eternal death. This is probably why John finishes this letter in with such an encouragement and a warning:

 “We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true – even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:20-21)

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September 1 2011

Meeting Piper & Meeting God

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As I write this I am in the car on the way back to Melbourne from the Oxygen Conference in Sydney. It was a wonderful time away with a couple of old mates of mine and I have been greatly challenged about living for God, growing in true joy and seeing that all of God’s plans for the Universe are for his glory. These are weighty and challenging issues that raise a lot of questions (I can write a blog on these if you like) but what I wanted to share is what my motivation for coming to the conference was actually about and how that made me reflect on why I originally became a Christian.

Although God used my time up in Sydney to achieve a great many things, the simple reason I wanted to come up was because of the fact that one of the two guest speakers was Pastor John Piper. It’s not a very noble reason and is smells of a bit of celebrity worship, but I have been blessed and challenged by Pipers teaching for many years and the prospect of seeing him in the flesh and meeting him face to face was very appealing.

In the end, when I did finally get to see him and meet him and thank him for the impact of his ministry in my life, I realized that although his preaching is bold and impressive, he is just a guy like me, frail and flawed and seeking to love and know Christ more and more.

After the conference was over, I was chatting with a friend over lunch and they asked me about why I became a Christian. It struck me that my reason for coming to Christ was pretty much the same reason why I came to the conference – put simply, it was an opportunity to meet someone.

All my life I had learnt about God. God was big and impressive and full of love. God was part of my thinking about the world and to be honest, I have never ever thought of the possibility that God might not exist. His existence to me was a given.

Now this may grieve those that believe that think that people should contemplate and conclude that God does not exist, but I see no problem with the fact that I had come to the conclusion that God exists simply because I was told as much. I know lots of problems can arise when you just blindly believe what you’ve been told as a child, but the reason why I don’t have a problem in this case is because I have come to discover that God’s existence is actually true and can be known and experienced. It’s like how parents tell children not to touch the flame otherwise they will be burnt. If they believe them without experiencing the truth of a burnt hand, it doesn’t make the fire any less hot.

For the first 16 years of my life I believed in God in the same way I believed in John Piper. I had no reason to doubt God’s existence and I had no reason to doubt Piper’s existence. I enjoyed what God had given me (life, the world, family, health etc.) and I enjoyed what Piper had given me (sermons, a clear theology of marriage, a passionate southern accent etc.). I admired and enjoyed both God and John Piper, but there was always a distance.

With Piper it was the fact that he was in America and although I wanted to travel to the States again, there was no expectation that I would ever meet him in person.

With God it was the fact that he was in heaven (not in any way comparing heaven to America!). God was far away and although I possibly hoped to go to heaven when I died, even then I guess I didn’t expect that I would be able to meet him in person. God was big and wonderful and good and loving, but he was distant and removed from my real life, day to day experience.

It wasn’t until I met some Christians when I was 16, that I came to discover the good news of Christianity. They shared with me, through their explanation of the gospel and through the way they lived and described their experience of God, that the whole point of Jesus’ coming and dying on the cross was to make it possible for me to have a real, living and personal relationship with God!

God who I had loved and admired from afar was now within reach. The distance was being covered and I could meet him in a way that was as real as face to face!

When I came to see this it blew me away! The moment I heard that Piper was coming to Australia was similar. Why did I go to the conference? Why did I decide to follow Jesus? The real question is, why not??

Like my motivation to go to the conference, maybe my reason for becoming a Christian was a bit of celebrity worship. Maybe it wasn’t very noble, but like after I had met Piper, once I met God, a lot changed. After meeting him, Piper for me was a bit less God-like, a bit more human. But after meeting God, he only grew in my opinion of him.

If you have never met God, if you have only heard about God and your relationship with him is distant and impersonal, my hope for you is that you will experience the same thing I have.
I hope that you come to Christ. He is the only one who has and can make it possible for you to know God in a way that is real and personal. That’s my experience. I believe the Christian good news is that it can be yours as well.

“For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” – 1 Peter 3:18

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August 31 2011

3 Options for the Origin of the Universe

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When you see a photo like this, with a car stuck in a tree, you ask the obvious question, “How the hell did that get there?” It demands some form of an explanation. I think the universe is like that.
The very fact that we and everything else is here rather than not, demands some form of explanation. I’m not talking purpose (although that may be related). I’m talking origins. When you look at the world, when you stare up at the stars, when you look at your own hand, you can not ignore the obvious question, “How the hell did all this get here?”

Now I am absolutely no expert in science or quantum mechanics, but it seems to me that there can only really be three options for the origins of the universe. Each option is in it’s own way whacky and unbelievable. Each one involves an idea that is bigger and weirder than anything we can see or experience or test scientifically, but all scientists still fall into one of three camps in how the explain the ultimate question of origins.

These are the 3 options:

Option 1. Magic Gun Theory – The material reality had a beginning that was from nothing and caused by nothing.
Option 2. String Theory – The material reality is eternal and had no beginning.
Option 3. Creator Theory – The material reality had a beginning that was caused by an eternal, non-material reality (God).

Now, I’ll explain what I mean by these three option in a moment, but as I see it, every theory imaginable must fall into one of these three. Consequently, every person must chose to side with one of these three options if they are to answer the “How did it get here?” question. You could, of course, go with Option 4. which is “I have no idea” (this by the way is my answer to the car in the tree) but if it really is the case that there are only 3 mutually exclusive options for the origin of the universe, then you still would have to conclude that one of these three options must be the answer, even if you feel there is no definitive way of discovering which one is true.

The terrifying thing about the idea that we can never know the answer is that the implications that stem from each option are vastly different. If there is a non-material (or spiritual) reality and if that is in the form of a personal deity then a mountain of questions arise and the relevance of theology and philosophy about the nature of God and spiritual reality becomes incredibly important. If on the other hand, there is no spiritual reality and that the material reality is all the is, then that has great implications for the irrelevance for all religion and raises many questions about the origins of morality and the claims of those who have experience of the spiritual. This is of course only skimming the surface of the implications that arise on both sides, but hopefully the point is clear that trying to work out which of the three options is true is a vitally important and practically relevant pursuit.

Let me now try to simply describe each of the three options:

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Option 1. Magic Gun Theory

This is the theory that claims that the material reality (including all matter and energy that exists) came into existence as some point in history, exploding on to the scene with the Big Bang. This is supported by what we observe about the universe – that it is expanding – giving the impression that it had an origin at some point. The reason why I call this the “Magic Gun Theory” is because it states that this event somehow created matter and energy out of nothing and nothing at all (non-material or otherwise) caused the bang to happen in the first place. It all just magically happened and appeared for no reason. This theory seems like an easy way of combining what we observe about the universe with an atheistic view of the world. The problem with this view is that it is completely unscientific. No modern scientist would claim that matter and energy can all of a sudden just appear from absolutely nothing, with nothing causing that to happen. It is simply a theory that defies all we know about science, for the sake of marrying evidence (that there seems to be a beginning) with prejudice (that they want to believe in nothing spiritual).

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Option 2. String Theory

The material reality is eternal and had no beginning.

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Option 3. Creator Theory – The material reality had a beginning that was caused by an eternal, non-material reality (God).

Now in the end, although this theory seems quite ridiculous, I guess I have to admit that each theory has it’s element of wackiness. In this case, you either believe in a magic universe that can defy scientific logic or you believe in a magic deity that defies scientific logic. I personally think that

The Origin and Fate of the Universe – Steven Hawkins

According to this theory [strong anthropic principle], there are either many different universes or many different regions of a single universe, each with its own initial configuration and, perhaps, with its own set of laws of science. In most of these universes the conditions would not be right for the development of complicated organisms; only in the few universes that are like ours would intelligent beings develop and ask the question: “Why is the universe the way we see it?” The answer is then simple: If it had been different, we would not be here!

There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle parts. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

Now twice zero is also zero. Thus the universe can double the amount of positive matter energy and also double the negative gravitational energy without violation of the conservation of energy. It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.

One could say: “The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.” The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.

The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started – it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwood and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundaries or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

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April 29 2010

Let Us Know Well The Cross – A Poem

LET US KNOW WELL THE CROSS
A poem by Simon Camilleri (29/4/10)

Let us know well the Good News
Else the Cross be seen as just wood.

Let us know well God’s Mercy
Else the Good News cease to be good.

Let us know well God’s Judgement
Else God’s Mercy cease to be needed.

Let us know well our sinfulness
Else God’s Judgement cease to be heeded.

Let us know well God’s Glory
Else our sinfulness cease to be grave.

And let us know well the Cross of Christ
Else God’s Glory cease to be displayed.

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April 26 2010

The Good “Should”

As you can see at the top of this webpage I have a tab entitled “The Gospel” (I may have changed it’s name by the time you are reading this). Now, at the time I wrote this blog entry there was nothing under “The Gospel” tab as I have been thinking lately about how to explain the gospel in a clear and concise way for a modern audience.

The word “gospel” literally means “good news” and many have pointed out the fact that for people toappreciate and embrace this good news they must know why the news is good. They must know the bad reality in which the context is laid to show that good news in needed in the first place.

The bad reality is the reality of our sin (our unloving and untrusting indifference and rejection of God) and the distance that creates between us and God making our relationship with God one of estrangement and hostility. If you don’t see our need for forgiveness and the depth of our hopelessness, then you will never be able to delight in the good news that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God has made a way for hope, forgiveness and reconciliation to be possible. If you don’t think that there is any bad reality, then the good news of forgiveness through Jesus will seem redundant and ridiculous.

This need to explain and express the “Bad Reality” is commonly the first step that many Christians go to when explaining the Christian message.

Famously, the “Four Spiritual Laws” uses this flow, where the first 2 laws explain the “Bad Reality” (God is good and we are bad, putting us under judgement) and then the last two laws explain the “Good News” (Jesus pays for our sin and we can respond to receive forgiveness).  Another example of this is the Calvinistic acronym “TULIP“, where the starting point, “T” is the “Total Depravity of Humanity” (which is the problem) and the “U” “L” “I” and “P” focus on the Good News of how God saves us (the solution).

This “problem then solution” focus is common to many religions and philosophies. Pretty much every religion believes in “Bad Reality”.

Buddhism, for example, sees the world effected by dukkha (suffering) due to our clinging onto illusions.
This is their version of the “Bad Reality” and they suggest that freedom from dukkha and true enlightenment can be achieved through meditation and the letting go of those illusions. This is their understanding of “Good News” in the face of “Bad Reality”.

So, in regard to Christianity, it fairly universally understood that you can’t just go around telling people “Jesus Saves!” if people have no idea what they need saving from. An awareness of the “Bad Reality” needs to be felt and acknowledged before any message of “Good News” can be accepted.

The problem is that, in starting with the sinfulness of man in contrast to the holiness of God, the Christian message can seem like primarily a negative voice in the world. We can spend so much time and energy trying to convince people of their sin and need for forgiveness that we can come across as depressing “glass-half-empty” bigots!

The debate over whether humans are fundamentally good, bad or neutral, has been on the table of philosophy since time began, and Christians (at least those who believe in a gospel of salvation) generally feel compelled to fall into the humans are fundamentally bad camp in the fear that if we said that humans are fundamentally good, we would nullify a need for a Saviour and make nonsensical the idea that humans are under God’s just judgement.

As much as it is true that people do need to see the “Bad Reality” of our separation from God, lately I have been reflecting about whether in today’s culture maybe we need to go one further and explain why the “Bad Reality” is actually bad.

This may seem like an endless spiral of defining everything one step back, and this may be a true danger in theory, but in practice, I think it is necessary to do this at least for one more step, as reality is less and less often being seen as “bad”. Modern philosophy is telling us that there really isn’t a problem – not just in our hearts but also in the world we live in. And where there is no problem, no solution in needed.

The Good News about Jesus is now seen, not as God’s glorious solution to the greatest problem we have, but as a crutch for the weak or scared or ignorant, and Christians who bang on about our sinfulness simply come across as judgemental party-poopers.

So what’s the solution?

Sadly, many Christians are now changing the “Good News” to make the whole thing seem more palitable.Judgement is unpopular and sin is non-existent and so the “Good News” changes from being a rescue mission for sinners destined for Hell, to a fluffy self-help program as heart-warming and superficial as an inspirational poster hanging on the office wall.

But for Christian committed to sharing the gospel that Jesus and the apostles preached, we can’t change it or water it down. This means we also can’t stop telling people about the “Bad Reality”, no matter how difficult it is for people to grasp in today’s  world that sees our greatest problem, not as sin, but as low self-esteem.

So again I ask, what’s the solution?

Well, the greatest mistake would be to presume that humanity’s difficulty with understanding its own sinfulness is somehow a new idea. This is a problem that God and the writers of the Bible were well aware of and the simplest place to look at what the first point of the gospel should be is to look at the first book of the Bible.

The Bible begins, not with how sinful we are, or how much we need a saviour, but with a picture of how life was designed to be. I call this, The Good “Should”. It is the way the all things should be, and the Bible’s message is that all things originally were good. Read the very first chapter of the Bible and this message comes across loud and clear.

God is good and we are good.

Creation is good and life is good.

Pleasure is good, sex is good, marriage is good, masculinity is good,  femininity is good, food is good, animals are good.

We live under God’s good rule and enjoy a harmonious relationship with God, the world and each other, and all of this is good. It is the good “should”.

I think it may be more and more important for us to explain and defend this picture as the way life should be, as a starting point for explaining the gospel.

It can no longer be simply expected that people understand or feel that being “at peace with God” is important or desirable. Along with cynical post-modernism came a dark view of the world which tried to embrace the hopelessness and emptiness of the “Bad Reality” and make out that there was nothing “bad” about it. It was just reality.

If the reality we live in is not bad, then once again, the idea of “Good News” becomes irrelevant.

As pointless as it may be to say, “Jesus saves,” if people don’t understand the problem of sin, it is also pointless to say “You’re a sinner, but Jesus saves”  if people don’t see that sin or rebelling against God’s rule, is really that big a deal.

We need to give people a glorious picture of the beauty and goodness of a right relationship with God. This has to be the first painting on the canvas. Once this picture is clear then the gravity and ugliness of the black paint of sin and death will hopefully be able to be seen. The Good News then, paints a new picture over the top of all this.

I know that saying “We should be in harmony with God, but you’re a sinner, but Jesus saves” just adds one more premise that people will object to, but ultimately, if people can’t see that all people should be able to say that they know God and are at peace with him, then all the rest won’t make sense.

If people reject the “Good Should” then they will naturally re-interpret the “Bad Reality” and consequnetly never be able to rejoice in the “Good News”.

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April 22 2010

Calvinism & Evangelism – Friend or foe? (part 3)

Read: Calvinism & Evangelism – Friend or foe? (part 1)

or Calvinism & Evangelism – Friend or foe? (part 2)

Now I’m going to cut to the chase with this one, so that I don’t get distracted from my primary question:

“What’s the point of evangelism if God is totally sovereign over who is saved?”

Well, firstly, we can rule out a few things.

The point of evangelism is NOT to change the destiny of someone who otherwise would go to hell.
That destiny has been chosen or “predestined” by God before that person had even come into existence.
It is true that until they respond to the gospel, then from our earthly perspective, that does not know the mind of God, their eternal destination is also unknown and the only thing we do know is that we all deserve to go to hell, so it is right to tell people that they are going to hell, even if they are destined to be saved. In fact, the reason why we tell them about hell is because we hope that they will be saved.

So should you tell people they are going to hell, if indeed they may be going to heaven (by God’s grace and sovereign choice)? Well, maybe you should answer people in the way that I did when a workmate asked me straight out, “So do you think I am going to hell?” I simply replied, “Well, why wouldn’t you?”

Secondly, the point of evangelism is not to change people’s hearts so that they respond to the gospel. This is definitely our hope and we trust that God uses our words to bring about that change, but it is God that makes the change happen. As Paul writes, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” (1 Corinthians 3:5-7) The hope of evangelism is that people will respond to the gospel, but it is God’s Spirit, not the evangelism, that does this. Consequently, evangelism is not about changing people, but it is, by God’s design, integrated in their change.

I believe in God’s sovereignty, in the necessity of God’s Spirit to bring people alive in order to respond to the gospel and the unchangeable choice of God that knows and ordains who will be saved before the whole story begins. I believe all these tough, Biblical, Calvinistic ideas, and still I believe in evangelism.

In a nutshell here is what I think the point of evangelism is all about…

I believe the purpose of evangelism is to give God the opportunity that he loves to use to save people.

The gospel – the good news about what Jesus has done in his death and resurrection – is described as the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). Jesus’ atoning death and victorious resurrection is the only basis by which sinners can hope to have their sins forgiven and their spiritual death paid for. What Jesus has done is indeed good news and it is the only power for salvation that there is. God uses no other means to save people from hell, for there is no other grounds for forgiveness apart from Jesus’ death. God is holy and just and so your sins will be punished and condemned… either in you by spending eternity in hell, or in Christ through his perfect sacrificial death.

This is the gospel and this is what God uses to save people. But how does God love to use the gospel in saving people? He could do it in any way, but for his glory and our joy, he has ordained that this gospel is to be spoken. The speaking of the gospel is the primary way that God loves to use the gospel to save.

Get this clear. It is not the speaking of the gospel that saves, it is God that saves, through the gospel. The speaking is just the tool that God loves to use to do this.

Think about when God created the universe. In Genesis 1 it gives us a beautiful picture of this event. God had infinite creative power at his fingertips and yet, he still delighted in using spoken words as the vehicle for his creative power to be exercised. God said, “Let there be light!” and there was light. God did not need to speak, and I believe the gospel does not need to be spoken for God to use it to save people, but God LOVES to use spoken words as the vehicle for his power to go out.

So what then is the point of evangelism?

As I said before, it is to give God the opportunity that he loves to use to save people.

God can and will save whoever he wishes to save, but he loves to do it through the gospel being spoken. Therefore, when we speak the gospel, we give God the opportunity to do something that he loves to do. It does not force him to do it. It does not persuade him to do it. It merely gives him the opportunity to do it, if he so wishes to in that circumstance.

Now does this mean that if we do not speak, we are limiting God’s opportunities?

My answer is… yes.

If we do not speak, then clearly God can not use our speaking as a vehicle for his powerful gospel changing people. He may chose to use someone else’s speaking, or in his wonderful, ironic sense of humour, he may even use our lack of speaking for some purpose towards our friend’s conversion. Our silence does not rob God of the opportunity to save the person that he has elected to save, but it is clear that we only give God the opportunity to use our speaking, if we actually speak!

So, to use the planting analogy as the Bible often does, God loves to create plants through the process of seeds being planted and them being watered. If God does not turn the cold stone heart of the person into moist fresh soil, then no matter of planting or watering will do any good. God makes things grow. And it is also true that God can make things grow without us planting a seed with our own hands. He can get seeds to wherever he wants in whatever way he wants, but God loves the process of a sower going out and sowing seed. This is his favourite way and so the sower should go out and sow as much seed as possible! He will throw much of the seed on rocky soil that won’t respond, but God willing, he will throw some seed on to good soil where the seed will take root and grow and bear fruit. God wants the sower to be a part of this process for his glory and the sower’s good. The sower must never think that his sowing holds any power in itself, and he must never try to shape the seed so that it better fits the soil that he has in front of him. He must simply faithfully and joyfully sow as much seed as he can and trust that God is able to make plants grow.

I find this picture of evangelism incredibly liberating!

There is no guilt involved, no pressure and no pride.

There is only joy!

Joy in being used by God. Joy in seeing God work. And joy in joining God in his joy – namely, using the weak and awkward speaking of his children to spread the gospel and through it, reconcile people to himself.

“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.‘ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.‘

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” – 1 Cornithians 1:17-2:5

For me, understanding Calvinism and what the Bible says about God’s sovereignty and election, doesn’t make me think that evangelism is pointless. It make me think that evangelism is joyous.

And this is one of the main reasons why people don’t share their faith – a lack of joy.

I don’t mean a lack of emotionally pumped up enthusiasm. I mean a deep, abiding, awe-inspiring, heart-expanding, rock solid joy in the wonder of God, the graciousness of Jesus and the power of the gospel.

If God wasn’t as great and powerful and sovereign as the Bible and Calvinism teaches, and if the gospel wasn’t as true and life-changing as I have experienced, then I would have no joy. I would not want to share the message about a weak God and I would be burdened and frozen by the impossible task of trying to persuade people to respond to the gospel. I would as many do, fall into the trap of beating myself up for not evangelizing enough and live in fear that the eternal damnation or salvation of my beloved friends and family was up to me and my abilities to share the gospel persuasively.

In believing in a Sovereign God, I am free to share the gospel wherever and whenever I like, without fear of my lack of ability or persuasiveness being the primary factor.

I am free to speak boldly and unashamedly, knowing that until God moves I should not expect anyone to respond favourably and at the same time knowing that by God’s predestined activity, anyone could respond at any time.

So I share the gospel with a duel expectation. I expect no one to respond and I expect God to change that fact.

I said in part 2 of this blog series that we often think of evangelism as “persuasion”, but the word evangelism comes from the greek word euangelizo, which means “to proclaim good news”. This is what evangelism is about – proclaiming the good news that God has entered humanity in Christ, that he lived a sinless life, that he died to take our place and bear the judgement that our sins deserved, that he rose again to bring new life and forgiveness to all those who put their trust in him and he is going to return to fully restore all of creation!

We proclaim this news because it is good!

May you know the joy that this good news brings and may you join in God’s joy in sharing it with the world.

p.s. I know this blog may have raised some valid questions for you like “Does this mean we should never try to be persuasive in our sharing of the gospel? And doesn’t Paul in Acts 18:4 and 2 Corinthians 5:11 clearly say that he works hard at trying to persuade people to convert and that he uses all possible means to save some (1 Corinthians 9:22)?”

Or you may have lots of questions about Calvinism and the concepts of predestination, the will of Mankind or the Sovereignty of God.

Please share your thoughts by writing me a comment!

I can’t answer everything, but I’ll enjoy looking for an answer and hopefully we both can grow in understanding.

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April 21 2010

Calvinism & Evangelism – Friend or foe? (part 2)

If you haven’t read Part One of this blog, click here and read it first.


Calvinism & Evangelism – Friend or foe? (continued)

I will now move on to address one of the big questions that Calvanist theology brings up for me and many others. The question is, “If God is sovereign over who is saved and has chosen the elect before time began, then what’s the point of evangelism?”

The problem begins, I think, with our concept of what evangelism is. If we think of evangelism as our attempt at convincing someone to convert or respond to Jesus, then when we learn that it is God alone who can do that and God alone who has chosen who he will do that to, then the basic motivation for our evangelism has been made redundant.

We think that evangelism is ultimately about persuasion.

Thinking of evangelism as persuasion also leads us to think that people will respond on the basis of how persuasive we are. If they’re persuaded by the claims and concepts of the gospel then they’re converted and so our goal is to try to be as persuasive as we possibly can.

But Calvinism teaches that people are spiritually dead and so are completely unable to respond, no matter how persuasive you are. This makes our persuasion/evangelism feel like a waste of breath.

Also, Calvinism teaches that God has already chosen who will respond, no matter how persuasive we are, and in the end God is really the one who persuades them by his Spirit. It’s kind of like thinking you wereplaying bingo and God tells you that he and he alone chooses which ball will come up and unless he choses the ball, no ball will move at all! It sort of takes the fun out of the game, don’t you think?

What’s the point? Does God’s Sovereign choice mean that if I don’t evangelize, God’s chosen few will eventually come to faith anyway? If there’s no cost in not evangelizing, then why bother? There’s definitely a cost in doing evangelism, so what’s the point of going through the awkwardness, fear rejection and persecution, if God will do what God wants to do whether I’m involved or not?

These are great questions, and I honestly don’t know all the answers. But I do know that both the command to evangelize and the doctrine of God’s Sovereign election are both in the Bible, side by side.  Any Christian who wants to take God’s Word seriously can not escape either of them.

The sad truth is that because of the difficulty we have in reconciling these two realities, Christians tend to emphasize one and neglect the other.

There are many Christians who find the idea of God choosing only some people to be saved makes God out to be cruel and fickle, and so they weaken God and say that he really wants to save everyone and hoping that everyone will respond to the gospel, but in the end he can’t force them and so he is at the mercy of the individual’s free choice about whether they should trust in or reject Jesus. Naturally, they can’t respond unless they hear the gospel and this is used as a motivation to evangelize. If you don’t evangelize then lots of people who would have responded to the gospel, won’t be able to. This view seems to say that the world’s real problem is not spiritual death and the judgement of God for sin, but ignorance, and so the guilt-inducing tactic is suggested that if only you evangelized a little bit more, or maybe a little bit more persuasively, then your neighbour or your father or your best friend would have been saved.

I have heard this motivation being pushed years ago by a preacher at the Hillsong Conference, with the little story of “A Letter from Hell”. If you’ve never heard it, you can check it out on YouTube here, although I warn you, I believe it to be emotionally manipulative and based on a false idea of a weak and uninvolved God.

The hard reality that the Bible teaches is that no one is in heaven or hell apart from the sovereign choice of God. He has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy (Romans 9:18) and although he has gone to amazing lengths to make it possible through Jesus’ death and resurrection for people to be forgiven and escape hell, he is ultimately the decider on who he will give that grace to.

We should not feel guilty that we could have saved someone from hell if we had just done more. That’s almost a salvation by works mentality where someone else is in the end saved (or not saved) by your work rather than Christ’s.

But although this is true, we should not let the pendulum swing in the opposite direction to far. Just because God is sovereign over the eternal destiny of every soul, does not mean that we are free from the command to evangelize. If our best friend dies an enemy to Jesus and ends up in hell, and we never shared the gospel with them, we should not feel guilty that we could have prevented their end, but we definitely should feel guilty that we disobeyed Christ’s command to tell people about him and we should feel guilty for our prioritizing of our comfort rather than Jesus’ honour. Like Peter warming himself by the fire (Mark 11:66-72) when we should speak up about Jesus and we don’t, we sin and dishonour Christ. When we speak up, we glorify God and lift up as worthy, beautiful and precious, the truth of the gospel. This is a Biblical motivation for evangelism.

So this tells us what attitude should be behind out evangelism, but it doesn’t help us see what the PURPOSE is for evangelism…

and so once again I will neglect to answer this central question and get to bed!

I think this is enough for you to chew on for the time being.

Sorry, if it’s frustrating, I just find I can write and write on this topic!

Anyway, again please leave comments and questions, and hopefully the next installment will be the final one! Only God knows!

Read Part 3. Click here!

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April 20 2010

Calvinism & Evangelism – Friend or foe? (part 1)

When I first started to hear about Calvinism I found it both fascinating and confusing.

It raised many, many questions for me, which I slowly worked through bit by bit, with the main goal being, to understand what God thought about it in his Word.

For those that haven’t really been introduced to Calvinism, I will give you a very brief heads up.

John Calvin was a Christian guy born in 1509, who expressed his understanding of life, God and salvation in a distinct way. People who believe that his ideas are in fact Biblical and accurate, call themselves “Calvinists”. It doesn’t (usually) mean that they worship Calvin or think that everything he wrote was correct, it just means that they agree with certain concepts that he wrote about.

The main bone of contention is around the Sovereignty of God and the Will of Mankind.

Calvinism makes the point that people, due to their “deadness” towards God, have no ability to repent and trust in Jesus – which is the appeal of the Christian Gospel. It states that the Bible is very clear that for people to be able to respond to the Gospel, God’s Spirit must first awaken the heart of the non-Christian and that the faith that they are saved through, is a faith that is a gift from God, not something that can be mustered up or chosen. God chooses us before we can chose him.

Someone once described it to me like this.

Some think of non-Christians like people drowning in the open seas and God is offering to save them – he has the life preserver ready to throw – but he waits until he sees that hand raised in faith, before he throws it and saves the sinner from drowning. If no hand is raised, then the offer of salvation is rejected and the sinner inevitably drowns, to the great sadness and disappointment of God who was there the whole time, life preserver in hand, ready to save, if only we would respond to his free offer.

This in itself is a beautiful and tragic picture and there is some truth in it, but Calvinism points out, it has some major flaws and ultimately is a very unbiblical picture.

The message we get from the Bible is a lot less evenly weighted. In the above picture, God is strong to save, but weak without our co-operation. And we are weak in that we need help, but strong in our ability to thwart God’s hopes and plans.

The Bible has a very different picture. We are a lot weaker and God is a lot stronger.

My friend continued explaining the analogy and put forward that the picture that Calvinism (and the Bible) presents, is more like this…

You are not at the top of the water’s surface, waving your arms around for God to save you. You are dead. At the bottom of the ocean. Stone, cold dead. No hope. No life. No chance to respond to an offer of salvation. Dead.

God is completely sovereign over the entire salvation process. He does not sit there on the rescue boat crossing his fingers and hoping that you’ll respond. You can’t respond. God knows this because he caused this to happen. Our deadness to God is part of God’s curse on the world for it’s rejection of him.

Now, God could very rightly and justly leave us dead and without hope, for that is what we deserve, but for some amazing reason, wrapped up in his amazing love and generosity and his desire to show his glory to the Universe, he does not leave us dead at the bottom of the ocean.

God chooses, or elects, some people to come alive. He brings them to the surface of the ocean and there he holds out his hand, which the newly alive person naturally and irresistibly grabs with whatever faith they now have, and so they are plucked out of the water and brought from death to life.

From the beginning to the end God is sovereign as no dead person can make themselves alive, and although there still is an offer and an acceptance, it is one that is irresistible and one has been made completely possible by the will of God from beginning to end. This is Calvinism.

Now, there are Bible verses here and there that people use to argue against Calvinism, but I believe they don’t actually contradict Calvinism, but just deepen our understanding and picture of the Sovereignty of God and what it looks like from a human perspective. There are far more verses and passages that explicitly support Calvinism and although I know it’s a bit biased, I’ll list some of these verses. (If you want me to blog further on the arguments for and against Calvinism, please write a comment asking for it!)

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” – John 6:44

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.” – Colossians 2:13

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” – Ephesians 2:1-9

“Yet, before the twins [Jacob and Esau] were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’ What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” – Romans 9:11-18

“When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” – Acts 13:48

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves... In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.” – Ephesians 1:4-6, 11-12

Now, if you’re new to these ideas, you are probably asking the same questions I did when I first started to grasp it, like: “If people can’t save themselves and it’s God who choses who will be saved and who won’t, then why doesn’t God simply just save everyone??”

It’s a valid question, and one that I won’t actually answer in depth here (Sorry! Again, write a comment and ask me to if you want) other than to say that the Bible is clear that not everyone gets to heaven. The question is, who’s ultimately in charge? If we’re free to chose whether or not we go to heaven, why doesn’t God just set up the circumstances so that we chose him? This makes God out to be very weak, very quiet and not very beautiful, as people seemingly of their own free will, pass him over and reject him.

Calvinism paints a glorious picture of God. A God that rules all things, including the ultimate destiny of every soul. A God that is so wonderful and desirable that if you are granted the gift of spiritual life and sight, you can’t help but put your faith in him.

All people, by God’s just and holy determination in response to our sinfulness, are destined for hell, and it only by his free act of merciful choice, that he plucks some of us out in order that we may enjoy him forever.

Why he does not chose to save us all, I do not know. God could rightly send us all to hell, and God could also rightly (thanks to Jesus) save us all from hell. It must be that God, who always does what is best, knows that in the end, it is better that he saves some rather than all. It seems unfair initially, but we must always remember that it is never unfair for God to send a sinner to hell. If I was going to hell, I couldn’t say to God that it was unfair that he was not merciful to me, because mercy itself is not fair. Judgement is fair, and God may at his own will and for his own reasons, decide to have mercy on whom he wants to have mercy (Romans 9:18). Jesus told a great parable explaining this very point in Matthew 20:1-16.

Now, I know I haven’t answered all the questions you may have on that topic, but I want now to turn your attention to the actual main point of this blog (yes, that’s right, that was all just introduction!)

The second big question I began asking as I started wrapping my head around Calvinism and the Biblical picture of salvation, was this one:

“If it’s God that saves people from beginning to end, what’s the point of evangelism??”

That was a big problem for me. I loved sharing my faith and I believed that people only needed the gospel explained in a way that was clear and compelling and they would happily choose it. But these new ideas were telling me that no matter WHAT I did and no matter WHAT I said, dead people don’t respond to the gospel and if God hadn’t chosen them then my evangelism would do as much good as preaching in a mortuary.

Also, it meant that if God HAD chosen them, then they would be saved whether I shared the gospel or not. Maybe I wouldn’t get to see them come to faith, but somehow, some way, the God that had chosen them before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) would make it happen.

So what was the point of evangelism?? If God’s completely sovereign, doesn’t that make evangelism superfluous? Can’t I just leave the whole evangelism thing up to God and save myself all those awkward and painful conversations? Why does God ask us to teach and preach and proclaim and appeal and call people to repentance and faith, if their response is totally at the whim of a Sovereign God?

Well, if those questions are rattling around in your head, then know that I understand. I have been thinking about it on and off for many years, and just recently I have come to an understanding that I have found very encouraging. It has filled me with great wonder and joy in our Sovereign God and has spurred me on to both be prayerfully dependent on God to act and bring people to life, as well as at the same time, given me a purpose and boldness in my evangelism that has led me to be more active than I have been in a long while.

Sorry to leave you in suspense, but I think I might leave this here for tonight, and fill you in on my insights as soon as I can.

Read part 2. Click here!

Please leave me comments and questions!

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