I remember when I was twelve years old, God peeked out of the shroud of experiential darkness. This is going to sound silly to a lot of you, but it was special to me nevertheless. I was at the Quail Creek Elementary School Carnival. All the kids went back to it after “graduating” elementary school for years (to show how cool the “post-grads” were). Each year they had a cake-walk. You know . . . where you walked around a circle of 36 numbers while music played. When the music stopped, you stopped. If you were on the number that they called, you won a cake. At that point in my life, I had never won anything that I can remember, but I wanted to win this cake so bad. So I prayed. “Dear God, if you are listening, please show me by allowing me to win this cake. Amen.” Music played. I walked. Music stopped. I stopped. They called out “32.” I looked down. I was on 32. Wow! It was something special. God made me win the cake walk. He really did care! He really was there. The next year, same time, same place, same prayer. And you know what? I won again. It was unbelievable to this now 13 year old kid. God was on my side!

I once heard someone say that God is often more evidently present in your life when you are a young Christian. I don’t have any biblical reason to believe that is true at all. However, recently it seems that God does often hide and he is hard to find.

God first seemed to be AWOL the day my sister died. Our family had yet to be touched with any significant grief. I was always the optimist, being the first to see the good in everything. I changed my life in the mid-nineties. It stuck. I was on a spiritual high through seminary. When things seemed to be going south in any way for anyone, I was the go-to guy because I knew God was present, even in evil. Everything in my life and career seemed as if God’s providential guidance was so present that if you took a picture of me and looked at the negative, you would see a clear picture of God’s hand over my head.

Immediately, after Angie died, I still took the road less traveled. When my mother had her aneurysm and stroke and lay in a nearly total incapacitated state, I became a bit confused. The miracle of her life being spared soon turned into a curse of pain, suffering, and heart-ache beyond anything her death could have hoped for.

It was very hard to see God in this. It is still hard to see God in it four years later. The change I had hoped it would bring about in dad has not been realized. In fact, I think he is worse off than anyone and it hurts to think about. So much so, I can barely stand to call him anymore. There are many other terrible details that follow here that I will not mention due to confidence. Suffice it to say that there has been a snowball effect of trouble that does not relent.

However, as I wrote at this time, I was still optimistic: it was raining in the front yard and sunny in the back. In short, while things in my family were very tough and God seemed to be hiding, things in the ministry could not be better. I took heart at what God was doing.

In ministry, it was so easy to see God’s movements. From the unlikely success in seminary, to my seamless hiring at the church of my hero, God was present. It was a cakewalk! The birth and growth of The Theology Program was amazing. I just sat back and watched as it turned into a ministry that simply could not have been more exciting to me. Everything I was touching was turning to gold (or at least the best kind of silver).

When did God start vanished from here? It is hard to say. (Sheesh…I am beginning to feel like this very blog post is a manipulative cry to him). Maybe it was when (and I am not going to mention particulars) a few groups of Christians attempted to legally pry The Theology Program away from the me. That was very discouraging. Maybe it was when I had to move back to Oklahoma to help with my mother and Rhome and I were separated. Maybe I felt that God was moving us to Norman in order to invest some time in a peripheral supportive ministry. I envisioned a software piece that would facilitate our online classes and it was really cool. However, I was forced out of the company through circumstances that left me scratching my head (that is all I will say about that). Now we are stuck in Norman and our house has been on the market for over 2 years.

My own exhaustion is a definite result of God’s hiding. Specifically, my exhaustion in raising funds for our ministry. This is the worst part of my job, hands down. Living every two weeks not knowing whether you or your employees are going to get paid the next takes it toll after a while. I simply cannot sit on my hands. I am fueled by vision. I see so many things that can happen and I open the doors for their realization, often finding myself second guessing my call to see that vision through due to financial shortfalls. Sheesh God…is it really that hard for you to cover our budget? It is not that big.

(As an aside: I don’t know if anything affects a man more than the prospects of not being able to take care of his family.)

I live in two worlds now. In one world with the ever present realization that the funds are going to dry up anytime. The one where God, for some reason, does not seem to want me here anymore. The world where my drive continually produces hope that things are going to change. The world that keeps me begging for money in humiliation. And the other world with the newspaper opened to the jobs section wondering “what on earth else am I qualified to do besides this.” In both, God is silent.

Where did I go wrong? Where did I fail to get off the highway? When did you completely shroud yourself in darkness? Why did you do that? I am tired. I have already called “uncle.” Am I less devoted to you now? Whatever it is that I’m supposed to be learning, I plead with you to give me a hall pass. Better: how about a raincheck? Can’t I just learn it in Heaven?

It is not as though I am walking away from God. It simply feels as though he is walking away from me.

Those of you atheists and former Christians who suspect that they are about to have another Christian cross over to the dark side, put up your party hats, blowouts, and (ahem) cake. I am not close. One thing that I have learned, believe, and teach with great conviction is that my circumstances do not have a vote in truth. Nothing that I go through can alter or affect the cardinal issues of my faith. Jesus Christ either died and rose from the grave or he did not. It is upon this that the entirety of my faith rests. It is not on my sister, my mother, my kids, my finances, my emotional ups and downs, the success or failure of my ministry, or my cakewalks. It is on the historical person and work of Christ alone.

In fact, these times give me more passion for what I do: instilling a strong theological foundation. I am motivated by the reality that all I have described here in this blog is not unique to me. I know that you all have your stories as well. I know that many of them will be much more tragic, desperate, and exhausting. My thoughts and prayers are with you. I don’t just say that. I often lay my head down in my own pain praying that people don’t let their pain dictate the truth of God’s reality, love, and plan.

God is not real only when I win a cake. I don’t know God loves me because I can pay bills. God is not active only when I find myself and my family in good spirits and health. God is real, active, and loving because of the reality of Christ and his work for me (and you) on the cross. Nothing can change that.

I know that there are those times when you look to heaven and all you see is the reflection of your own troubles, with no sign of help or hope. But we have to believe that God is on the other side, looking through a two-way mirror being intimately acquainted with our direness, full of love and concern, and guiding us through. He will pull us out of the mire one day.

Lord, though I have not won a cakewalk lately, I thank you that my faith is not resting in such things, but is grounded in the death, burial, and resurrection of your Son. This is precious to me. Let it be to all. But I still cry “uncle” once again.

(Follow-up): Ironically, while I was finishing up this post a 3am, my computer shut off automatically for updates. This was not much of a problem since I had a copy of most of it in an open word doc and because Wordpress automatically saves every minute or so. However, when I opened back up my computer, it said the Word doc was corrupted. Then I noticed that the internet was down and I did not know how long it had been down. I spent the next two hours trying to find this post. I attempted to hitchhike on my neighbor’s internet and for the first time, it was not working either. I called my ISP and learned that the internet was down. I thought to myself, “typical.” Finally I checked this blog through my iPhone and saw that it was saved, but some was lost. But my iPhone would not let me edit. Finally I went back to bed and tried to say “phooey,” but could not. Laid there for an hour arguing with God. Just now got back up (it is now 6 am) and checked again and the neighbor’s internet was working. I have done the first edit and wrote this. Now I am going to try to hit submit.

Not only this, but think of the students in other parts of the world who certainly would not have this opportunity. As well, what about the isolated pastors who have shepherded their flock with not much more than a Bible. They are now able to join with the church worldwide and feed from some of the most gifted members of the Body of Christ.

However, with all of these benefits, I don’t think we (the Church) should be too quick to rejoice to the detriment of the better option. I believe that traditional on-sadite training is by far the best option and I think we need to recognize this before we celebrate ourselves to the point of the demise of one of our most important and valued assets—the local seminary.

A couple of, side-notes, caveats, or whatever:

1. I know that I am going against the grain here. I also realize that I am going against the grain to, what some may believe, is my own detriment. Reclaiming the Mind Ministries, of which I am the founder and president, exists in large part due to our virtual constituency. We are facilitating the training of thousands of lay-people, ministers, and ministers-in-training all over the world. I think that we do online education just as good as anyone out there. However, we have never purported to be a seminary or a substitute for seminary. At best, we are a stepping stone for those who might go into seminary. However, in reality, we are here to make theology accessible to those who may never have a chance to get the type of education that a seminary provides. We do not encourage our students to use our ministry instead of seminary training. As well, one of our main thrusts is to get people to use our curriculum locally. We have thousands of churches who have used or are using The Theology Program in their local venue. This is part of the reason why we built the Credo House and why I still teach at local churches.

2. I am going to use somewhat of a heavy-handed conversation stopper (or at least primer). I have been to local seminary. I have experienced the rigors of being on campus at an experienced institution that knows what they are doing. I took 126 hours of courses on campus at Dallas Theological Seminary. I have also experienced online education in many different forms. Since 2001, I have been engaged in utilizing the power of the internet to educate people in theology. I will continue to do this. Therefore, I speak from experience. I know what both are like. (Here comes the heavy hand): One simply cannot compare the level of training—the type of training—that is available onsite to that which does not come readily or easily online. Onsite training from a good institution that knows what they are doing is simply much more effective. Those who have not experienced onsite and online training like this do not have the experience to make effective arguements otherwise.

Okay, now to a few particulars:

RE: Online Ed vs. Onsite Ed

“But online education is just as good as onsite education. Michael, you need to get with the times.”

One thing that you have to understand about my thinking here is that preparation for ministry involves much more than education. If education is all you seek, I agree that online venues can provide such. But preparation for ministry goes beyond education in the proper sense. Besides many intangibles, the primary thing I speak of is mentorship that includes particular encouragement, shaping, fellowship, and discipline. Is it theoretically possible that these things can happen online? Maybe. But not only are they much much more difficult, it simply is not happening.

It is like the debate about virtual churches vs. traditional churches. There is simply no way to argue that online fellowships provide the same intangibles and commitment as being there in person. It is the same with seminaries. It comes in the after class discussions, the group projects, the lunches with the professor, the office meetings where your professor looks at you in the eye and tells you that your paper was an irresponsible mess and you had better take things more seriously (and you crying afterword!). Its about the library as you view all the theological material that is out there on certain subjects. Its about standing in front of your peers (scared to death) giving a sermon (and then being ripped apart by both peers and your professor who truly want you to grow). Its about the encouragement you receive as you are walking down the hall from a classmate who says that your presentation was great. And a thousand other things that simply do not happen to the same degree online.

One further disclaimer:

I am all for using the internet when necessary. Please don’t hear me saying that online training is completely worthless. When there is absolutely no other option, it is most certainly a hundred times better than doing nothing. I am simply saying that we need to get back to promoting the need for and value of  local seminaries. Face-to-face discipleship, discipline, dedicated professors, fellowship, and the mental seriousness that is involved in taking your family and moving away to concentrate on your studies and preparation are much more available in local seminaries. And they are much more effective at producing serious and well-prepared pastors and ministers.

RE: Local Church vs. Seminary

“Shouldn’t the local church be training its ministers, not seminaries?”

I would be inclined to say that local churches can provide a better preparation for ministers than online education, but they have their weaknesses as well. You have to remember, there is a reason why the seminary got set up the way it did—increased effectiveness in training. They certainly are not in it for the money!

Think about this: Could local hospitals provide a better place for training than medical school? Not really. Why? Because that is not their focus. They are there to practice medicine. There is a reason why a different type of venue needs to be set up for both—effectiveness in all things pertaining to the training as well as a concerted effort with a very particular purpose. The local church and hospitals serve for residencies, not the primary training venue.

It is like people who ask me after a theology class: “Why isn’t this stuff taught from the pulpit?” My answer is that it is not very likely that teaching systematic theology (along with all the reading and work that is involved) would be as effective from the pulpit. Sure, we are to teach good theology from the pulpit, but thinking that the pulpit can be used as both a place where the word of God is preached with the primary purpose of exhortation and where systematic theology (not to mention the original languages!) can be taught with the primary purpose of educating is simply naive.

At Stonebriar Community Church we knew that since we were so large there were things that we could provide that other churches could not. We had a greater pool of resources, both financial and people, to draw from to accomplish certain things. For example, because of our size, we could provide a biblical counseling ministry that was focused only on helping people who are struggling with addiction, having problems in their marriage, or suffering from depression. Smaller churches from all over would send their people to us because the pastor knew he did not have the time, training, or experience to deal with many issues. We were glad to be there. But even then, we knew that there were certain cases where we had to “outsource” to others who were even more qualified to deal with particulars. These were Christian agencies that focused on certain areas and had even more experience.

The local church cannot expect to do all things and do it well. The local church needs to know where to send people, not attempt to be a “be-all” place that arrogantly thinks it can handle everything. Wisdom is involved here. The same goes with seminaries. Sometimes local churches can provide very good education for their people. Sometimes they might have The Theology Program or The Bethlehem Institute. But most of the time even these will lack what local seminaries can provide.

Even Paul, in the early church seems to have set-up different venues for different types of training. Sure, he did not call it a seminary in Ephesus, but the principles about which I speak were present.

In the end, seminaries provide a particular venue where certain types of education can be done with greater effectiveness with professors who are devoted and gifted differently. The local church should stand behind, support, and facilitate the seminaries. This is not a competition folks.

RE: Foreign Christians without the opportunity of a seminary

“What about all those people who do not have access to a seminary overseas?”

This is a good question, but we must put it in perspective. Many people often don’t have the opportunity to learn from the full complement of the Scripture either. Some places only have the Gospel of John translated. Since they are deprived of these important books, does this mean that we should not talk about their need for Romans, Revelation, or the Old Testament? Of course not. The church should come to the aid of those who don’t have a full canon, translating all the Scripture into their language. We should also come to the aid of those who don’t have opportunities to educate through seminary type of training. However, one thing is certain, in the case with the canon and seminary training we don’t bow to the lease common denominator. It is not about being politically correct saying to the next person, “Well, you have a good heart and are working really hard with what you do have. We don’t want to act like we are better than you so we will just say that we are even.” Again, it is not a competition. It is about being faithful to the Great Commission, making disciples of every nation. Discipleship, training, and education can be better and it can be worse. Let us strive for the better, understanding that many will still not have these opportunities.

1. Do you have an unrelenting passion? This involves a burning desire in your heart to impact the lives of others. It is a giddy excitement that others may gawk at. (Have you seen this gawk?) It is the type of passion that causes you to lose all other options and directions due to a mind that wanders to the feet of the Lord. I loosely paraphrase Charles Spurgeon: “If there is anything else that you can do, anything, do it. But if ministry is the only option that will satisfy you then consider it.

One of the things about being in ministry is that were something to happen, you are not normally qualified for anything else. I have often been brought to the place where I had to start considering other “career” moves and I get very depressed. Not only can I not find a passion for anything else, I am not qualified for anything else. I just don’t know what else I would or could do. I am committed to ministry. There is an internal compass that won’t point in any other direction.

2. Do you have personal integrity? Integrity, not perfection. None of us are really “qualified” in an absolute sense. You will have continual feelings of inadequacy all the time. This is normal. But the life of a minister of the Lord should be above reproach. This means that you should not have any areas of your life that, if discovered, would bring shame upon the Gospel. People are looking to discredit God. They will use you to do so. In a way, you are the punching bag for God.

This is always hard for me as I often think, “If people knew this or that about me, wouldn’t that shame Christ?” Unfortunately my answer is sometimes ”yes,” but I don’t know if it has crossed “that” line. For this reason, I often preemptively strike at people’s criticism. I sometimes use this blog to do so! However, I do recognize that there is a line that we can cross. I sometimes don’t know where it is, but it is somewhere between perfection and debauchery.

Read the Pastoral epistles over and over. Are you given to any addiction, anger, attitudes that lack grace and gentleness? Is your faith in the Lord true? Are there any secret areas about which you are in denial?

3. Have other people been encouraging you to do so? I believe that if God is leading you to go into ministry and to go to seminary (which, in my book, should not be separated), then He will normally encourage you through other people. Whether it be teaching, preaching, or counseling, people must have seen a gift in you and said “Hey, have you ever thought about going to seminary or getting into the ministry?” Let other people help establish the reality of your qualifications. It is necessary to have many counselors.

I remember the first time someone suggested this to me. I was preparing a speech for a class in college. I practiced on some friends. Afterwards, one of them said, “You should think about going into ministry.” That said a lot to me as this was one of my old drinking buddies. She did not normally encourage in such a direction. I sought more and more opportunities to teach about the Bible. I started a Bible study at my work, began to teach Sunday School, led the Baptist Student Union Bible study at school, and on every date I went on, I would ask if I could teach them the Bible. (Kristie and I went through Acts, Romans, John, Genesis, and Revelation while dating. She had some tolerance to make it through that). Though all of this, I had many people encourage me to get into ministry.

Seek out opportunities. This implies much contact with people in the church. If you are not involved in the church right now, don’t even bother … there are other issues with which you need to deal. And (standing on soapbox) don’t say to yourself, “I don’t go to church because all churches are too corrupt,” or “I can’t find a church that I can have fellowship in, that is why I am going into ministry.” We don’t need any more of this type of vigilante “I’m-going-to-fix-everything” attitudes in the church. There are plenty of those already, thanks.

4. Are doors being opened through your experience? This has to do with financial doors and circumstances that make the path clearer. How are you going to pay? Where are you going to live? Do you know of a seminary that will take you? Have you got the right credentials? Also, I always encourage people to do it right if they are going to do it. Get trained. This means going to a good seminary that may cost more. This also involves being on campus full-time with virtual education being minimal to none. Don’t spread it out over ten years. Think of seminary like boot-camp. Its primary value is in the intensity and discipline that you put into your training. Therefore, it must be allowed to be intense. Just imagine if the Army spread out boot camp over a 6 year period where you just come in on weekends. That is not boot camp. What if they allowed for online boot camp? I would not feel safe in our country, would you? It’s the same thing with seminary. I have seen so many people take so long to get through seminary that the benefits were not really there in the end and, frankly, I believe they wasted a lot of time. Count the cost. Don’t get into this half-way. If half-way is your only option, I would say that you should consider that as a sign that it is not where God is leading you.

5. Is your spouse in support of your ministry direction? If the first three are accounted for yet your spouse is not in support of you being in ministry, you often should take this as a sign that God may not be leading you in this direction. Ministry, especially for those in the mission field or those pastoring a church, needs the support of the whole family. I am not saying that your spouse has to be involved at every turn, but they should have a supportive attitude in the direction that you are moving. In your spouse is completely against it, as a rule of thumb, don’t go. God will call you both together.

Kristie was in full support of me being in ministry, but not in support of certain directions that I could have taken in ministry. I allowed (and still allow) her calling to shape my calling. If your spouse’s calling is not your calling, then wait and pray. Let the Lord shape your direction. Be patient.

Also, don’t ever think that leaving your spouse is the “greater-good.” In other words, the Lord will not present you with a dilemma in which you are called to leave your spouse in order to fulfill a ministry calling. Your spouse is your first calling. While you are not in control over their spirituality or commitment to the Lord, you are in control of yours. If you were to leave you spouse for ministry, you are only undermining the sovereignty of God and the very foundation of your ministry. Doing so, in my opinion, disqualifies you (for a time) for that which you seek.

P.S. Please don’t attempt to debate the legitimacy of being “called” or what that means. As well, please save the “all-people-are-in-ministry” responses. I understand that we are all called to be ministers, but there are some who enter into a “professional” ministry or “full-time” ministry where they are not only ministers, but they make a living in this “field.” Oh, and a thousand other qualifications that pertain to ancillary debates that you may be tempted to get in to!

Spirituality is sourced in the work of the Holy Spirit.  Being spiritual means we are of the Spirit.  The spirit of man is connected with immaterial part of us that gives us life, will, emotions, and thoughts.  It is our heart, soul and mind.  Apart from God, man’s spirit is dead in sin and cannot respond to God properly  (Ephesians 2:1-3; 1 Corinthians 2:14).  This person is not of the Spirit.  This is why I believe an unbeliever cannot be spiritual – existential or experiential maybe – but not spiritual.

Therefore, it necessitates understanding the work and purpose of the third person of the trinity in relation to the believer.  We are unable to accept God’s gift of salvation without the work of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).  He baptizes into the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:26) and resides within the believer a mark they are God’s (Romans 8:9). The Holy Spirit gives gifts to every believer to be used for his purpose (1 Corinthians 12:6-7). He brings the ministry of Christ and the presence of God into our being (John 15:26) so that we may walk out a life that increasingly represents that connection into our lives – in thought, word and deed.

With the Holy Spirit residing in the believer, being spiritual means the believer is following after the spirit instead of the flesh because the two are opposed (Galatians 5:16-17).  The flesh here is not our physical bodies but it is a that nature endemic in humanity that opposes God and does not want to subject thoughts, words, or actions to him (Romans 8:7).  Being spiritual is opposite of carnality, which is allowing the flesh to dominate.  We are being carnal when we allow our thoughts, words and actions to mold themselves after that nature of flesh that wants to put us first instead of God, so that the ministry of Christ is not the predominating motive for us.  This is why Paul told the Corinthian church they were being carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1-4).

However, I believe many have turned the idea of being spiritual into an esoteric concept that divorces thoughts towards God from the reality of living in a physical universe in a physical body.  Spirituality becomes some type of mysticism that opposes the elements of reason and participation in culture.  It treats the material world as evil.  It becomes a way of attaining to a higher secret knowledge that others do not have.   But that is not spirituality it is gnosticism, which is based on ancient Greek philosophy of dualism whose fruits led to heretical ideas about Christ in the early church.  Nor is spirituality putting a God or church label on everything and dismissing what doesn’t have it as non-spiritual.  Spirituality is not just doing ministry; ministry can be carnal.  Spirituality is not separating from the world we live in and creating our own subculture but it is endeavoring to live in that world to bring Christ to it.  That is the purpose of allowing the Holy Spirit control of our lives.

Being spiritual means we are allowing the control of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that in all we do, points others to Christ.  Being spiritual means we are allowing the the gifts of the spirit to be used in a manner that glorifies God.  It means we are not allowing ourselves to be dominated by a system of thought that puts us and our desires at the center of the universe.  Being spiritual impacts all of our material and immaterial faculties so that Christ is represented in every area of our lives.  Being spiritual means that we can use reason and intellect in a way that puts God at the center of our thoughts instead of flesh. Being spiritual is maintaining an unbroken fellowship with God in the midst of a broken and fallen world while not allow its system of thought to motive our thinking.

So if we are performing our secular jobs in a way that glorifies God, that is spiritual.  When we sacrifice our time for the work of ministry, that is spiritual.  When we use our intellect to learn and understand more about our faith, that is spiritual.  When we make a choice towards God and away from ourselves, that is spiritual.

In his book, He That is Spiritual, Lewis Sperry Chafer says this

The spiritual life is not passive.  Too often it is thus misjudged and because of the fact that one, to be spiritual, must cease from self-effort in the direction of spiritual attainments and learn to live and serve by the power God has provided.  True spirituality knows little of “quietism”.  It is life more active, enlarged and vital because it is energized by the limitless power of God…Living in unrealities is a source of hindrance to spirituality.  Anything that savors of a “religious pose” is harmful.  In a very particular sense the one who has been changed from the natural to the spiritual sometimes needs to be changed to a naturalness again, meaning of course, a naturalness of manner and life.  The true spiritual life presents a latitude sufficient to allow us to live very close to all classes of people without drawing us from God.  Spirituality hinders sin, but should never hinder the friendship and confidence of sinners….True spirituality is an adorning.  It is most simple and natural and should be a delight and attraction to all. (Chafer, pp 140-141).

I think Dr. Chafer makes some good points about being spiritual.   I highly recommend reading his book.

All translations have their particular characteristic that makes them unique. Bible translations will distinguish themselves in two primary ways:

1. What underlying Greek text do the translation use? Is it the “Majority” or “Received” text (a group of late Greek text that primarily comes from the Byzantine area) or the Eclectic/Critical text (mixture of different types of manuscripts, primarily using the earliest text). The KJV, NKJV, and many older translations used the former, while the newer and more up-to-date Bible’s such as the NAS, NIV, ESV, NLT, NET, etc. use the latter. We should also use the latter since most believe that they represent the better manuscripts.

2. Bible’s also differ in purpose, all of which have their place. Was it written for study or reading? Was it written for the seminary or the church? When available, you should have a variety of translations for different purposes, but you must understand the differences. Here are the three translation methods:

• Formal Equivalence: Translations that seek to translate word for word (although this is really impossible). Examples: NAS, KJV, ASV, ESV. Less readable, but better for study in contemporary languages. Why? Because they will usually attempt to make fewer interpretive decisions on any text that can be understood in many ways. This allows the reader to struggle through the options.
• Dynamic Equivalence: Translations that seek to translate thought for thought. Examples: NIV, TNIV, NRSV, etc. Not quite as good for deep study, but usually better for reading and memorization. Dynamic equivalence translations make good pulpit or teaching Bibles.
• Paraphrase: Translations that seek to use common language and idioms to get the basic point across in a very readable way. Examples: Message, Philip’s Translation, NLT, GNB, etc. While paraphrases are not good for study or memorization, they are very readable and cause you to read the text differently than you normally would. In this respect, they have great value.

Most of the translations can be found here at BibleGateway.

My suggestion is to have some of each. I recommend the NIV, ESV, NET, NAS, and the Message. The NET, in some ways, is the best of all worlds as it contains many study notes that explain when a passage should be translated differently. I guess the NET translation methodology could be called an eclectic (that is why I could not place it on the above chart–it may need its own category!). While I believe the NET is the best study Bible available on the market today, because of its unconventional translation philosophy, it is not very smooth in its reading and, therefore, does not make a good memorization or pulpit Bible.

Finally, what good would this post be without a chart?

Christianity is often confusing. Reality is often confusing. There are certain things that we believe that simply must be, but they don’t “add up.” A good theologian needs to have worked through this. While we should be extremely diligent and committed to a task of understanding truth, a lack of understanding does not necessarily mean that it cannot be true. In other words, coherence is not the final and infallible test of truth.

It is interesting to me to see the charges of “incoherency” that we can often bring against those who oppose our perspective. Calvinist do so with Arminians and Arminians do so with Calvinists. Egalitarians to so with Complementarians and Complementarians do so with Egalitarians. “You view simple does not account for __________ and my view does. Therefore, my view is right.” Or, “If what you say is true, here is the crazy situation you find yourself in . . .” Formally, these type of arguments are called reductio ad absurdum and they are more often than not very effective in giving logical and emotional credit to your case.

Don’t get me wrong, much of the time this can be a legitimate charge that should give pause to the proponent. So I am not saying that incoherency is a position of value by any means.

However, I think that Christians must realize that there are some things in our world view that are going to be beyond our coherence tolerance.

Let me talk about this word “incoherency” for a moment. Here are some synonyms for what I am talking about: unintelligibility; inconsistency; incomprehensibility; discontinuity.

What I am talking about are those things that we believe which lack some degree of viability due to their confused nature. This confusion may be emotional or intellectual. It may be based on how we feel things should be or how we think things should be. In some sense, these things lack a degree of credibility due to our inability to coherently understand them and relate them to other things we know.

Here are some examples:

1. Calvinistic understanding of predestination: A belief that while God loves everyone, he only chose a few.

2. Arminian belief in libertarian freedom: A belief that an act of our will can be birthed from neutrality.

3. Christian belief in creation ex-nihilo: A belief that God created all that there is from that which does not exist.

4. Christian doctrine of the Trinity: God is one in substance, three in person.

5. Christian belief in the hypostatic union: Christ is fully God and fully man; one person, two complete natures which are neither confused or divided.

6. Christian belief in human freedom and divine foreknowledge: God exhaustively knows the future, yet the future is a result of free choices, including God’s.

7. Christian belief that God is transcendent and imminent: God, in his essence, transcends time and does not experience a succession of moments yet he truly interacts in time.

8. Jesus Christ’s incarnation and fellowship in the Trinity: The Second member of the Trinity, while in eternal transcendent immutable unity in the Godhead, becomes forever incarnate in a time-bound universe in Christ.

9. The atheistic view that there is no ultimate beginning (some atheists): An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed, yet we have somehow traversed an infinite number of moments to get here.

10. Christian belief in God’s universal foreknowledge and love and in the doctrine of hell: Although God is good and loving, he chose to create people who he knew were going to reject him and go to an eternal hell.

Now this is a large and varied list. Many of these I agree with and some I don’t. Some of these represent outright contradictions and analytical absurdities, and some are legitimate mysteries that possess no formal absurdity, but are incoherent from the standpoint of a limited observer. Some are a standard part of Christian orthodoxy and some are positions about which there is legitimate disagreement and alternatives. Obviously, not all are in agreement about which fits into what category. Christians would all agree that #9 presents a logical absurdity. I will leave it to you to decide on the rest for now!

Some people distinguish between a contradiction and a paradox. A paradox is something that may be true but beyond our understanding while a contradiction cannot be true by definition.

Let me focus on #10 for a moment. All branches of historic orthodox Christianity believe that 10 is correct. Whether you Roman Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian, Baptist or Presbyterian, all believe that God created people knowing that they would end up in hell. All orthodox Christians believe that it is biblical to teach these four things:

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

Of course, there are solutions, but all of them require changing what seems to be a clear teaching of Scripture as well as sacrificing one’s standing in orthodox Christianity for the sake of coherence, emotional or logical.

Here is what the options look like:

Open Theism:

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

Universalism:

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

Pantheism (though I don’t know of any “Christian” pantheism)

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

Hyper-Calvinism

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

In the end, I think it is best that we leave all four in place and recognize the paradoxical difficulty with this issue.

If absolute coherence, emotional or logical, is your goal, then you will never find a system that is completely satisfying. Never. Even in science, room must be left for anomalies (things that don’t make sense under the current paradigm of data). More importantly, I think it is vital to recognize that while coherence is indeed something we should diligently strive for, it is not the highest priority in the Christian faith. The highest priority for the Christian is to let rightly interpreted Scripture be our ultimate source for truth. Emotion and reason are not unimportant, it is just that they must be submitted to Scripture. Anyone can twist and manipulate Scripture to make it fit their idea of coherency. I see this done every day. Anyone can come up with a more palatable solution and force the puzzle to create a new picture, but palatability is not the final test of truth. Scripture is.

However, I don’t want it to sound as if incoherency is the highest ideal. I have also seen this “I-believe-because-it-is-absurd” mentality. We should never adopt such an irresponsible stance. While a modernistic ideal of perfect harmony in understanding is not our guide, harmony is more often than not a characteristic of truth. Disharmony and true incoherency are, more often than not, a hallmark of error.

As well, it is important to realize that just because something does not seem to have coherence, this does not make it truly incoherent. Often we are too limited to find coherence, even though it is actually present. In other words, just because something may seem incoherent to us, this does not mean that it is incoherent to God. While the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery to us, it is not a mystery to God. Some things in Christianity do not seem to have coherence, but this does not mean that they are truly incoherent. (And yes, this does make the title of this article misleading.)

In this, we must realize that there are some things that God has withheld information about for his own reasons. Could God have made everything perfectly understandable and emotionally satisfying? Most certainly. The fact that he has not does not make his truth any less true, it just mean that he, for some reason, from time to time, wants us to believe something even though he does not want us to understand it.

A very particular Scripture comes to mind here:

Deut. 29:29
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

The “secret things” are those things that God has, for whatever reason, intentionally withheld. But, thankfully, the emphasis in this passage is on “the things revealed,” and they belong to us forever.

God may never clear everything up. And he might make it all clear someday. I don’t know. As a Calvinist, one of the seemingly incoherent things that I believe is that God could have elected everyone, but he did not. Why? I will ask him one day. Will he tell me? I don’t know. Either way, I know that he is righteous and he is good. These missing pieces of the puzzle gives me no right to doubt him when he has already proven himself in so many ways. I know that if I dare to judge him by manipulating the truth to make it more palatable, he will prevail (Rom. 3:7).

While there are so many things we can understand, we must recognize that there is true mystery to which we must submit. When we get the temptation to judge God by manipulating the truth, let’s pause and learn to find stability even when things are not as palatable or coherent as we would like them to be.

After this terribly brief definition, I would like to cover some misconceptions concerning Calvinism by giving you a list of what Calvinism is not:

Calvinism is not system of theology that denies God’s universal love.

While there are some Calvinists who do deny God’s universal love for all man, this is certainly not a necessary or a central tenet of Calvinism. Calvinists do, however, believe that God has a particular type of love for the elect (an “electing love”), but most also believe that God loves all people (John 3:16). It is a mystery to Calvinist as to why he does not elect everyone. (More on this here.)

Calvinism is not a belief that God creates people in order to send them to hell.

Again, this is not representative of normative Calvinists. While supralapsarians do believe that God creates people to send them to hell, the majority of Calvinists are not supralapsarians. (More on this here.)

Calvinism is not belief that God is the author of evil.

Because of Calvinism’s high view of God’s sovereignty, many mistakenly believe that Calvinists hold God responsible for sin and evil. This is not true. There are very few Calvinists who believe that God is the author of evil. Most Calvinists believe that to ascribe responsibility for evil to God is heretical.

As John Calvin put it:

“. . . the Lord had declared that “everything that he had made . . . was exceedingly good” [Gen. 1:31]. Whence, then comes this wickedness to man, that he should fall away from his God? Lest we should think it comes from creation, God had put His stamp of approval on what had come forth from himself. By his own evil intention, then, man corrupted the pure nature he had received from the Lord; and by his fall drew all his posterity with him into destruction. Accordingly, we should contemplate the evident cause of condemnation in the corrupt nature of humanity-which is closer to us-rather than seek a hidden and utterly incomprehensible cause in God’s predestination. [Institutes, 3:23:8]”

 Calvinism is not a belief in fatalism.

A fatalistic worldview is one in which all things are left to fate, chance, and a series of causes and effects that has no intelligent guide or ultimate cause. Calvinism believes that God (not fate) is in control, though Calvinists differ about how meticulous this control is.

Calvinism is not a denial of freedom.

Calvinists to do not believe that people are robots or puppets on strings. Calvinists believe in freedom and, properly defined, free will. While Calvinists believe that God is ultimately in control of everything, most are compatibalists, believing that he works in and with human freedom (limited though it may be). Calvinists believe in human responsibility at the same time as holding to a high view of God’s providential sovereignty. (More on this here.)

Calvinism is not s belief that God forces people to become Christians against their will.

Calvinists believe in what is called “irresistible grace.” This might not be the best name for it since it does not really communicate what is involved. Calvinists believe that people are dead in the sin (Eph 2:1), haters of God, with no ability to seek him in their natural state (Rom 3:11; John 6:44; 1 Cor 2:14). Since this is the case, God must first regenerate them so that they can have faith. Once regenerate, people do not need to be forced to accept God, but this is a natural reaction—a willing reaction—of one who has been born again and, for the first time, recognizes the beauty of God.

Calvinism is not a belief that you should only evangelize the elect.

No one knows who the elect are. I suppose that if there was a way to find out, both Calvinist and Arminians (the other primary option to Calvinism) would only evangelize the elect (since Arminians also believe only the elect will be saved even though they understand election differently). Since we don’t know, it is our duty to evangelize all people and nations. Some of the greatest evangelists in the history of Christianity, such as Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards, have held to the doctrine of unconditional election.

Calvinism is not a belief that God arbitrarily chooses people to be saved.

Calvinists believe that God elects some people to salvation and not others and that this election is not based on anything present or foreseen, righteous or unrighteous, in the individual, but upon his sovereign choice. But this does not mean that the choice is arbitrary, as if God is flipping a coin to see who is  saved and who is not. Calvinists believe that God has his reasons, but they are in his mysterious secret will.

Calvinism is not a system of thought that follows a man, John Calvin.

While Calvinists obviously respect John Calvin, they simply believe that he correctly understood and systematized some very important Apostolic teachings concerning election, man’s condition, and God’s sovereignty. However, much of this understanding did not originate with John Calvin, but can be seen in many throughout church history such as Aquinas, Anselm, and Augustine. Ultimately, Calvinists will argue, they follow rightly interpreted Scripture.

Calvinism is not a system that has to ignore or reinterpret passages of Scripture concerning human responsibility.

Calvinists believe that all people are responsible to do what is right, even though, as fallen children of Adam, they lack ability to do what is right (in a transcendent sense; see below) without God’s regenerating grace. Therefore, God’s call and commands apply to all people and all people are responsible for their rejection and rebellion.

Calvinists do not believe that no one can do any good thing at all.

Calvinists believe in what is called “total depravity” (so do Arminians). However, total depravity does not mean that people cannot ever do anything good. Calvinists believe that unregenerate people can do many good things and sometimes even act better than Christians. But when it comes to people’s disposition toward God and their acknowledgment of him for their abilities, gifts, and future, they deny him and therefore taint all that they are and do. An unbeliever, for example, can love and care for their children just as a believer can. In and of itself this is a very good thing. However, in relation to God this finds no eternal or transcendent favor since they are at enmity with him, the Giver of all things. Therefore, it might be said, while all people can do good, only the regenerate can do transcendent good.

Calvinists do not necessarily believe that God predestines (wills) everything, including the color of socks I chose this morning.

There is a spectrum to belief about God’s sovereignty in Calvinism. The one thing that unites all Calvinists is their belief in God’s sovereign choice to elect some people to salvation and not others. However, Calvinists differ concerning God’s involvement in other areas (for more on this, see here). Some Calvinists believe in what might be called “meticulous sovereignty”, where God has not only predestined people to salvation, but also he has predestined everything that occurs. As the old saying goes: “There is not a maverick molecule in the universe.” However, most Calvinists believe in what might be called “providential sovereignty.” Here, Calvinists would distinguish between God’s permissive will and his sovereign will. In his permissive will, many things happen that he permits, but is not necessarily bringing about as the first cause. In his sovereign will, many things happen because of his direct intervention (for more on this, see here).

This is very common in our world. It is also, to some degree, understandable. People are tired of the search for answers and have decided to just enjoy the journey. While it may not be called “emerging” anymore, the mood is still present and represents a large portion of our culture and church.

For these, the search has brought them nothing but confusion and disillusionment. There are so many things that they used to believe—used to passionately believe—that they no longer believe. They are embarrassed about their former commitments. Because of this, the best approach to theological issues is a sort of “soft-agnosticism.” In other words, people are not saying that truth does not exist, they are simply saying that they don’t know what it is and they don’t think you do either.

As a coping mechanism, theology is distanced from “practical” (Christian) living. Orthodoxy (right thinking) is disassociated with orthopraxy (right living).

A few words of advice for those who find themselves here or heading here:

1. There is no way to distance yourself from theology. Even the belief that theology is impractical for Christian living is a theological belief. One would have to assume quite a bit about theology in order to make such an assertion. Agnosticism is a theological stance, and quit a complex one at that. You are a theologian whether you like it or not. The question is can you give sufficient warrant for your beliefs.

2. No one can live rightly without believing rightly. Most fundamentally, people act according to what they believe. As the old saying goes, “you are what  you eat,” a better version of this is, “you are what you believe.” Just because there is the possibility that you could be wrong, this does not justify an apathetic attitude toward theology. I appreciate people’s timidity and I wish that some people had more. We dare not to take the Lord’s name in vain. Silence is often better than speaking. But to harden one’s self into such a philosophy is the most dangerous proposition of all. When our practice is devoid of foundational beliefs, we will be carried about by every wave and current of thought simply ascribing to that which seem the most pragmatic at the time. Today, it is faddish to be apathetic toward theology. But this is not Christian. The Christian worldview is about theology first. It is about who Christ is. It is about what God has done. It is about following a definite person who we can point to and distinguish from others. It is about a definite hope. If you were to take these away, the who? what? why? and where? of our practice is void. Therefore, our practice is void.

Christianity rests first on what we believe, not what we do. What we do is a product of what we believe. Practice without belief does not please the Lord. There is simply no room for it in the Christian life.

3. Get over the fear of being wrong. Like the jilted lover who fails to seek a relationship because of the possibility of being hurt (again), many people fail to believe because of the possibility of being wrong (again). We are all going to be wrong about many things. But, there are many things that we are going to be right about. The Lord assumes such. The Proverbs commands us to be wise: “Acquire truth and do not sell it” (Prov. 23:23). You may have been jilted by truth before. Our way is called a “narrow gate.” You may be scared of recommitting yourself to the search. You may think you are beyond commitment. But you must do so anyway.

Who ever said the Christian life was easy? If you are looking for an easy life, join in with the world. There you can find enough apathy. Here, in Christianity, we will normally be called to go against the current. We usually take a road less traveled. We pick ourselves back up time and time again and continue the journey, knowing that there is a definite destination. The Christian life is about new beginnings.

My encouragement to those of you who have been jilted by theology is to stand back up. Let go of the assumptions that led you to think that it is always easy. The truth is like gold, fine gold. The truth will produce in you fruit that the unfertile ground of apathy cannot ever yield. Don’t commit yourself to the mire of disillusionment. So you have been wrong before. So what? So you have been misled before. So what? So you have fallen and been humiliated. So what? Get up. Just be careful. Learn from your mistakes. But open yourself up again to commitment. Don’t live a life of apathy. Take the road less traveled.

The concept of “free will” suffers no less with regard to this misunderstanding. Does a person have free will? Well, what do you mean by “free will”? This must always be asked.

Do you mean:

1. That a person is not forced from the outside to make a choice?
2. That a person is responsible for his or her choices?
3. That a person is the active agent in a choice made?
4. That a person is free to do whatever they desire?
5. That a person has the ability to choose contrary to their nature (who they are)?

Calvinists, such as myself, do believe in free will and we don’t believe in free will. It just depends on what you mean.

When it comes to the first three options, most Calvinist would agree that a person is not forced to make a choice, is responsible for their choices, and is the active agent behind those choices. They would reject the forth believing that a person is not free to do whatever they desire (for example, no matter how much one desires, he or she cannot read the thoughts of another person, fly without wings, or transport from one location to another just by thinking about the desired location).

It is important to note at this point, there is no conflict. No matter what theological persuasion you adhere to, most of historic Christianity has agreed that the first three are true, while the fourth is false.

It is with the fifth option there is disagreement.

Does a person have the ability to choose against their nature?

This question gets to the heart of the issue. Here we introduce a new and more defined term (hang with me here): “Libertarian Free-will” or “Libertarian Freedom.” Libertarian freedom can be defined briefly thus:

Libertarian Freedom: “The power of contrary choice.”

If you ask whether a person can choose against their nature (i.e. libertarian freedom) the answer, I believe, must be “no.” A person’s nature makes up who they are. Who they are determines their choice. If there choice is determined, then the freedom is self-limited. Therefore, there is no “power” of contrary choice for we cannot identify what or who this “power” might be. I know, I know . . . slow down. Let me explain.

First, it is important to get this out of the way. To associate this denial of libertarian freedom exclusively with Calvinism would be misleading. St. Augustine was the first to deal with this issue in a comprehensive manner. Until the forth century, it was simply assumed that people were free and responsible, but they had yet to flesh out what this meant. Augustine further elaborated on the Christian understanding of freedom. He argued that people choose according to who they are. If they are good, they make good choices. If they are bad, they make bad choices. These choices are free, they just lack liberty. In other words, a person does not become a sinner because they sin, they sin because they are a sinner. It is an issue of nature first. If people are identified with the fallen nature of Adam, then they will make choices similar to that of Adam because it is who they are. Yes, they are making a free choice, but this choice does not include the liberty or freedom of contrary choice.

What you have to ask is this: If “free will” means that we can choose against our nature (i.e. the power of contrary choice), if “free will” means that we can choose against who we are, what does this mean? What does this look like? How does a free person make a choice that is contrary to who they are? Who is actually making the choice? What is “free will” in this paradigm?

If one can choose according to who they are not, then they are not making the choice and this is not really freedom at all, no? Therefore, there is, at the very least, a self-determinism at work here. This is a limit on free will and, therefore, a necessary denial of true libertarian freedom.

Think about all that goes into making “who you are.” We are born in the fallen line of Adam. Spiritually speaking we have an inbred inclination toward sin. All of our being is infected with sin. This is called “total depravity.” Every aspect of our being is infected with sin, even if we don’t act it out to a maximal degree.

But even if this were not the case,—even if total depravity were a false doctrine—libertarian freedom would still be untenable. Not only are you who you are because of your identification with a fallen human race, but notice all these factors that you did not choose that go into the set up for any given “free will” decision made:

• You did not choose when you were to be born.
• You did not choose where you were to be born.
• You did not choose your parents.
• You did not choose your influences early in your life.
• You did not choose whether you were to be male or female.
• You did not choose your genetics.
• You did not choose your temperament.
• You did not choose your looks.
• You did not choose your body type.
• You did not choose your physical abilities.

All of these factors play an influencing role in who you are at the time of any given decision. Yes, your choice is free, but it has you behind them. Therefore, you are free to choose according to you from whom you are not able to free yourself!

Now, I must reveal something here once again that might surprise many of you. This view is held by both Calvinists and Arminians alike. Neither position believes that a person can choose against their nature. Arminians, however, differ from Calvinists in that they believe in the doctrine of prevenient grace, which essentially neutralizes the will so that the inclination toward sin—the antagonism toward Gog—is relieved so that the person can make a true “free will” decision.

However, we still have some massive difficulties. Here are a couple:

A neutralized will amounts to your absence from the choice itself.

Changing the nature of a person so that their predispositions are neutral does not really help. We are back to the question What does a neutralized will look like? Does it erase all of the you behind the choice? If you are neutralized and liberated from you, then who is making the choice? How can you be held responsible for a choice that you did not really make, whether good or bad?

A neutralized will amounts to perpetual indecision. Think about this, if a person had true libertarian freedom, where there were no coercive forces, personal or divine, that influenced the decision, would a choice ever be made? If you have no reason to choose A or B, then neither would ever be chosen. Ronald Nash illustrates this by presenting a dog who has true libertarian freedom trying to decide between two bowls of dog food. He says that the dog would end up dying of starvation. Why? Because he would never have any reason to choose one over the other. It is like a balanced scale, it will never tilt to the right or the left unless the weights (influence) on one side is greater than the other. Then, no matter how little weight (influence) is added to a balanced scale, it will always choose accordingly.

A neutralized will amounts to arbitrary decisions, which one cannot be held responsible for.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that libertarian choice could be made. Let’s say that the dog did choose one food bowl over the other. In a truly libertarian sense, this decision cannot have influences of any kind. Any decision without influences is arbitrary. It would be like flipping a coin. I chose A rather than B, not because of who I am, but for no reason at all. It just turned out that way. But this option is clearly outside a biblical worldview of responsibility and judgment. Therefore, in my opinion, the outcome for the fight for true libertarian free-will comes at the expense of true responsibility!

In conclusion: while I believe in free will, I don’t believe in libertarian free will. We make the choices we make because of who we are. We are responsible for these choices. God will judge each person accordingly with a righteous judgment.

Is there tension? Absolutely. We hold in tension our belief in God’s sovereignty, determining who we are, when we live, where we will live, who our parents will be, our DNA, etc. and human responsibility. While this might seem uncomfortable, I believe that it is not only the best biblical option, but the only philosophical option outside outside of fatalism, and we don’t want to go there.

Acts 17:26-28
“From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’”

Thoughts? Do you believe in free will?

My friend Robertson McQuilkin has frequently said, “It is easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension.”  I think that the “bad-news-first bears” (J) may serve as an example of this extreme.  The point is that we should be careful about making hard-and-fast formulas (or, if you like, formulae) about communicating Christ to others. A wider read of Scripture presents a mixed bag; it isn’t a formula—indeed, a “uniformula”—announcing first, “you’re a sinner” and only then “there is a Savior.” I’m not denying hell, judgment, sin, or the need for repentance. Jesus saved his harshest message of judgment for the hard-hearted religious leaders of his day (e.g., Matthew 23), and he called on his hearers to turn/repent and align themselves with God’s kingdom agenda.  

That said, Jesus had the strong reputation of being a “friend of sinners.” He reached out to the “unlikelies” of his day—those who, according to the religious authorities, were unlikely recipients of God’s kingdom blessings:  tax gatherers, prostitutes, Gentiles, lepers, the ceremonially unclean, the demonized.  Jesus let them know that God hadn’t forgotten them, that God was interested in them. Jesus illustrated the point that people need to know you genuinely like them and take an interest in them if your message is to get through to them. 

How many of those preaching divine judgment in our day do so with tears in their eyes (Philippians 3:18)?  How many of them have the reputation of being “friends of sinners”?  How many of them truly follow in the way of the Master?  It’s a lot easier to preach a message of judgment than to exemplify Jesus, who actually got involved in the lives of others. As David Kinnaman shows in his book unChristian (Baker), the unchurched are under the general impression that they are the “project” of the professing Christian.  Most of them come away from “witnessing” encounters with the impression that Christians—however well-meaning— are also legalistic and arrogant or superior-minded.  By contrast, the incarnate Christ had earned a right to be heard by paying the price of friendship with “outsiders.” Unfortunately, many of the law-first-grace-later messengers don’t exude a friend-of-sinners demeanor.

It seems that we should be careful about a formulaic method of communicating the good news.  After all, helping people connect with Christ is more a process than it is an event. This process includes friendship, the integrity of Christian character, a loving community, and time process the implications of Christ’s Lordship. (See Greg Boyd’s Letters from a Skeptic [Victor] that nicely illustrates the process—even if you or I may not agree with all of Boyd’s arguments.)

So let’s explore whether we must follow the bad-news-first method—or if there’s more to consider. This is one of my longer pieces; so hang in there with me!

First, people will at some point need to be aware of the bad news, but are we the ones who have to bring this up?  Too often we don’t even know where people are coming from.  Perhaps they’ve been burned by the church or certain professing Christians, and they may even have a visceral reaction to the term “Christian.”  Donald Miller puts it well in his Blue Like Jazz:

In a recent radio interview I was sternly asked by the host, who did not consider himself a Christian, to defend Christianity. I told him that I couldn’t do it, and moreover, that I didn’t want to do defend the term. He asked me if I was a Christian and I told him yes. “Then why don’t you want to defend Christianity?” he asked, confused. I told him I no longer knew what the term meant. Of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to his show that day, some of them had terrible experiences with Christianity, they may have been yelled at by a teacher in a Christian school, abused by a minister, or browbeaten by a Christian parent. To them, the term Christianity meant something that no Christian I know would defend. By fortifying the term, I am only making them more and more angry. I won’t do it. Stop ten people on the street and ask them what they think of when they hear the word Christianity and they will give you ten different answers. How can I defend a term that means ten different things to ten different people? I told the radio show host that I would rather talk about Jesus and how I came to believe that Jesus exists and that he likes me. The host looked back at me with tears in his eyes. When we were done, he asked me if we could go get lunch together. He told me how much he didn’t like Christianity but how he had always wanted to believe Jesus was the Son of God (Blue Like Jazz [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003], 115).

We may come in as spiritual storm-troopers rather than being “quick to listen and slow to speak.”  Yet in 1 Peter 3, Peter exhorts wives of unbelieving husbands to focus on the way they live their lives—quietly, gently, virtuously—so that their husbands may be won without a word even though they didn’t believe the word of God (3:1).  A virtuous life is a very attractive thing, and such a life may create a spiritual and moral longing in those previously disinterested in Christ—and this without a single word about anything, let alone sin!

Second, I have met plenty of “the encountered” who report that those “witnessing” about the bad-news-first commonly come across sounding judgmental, legalistic, and morally-superior, arrogant, and so on. Yes, rebels against God love darkness rather than light.  But our focal point ought not be a guilt-finding mission. Our consciously taking on Paul’s chief-of-sinners title would go a long way in building bridges.

Third, like the prodigal son, most people already know they carry shame or guilt and are looking for relief, hope, acceptance, and friendship. As Romans 2:4 reminds us, it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. Christian sociologist Rodney Stark comments: “Hell fire-and-brimstone sermons to the contrary, people respond far more strongly religiously to a carrot than to a stick.  This has long been recognized by missionaries.” Stark ends his comments with the quotation from John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (Rodney Stark, What Americans Really Believe [Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008], 78). 

Fourth, certain contemporary evangelistic methods in America would be deemed culturally insensitive in non-American contexts. Think of how missionaries are often taking years to learn a particular culture. Even once they have learned a foreign language, they still need to understand how the gospel connects to the culture and to the felt needs of people.   For example, Muslims tend not to feel guilty (which is assumed by many American evangelistic methods), but dirty, defiled, fearful, and often full of shame; so the string of stories in Mark 5 of Jesus’ authority over impurity, demonic powers, and death resonate with Muslims (see Nabeel Jabbour’s The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross [NavPress]). Yet well-meaning American Christians often don’t take time to contextualize the gospel when speaking with non-Christians.  They assume a ready connection exists between the non-Christian and the biblical worldview; this is, after all, “Christian America,” right? Even in 1913, J. Gresham Machen pointed out that caricatures and bad philosophies often prevent people from taking “sin” and the call to “repent” seriously. 

God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel.  False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel.  We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. (Christianity and Culture,” Princeton Theological Review 11 [1913]: 7.

The gospel will not instantly make sense for people who have a completely different worldview. (Consider the momentous response to pre-evangelized Jews at Pentecost in Acts 2 with the lesser response of pagans in Athens in Acts 17.)

Fifth, how many of us came to trust in Christ because a stranger told us that we were sinners? Or did we come through friends or relatives who modeled an attractive, redeemed Christian life? The drumbeat of statistics over the years reveals that 75-90% of those who have come to Christ and faithfully continue in their discipleship were introduced to the Christian faith through believing friends and relatives; this personal connection to the gospel came through love, acceptance, and a modeling of the Christian faith. (For example, Win and Charles Arn, The Master’s Plan for Making Disciples [Pasadena: Church Growth Press, 1982], 43).

Sixth, the idea that “this may be the non-Christian’s only chance to hear the gospel and she may not hear it again” often turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Becky Pippert observes that Christians and non-Christians have one thing in common; they’re both uptight about evangelism! That is, we may actually create an awkward, confrontational situation (I’ve done this before!), and the non-Christian is put off by it all.  As a result, the non-Christian doesn’t want to hear “the gospel” (or “whatever that was!”) again. Sometimes well-meaning Christians tend to take the entire burden of another’s salvation upon their shoulders and fail to trust in a sovereign God who may use us to be a stepping stone in another’s life.  In John 4, Jesus reminded his disciples that they were “reaping,” thanks to the faithful labors of others who had gone before them.

Seventh, the “what if the person dies tomorrow?” question raises issues about our own view of God’s sovereignty. Keep in mind that while we are to be responsible witnesses, we mustn’t diminish God’s sovereignty on this score either. Will God put people into hell just because of our human failure (of the Christian witness)?  Too often the “what if he dies tomorrow?” idea can often creates a forced “witness” that, in my experience, creates relational (not spiritual) awkwardness and turns people off on any Christian witness for the longer term.  Relationships that respect the process, trust the Holy Spirit, and allow people time to think through the implications of the Christian faith are (statistically speaking) far more effective and long-lasting than the short-term, “I must tell him now or else” approach.

Those touched by Jesus knew that he first was genuinely interested in them. Perhaps that friend-of-sinners approach has something going for it!  The confrontational method diminishes the listening and unfolding process involved in evangelism. The gospel should be expressed in a holistic and relational manner.  Otherwise it more often than not appears to be a judgmental sales pitch. 

Eighth, Jesus and other authorities in the New Testament don’t necessarily bring up sin at the outset, and they may in fact first “dangle the benefits of salvation” before them! The Samaritan woman in John 4 first received an invitation to receive living water so that she would never thirst again. It was only toward the end of the conversation that her being a sinner came up—which was actually an incidental point that almost didn’t get brought up!

The same goes for Paul in Athens (Acts 17). Though angered at its idols, he calmly built bridges with the Athenians, quoting the Stoic thinkers they were familiar with.  Mention of repentance came only much later in the discussion.

Again, Jesus own missional message in Luke 4:18 (citing Isaiah 61:1) affirms benefits of salvation: Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, freedom for prisoners, release for the oppressed, and the year of the Lord’s favor.  Notice that Jesus even leaves off “the day of vengeance” from the original Isaiah quotation!

Another famous Isaiah quotation brings good news without mentioning the bad news: ^“How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’  Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, they shout joyfully together; for they will see with their own eyes when the LORD restores Zion.  Break forth, shout joyfully together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem” (Isaiah 52:7-9).

Ninth, in what ways can we build bridges with our postmodern peers?  Try “idolatry”! While conviction of sin is important, we must be careful not simply to “scold” the postmodern or the “apatheist” (who doesn’t care if God exists or not) for, say, inferior moral standards or mushy views of truth. Yes, premarital sex or sexual lust is wrong, but usually we won’t connect with our audience if we focus on “doing bad things.” Rather, a more effective, and very biblical, emphasis comes by exposing the human tendency to make good things into ultimate things.  Using the specific term “sinner” may not readily resonate with the postmodern, but the scriptural theme of “idolatry” often does.  Idolatry is, as Tim Keller puts it, “building your identity on anything other than God.”  So rather than coming across as scolding non-Christians, we should take this advice:  

Instead of telling them they are sinning because they are sleeping with their girlfriends or boyfriends, I tell them that they are sinning because they are looking to their romances to give their lives meaning, to justify and save them, to give them what they should be looking for from God. This idolatry leads to anxiety, obsessiveness, envy, and resentment. I have found that when you describe their lives in terms of idolatry, postmodern people do not give much resistance. Then Christ and his salvation can be presented not (at this point) so much as their only hope for forgiveness, but as their only hope for freedom. This is my ‘gospel for the uncircumcised.’ (Tim Keller, “The Gospel in All Its Forms,” Leadership Journal 29/2 [2008]: 15).

As a side note, as we grow in Christ, we will increasingly come to grips with the depths of our own sinfulness, which pales in comparison to any sin-detection going on around the time of our conversion.  At the outset of our Christian pilgrimage, we are often oblivious to sin except in the most basic ways.  Note what the famed preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) wrote about his own experience:

Often . . . I have had the very affecting views of my own sinfulness and vileness, very frequently to such a degree as to hold me in a kind of loud weeping, sometimes for a considerable time together, so that I have been often obliged to shut myself up….When others that have come to talk with me about their soul’s concerns have expressed the sense they have had of their wickedness, by saying that it seemed to them they were as bad as the devil himself; I thought their expressions seemed exceeding faint and feeble to represent my wickedness . . . . My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long appeared to me perfectly ineffable [i.e., inexpressible] and swallowing up all thought and imagination–like an infinite deluge, or mountains over my head. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be, than by heaping infinite on infinite and multiplying infinite by infinite . . . .  When I look into my heart and take a view of my own wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell (Personal Narrative, Pt. XV).

Perhaps these reflections will give insight into more effectively helping others connect with the gospel. To reach people, we shouldn’t diminish the gravity of sin; rather, we should walk in the way of the Master, whose earthly ministry earned him the reputation of being a “friend of sinners.”  May the same be said of us redeemed sinners as well!