Reconciling Calvinism with Evangelism

As debates of predestination and free will have lingered and in some instances raged throughout my apartment, car and other places that I may be found, one concept that always comes up is evangelism. More to the point, what role evangelism can play in Calvinism or in a world that is predestined. The usually argument that arises goes along these lines, "If we are predestined and God has already chosen who is going to heaven and who is going to hell, what is the purpose of evangelism?" This thought has honestly had me a bit befuddled, what is the purpose if God will save his elect no matter what? What about Paul? Paul never heard the Gospel, but Jesus came down from the sky, spoke to him and saved him. That is predestination right there, isn't it? No evangelism, simply Jesus knocking you on your butt and saving you. Yes, that is predestination, but this isn't what we are called to, which we see Jesus when gives the Great Commission. I am going to make an interpretation of the Bible that may not be the most educated in order to try and reconcile Calvinism with evangelism.

When people are presented with ideas of Calvinism and the Armenian thought, it can easy to drift in polar opposites. If you look at the Armenian thought and continue to decipher it logically, it can be very easy to wind up down the road at open theism which is considered by many including yours truly to be heretical. On the other side, you can wind up as a hyper-Calvinist where grace abounds, we do not need to worry about how much we sin and we do not need to worry about evangelism because God will do the job for us. This I also disagree with this logic, and think that it goes against what we are called as Christians to do. We are called to flee from sin and in Great Commission, we are called to evangelize. But how do we reconcile these things that seem to make so much sense by themselves, how, or more importantly why should we do both of them? A wise man told me, "We cannot see the invisible church as God sees it, so we do not know who is saved, which leaves us with the responsibility to preach the Gospel as the Bible says." It isn't about us preaching the Gospel and by the work that we are doing necesarily saving people, but it is our duty to present and in a sense bring people to shake the hand of Jesus. I once heard in a movie from a character who was a priest that put it this way, "My job is people, God's job is souls." It isn't for us to save people, it is for God, but it is our job to love people and present them the Gospel.

In reading John I have this feeling in my heart that this is what Jesus is showing us. Mark Driscoll has said, "I work like an Armenian, but I sleep like a Calvinist," to me this means that we do the work of God as though it is our duty to save people, but when we go to sleep at night we know that we cannot save a single soul, that is what is left to God. Whether you side with the Calvinist or Armenian point of view, you probably are a Christian and our purpose as Christians is to live Christ like lives. Continually in chapter 5 of John Jesus opens sentences with, "Truly, Truly, I say to you," in my mind this is Jesus pleading with the people that he is telling the truth. Did everyone believe in Jesus the moment he started his minsitry? No. Jesus had to work painfully and tirelessly in order to bring people to salvation. He was working that people might know the truth of who he was that they might know eternal life. He was evangelizing, and if we are meant to live Christ like lives, how can we ignore this or the Great Commission?

Does this mean that we can save people if we preach them the Gospel and it is their choice to make? By no means! John also writes this in the same chapter 5:21 "For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will." Saying that ultimately, it is up to God the Father and God the Son to save whom they want to save. It is not of our doing, it is not of our choice, our choice was to sin and we made it, but it is of God.

Thus we must evangelize, but we also must not be frustrated if those we preach to do not get saved, because "Salvation belongs to the Lord!" (Jonah 2:9)

Hypocrisy

I would be sorry to all of you who have been following this blog for not posting anything in such a long time, but I am afraid no one is following this blog... Today's topic, hypocrisy. A certain man by the name of Mark Driscoll, some of you may have heard of him, will be involved in a debate that will be aired on ABC's Nightline about the question of Satan and whether or not he exists. But the point of this blog is not to discuss the debate or Mark Driscoll, but rather the responses that I viewed on the Seattle Time's website on an article simply stating that this event was going to occur at Mars Hill Church. I found myself wanting to laugh and scream more than applaud the nearly 80 responses that I read. Most of laughs and screaming would have been aimed at those who tried to show some knowledge of the Christian faith in order to sling arrows at it. However, most, if not all of them missed the target... By a mile. All this said to bring forth my point. In a city that is so centered on diversity and tolerance, why do we still not include everyone? I feel that if you are in Seattle and are a member of Bible believing church such as Mars Hill, you do not count as a person that deserves the love and tolerance granted to everyone else that lives in this city. I was speaking to a friend of mine a few weeks back about why he was an agnostic and wouldn't consider himself a Christian. His response, "all Christian's are hypocrits, and I can't stand that." The first thing that came into my mind was, you are right, as Christians we strive to live lives apart from sin and follow the call of Jesus and the Bible upon our lives. And yes, we are hypocrits, because it is impossible to live a sinless live, and we all fall short of the glory of God. But what makes this man sitting next to me free from hypocrisy? Simple, if you make your own rules, it is impossible to break them. Think of a world where everything was relative, and we believed and followed only that which we want and believe? Scary, huh? The sad thing is, the postmodern world that we live in teaches us that this is okay, and in Seattle that is the direction that we are headed in. This is the sad thing about the world that we live in, everything is relative. If it is okay for me, it is okay for me and that is all that matters. That is not what the God of the Bible teaches us, and if this is the god that you believe in, you might want to rethink the life you are living. The Bible is not a collection of writings that was put together nearly 2000 years ago that is now outdated, it is still relevent and is perfect. No adjustments need to be made but the adjustments in our lives. Is this intolerant? A little. But as I remember Jesus got mad at people on occasion, but did he still love everyone? Yes. I love this city and all the people that live in it, but I believe that the people of Seattle really need to think about the lives they are living and think about where they are headed. We are not the rulers of our own lives. We did not create ourselves and we do not save ourselves. If you think that there is no God, and there is no after life, fine. But if you believe in the after life and a heaven or hell, you should think about where you get that idea. You should think about what it looks like and how to get there. And when you have come to your conclusions about those questions, you should follow the God of the Bible, who saves us through his infinite love. Thank you Jesus for salvation, and new life, I pray that you would change the hears of the people in this city.