Most scholars believe that before Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John ever got written down, before Romans, before Revelation, before any of it, Paul sat down around the year 50 and wrote a letter to a small struggling church in Thessalonica.
And not only that, but this is one I keep coming back to as I see Christians trying to police the morality of the entire world:
"I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. 'Expel the wicked person from among you.'”
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 NIV
We are clearly not called to enforce Christian morality on an unbelieving world.
In that same letter, there's also the statement in 1Cor2:15 where Paul says that while the spiritual man judges all things, he himself is not subject to any human judgment. Try that on the next lot who try to judge you!
Icky memories of being coached at a church camp retreat on how to minister to (read: convert) our assigned inner city kids are now front and center 🙄 I also grew up with calls to evangelize to people I know ("Invite your friends to church!") and it always, always felt awkward. I used to put it down to generic social anxiety (which is somewhat true), but now I think it's because I knew even as a teenager that I was being asked to do something that would make other people uncomfortable, and I didn't like that.
I also think that, as far as the Great Commission is concerned, Jesus did ask us to make disciples and spread the gospel, yes, but that command doesn't mean "convert people to Christianity." It never did, because a) Christianity as we know it didn't exist back then, and b) converting people is not our job. That's something that has to happen internally, on the person's own terms. I believe Jesus was talking about helping people become attuned to His way of living and loving (which, when you think about it, does not require becoming a Christian), and that the gospel He was talking about was something more like "God loves you and He wants you to love other people in the same way," not "If you believe I died on the cross for you, then you are saved and you get to go to heaven!"
Coming back to your earlier note about prevenient grace, which expresses what I have come to think of as the foundation.
I felt bad because I could not bring myself to do the aggressive “evangelism” my church wanted. Eventually, I left there and went to work for a nonprofit that housed the homeless while I couldn’t be sure members of the old church knew who worked across the street at Safeway. Given the circumstances of getting that particular job, I believe God’s grace was at work.
This is one of your best. I shared it with one of my best friends who believes he is called to share the Gospel. He and a retired Baptist minister are planning a class to help people do that. I shared this with him so he will think about what you have said and perhaps reflect on what you have said which is so true.
Icky indeed. I remember feeling the same when we did 'pub evangelism' here in the UK. We went into a local pub and talked to some lovely, open-hearted people, on the fictional pretext that we were 'doing a survey' and this made people open up. How dishonest was that. Never again. Never, ever again. Icky indeed; but I think I might have felt double icky because of the deception element.
Fortunately, we never used the "If you died tonight, do you know for certain you would go to heaven?" question. I say that because actually, for *most* Evangelicals (or at least those who don't believe in 'once saved, always saved'), they are selling a false bill of goods. The truth is that people like that*don't themselves know* where they'd go if they died tonight.
Let's say that the moment of death for one of those believers comes when he's in a parking lot, and suddenly sees that an armed robbery is going down. One of the robbers sees our believer friend watching and, so there are no witnesses, he shoots our friend dead. Our believer sees the pistol turning towards him and, in that last moment of consciousness, he thinks 'You b@stard!' and then he's dead. He doesn't have the time to ask for forgiveness, nor to 'keep short accounts'. So it's off to the big fire he goes, because of that one 'unconfessed sin'.
Or maybe he 'becomes a Christian', but he's gay, or he's addicted to porn, or whatever perceived 'sin' his new church wants to convince him of, and he can't 'break free' from that. So is that assurance of where he will go, is that now cancelled? I think the point is that, according to any legalist who claims that yes salvation is by grace but we need to hold on to it by works - which is most of them, really - their salvation is not as ironclad as they want to think it is, and certainly not as ironclad as the version they use to sell Jesus to their victims. So they are selling a false bill of goods. Not that they can usually think to that level, of course...
Yes!
And not only that, but this is one I keep coming back to as I see Christians trying to police the morality of the entire world:
"I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. 'Expel the wicked person from among you.'”
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 NIV
We are clearly not called to enforce Christian morality on an unbelieving world.
Thank you. I recently read that passage and had a good deal of trouble with it—I argue with Paul a lot. Your thoughts help a lot.
In that same letter, there's also the statement in 1Cor2:15 where Paul says that while the spiritual man judges all things, he himself is not subject to any human judgment. Try that on the next lot who try to judge you!
Icky memories of being coached at a church camp retreat on how to minister to (read: convert) our assigned inner city kids are now front and center 🙄 I also grew up with calls to evangelize to people I know ("Invite your friends to church!") and it always, always felt awkward. I used to put it down to generic social anxiety (which is somewhat true), but now I think it's because I knew even as a teenager that I was being asked to do something that would make other people uncomfortable, and I didn't like that.
I also think that, as far as the Great Commission is concerned, Jesus did ask us to make disciples and spread the gospel, yes, but that command doesn't mean "convert people to Christianity." It never did, because a) Christianity as we know it didn't exist back then, and b) converting people is not our job. That's something that has to happen internally, on the person's own terms. I believe Jesus was talking about helping people become attuned to His way of living and loving (which, when you think about it, does not require becoming a Christian), and that the gospel He was talking about was something more like "God loves you and He wants you to love other people in the same way," not "If you believe I died on the cross for you, then you are saved and you get to go to heaven!"
Oh man. I love this. Words for what my heart has known since I first entered a church.
Coming back to your earlier note about prevenient grace, which expresses what I have come to think of as the foundation.
I felt bad because I could not bring myself to do the aggressive “evangelism” my church wanted. Eventually, I left there and went to work for a nonprofit that housed the homeless while I couldn’t be sure members of the old church knew who worked across the street at Safeway. Given the circumstances of getting that particular job, I believe God’s grace was at work.
This is one of your best. I shared it with one of my best friends who believes he is called to share the Gospel. He and a retired Baptist minister are planning a class to help people do that. I shared this with him so he will think about what you have said and perhaps reflect on what you have said which is so true.
Icky indeed. I remember feeling the same when we did 'pub evangelism' here in the UK. We went into a local pub and talked to some lovely, open-hearted people, on the fictional pretext that we were 'doing a survey' and this made people open up. How dishonest was that. Never again. Never, ever again. Icky indeed; but I think I might have felt double icky because of the deception element.
Fortunately, we never used the "If you died tonight, do you know for certain you would go to heaven?" question. I say that because actually, for *most* Evangelicals (or at least those who don't believe in 'once saved, always saved'), they are selling a false bill of goods. The truth is that people like that*don't themselves know* where they'd go if they died tonight.
Let's say that the moment of death for one of those believers comes when he's in a parking lot, and suddenly sees that an armed robbery is going down. One of the robbers sees our believer friend watching and, so there are no witnesses, he shoots our friend dead. Our believer sees the pistol turning towards him and, in that last moment of consciousness, he thinks 'You b@stard!' and then he's dead. He doesn't have the time to ask for forgiveness, nor to 'keep short accounts'. So it's off to the big fire he goes, because of that one 'unconfessed sin'.
Or maybe he 'becomes a Christian', but he's gay, or he's addicted to porn, or whatever perceived 'sin' his new church wants to convince him of, and he can't 'break free' from that. So is that assurance of where he will go, is that now cancelled? I think the point is that, according to any legalist who claims that yes salvation is by grace but we need to hold on to it by works - which is most of them, really - their salvation is not as ironclad as they want to think it is, and certainly not as ironclad as the version they use to sell Jesus to their victims. So they are selling a false bill of goods. Not that they can usually think to that level, of course...
I believe you are spot on! God is far more concerned with who we are becoming as a person than what we do in the name of God!
Great verse (1 Thessalonians 4:11) to anchor this on!
Im so vibing with this!
No ick
No force
No striving
Just alignment, peace and love demonstrating God’s peace and love to our neighbors