I don't ever post on here... but maybe someone searching for these will find this blog and then message me!
Aaron, Thank you for taking the time to write such a lengthy comment on my blog. I appreciate the time that must have gone into that. About asking Jesus into your heart… I am uncomfortable with the phrase "ask Jesus into your heart" because 1) it is never used in scripture to describe what is necessary to be saved and 2) it does not accurately represent what scripture declares is necessary to be saved and 3) I asked Jesus into my heart sincerely when I was 7 and was not saved. About "accepting" Christ... I am uncomfortable with the phrase "accept Christ" (though it's better than the above phrase because John talks about the need to receive Christ in his gospel and "accept" and "receive" can mean very close to the same thing. I still am uncomfortable with it, however, for the same reasons as above; it is undescriptive. Perhaps if the Christian community labored a bit (a lot?) more to explain what it meant specifically, then it would not be so devoid of meaning. Right now as I see it, it is simply a catch phrase used to summarize the call to the proper response to the gospel, yet few people really know what is being communicated when it's used. I know this because (many) people don't know the proper response to the gospel, so they can't possibly be inferring it from "accept Christ." About my general concern with phrases like these… I find it utterly refreshing to hear people say things like "I repented of my sin and trusted Christ for salvation when I was…" as part of their testimony, rather than "I accepted Christ at such and such an age." It is still quick and reasonable, but at least it describes the two necessary aspects of a saving response to the gospel, unlike many other phrases used. Again, I think that if we did a better job striving to make the meaning of the phrases we use clear, it wouldn't be such an issue. Along those lines, being explicit about what the phrases don't mean is important too, because different teachers may say they mean different things, and the people listening might not pick up on the contradiction unless the teacher explicitly states what he does not believe. About the prayer… I don't mean to be nitpicky, but God does not need our prayers to have a clear understanding of the change in our hearts. Here's how I would say what I think you're trying to say. Someone who has repented and put their trust in Christ will pray to God and confess their sin and express their faith in this tangible, visible way. If they do not, that could be a red flag that heart change hasn't actually takes place. Is this condition possibly what you mean by "we need to?" Correct me if I'm wrong. I definitely think having people repeat the prayer as a kind of rite of passage into Christianity is unbiblical and probably dangerous. Emotional sincerity at the time of the prayer is not a measure of the effectuality of that prayer, so a the caveat "only if you're sincere" is not really a sufficient caveat. It led me astray when I was 7. The only authoritative lexicon we have is the Scriptures, and the "prayer" is neither modeled, mandated, nor mentioned there. About rededication… Struggling through the faith (against indwelling sin) is a necessary and inherent aspect of becoming like Jesus. If you don't struggle against your sin, if you're not fighting it, you should be hard pressed to claim to follow Christ, because each of us is desperately wicked and were forgiven much and are children of light and flee from darkness. The author if Hebrews assumes we struggle (Heb 12:4). Paul struggled (Rom 7). Christians fight their sin, and sin is not beaten this side of eternity. Therefore, they will always fight. Sometimes the turmoil is totally inward and we don't see the struggle, and therefore we cannot ultimately decide whether someone is a Christian. However, some may act like it's wrong to ever be unsure or question someone's salvation. That seems to me to be perfectly legitimate. Why should I act like I'm sure of someone's salvation when their life doesn't line up with how the Bible describes. Why should I be assured of my own salvation if my life doesn't line up with how the Bible describes Christians? Those are my thoughts. I hope it helps.
To anyone who uses the phrases I am about to warn against (and anyone who might consider using them): I am for the gospel. I am for its spread. I am for its glorious proclamation. I am for making it more fully and clearly known. I am for letting people know that they are enemies of God but can be reconciled to Him through the blood sacrifice of Christ. I am for people becoming genuinely converted from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19), from a life lived in darkness to a life lived in the light (John 3). With these commitments in mind, let me say that I am convinced that phrases like "accept Christ" or "ask Jesus into your heart" hinder this process. I believe they hinder the communication of the gospel because they are not descriptive of God's good news or His required response to said news, and we (all Christians, not just professional theologians) should be striving with all our might to make it as clear as possible (Col 4:3-4), if indeed we believe it is so vital and so central to the faith (Gal 1:6-9). I see no Biblical precedent for these phrases, and have no reason to believe they either clearly communicate or sufficiently summarize the only right response to the gospel; therefore, it is my conviction that they ought to be discarded from our vocabulary. Two more phrases come up in my mind that I must address when I discuss this issue of clarity in gospel presentation. The first is "praying the prayer." This prayer is also referred to as "the prayer of salvation" or "the sinner's prayer" and usually is repeated after the evangelist who is leading the prayer phrase by phrase (though I did not repeat after someone when I prayed this prayer for the first time). Often, when I ask people their testimonies, they point to the time they "prayed the prayer" as the time when they became a Christian, and are unable to articulate that event beyond this phrase without serious coaching. The use of this phrase elevates outward conformity above the heart change that needs to happen, namely repentance from (turning from, hating) sin and faith (belief, trust) in Jesus Christ (Luke 13:1-5, Eph 2:8-9). Regardless whether we strive to be assured of someone's understanding of the gospel before leading them in "the prayer" or whether we tell people that there are no magic words, when we say things like "You can repent now by praying…" or "You can commit your life to Christ by praying…" we reveal a soteriology that says the prayer of commitment is the key to ensuring God will save you, rather than that the commitment itself is the key: biblical repentance and faith. The second phrase I must address is "rededicate your life." This is also a favorite of many testimonies I've heard in the church. Besides being a contradiction in terms (If you were truly dedicated, you wouldn't have to rededicate), it is a concept found nowhere in the Bible. In short, Christians continue walking with Christ. They don't "leave" Christ and then come back as if nothing happened, clutching their ticket to heaven the whole time. If professing believers leave, it proves that they were not committed (read: dedicated) to Christ to begin with! This is not a cop out; it is the Biblical position (1 John 2:19), and it's called the Perseverance of the Saints. When we think about it in those terms, rededication makes no sense - how can you redo something you haven't done before? Saints (Christians) continue in their faith. They endure. Rededication is people's excuse for claiming to be a Christian while living in sin. Bobby Blakey wrote an excellent blog on this subject a while ago that lines up quite accurately with the Bible's teachings on the issue. I encourage you to check it out right here. He makes the case quickly, but it's also enlightening to read the comments afterwards. I hope it's clear that I am passionate for the lost, and I would be greatly encouraged to hear your heart on the issue as well (Romans 10:1). I love evangelism and wish more people would do it. I want everyone to be saved from the wrath of God to enjoy fellowship with the Trinity and glory in the gospel as much as (and more fully than) I do. I want them to be so overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit and with joy and with gratefulness that they'd want others to experience what they'd experienced. That includes unchurched people and churched people. In light of these things I urge you: strive for clarity and cling to the scriptures. They are your authority. They give you the right to speak with authority. I hope this blog comes as an encouragement to press on through the struggles of laboring to present the gospel clearly. You may get discouraged at times. People might get uncomfortable when you get clear about what it is and clear about what it isn't. I plead with, admonish, encourage, and charge you to keep first things first. And that is the gospel (1 Cor 15). Keep it clear and keep it clearly the center. Grace be with you. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. - 2 Thess 2:15-17
Hello my faithful (and if I still have your attention by this point, it's definitely because you're faithful!) readers. My apologies for being so absent for so long. I figured if I were going to leave a blog up for a long time it should be about the gospel, but then I also had the end of school… and frankly it doesn't take long to get out of the habit of blogging. None of that is really an excuse, but hey, I'm a junior now, and I don't have any schoolwork for a good 3 months. So here I am, back again and excited about what I have for you this weekend. I am at Resolved. Resolved is probably the best Christian conference I know of. The worship is heavenly, and the preaching is legit. What else do you need for a good conference? The folks at Resolved do it far better than any other I've ever been to. Granted, no other conference has been as big, but even if you've been to a crusade or something, I guarantee you this is better. We had some trouble coming down 5 (the grapevine was closed), so we ended up arriving about 3 hours later than we had originally planned. Luckily, though, we walked in while Rick Holland was still preaching and managed to catch him making his 3 main points. He had just done a short intro before that (30 minutes or so), and we missed all of that unfortunately, except for my friend Roni, who kindly filled us in when we got back to the hotel later that evening. Rick's text was Hebrews 9:27-28, and his focus was on death. He had 3 intense points that I very much needed a reminder of: 1) Death is unavoidable, 2) Judgment is certain, and 3) Salvation is possible. Basically what I took away was this: get it in your head that you only have one shot. You will die, and you will be judged, and you need to consider the very real possibility that you may not fare well on that day. Most people (if they believe in hell) believe that God would never send them there. Hell is always a place for the other guy. The reality is that hell is a place for everyone who has disobeyed God and has not been covered by the blood of Christ. That is, each person who has broken God's law is accountable to being punished according to that law, except for those who have received the divine pardon made possible by Christ's death. It is this except clause that is the hope of every Christian. This refreshing perspective helped me consider the necessity of loving evangelism: an evangelism that is purposeful, passionate, and yet gentle enough to woo people away from the (apparently) attractive fires of hell.
