Thursday, April 14, 2005
The Stumbling Stone
I wandered across this article at Blue Goldfish today and would like to toss in my 0.02 cents.
The heart of the matter is the scandalous failure to live what we preach. The tragedy is that poll after poll by Gallup and Barna show that evangelicals live just like the world. Contrast that with what the New Testament says about what happens when people come to living faith in Christ. There's supposed to be radical transformation in the power of the Holy Spirit.
First of all I find it fascinating that the author thinks he knows the purpose of the holy spirit for every individual. His criteria appears to be charity, fidelity, racism and divorce rates. These are fine markers and are helpful in determining the overall health of the evangelical community (Maybe) but instead of digging into the ever exasperating "why" the author simply concludes that the reason for the apparent debauchery is hypocrisy. But the "world" in this case is much different from the world of the first century. We no longer have slavery, there are civil rights, women's rights etc. So of course Christians look more like the world, the world has become more Christian!
I don't have access to the actual polling numbers, which is fine because I don't want to go off in arguing over numbers. This is what I want to get to:
Cheap grace is right at the core of the problem. Cheap grace results when we reduce the gospel to forgiveness of sins only; when we limit salvation to personal fire insurance against hell; when we misunderstand persons as primarily souls; when we at best grasp only half of what the Bible says about sin...
What is the definition of a savior? A person who rescues you from harm or danger.
Why did we need rescuing? Due to the sin of Adam all of mankind fell and was cut-off from a relationship with God.
Is there any other way in which we can find salvation except through Christ? No. The 10 commandments could only expose sin, it did not have the power to forgive sin.
It is tempting to want to grab the reins of your life from God and direct your own sanctification(or another's). I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. I used to smoke cigarettes and struggled for years trying to quit. I thought, "what kind of Christian do I look like to the world with such a nasty habit?" But what was important to me was not so important to God. What was so important to God at the time was that I learned financial responsibility so that I would have the money to help my family when disaster struck. So the author needs to give God some credit. He loved us so much that he died on a cross to save us. I find it hard to believe that God will suddenly give up in disgust, suffering some kind of buyers remorse.
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The heart of the matter is the scandalous failure to live what we preach. The tragedy is that poll after poll by Gallup and Barna show that evangelicals live just like the world. Contrast that with what the New Testament says about what happens when people come to living faith in Christ. There's supposed to be radical transformation in the power of the Holy Spirit.
First of all I find it fascinating that the author thinks he knows the purpose of the holy spirit for every individual. His criteria appears to be charity, fidelity, racism and divorce rates. These are fine markers and are helpful in determining the overall health of the evangelical community (Maybe) but instead of digging into the ever exasperating "why" the author simply concludes that the reason for the apparent debauchery is hypocrisy. But the "world" in this case is much different from the world of the first century. We no longer have slavery, there are civil rights, women's rights etc. So of course Christians look more like the world, the world has become more Christian!
I don't have access to the actual polling numbers, which is fine because I don't want to go off in arguing over numbers. This is what I want to get to:
Cheap grace is right at the core of the problem. Cheap grace results when we reduce the gospel to forgiveness of sins only; when we limit salvation to personal fire insurance against hell; when we misunderstand persons as primarily souls; when we at best grasp only half of what the Bible says about sin...
What is the definition of a savior? A person who rescues you from harm or danger.
Why did we need rescuing? Due to the sin of Adam all of mankind fell and was cut-off from a relationship with God.
Is there any other way in which we can find salvation except through Christ? No. The 10 commandments could only expose sin, it did not have the power to forgive sin.
It is tempting to want to grab the reins of your life from God and direct your own sanctification(or another's). I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. I used to smoke cigarettes and struggled for years trying to quit. I thought, "what kind of Christian do I look like to the world with such a nasty habit?" But what was important to me was not so important to God. What was so important to God at the time was that I learned financial responsibility so that I would have the money to help my family when disaster struck. So the author needs to give God some credit. He loved us so much that he died on a cross to save us. I find it hard to believe that God will suddenly give up in disgust, suffering some kind of buyers remorse.
# posted by Joe Florida @ 11:17 AM 
