"Always remember, when somebody comes up with something new,
it's usually wrong. We are to be plagiarists of the same information that
God gave the first Christians." -- Dr. Matthew McMahon, aPuritansMind.com

 

5 December, 2006   comments: (0) Athenian Awards   "I Can Only Afford To Buy One Soul This Month" Can you imagine somebody saying that? Maybe we should stop for a moment and ask how they'd manage to figure out how much a soul is worth in the first place. But let's say for a moment that we can determine that, now I have to ask, are you sure that you can only afford to buy one, just one soul, this month? What do you think about the morality of going out to dinner, buying a pair of shoes, or traveling somewhere, instead of saving that money to buy two souls (instead of just one) this month? The person that I'd like to ask that question to, is my latest Athenian Spirit Award winner. The Athenian Spirit Award is given by Old Truth to modern leaders who have managed to come up with some new twist that is foreign to previous generations of Christianity. As you know, the Athenians of Acts 17 were always after something new. My latest Athenian award goes out to someone who I've mentioned before, back in the early days of Old Truth, but since I did not have the award back then, I wanted to revisit their story and bestow upon them this tremendous 'honor'! I was actually reminded of this person recently as I happened to visit Jerry Falwell's church website. In fact, if you go there now, and look to the right of all of the concert advertisements, you'll see this plug for Bailey Smith who will be speaking there on an upcoming "Super Sunday Night". Bailey is a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, but the reason that I remember him is because he's the guy who announced to the world that a human soul is worth - oh . . . about forty eight bucks. Now, to be fair, he didn't actually say that a soul is worth $48, but rather, that's the cost of winning a soul, through his very efficient ministry. But that was still enough to nearly send Tom Ascol into a state of sola-conniption, and with good reason. After numerous blogs started to pick up on the story, Bailey Smith was feeling the pressure and removed this page (now viewable only in a 3rd party archive) from his website. Later my friend Alan Kurschner called Bailey's ministry HQ, to ask them what became of the page on their site which solicited donors to give $48 per month for their Soul-A-Month club. You can read what their response was, but in a nutshell, the sense that Alan came away with is that they are still accepting Soul-A-Month donations, but are no longer advertising it on the web. That's pretty sad, isn't it? I'd love to sit down with Bailey Smith and his whole ministry team (Jerry Falwell could come too), and have them watch the video series How God Converts The Human Soul. The hope is that they'd come to scripturally appreciate how it is the Holy Spirit who saves, and He can't be bribed or manipulated. What's also sad however, is the thinking of the folks who bought into the Soul-A-Month nonsense. Do the donors (I assume there still are some) really believe that their $48 buys a soul? If so, are they sure that they could not afford $96 this month, for two souls? How can they live with themselves thinking about facing a God who might one day say to them, "I wanted to save more souls, but you would not untie my hands by selling your car to buy more souls". Yes, that's pretty ridiculous, but if I believed in Bailey Smith's Soul-A-Month theology, my thought processes would be obliged to follow along those lines. I'll never forget that touching scene from the movie Schindler's List, where Oskar Schindler was lamenting over how he could have saved a few more people from the cruel hand of the Nazi regime. If he only would have sold his car, he could have saved ten more. Had he sold his gold lapel pin, he would have had the money to save two more human beings, etc. What may be missing from some of the Soul-A-Month donors, the ones who say that they can only muster forty eight dollars and zero cents each month, is Schindler's compassionate response towards being able to save people who were fully within his power to save. After all, Bailey and friends do think that they have such power, right? It's just a matter of money. Fortunately, the burden for soul-saving belongs first and foremost to our sovereign God. Though there is a sense in which we should aggressively give money towards missions, I'm so glad that God doesn't need my money or my anything. When He chooses to use my resources, time, and preaching, I am delighted to participate in His eternal plan. For me, there is no greater thrill. Bailey Smith is long overdue for the Athenian award. What he's come up with is new and largely uncommon to previous centuries of Christianity. Unless of course, you want to include Luther's nemesis who said, "when the coin in the coffer rings - a soul from purgatory springs". Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.548   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism