Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

12 March, 2007   comments: (0) Today's Synergism   Can People Promise What The Holy Spirit Will Do? Some never bother to ask that question in today's evangelism; they just go ahead and do it. They make promises that is; and they pledge what a sovereign God will or will not do. Here's another example of that in action; it is one of the many ministry-spam emails sent to me in recent weeks. This time around, the advertising promises a certain number of souls will be saved, if certain donations are made. I know absolutely nothing about this ministry; it might be a good one for all that I know. But one thing I do know, is that they have fallen into the wrong thinking that they somehow have power and control over how many souls a sovereign God will save. Here's a screen shot of the email, with the ministry name smudged out and with red underlining added by me: How can they say "one member - one soul"? What makes them think someone can "pledge to win at least one soul"? Even more dramatic and troubling is the catch phrase at the top. Do people really read that and think "Hmm, if I make a donation, there will be 20 souls in heaven one day because of what I did". Now, to be fair, there is nothing wrong with asking for old bibles; Americans certainly do have plenty of them sitting around, picking up dust. So while this ministry is guilty of spamming, I doubt they are also guilty of scamming. But that does not excuse them from employing some really poor theology in their advertising campaign. This theology found popularity during and after Charles Finney in the 1800's, and is opposite the earlier theology of the Puritan/Reformation era. The earlier Christianity believed that the Holy Spirit makes people Born Again, and following this they believe and are justified. This is in contrast to today's Christianity which imagines that your own belief is the thing that determines whether you are Born Again by the Holy Spirit. Big difference. And so those on the old paths understood salvation to be entirely from the Lord, whereas today, it's assumed that God is waiting for man to trigger his own New Birth by believing, or making a "decision for Christ". If I thought that way (as I once did), I too would go as fast and hard down the Seeker Sensitive path as possible. My primary evangelistic focus would be on my own salesmanship, my own skill and ability to talk people into making decisions for Christ. I would re-imagine the Parable of The Sower so that the thing that makes the difference is not the God-prepared soil, but how well I could sow seeds instead. If I thought that way, I wouldn't know what to do with passages like John 3 that say "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." It's no mystery which one of those two paths that the one soul per bible folks are on. That doesn't mean that their intentions are bad, or that their bibles will be put to poor use. My wish however, would be for Christians to not only distribute bibles, but spend adequate time studying them as well. This is one case in which that may not have occured. How about you? Were you Born Again to believe, or did you believe to be Born Again? Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.632   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism