Friday, May 22, 2009
There is No Dichotomy!
Milt Stanley links to Jared Wilson on "the gospel of self-improvement.":
I cannot agree with that - the gospel is change by means of grace. I will agree that it is not about "self-improvement" - but it is about changing who we are, and how we behave. Our life does get better when we experience the grace of Christ. Change without grace is self-centered legalism. Grace without change is cheap grace indeed.
If there is a problem with Wilson's analysis here is that it seeks to have the end game of evangelism as "response." We are not called to elicit response. We are called to proclaim the Word. Response is the business of the Holy Spirit, and I truly believe it will take many forms from altar call to quiet contemplation.
There is no dichotomy here, no either/or. What we need to do is learn to preach ALL of the gospel. We need to preach the grace that transforms - not self-improvement, but improvement for Christ's sake.
The first is a problem of effectiveness: It's not really working at reaching the lost, because the majority of lost persons don't think they need Christianity to become better people. They're already "good" people.I understand Wilson's point here and agree with it, although I think he and I might disagree on the root causes. Wilson here presents and either/or scenario - "either the gospel is grace or the gospel is change."
[...]
Effectiveness is the language of contemporary evangelicalism, but if the data on the results isn't convincing, the second problem with the gospel of self-improvement is a problem of truth. It's just not the gospel message. It is not what Scripture teaches. It is self-centered, self-focused, self-concerned.
I cannot agree with that - the gospel is change by means of grace. I will agree that it is not about "self-improvement" - but it is about changing who we are, and how we behave. Our life does get better when we experience the grace of Christ. Change without grace is self-centered legalism. Grace without change is cheap grace indeed.
If there is a problem with Wilson's analysis here is that it seeks to have the end game of evangelism as "response." We are not called to elicit response. We are called to proclaim the Word. Response is the business of the Holy Spirit, and I truly believe it will take many forms from altar call to quiet contemplation.
There is no dichotomy here, no either/or. What we need to do is learn to preach ALL of the gospel. We need to preach the grace that transforms - not self-improvement, but improvement for Christ's sake.
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