Election vs Free Will

Do you like arguing about theology?  Oh, wait, I forgot you are a 21st century western civilization Christian.  You LOOOOVVVVEEEE to argue about theology....and doctrine....and church practices.....and pretty much everything else.

What gets people more heated than anything?  Election vs Free Will debates.  AKA, Calvinism vs Arminianism.

For those who have been lucky enough to have avoided knowing too much about this SUPER ESSENTIAL argument.  Let me briefly sum up the two positions.  But with the qualifier that I am in no way intending what I am about to write to in anyway be a completely exhaustive(or perhaps even fair) summation of either position.

Arminianism/Free Will:

Every person has to make the choice for Jesus.  No choice is also considered a "no" for Jesus choice.  No one is bound for evil, or, bound for good.  We are free will moral agents responsible before God for the choices we make.

If I was a competent blogger I would list a number of bible verses here that support this position.....

Calvinism/Election:

God Himself "elects"(chooses) who is to be saved and who is not to be saved.  This places a high value on God's absolute sovereignty and is hyper focused on our utter sinfulness and inability to do anything to "earn" salvation.  If you are God's elect, you WILL be saved BECAUSE of HIS work, if you are not, you will NOT be saved.

Ditto on the competent blogger post...blah blah blah, bible verses.


Where we Go Wrong

Are you able to know whether or not you are elect?  Probably not.  You know what is inarguable?  Jesus Christ came as fully God and fully man to die in the place of sinful man and to rise again and that through him(regardless of your view on elect/free will) and only him we can be saved.

The mechanism by which this actually works is a bit challenging to work out.  Not that lofty and challenging theological introspection is without value.  But here is the problem, the bible is pretty liberal at mentioning both.  It mentions constantly our responsibility to claim with our lips the Jesus is Lord, AND, it talks about God's elect. 

But, regardless of the actual details of the mechanism, both positions are clear.  It is only through Jesus that it happens. 

How did Jesus deal with the issue of election?

Let's take a look at an interesting exchange in Matthew 15

²¹ Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²² A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
²³ Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
²⁴ He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
²⁵ The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
²⁶ He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
²⁷ “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
²⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.


Jesus appears to be a bit of a jerk here.  This woman is making quite a scene begging for help, yet he ignores her.  When pressed to respond to her he replies, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel"

Did you catch that?  Jesus had a specific, pre-ordained, ministry goal....shades of Election perhaps??

But this non-elect woman does not stop.  She comes right up to him, kneels before him and calls him Lord.  And Jesus heals her daughter just as if she had been one of the "Elect". 

Jesus was there for a specific people.  God had elected to send him there for them.  But when a non-elect person, by faith, comes to Christ crying "Lord Lord" Jesus commends her for her faith and in no small way shows great love and mercy to her.  In a way, her position transforms from non-elect to elect. 

I cannot deny that the bible speaks with clarity about God's elect.  Yet, here is a beautiful picture of our Savior reaching across that divide to one who was not elected. 

In practice and theology I lean much closer to Reformed and Calvinist theology.  But this is how I personally read scripture regarding this issue.  I do not believe that Election is a mutually exclusive position.  Meaning, ONLY those who are elect will be saved.  Scripture, as I read it, shows that the Elect WILL be saved, but when, by faith and calling upon the name of the Risen Savior, the non-elect come to the feet of Jesus, they will also be saved.

So how do we take this bit of theology and apply it to our lives.  Well, you don't know if you are elect, and neither do I.  But what I do know is that I have a responsibility to respond to the call of the Cross.  And the message of the Gospel is a responsibility that all followers of Christ are called to share. 

When we get lost in debating the nuances of the mechanisms by which God does what He does, we avoid the personal responsibility that we do have.  So let us cut down the rhetoric and start proclaiming that the Cross of Christ is the only hope for ALL men!

Defiled Churches

I bet you like the way your church "does" church.  Well, at the very least, you like it enough that you call it your church.  But how would you feel if your church made some significant changes?  I don't mean that they stopped preaching from the Bible but instead utilized the Koran, or, the Book of Mormon.  The type of significant changes I am referring to are...

1. Changing the type of music

2. Changing the order of service

3. Dropping something like the midweek evening services to replace it with something like small group home bible studies.

4. Your pastor stopped wearing robes/collar and began to dress "casual"

How would you react to those sorts of changes?  Or, how do you feel about churches that do those things differently than you do? 

Nothing seems to get Christians riled up more than how they "do" church.  There seems to be this streak of antagonism within the Church today that seems to say we can't really be happy with our church(or theological/doctrinal positions) unless we can prove that our way of doing things is the superior True Christiantm way of doing things. 

While certainly there are some areas of stark division that are important to define(such as divinity of Christ, salvation by Christ alone, etc) we have made every issue into a "die on this hill" battle cry.  And we look like idiots and destroy our witness when we do so.

A number of years ago I had a friend who was consulting with a struggling church.  They were demographically much closer to death than college and very old fashioned in their church practices(hymns, organ music, bell choirs, etc).  If something did not change relatively soon the church would have to close their doors.  The unchurched in their area were mostly young professionals with families and they had been wholly incapable at reaching them. 

The suggestion was offered that they needed to consider changing their church service "style".  Cutting back on traditional hymns and men and women in full three piece suit get ups and adding contemporary music and dressing more casually to help foster a more inviting atmosphere to the young and unchurched. 

One particular curmudgeon was infuriated by the suggestion.  There is no way he could stand by and let such terrible things transpire.  The consultant than painted a picture of what could happen if they did so by describing a young single mother in the area who would be more willing to come to a service that seemed more able to communicate with her and that what a wonderful hope it could be for her to get to hear the gospel and respond in faith.  He then asked the old curmudgeon if the possibility of seeing this young lady come to Christ was worth giving up on some traditions?  

The one word response; "NO!"

In Matthew 15 Jesus and his disciples are eating....WITHOUT WASHING THEIR HANDS!!!!  While mothers everywhere may have gagged a bit, the Pharisees went one step farther.  They called Jesus out for letting his disciples defile themselves, SPIRITUALLY, by doing so.  Their complaints weren't about hygiene, but that it had been common TRADITIONAL practice that a truly spiritual and good Jewish person washed his hands to protect himself from spiritual defilement.

Jesus, like he was wont to do, blasted them.  To sum it up(and do click the link and read the whole thing....) He points out that they have allowed MAN created traditions to supersede God's revealed truth. 

What traditions do you hold to that are man made?  And lets be brutally honest here.  No where does it say that an organ and Amazing Grace are the only way to worship in song.  Neither does it say that a guitar and 10,000 Reasons is better! 

The way you do church might be great.  But your style of doing church is not what matters.  What matters it the content of your service!

1)  Is Christ crucified preached?

2)  Is the Bible the center of your teaching?

3)  Is salvation by Christ alone taught?

4)  Are people challenged and encouraged to love each other, to bear with one another, and to grow in maturity?

5) Does your service try its best to honor God FIRST and to also communicate effectively to those who need it?

If those things are not true of your church service then it does not matter if your style is objectively "good".  And if those five things are the natural position of the hearts of your churches leadership, then style will never be permanently static!

Here is a great place of conviction for you and your church.  When was the last time an unchurched person visited on a Sunday morning....AND CAME BACK?!?!

So where do you fall on the spectrum of man made traditions?  What are you willing to change, and what you are not?