Over the years as my life in Christ has developed, I have become more and more inclined to see evangelism, the process of a person coming to have a relationship with Christ Jesus, as more about God’s drawing the person than my skill in sharing the Gospel. That may seem quite elementary to you, but to one who grew up during the Jesus movement of the early 70s, we were all pretty sure the Lord would make His second coming, rapture of the Church included, by next Tuesday noon if we would just get busy evangelizing the entire earth.
The longer I have lived, and the longer the Lord has tarried from His return, the more I have swerved into the more reformed or Calvinist approach to evangelism. Nothing was more instrumental in that shift in thinking than was J. I. Packer’s book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (Publisher: IVP Books; Americanized edition - Language: English - ISBN-10: 083083799X). In particular, Packer’s quote of Charles H. Spurgeon’s approach to evangelism has made a permanent stamp on my heart. My memory of that quote is this, “If I thought the Lord painted big, blue ‘E’s on the elect, I would walk around pulling up men’s shirts and preaching to the ones with the blue ‘E’s on their chests. He did not do that so I preach to everyone and their response tells me who the elect are.” Properly quoted or not, that statement has shaped the way I approach ministry in sport and in all of life ever since reading it in the mid-1980s.
Many of my young colleagues and church brethren speak of their reformed view as though it was an advanced academic degree and boast its superiority to a more Arminian approach. I regularly push back with them by asking, “How exactly does your reformed view impact the way you share the Gospel with others? I know what my Arminian friends do, they share Christ boldly and frequently. How do you do it?” Sadly, many times they have no answer as they emphasize the ‘I’ portion of the TULIP acrostic for reformed theology above all others. They reason, “If grace is irresistible, why bother? If the Lord will draw them irresistibly, what part in the process could I possibly have?”
By now you have probably chosen sides in this debate or have determined that I am representing your point of view very poorly. Hang on. There’s more.
Here are the five points of Calvinism as outlined in the Tulip acrostic:
T)otal depravity
U)nconditional election
L)imited atonement
I)rresistible grace
P)erseverance of the saints
I will neither attempt to define nor to prove these ideas, but they portray in a simple way the big idea. My question to you, and to all my Calvinist friends is, “What will you do in light of these truths? If these tenets are true, what action is required of you? If people are all completely depraved; if the Lord has chosen some to believe in Him without condition; if He has chosen to limit atonement to just the elect; if His grace is irresistible; and if the saints will persevere; what are we to do?”
My Calvinist teammates, brothers and sisters, I would suggest you:
T)rust – the Lord Jesus to draw men and women to Himself from among the totally depraved (he chose you).
U)nderstand – the people to whom you have been called, and look for the big, blue ‘E’s on their hearts.
L)isten – to the Spirit as He leads you to the elect.
I)ntuit – the subtle nuances of how the Lord reveals His chosen to you.
P)ray – and ask God to lead you to those with whom you may share the Gospel.
“So don’t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be ‘born from above’—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.” John 3:7-8
If the first TULIP is true, the second TULIP can assist you in standing with others in the Wind of God, feeling His effects as He draws people to Christ as He did Nicodemus in John 3. He is drawing them. Let’s join Him in the process.
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