A few months ago on my own blog I wrote about something I write often about: how the good news is that Christ’s finished work actually means the work of salvation is finished, so that even our feeble participation in sanctification is both covered by Jesus and empowered by him through the Spirit. A somewhat prominent blogger then brought up the idea of our own “sweat equity” contributing to our sanctification. I couldn’t think of a more abhorrent idea at the time, an idea more antithetical to the gospel, which suddenly becomes no gospel, because it means Christ made a down payment and now I’m on the installment plan.
I saw the idea again yesterday, as someone linked to the May 2008 edition of The Gospel Coalition’s Themelios journal, in an article titled “How a Mega-Church is Rediscovering the Gospel”. An excerpt, from the pastor of that church:
I met with a man who had been attending our church for four years. He said he needed to ask me a theological question before he could join our church. I never like those kinds of conversations since the question is usually about a distinctive rather than about something central. We met for breakfast, and his question was the best theological question I had ever been asked. He simply asked me how people grow. He said that he knew people were saved by grace, but he wanted to know if I thought people were sanctified through their own sweat equity. I thought for a moment and then told him that the only thing that ever really changed me was love. Ever since the mission trip, I had been feeling that it was more important for me to understand how much Jesus loved me than it was for me to figure out how to love Him. I watched in amazement as relief spread across my friend’s face. He said he had tried for twenty years to be sanctified through his own effort; it had ground him to powder, and he would not go back.
I know this myself personally. Talking about how the gospel and the law relate to sanctification is no mere intellectual exercise for me. It’s not just one more idea for the blog. It made the difference between the crushing weight of my own sinful failure and the freedom that comes from tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. This is a real freedom, a freedom that makes “good works” a celebratory dance, not a day-laborers’ accumulation of sanctifying sweat equity. That way leads to burn out and bitterness. “Do not again return to a yoke of slavery,” Paul practically yells at us.
And I don’t care if this offends you (because it needs to): If you don’t get this, you do not have the joy of gospel wakefulness.
Pastor Joe Coffey continues:
Gospel-driven transformation is both liberating and terrifying.
There are some in our church who have not yet rediscovered the Gospel this way. There are others who hear the terrifying part but not the liberating part, and they sit on pins and needles. Many of them will leave soon, I think. But there are many others who have felt the shackles start to fall off, and, like me, they are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
It is counterintuitive, but wakefulness to the reality that the work is done makes us work more and harder. The gospel creates what the Law requires. And when we approach the notion of sanctification from the angle of “How much reminding of the spiritual homework can we do?” we miss the point entirely. It is often because we do not trust the proclamation to be effectual, and we do not really believe that the gospel is power in itself, that it bears fruit of itself.
[C]ontinue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. — Philippians 2:12b-13
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. — Ephesians 2:10
“We must re-evangelize the church.” — John Armstrong
Related posts:
November 24th, 2009 | 9:04 am | #1
Jared said this:
You gotta love a nice turn of phrase like that.
I agree that good works in the NT sense come from being the opposite of the ungrateful servant (Mat 18). In one sense, they are God’s work which He prepared before-hand for me (Eph 2). And I agree, of course, that they don’t really do anything for me but that they are entirely consequential to what was done for me (Luke 7).
But I do “do” them, right? I mean: it’s my hands and feet (for example) which are beautiful when I proclaim the Gospel (Rom 10); and likewise I am actually foolish when I don’t do them (Mat 18).
So when we say something like how liberating the Gospel is (a la Rom 5), I think we have an obligation to round it off with a Rom 6-like reminder that it’s not just the freedom to be nothing at all. Even Peterson translates it like this:
I’m interested in how you’d receive that critique of what you’ve posted here, Jared.
November 24th, 2009 | 9:11 am | #2
But I do “do” them, right?
Yes.
November 24th, 2009 | 9:21 am | #3
I’ll elaborate — even though it plainly says in my post that we’re to do good works — using a text I preached on a few weeks ago, Titus 2:11-14:
We are supposed to be “eager” to do good works. But what provides that eagerness? I believe it is the “grace of God that has appeared to all men” of v.11. It’s not the moral exhortation of this passage “Be eager to do good” that makes us eager to do good. The only thing that can make us obey an exhortation like that is the epiphaneia, the appearance of grace.
How does grace teach us to say no to ungodliness? By showing us the glorious Yes of salvation in Christ. No amount of “No!” will work goodness in us until then. Until we taste the sweetness of the gospel every kind of sin will still taste well enough. And until we taste the sweetness of the gospel every act of good works will be seen as our “getting our acts together,” getting our lives cleaned up, getting ourselves sanctified, as if that hadn’t already been done (1 Cor. 6:11).
November 24th, 2009 | 9:22 am | #4
“This is a real freedom, a freedom that makes “good works” a celebratory dance, not a day-laborers’ accumulation of sanctifying sweat equity. ”
Frank beat me to the quote, but that right there is worth the price of admission.
The challenge to the believer then is, are you dancing, or are you a wall-flower? And if you’re not dancing, are you sure that anyone brought you to the dance?
Not to say that our dance is not often hard-work, it is. But that whole motivation thing is the kicker.
November 24th, 2009 | 9:47 am | #5
The challenge to the believer then is, are you dancing, or are you a wall-flower?
No, no! The challenge is “Don’t you hear this music?!”
This is why I think the best kind of preaching isn’t telling people to dance but playing the music. :-)
November 24th, 2009 | 10:06 am | #6
Playing the music?
Hey I play a twelve string guitar and some even enjoy my singing although, one of my son-in-law often threatens to cut off six of my strings! :)
I hear ya! What is your point Victor?
Without writing a book and/or blowing any body away, let’s just say that no matter how often we might think we can change water into wine during reality, we must start over on the next day as if “IT” never occurred in the first place!
Does that make any sense? :)
Peace
November 24th, 2009 | 10:12 am | #7
Your post should probably clear up some of the confusion about the gospel. It’s funny how the current controversy demonstrates how the gospel continues to elicit this response:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? (Rom 6:1 ESV)
And his response?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Rom 6:1 ESV)
And also this one:
31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (Rom 3:1 ESV)
I think the problem is that Christians confuse indicatives with imperatives (here’s a helpful example). If we really understood the distinction, we would stop doing what has been done and would live in light of who we are: the redeemed. Or as Paul says (after explaining that we have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection):
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. (Rom 6:1 ESV)
November 24th, 2009 | 10:39 am | #8
I just love this. Wonderful.
When I commented yesterday on the “confusion” post, I did not at all realize I was stepping into a big steaming pile of agenda. At first I was, like, what the HECK is this all about?!?
But I have loved the direction it has taken since. That dancer/day-laborer line made me literally shout AMEN!
And YES, YES, a resounding yes to Jared’s response #5!! No offense to the commenter, but the whole dancing v. wallflower thing took the wind out of my sails and I did not know why, until Jared’s response.
My oh my, we DO tend to get sucked back into that “do” or “do not” thing don’t we?? (With “do” being considered the superior choice, natch.) When it comes to dances, I’ve been a wallflower all my life, but that does NOT mean I don’t hear and respond to the music.
November 24th, 2009 | 10:48 am | #9
We all are familiar with Gal 2:20 as Paul reminds us that ‘it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives through me’. The good works that we ‘do’ are not our own good works, but they are Christ’s. Our amount of good ‘works’ or lack there of, are a reflection of our understanding of true discipleship. As we continue to decrease, and Christ continues to increase, He works through us for His glory.
November 24th, 2009 | 11:04 am | #10
Jared,
I hear what you’re saying, but Paul didn’t just play music. He reminded people of the music and then he said “Dance”.
Remember, when he addressed husbands he didn’t say “Jesus saved you” he said “Love your wife”.
Our biggest problem is that we go only one way or the other, either “Let go and let God” or “You gotta do better if you want God to be happy”.
The NT is neither, it is “You’ve been saved, you can’t add to it or take away from it, now act like it!!”
November 24th, 2009 | 11:18 am | #11
Um, I’m no Biblical scholar; far from it. I’ve only even been a Christian for almost 3 years. But doesn’t it more imply you WILL act like it? As a fruit of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? As a natural growing process?
So many folks seem to think that it’s more like “Here’s the recipe, now FORCE yourself to ‘act like it’.”
As Jared has been saying, all that got me was discouraged, frustrated, burned out and ready to stop even going to church. After, mind you, only 3 YEARS as a member of the family!!
November 24th, 2009 | 11:23 am | #12
Daryl, I am not advocating an abandonment of the exhortations and commands. Just their proper placement. Paul’s commands, I don’t believe, can be untethered from the big doxological gospel proclamations he opens nearly every one of his epistles with.
Again, I think this is why that passage from Titus 2 is helpful.
November 24th, 2009 | 11:32 am | #13
As we say in my neck of the woods: AHA!
It sounds like Paul is saying, as we use your metaphor, “teach them to dance since the music is playing.” Yes: you quote from Titus 2 is wholly about what music is playing — but Pau;l’s point is that there is a certain kind of dancing which must be taught — especially to the unruly Cretans.
That is: for Paul it is both/and, not either grace or works. Somehow that which “may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior”must be taught. It’s not something we pick up or invent on our own.
November 24th, 2009 | 11:35 am | #14
Jared,
What place would you see spiritual disciplines like prayer, meditation, fasting, almsgiving, solitude and worship having in the process of sanctification?
I ask because often it seems like you’re reducing all the disciplines to one, meditation, and reducing the content of our meditation to one thing, the forgiveness of sins, and then seeming to imply that alone will cause us to become more sanctified. Is that what you are saying?
November 24th, 2009 | 12:07 pm | #15
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jared Wilson, Michele McGinty. Michele McGinty said: Feeling sorry for @jaredcwilson as he tries to explain the gospel to Christians http://tinyurl.com/y9dv4ao [...]
November 24th, 2009 | 12:20 pm | #16
Brother,
Would you mind if I publish your “Sweat Equity Salvation is of the Devil” on my blog? It is delicious to the taste.
Moe Bergeron
November 24th, 2009 | 12:45 pm | #17
What place would you see spiritual disciplines like prayer, meditation, fasting, almsgiving, solitude and worship having in the process of sanctification?
Stay tuned. I have a Bible study resource coming out in the Spring from Threads called “Abide” that presents a gospel-centered spiritual formation. The sessions — called “the kingdom rhythms” in the book — cover Feeling Scripture, Intentional Prayer, Joyful Fasting, Generosity/Service, and Community.
I think it’s enough to say at this point that I am not advocating a chucking of exhortation. I don’t want to have keep saying that.
Nor am I saying Christians don’t work. I don’t want to have to keep saying that either.
I think the fact that I keep getting asked if that’s what I’m saying even after I acknowledge in original postings that that’s not what I’m saying means that what I’m saying is newfangled for Western evangelicalism. And I’m saying that’s a shame.
November 24th, 2009 | 12:45 pm | #18
Moe, I don’t mind at all. Feel free to use whatever you’d like.
November 24th, 2009 | 12:52 pm | #19
Michael Spencer’s recent post, “Required Behavior Modification and the Gospel,” is helpful:
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/riffs-112309-required-behavior-modification-and-the-gospel
November 24th, 2009 | 1:01 pm | #20
“I think the fact that I keep getting asked if that’s what I’m saying even after I acknowledge in original postings that that’s not what I’m saying means that what I’m saying is newfangled for Western evangelicalism. And I’m saying that’s a shame.”
Not newfangled. Forgotten, maybe. Fuzzy, absolutely. But not new. Andrew Murray’s “Abide in Christ” is (I think) the definitive spiritual classic on these issues, and should be required reading for evangelicals.
But let’s get to the point: Jared, you are a master at selling books. I am taking notes. Well done.
Matt
November 24th, 2009 | 1:04 pm | #21
Haha. I mention the book because a) it’s my proof that I am not chucking the spiritual disciplines but that they factor into what I’m saying, and b) I can’t pass off a perfect set-up to plug. :-)
November 24th, 2009 | 1:21 pm | #22
I read your article and nearly leapt out of my seat. Keep on this message and never let go. Don’t let anyone try to “temper” it or water it down with a little bit of behavior-modification Law. I really think this is what the angel meant when he told Peter, “Go! Stand in the temple courts, and tell the people the full message (every word) of this new life.” (Acts 5:20) Preach the new life!
Not to be contentious, but I’d submit that Watchman Nee’s “The Normal Christian Life” is the definitive spiritual classic on these issues.
November 24th, 2009 | 1:26 pm | #23
Scott,
Clearly you haven’t read Murray. Otherwise, you would agree with me. : )
Matt
November 24th, 2009 | 1:27 pm | #24
Here’s a question not aimed at anyone in particular. I’m still confused from Joe’s previous post so I’m not sure what side of the argument I am really on. So just take this as a question.
Back during the Rodney King riots in L.A., a news crew took cameras to a shopping center that was being looted. They grabbed any of the looters who would talk to them and asked them what they got. Most people were grabbing big screen TVs, appliances, big tire rims, whatever. Now, this is a true story: They found one woman carrying a load of records under her arm. (Can’t remember if LPs were still being sold at this point, or if we had made the switch to CDs by then, but anyway …) They asked her what she had grabbed. She said, “I got two dozen gospel albums. I just LOOOOVE Jesus!”
So, whoever wants to take this, what would you say to this woman? In particular, what would you say to this woman that is completely consistent with what you have already said in this thread?
Thanks.
November 24th, 2009 | 1:31 pm | #25
I just finished reading a book on the ethics of Thomas Aquinas, called, strangely enough, “Aquinas’s Ethics,” by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Colleen McCluskey, and Christina Van Dyke. Aquinas addresses this issue in the following manner. He discusses “operative grace” as our receiving a new orientation and power when the Holy Spirit is given to us, and this is a sheer gift. We don’t deserve it or achieve it. “Cooperative grace” refers to us then using the gifts and habits we have received in operative grace to perform virtuous actions which are aimed ultimately at loving friendship with God.
Both kinds of grace are gifts, but we are involved via choice and action in the second kind. I think this sheds light on the issue. (Aquinas does, at least, and hopefully this comment just a little.)
November 24th, 2009 | 1:36 pm | #26
The gospel gets us into right relationship with God; into His presence perfectly through Jesus Christ. So now, we live before God. God has revealed to us in His word the kind of life He created us for and commanded. It is encompassed by love for Him and love for each other. This is accomplished and crowned by our knowledge of Him as He has revealed Himself.
The problem is that we have sold the gospel as “what you need to do to get to heaven,” and then defined heaven as “all your current wishes fulfilled.” Imagine the surprise. . . “Wait a minute! God’s here, and His will is being done?
Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. That’s sanctification.
November 24th, 2009 | 1:52 pm | #27
“So, whoever wants to take this, what would you say to this woman? In particular, what would you say to this woman that is completely consistent with what you have already said in this thread?”
She’s not listening to the right tune. She hasn’t understood that she was bought for a price. If she ever comes to the realization of who she is in Christ, she will begin to live that way.
In other words:
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col 3:1-3 ESV)
November 24th, 2009 | 1:57 pm | #28
I’m not one from building a theology based off of one verse, but someone’s theology can be evaluated from one verse. I do not see how this post is reconciled to that of the Scriptures:
Jam 2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
November 24th, 2009 | 2:08 pm | #29
Daryl said “…Paul didn’t just play music. He reminded people of the music and then he said ‘Dance’.”
Something that seems to be missing from the broader conversation about how the gospel sanctifies us is the idea of working out our salvation in the context of Christian Community. We often talk about our individual response to the Gospel should be, but most of Paul’s moral exhortations were given to the community as a whole. So would it be fair to say, continuing the music/dance metophor, that the Gospel is the music, the Church is performing the dance, and sanctification happens in the life of an individual as he/she learns to dance to the music with the rest of the community? My focus as an individual then becomes a.) being immersed in the community and b.) learning to hear the music.
November 24th, 2009 | 2:17 pm | #30
Michael, I affirm Sola Fide. Do you?
If you do not, the issue is much bigger than my post, in which I wrote “wakefulness to the reality that the work is done makes us work more and harder.”
If you do affirm Sola Fide, I direct you to that line from my post anyway.
November 24th, 2009 | 2:28 pm | #31
Bob So, whoever wants to take this, what would you say to this woman? In particular, what would you say to this woman that is completely consistent with what you have already said in this thread?
Great question. I’d love to hear people’s responses.
I liked and agree with Jared’s post and the comments. But one thing that seems to be implied is that evangelicals are too sanctification focused (though they are going about it wrong). For example, in the example from Themelios the guy says he “had tried for twenty years to be sanctified through his own effort.”
Maybe its my own limited experience, but I’ve rarely seen this to be problem. Moralism, sure. But actively working on sanctification? I don’t see it. It ain’t like we have an overabundance of Mother Teresas.
Are everyone else’s experiences different? Or when these people talk about sanctification, are they really just talking about moralism?
November 24th, 2009 | 2:41 pm | #32
Joe – I see this as a matter of evangelicals putting the “cart before the horse”. I believe that justification is the horse, and sanctification is the cart, or put another way, spiritual growth is the fruit of the plant of God’s grace. When we focus on sanctification ahead of justification, we fall back into the mode of salvation being something that we accomplish instead of being accomplished for us in Christ.
November 24th, 2009 | 2:48 pm | #33
I would respond to woman in Bob’s story by telling her it was wrong to steal the records. I’m not sure what that story has to do with the conversation going on here.
November 24th, 2009 | 2:55 pm | #34
Clay When we focus on sanctification ahead of justification, we fall back into the mode of salvation being something that we accomplish instead of being accomplished for us in Christ.
Again, it may just be my own experience as a Southern Baptist but I see up putting all the emphasis on justification and treating sanctification as if its an optional accessory. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Baptist who thinks that salvation comes through works. They are so adamantly against that concept that they tend to carry it over into to the doctrine of sanctification too.
November 24th, 2009 | 3:01 pm | #35
[...] few months ago on my own blog I wrote about something I write often about: how the good news is that Christ’s finished work [...]
November 24th, 2009 | 3:11 pm | #36
Joe – I have grown up SBC as well, but my experience has been very different from what yours sounds like. I was taught that God’s grace is what saves us (meaning get’s us into heaven), but after accepting Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior, it’s up to me to live up to the rigorous demands of what God expects of me. And if I failed, I would not be in right standing with God. Oh sure, I’d still get into heaven (once saved always saved and all that), but I wouldn’t be in fellowship with Him in the mean time. This theology brought me to the brink of despair, because, no matter how hard I tried, I continually failed at living up to God’s standard. The only answer I got from my church was, in essence, “try harder”, “pray harder”, “surrender more of yourself”, etc. Those answers did me no good – I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t until I came to a full understanding of the depths of God’s grace and the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice that I came out from under the tremendous guilt of failing and felt the freedom to follow Christ without the burden of believing that my failures separated me from him in some way. For anyone with a similar experience, Dr. Rod Rosenbladt’s talk, “The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church”, was instrumental in helping the gospel “click” for me.
November 24th, 2009 | 3:34 pm | #37
Bob:
I’d say, “Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.”
I think that’s entirely consistent with what I have said repeatedly over the last 5 years of blogging, and especially here.
November 24th, 2009 | 4:11 pm | #38
Frank – I think the question is, what do you tell someone who has already commited the sin. As I said earlier, you tell them it was wrong, but there is forgiveness in Christ. Grace is the starting point and the motivation/power for living in the new life.
November 24th, 2009 | 6:02 pm | #39
Clay –
As someone who has had it out with folks who ask people “if they are really saved” when they commit sin, I see exactly where you are coming from. In that respect, I also see exactly where Jared is coming from: we don’t want people to run away from their salvation becuase they are still sinning in some way, and salvation itself is not a burden but a joy.
My point, poorly made as it has been here, is that the moral law doesn’t vanish because there is grace: the moral law makes sense in the context of grace — it is our tutor to know how to rightly serve God now that we know we are not his enemies.
I think Jared’s analogy, as he originally made it, is a great one: the Gospel should cause us to do the right thing in the same way music causes us to dance. But the Christian life is not merely a mosh pit, is it? or some kind of ultra-hip jazz bar where we just smoke and nod to the divine improv?
This is, ultimately, where the church comes in, and how our lives will therefore be lived.
And I can admit this openly: my problem is with the idea that sanctification just “happens”, and that it’s not in some respects a harrowing process in spite of the burden-lifting joy of justification. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” That’s not just receiving some kind of mellow comfort from a risen Christ. I think what Jared has proposed here is close to right, and important in its right context, but it misses the cost of discipleship broadly.
November 24th, 2009 | 6:35 pm | #40
Quoting, again: “wakefulness to the reality that the work is done makes us work more and harder”
November 24th, 2009 | 7:10 pm | #41
Frank – So how can Jesus on one hand say that in order to follow Him we must take up our cross daily, but on the other hand say that his yoke is easy and his burden is light? The answer I have found is that, through the power of the gospel message applied to my life, I find my desires becoming more aligned with the Kingdom. So, because of God’s grace, taking up my cross and following Christ is less of a burden because it is my desire to follow Him (or at least becoming more and more that way), and therefore His yoke is easy because I am no longer following out of obligation but rather out of gratitude for Christ’s finished work. You mentioned cost of discipleship – I am a big fan of Bonhoeffer, but I must admit that book was very discouraging to me the first time I read it. I can read it now through a different lense, but at the time it just added to my list of inadequacies. I am conviced that there is power in the message of Christ’s finished work on the cross to not only justify us before the Father, but also to change our desires so that we can take up our crosses daily and follow Him. But even in taking up our crosses, there will be failure and continuing need for God’s grace.
November 24th, 2009 | 9:08 pm | #42
Even as we find plenty of exhortations in Paul, we must always be mindful of how Paul understood and contextualized those exhortations in the New Covenant: because the music is playing, there will be dancing.
And that fact, grounded in definitive or positional sanctification, is seemingly lost in too many of these kinds of discussions. No one here is denying that dancing must be taught. Paul certainly did and we must as well. What we cannot do is allow the dance lessons to take center stage. What must be center stage is this: we dance because He first danced on our behalf. The indicative *must* take center stage.
It’s not simply that orthopraxy shouldn’t be de-linked from orthodoxy. The imperative flows from and out of the indicative. The gospel isn’t found in the imperative; it’s found in the indicative. In fact, it’s found in the Incarnate Indicative who first danced in order that we might dance with Him.
November 24th, 2009 | 9:30 pm | #43
{sigh}
Before going on, I confess to everyone reading that the phrase Jared sited from his own post did not seem to mean what he says here it means, so a lot of my kibbitzing here was rather needless. I appreciate his clarification; I regret any coals I have heaped on either his head or my own.
I hate when that happens. Sorry Jared!
November 24th, 2009 | 9:35 pm | #44
It’s okay.
Over at iMonk’s post, our fearless editor Joe C. says evangelicalism has abandoned sanctification, which is why Christians today look virtually identical to non-Christians.
I think most of us would agree with the premise on the lack of “in but not of”-ness infecting Western evangelicalism.
My question is “How do we fix this?”
I don’t think the answer can be “more behavioral exhortations,” because that is what we’ve been specializing in for generations. From the fire-and-brimstone of the fundamentalist era to the Six Steps to a Happy Life of the modernist era, we have not lacked for behavioral exhortations.
And none of it has worked (generally, corporately speaking).
Maybe the answer to producing more fruit is not “more demands for fruit”?
Just sayin’ . . .
(But, to repeat: The answer is also not “Never tell people to do stuff.”)
November 24th, 2009 | 9:45 pm | #45
Well, I agree.
.
.
.
.
.
See how boring that is?
:-)
November 24th, 2009 | 9:50 pm | #46
Haha.
Actually I find it really thrilling when Christians unify around the glorious gospel of Jesus. :-p
It’s a good kind of boring. :-)
November 24th, 2009 | 10:05 pm | #47
I’m not very good at solutions, but I should say I agree with Joe about evangelical’s and sanctification and part of the solution might be for a renewed focus on the doctrine and how it “works….”
But then, Jared’s got a book coming out on that! : )
Matt
November 30th, 2009 | 11:57 pm | #48
YES. I LOVE IT. I LOVE YOU FOR LOVING IT, PLATONIC OF COURSE.
DAN
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