What happens when a person knows absolutely nothing about Jesus or the Bible and is suddenly provided a banquet of nothing but the “Gospel” – What Trevin Wax calls the story for an individual?

• All have sinned.
• Sin deserves death.
• But Jesus died for our sins.
• Believe in Jesus and your sins will be forgiven.
• Now be a good person.

This simple and true has sometimes become the acid which undermines the whole of the Gospel.  I’ve seen three major errors develop when this important emphasis because the whole of one’s theology.

1. A Disconnect between the Old and New Testament

If Jesus was the answer to the problem with the world what was God doing with Israel?  Was it just a failed experiment?  Marcion:  God of the Old Testament is not the God of Jesus.  This is happening today more and more.  A belief in the “Gospel” forms the basis for rejecting the God of the Old Testament.

2. A Disconnect between the “Gospel” and the Gospels

A belief in the “Gospel” forms the basis for rejecting the life and preaching of Christ.  The opposite is also the case.  The life and teaching of Jesus is used to reject the teaching of Paul.  Salvation and the life of Jesus.  Paul and Jesus.  God and man.  Paul started a new religion.  From Jesus to Christ.  The Gospel of Paul is not the Gospel of Jesus.  We have too choose one or the other.

3. A disconnect between Salvation and Discipleship

A belief in the “Gospel” forms the basis for rejecting the necessity of good works, the fight against sin or the need to live in community.  Good works.  Resist sin.  Live in community.  A radical break between grace and law, faith and works, savior and Lord, verbal witness and good works, accepting Jesus and participation in the church.  What Jesus did for us and what he wants from us now.  Savior and Lord

That is the Gospel!  And yet it’s NOT the Gospel. It’s the Gospel without an essential context.   It’s a summary for a people who already know the bigger story.

Chapter and verse divisions are a modern introduction to our bible, coming from Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langdon in the middle ages.  The text of the bible originally had no divisions – not even gaps between words!  It looked something like this.

This is entirely foreign to modern readers.  In the Literary Structure of the Old Testament, David A. Dorsey states

Graphical signals bombard the reader of a book in modern western culture.  Italics or underlining highlight words and phrases or special importance, while parentheses, footnotes, and appendices remove peripheral material from the direct course of the writer’s argument.  Chapter headings, section titles, and paragraph indentations divide the text into segments whose limits coincide with units of the writer’s thought.  Tables of contents outline the entire book, and sometimes even chapters or articles within the book.

The absence of such visual structure markers does not mean that the ancient authors were unmindful of the structure of their compositions had less rigorous structural patterns than our modern books.

Since most of the audience would not be reading the text but hearing it read aloud, ancient authors relied upon oral rather than graphic means to structure their works.

In Star Wars, Parallel Structures and the Bible I noted the way authors used parallels to structure there work.  In this post I want to look at another form of paralell structures known as inverted parallelism or chaism.

The symmetric (or chiastic or introverted) pattern is also relatively common in the Hebrew Bible.  Symmetry generally features two sets of units, in which the units of the second set match in reverse order the units of the first set: a-b-c II c’=b’=a’.  There is often an unmatched central unit linking the two matching sets: a-b-c-b’-a’ (sometimes called “uneven chiasmus”).  An example of a simple chiasmus from English literature is Pope’s line: “a wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.”

The symmetric pattern has several compelling advantages:

1. Beauty: humans appreciate the esthetic quality of a balanced presentation, whether it be in art, music, architecture, or literature.
2. Coherence: a symmetry’s tight configuration reinforces its unity.
3. Sense of completeness: the audience can recognize when the composition is “winding down,” and they know it has concluded when it echoes its beginning.  A symmetrically arranged piece “comes full circle,” ending where it began.
4. Central pivot: in a more extensive symmetry with an uneven number of units (e.g., a-b-c-d-c’-b’-a’), the central unit is the natural location for the turning point, climax, high point, or centerpiece, since it marks the point where the composition reverses its order.  Both halves of the symmetry look toward the center unit, making it the natural focal point.
5. Memory aid: both speaker and audience can remember the successive points of a speech more easily with the aid of the symmetric organization.
6. Opportunities to exploit the repetitions: as with the parallel pattern, repetitions provide opportunity to do such things as compare, contrast, reiterate, emphasize, explain and illustrate.

Did I choose God or did God choose me?  Now that I’m saved will I always been saved or can I lose my salvation?  Is God all powerful or are there some things outside his control?  

To most people these aren’t just academic questions they have profound significance for ones understanding of themselves and their relationship with God and others.  So which is right?  Am I free to choose or does God choose for me?  Are my decisions pre-determined or do I have free will.

The answer is both!  Here’s why.

Both Calvanism and Arminianism are Affirmed and Denied in Scripture

I think we should start with TULIP

T – Total Depratvity

U – Unconditional Election

L- Limited Atonement

I – Irresistable Grace

Once saved always saved or can you lose your salvation?  Can’t it be both.  I think it can.  Here’s why.  If case you didn’t know that’s a combination of the terms Calvanist and Arminian.  A Calvanist sees the emphasis in scripture on God’s sovereignty.  An Arminian sees the emphasis on man’s responsibility.  But I see the two as two sides of the same coin.  Because God is sovereign man is responsible.  Man’s responsibility implies God’s sovereignty. Why am I a Calminianist.  Here’s why.

P – Preservation of the Saints

2. Jesus teaching is based in paradox.

This Bible isn’t a game of chess where only one side can logically out maneuver the other.  Throw your board away.  Jesus taught in paradoxes.  A paradox is: A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true

The first are last and the last first

If you want to lead you must become the servant

If you want to be in power you must become like a little child.

It’s upside down.  The way of the cross is not a neat game of chess.  It doesn’t make sense on an apparently rational level.  Sure there are reasons.  There is evidence, but locking in all down in some tighty arrangement fails to see the big picture of God.

3. Both help and harm.  

Calvanism is comforting. It teaches us to trust in an all powerful God who works everything according to his plan.  The God of Calvanism is a God I can trust in the good times and the bad.  He has everything under control.  God is on his throne.

But there’s a problem with this view.  If everything is under God’s control.  Why should I pray?  Why should I ask God to change things.  Why should I seek him? If everything is going to work out according to his plan then what need do I have to participate with him.  He will do exactly what he wants to do.  It tends toward fatalism and apathy.

Armininism is motivating.  It teaches us that God wants us to come to him and seek him.  And in seeking him he will change things for the better.  He will make things right when we choose him first.  He is honored, proud of us when we do right.  When we praise him by our actions and our words.  He has asked us to do things and when we do things he rewards us like he promised.

Arminisim however has the problem of fear.  What If don’t?  What if can’t?  What if I haven’t?  Will God still love me.  Will he still hold my hand through this situation.  Will abandon me because I have not upheld my end of the bargin.  Will he forsake me because I have forsaken him?  Fear in such situation can be gripping.

The calvanist says that if you truly trust in the sovereignty of God it will motivate you and you won’t be apathetic to his plan and power.  The arminist on the other hand will say that if you truly seek God you won’t be fearful of your condition.

I see that both are right but neither one is truly a calvanist or an arminist.  Sure they say they are.  But what they have come to truly experience is something in the middle.  A place where God’s sovereignty is motivating and motivation is due to God’s sovereignty.  Niether one has gone to far to the edge but they have inched closer and closer to the center between the two.

The two notions are guards rails, keeping us from the dangers that lurk beyond them.  When I fear, I know I can trust a sovereign God.  When I apathetic I recognize that I must perform those things that he has asked me to do least I stumble and fall away.  I fear and honor the one who is sovereign.

I love my Mormon family and friends.  Great people!  Good families.  There is a lot upon which we can agree.  But there’s also those areas which we can’t.

Growing up as Christian, I studied the Mormon church from an anti-apologetic writings.  My Dad had witnessed to a number of Mormons back in the 70’s and there was a lot of anti-mormon literature lying around our hose.  I had Mormon friends to whom I wanted to share my faith and so I got to work reading everything I could.  I watched the God Makers.  I learned about Joseph Smith’s discovery of the Gospel tablets and way the book of Mormon had changed, how Mormonism had changed.  I learned that Archeology was highly doubtful.  I learned a little about Mormon Theology, how they believe that God the Father has a physical body and that they too will become God’s one day.

I talked with my friends about these things at school.  I tried to get them to see that they were error.  But ultimately this stuff didn’t matter to them.  A number of years later I started talking with a friend at work.  He was 20 years older than me and real evangelist for the Mormon faith.  He invited me to read the book of Mormon and some pro books on mormonism, with a differnet twist then the ones I had been reading.  I did both.  I sat down and read the book of Mormon, I got about half way through it before I put it down.  And I read a few of those books he suggested.  But then I offered him to read my books and he demured.  I found out rather quickly that it wasn’t going to be a give and take.

It was then that I realized that I wasn’t too bothered about a lot of things in the Mormon faith.   I realized it wouldn’t matter to me either it they were indeed true.  I mean if God said Pologmy was cool I would be cool with Polygomy.  If God showed me he had body who am I to disagree.  If God said I was going to be a God some day I’m not going to argue.  I didn’t have a particular problem with God preserving some golden plates and informing young Joseph about where they were hidden.  I mean God has done a lot of things.  If its true I would believe it too.

I found that ultimately these things we like to argue with Mormons about didn’t really matter.  There was much we could say to change there minds.

A couple summers ago I felt convicted about not engaging with the Mormon missionaries that roam my little town.  One day I saw them walking across the street, so I approached them a struck a conversation.  I said I was interested in talking to them.  I figured better me than someone else.  They were really friendly young 20 year old guys.  They stopped by a few days later to chat.  For the next few months they stop by to talk weekly.  They brough a book of Mormon and some pamphlets.  They were share some and I would share back.  We prayed together too.  The only thing I found troubling was the way they kept switching out the people I starting getting comfortable with.  I’d ask questions

It was then that I really listned to the whole basis of the L.D.S church.

There are of course many issues that people have with Mormonism. Polygamy comes to mind. There view of Jesus. Ordienace of the church etc. We could talk all day long about Joseph Smith’s track record on various things. etc. All of which I find destrubing to one degree or another. But arguing with a Mormon about them is just a never ending game of he said, she said. We have different foundations. The Mormon will look to his books and the Christian will look to the Bible alone.

I spent a great deal of time and energy talking about Archeology and Polygomany.

But the BIG Problem is one that’s often overlooked.  Its the very foundation to the Mormon faith.  Universal Apostasy.  Sometime after Jesus and the New Testament were written the whole Church became apostate.  Everyone one of them.

“So all the Church became apostate.  Not just wrong on some of the issues.  But wrong all the fundamental issues.”  Yep.  Don’t know when but it happened.

“Did they know they were apostate.”  “Nope they didn’t know.  They just became apostate.

“So how do you know you’re not apostate.”  How do you know that what Joseph Smith established has been preserved?  They don’t.  They can’t