TILL HE COMES Blog

I was able to attend two panel discussions today at the Free Grace Alliance National Conference. On one of them, I had to be there since I was a panel member.

The panel which I only attended was related to the issues of assurance, eternal security, and justification. The basic question was “Does a person have to know that what they get from Jesus can never be lost in order to receive it?” Of the three panelists, I heard one, Tim Nichols, give a clear answer “Yes” and the other two were a little more evasive. This was not really their fault since many of the questions from the audience were not really on topic. Some questions were related to the death and resurrection of Jesus, or the deity of Jesus, and other things. The last question, however, was very revealing. It was “If you are witnessing to an unsaved person, and you want to tell them how to be saved, what would you say?”

1. Dave Anderson answered first with two words: “Free Grace.” I’m not sure what he meant by that.

2. George Meisinger said that he tells as much of the gospel as he can to the person in the time he has. If it’s on an airplane, he is able to tell them lots more than if he is sharing with someone on their deathbed. I don’t remember quite how he answered the question.

3. Tim Nichols answered similarly to George Meisinger, but emphasized that the message we share with unbelievers must come from the Gospel of John.

The second panel discussion I attended was the one I spoke on. It was was whether a person had to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus in order to be born again. The following are terribly poor summaries of the views presented:

1. Ken Wilson basically said “Yes. We don’t believe in Jesus for everlasting life, but we have to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who takes away our sins.” I’m not sure who in Christendom (including Catholics) doesn’t believe this, but maybe I misunderstood him.

2. Tim Nichols basically argued that since nobody would ever dream of not presenting the death and resurrection, the question doesn’t really matter. This is true. Sometimes, Satan’s greatest ploy is to get us talking about theology rather than living out the theology we do know.

3. Larry Moyer basically said “Yes, because the death and resurrection is central to the Gospel, and we must always share the Gospel when telling people about Jesus.”

4. Tom Stegall argued similarly to Larry Moyer, but more emphatically.

5. I certainly do believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus are central to the Gospel, and that without the death and resurrection of Jesus, there is no Gospel. All the truths of the Gospel (of which there are dozens-if not hundreds) are for the purpose of getting a person to believe in Jesus and so receive everlasting life. So I always present the death and resurrection of Jesus when I witness to people. So I argued similarly to Tim Nichols–that it’s a mute point.

However, I did point out that we do have examples of people in Scripture who believed in Jesus and received everlasting life, but did not know about the death and resurrection of Jesus, and even when presented with these truths, did not believe them (cf. Matt 16:31-32; Mark 9:31-32; Luke 9:44-45; 18:31-34; 24:19-26; John 20:9, 24-30). There may be some examples from Acts and the Epistles as well, but it’s almost 2 am, and I’m tired. But just one example: One reason Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 is to persuade and convince the Corinthian believers about the resurrection of Jesus. It sounds like some of them had believed in the resurrection, but had turned away from it, but there apparently were others who had heard about the resurrection, but denied it as fiction. Paul is correcting these believers in Corinth about this.

So apparently, there are people who believe in Jesus, and lots of correct things about Him, but don’t have all their theological ducks in a row, but who are still considered by Biblical authors to be regenerate. I think it is possible there are people in the same category today. I may have talked with one a few weeks ago, which I mentioned in a previous post.

Due to the number of panelists, and the limited time, only one question from the audience was asked, and that one had nothing to do with the questions that I had come up with which I hoped to receive answers to. So I still don’t know how Tom Stegall would answer those questions. I refuse to speculate how he might answer them, because if there is anything more dangerous that theological speculation, it is theological speculation about someone else’s theology.

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I am on a panel discussion tomorrow night at the National Conference of the Free Grace Alliance. The panel discussion is related to the death and resurrection of Jesus, and whether a person needs to know and believe these historical facts in order to be born again.

I am presenting the view that while the death and resurrection of Jesus was necessary for justification to be possible, belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus is not what grants a person eternal life. A person simply needs to believe in Jesus for eternal life to be given it by God. I have written on this in the past. Certainly, the death and resurrection of Jesus are central to the Gospel, but since there is so much Biblical information that is part of the Gospel, one does not have to believe the entire Gospel to be justified. There is a difference between the mechanism of justification (the death and resurrection of Jesus, along with a myriad of other things) and the message of eternal life (believe in Jesus for it). In other words, there is a difference between the Gospel information, and the Gospel invitation.

I agreed to be on this panel for three reasons. First, I want people to be clear in evangelism. If we have a muddled message, all we do is erect barriers which keep people from believing in Jesus for eternal life. The death and resurrection of Jesus are definitely part of what we share in evangelism, but we tell them these things to convince and persuade them to believe in Jesus for eternal life, not because they get eternal life by believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s a nuance, but a very important one. After all, there are many who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but don’t believe in Him for eternal life.

Second, I know there are a lot of people who are trying to understand the various positions, and I hope to let them hear my position from me rather than from those out there who don’t understand my position but continue to write pejorative and negative things about me. It’s always best when researching a matter to go to the source.

Third, I see no logical or Biblical consistency in the view of those who are taking the opposing view. Clearly, they think their view is logical and Biblical or they wouldn’t hold it. I am not exactly trying to persuade them to my view, but I do want to try to understand their view. Toward that end, here are the questions I hope to have answered:

If a person must believe in the death of resurrection of Jesus, is it sufficient to believe in the historical facts of these events, or does a person also have to believe in substitutionary atonement?

If a person believes that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, and rose again from the dead, but don’t believe that by faith in Jesus they have life that can never be lost, are they justified? (E.g., They say things like “Jesus did his 99%, but I must do my 1%” or “I’m saved now, but if I sin later, I won’t be saved any more” or “I accepted the gift of eternal life, but I can give it back if I don’t abide.”)

In all of my study of the other view, I have yet to read an attempt to answer these questions. Others have noticed this same thing, and we receive daily e-mails and phone calls from people saying they are prayerfully supporting Bob Wilkin, myself, and the ministry of Grace Evangelical Society as we continue to present the offer of eternal life to all who believe in Jesus for it.

Here is one such e-mail:

Jeremy,

By way of introduction, we have been with GES almost since its beginning and had been proclaiming the free grace gospel message for 25 years before that. We were instrumental in formatting the first several years of GES Journal articles for the website and have printed and distributed several thousand pages of GES articles to many pastors and Christian leaders in our area. In other words, we support what you are doing.

We have been keeping up with the ongoing issue of what constitutes the gospel message and are grieved about the possible damage to the cause of Christ that might ensue. We also have supported the ministry at Duluth for quite some time and distributed much of their literature.

I believe that your article, “The Gospel Is More Than “Faith Alone In Christ Alone,” was excellent and it even helped me to “connect the dots” in some of my study on the subject. The open letter on the Duluth website refers to, among other things, this article and mentions two points of disagreement. These comments appeared to me to be a bit pejorative as there was no attempt at biblical refutation or even explanation of the context of your statements.

In addition to the significant biblical evidence that you gave for your position (a position which should be either accepted or proved wrong biblically), is one point that has come up in my study and that I have not seen mentioned anywhere. It is as follows: In 1st Corinthians 15, we find the classic definition of the gospel which includes the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, and probably the contents of the next few verses. Per verse 15 we see that the resurrection is necessary for our justification, but does not say that belief in it is necessary. Verse 12 and following shows that some of the Corinthian believers did not believe in the resurrection and reiterates the deleterious ramifications of this error. This epistle is written to the Church at Corinth (1:2; 1:7 et al). Did these believers who already have eternal life then lose their salvation? Did the awareness of their lack then show that they were not true believers in the first place? Or were they eternally saved, carnal believers, who needed to know and apply these resurrection facts so that they may be saved in the sanctification sense and enjoy the resurrection life during their earthly pilgrimage? The first two options are not implied in the context and are disqualified by other scripture. Something similar to the last seems to be more on target.

Unless you are already way ahead of me on this it might be beneficial to also develop this point. No reply to this note is expected as I realize that you have a heavy schedule.

We continue to pray. Keep up the good work (1 Cor. 15:58)

This is an excellent observation by this man, and should be developed further. I also want to point out that Peter and the apostles did not believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus until after He died and rose again (cf. Matt 16:20-23; Mark 9:31-32; Luke 9:44-45; 18:31-34; 24:19-26; John 20:9, 24-30). Does this then mean that they were not justified until they believed in the death and resurrection?

I’ll give an update on how things went after the conference.

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I ran into someone this past week who would post quite the dilemma…for some. It was a woman who called about some questions related to her salvation. As we talked, I asked her some diagnostic questions to help me determine where she was coming from. I asked her that if she were to die tonight, if she were sure she would go to heaven. When she answered, “yes” I asked her why. She said something along the lines that since Jesus died for all of her sins, and has has believed in Him, she gets to go to heaven when she dies. Though she could have been a bit clearer, this was initially satisfactory for me.

But I asked some follow-up questions as well, to see if she was in any way relying on her past, present, or future good works in order to earn, prove, or keep her eternal life. From her answers, she seemed certain that she did nothing to earn her eternal life, and she could do nothing to lose it. Though I am not the judge of her spiritual condition, I was satisfied. To the best of my knowledge, she understood that simply by her faith in Jesus, she had everlasting life which could not be lost.

Then we started to talk about some of her questions, and in the process, she mentioned about how she knows Jesus is going to come again when he rises from the dead. It was an odd way of phrasing it, and so I asked her what she meant. She stated that she knew Jesus died on the cross 2000 years ago for her sins, and that He was right now in heaven, and He was coming again in the future. I said, “That’s good, but what was it you said about Him rising from the dead?”

She said, “You know…when He comes again.”

As it turns out, somehow, here in America, she had never been told (or had just never understood) that Jesus had already risen from the dead!!! I didn’t even know this was possible, but I discovered she doesn’t read her Bible, and doesn’t go to a church that teaches the Bible much. I asked her if she saw “The Passion of the Christ,” which she had. I asked, “Didn’t you wonder what was going on at the end of the movie when Jesus rose from the dead?” She said she didn’t think anything about it, because all it shows is Jesus with a glow around Him, and so she thought that was supposed to be Him in heaven, which matched her theology perfectly. (Go look at the end of the movie! She’s right. The ending is very vague.)

After taking her to some passages in the Gospels, and then to 1 Corinthians 15 (which Paul partly wrote to prove the resurrection has taken place), she said she now understood and believed that Jesus had already risen from the dead.

So here is the question. Did she have eternal life prior to understanding and believing that Jesus rose from the dead? I say “Yes.” She was justified the moment she first believed in Jesus for everlasting life. I was able to disciple her some more this week and teach her some things about the Jesus she had believed in that she did not previously know.

However, there is a group who would probably say, ”No.” They might argue that until she believed in the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus she does not have eternal life. Although she believed in her own sinfulness, the deity of Jesus, His death on the cross, and that she had eternal life in Him alone, she was not saved until she believed the whole package. Even though she believed in a future resurrection of Jesus, this is not sufficient. 

To me, this is incredulous. Antonio da Rosa has posed a similar situation as I have encountered here. He stated somewhere (I can’t find it now) that to consign someone like this woman to hell for not knowing all the Biblical facts about Jesus that are on a man-made list is the height of legalism. This woman believed in Jesus for eternal life, and by Jesus’ own promise, whosoever believes in Him, has everlasting life (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47).

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I sometimes hear pastors say that they don’t have systematic theology, they have pastoral theology. As a pastor myself, I used to nod my head in agreement. I too am concerned with the way some theologians seemed too caught up with dotting every theological “i” while neglecting the task of serving others. However, in recent years, I have come to develop some reservations about the pastoral theology concept.

With today’s postmodern mindset, a person who claims to have a pastoral theology is often just saying that his theology is not fixed, but adjusts it to the pastoral concern being faced. This approach often leads to contradictions in theology. Like the situation ethics of the 70s, many pastors have a different theology depending on the situation they find themselves in. It might be better to call it situational theology.

This was brought to my attention through a recent conversation I had with a regional leader of a particular denomination. He and I did not see eye to eye on certain issues of soteriology, and it was not long before I caught him in some serious logical contradictions. When I pointed these out to him, he said that he lived with these contradictions because he had pastoral theology, not systematic theology.

When pressed to explain the difference, he relayed the following story which he said actually happened to him:

I was in my office and a man came in who was a serial adulterer. He shared that although he is married, for the past seven years he slept with at least one different woman every month. I asked him if he thought he was a Christian, and the man said, “Yes, I accepted Christ as my personal Savior when I was in high school. They told me I was secure forever, and so I know that even though I’m sinning, I’m still going to heaven.”

I would have stopped and asked the man for further clarification on what he thought he had done in high school. Why did he say, “They told me I was secure forever”? Why didn’t the man point to Jesus’ promise? And what did he mean when he said, “I accepted Christ as my personal Savior”? Until these questions are answered, it is still uncertain whether or not he has believed in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life. But this leader thought that answer was fine, and so his story continued:

In such a case, my pastoral heart tells me to put the fear of hell into the man. I told the man that if he was ever saved, he certainly wasn’t saved now. Such adultery was a serious pattern of sin. Unless he repented of his sin, and returned to a monogamous lifestyle, he would not enter heaven.

This is classic Arminian loss-of-salvation theology. It was a little surprising for me to hear these words coming from this man who claimed to be a Calvinist. But he continued his story:

Later that day a different man came into my office. He too admitted to being an adulterer. He was married for seven years, and in that time frequently looked at pornography and had committed adultery twice. He sat in my office with tears streaming down his face, worried that he had lost his salvation and that God would never forgive him.

But I saw that this man had a repentant heart, and he knew that what he had done was sinful. He was a genuine Christian, not in need of chastisement and the fear of hell, but in need of love and forgiveness. I told him that God still loved him, and Christ died for all of his sins—past, present, and future—and that there was nothing which could separate him from God. He was secure in the hand of God. Of course, I warned him that he needed to turn from his sin, or else it may prove he was never saved in the first place.

So in one day, this man’s pastoral theology led him to espouse Arminian theology to one person and Calvinistic theology to another. The two systems are in blatant contradiction, but he didn’t care, for his theology was pastoral. He admitted the two views were contradictory, but only if viewed apart from the individual situations. He molded his theology to fit what he thought the person in front of him needed to hear. This was his pastoral theology.

Far from actually helping his congregation, such contradictions will only lead to confusion. Such pastoral theology does more damage than good, because it allows love for people to drown out the truth of God’s Word. And when truth gets neglected in the name of love, love dies too. It is not loving to tell a lie in a kind way, even if we think the lie is what a person needs. It is far better to “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). It is also far better to be Biblical, rather than pastoral.

Consider the first man. Not only was he not given the clear saving message, but he was given a false message. If this man was indeed unregenerate, he went away with a message in his head that would make it harder for him to be born again. How practical, how pastoral, was that? Doesn’t God know best?

And what about the second man? He also was given a false message. He may have gone away feeling better, but if he wasn’t already born again, he left this encounter more confused than ever. So this situational approach to theology is neither loving, nor pastoral.

What is the loving thing to do? Give people what God said! For example, Jesus gives everlasting life to anyone who believes in Him, and a life of obedient discipleship is important for fellowship and rewards. That is an encouraging, loving, and pastoral message. Best of all, it’s true. 

-appeared in the Sept/Oct 2007 issue of Grace in Focus

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Jennie Yabroff reports in Newsweek that “After A. J. Jacobs spent a year reading the Entire Encyclopedia Britannica for his book “The Know-It-All,” he figured he had the yearlong experiment thing down. How much harder coudl it be to follow every rule in the Bible? Much, much harder, he soon discovered, as he found himself growing his beard, struggling not to curse, and asking strangers for permission to stone them for adultery.”

What I found most interesting about the article is some of the comments Jacobs makes in the interview. When asked how his life is now that he can sin again, he says, “I miss my sin-free life, but I guess I was never sin free. I was able to cut down on my coveting maybe 40 percent, but I was still a coveter.” Jacobs sounds a lot like the Apostle Paul here, when he wrote, “But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of coveting” (Rom 7:9). Jacobs, like Paul, has realized that nobody can perfectly obey the entire law, and trying only makes you recognize your sin more.

When asked if there were any rules he was still following, Jacobs focuses on the Sabbath. He says, “I love the Sabbath. There’s something I really like about a forced day of rest.” Interesting, isn’t it, that this is what Jesus tells us: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man  for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). God knows that we need to rest from our work, and life is better when we take time to rest. The entire law, really, is to help us live life better with God and with each other. The great deception of sin is that we think it helps us live life to the full, but in reality, sin only gets in the way of truly living life.

Naturally, Jacobs found many of the laws and rules impossible to obey. For example, there’s a funny story in the interview about when he stones a man for committing adultery, but he doesn’t really stone him to death as commanded in Scripture. Of course, if he did, in our culture, he would be a murderer, which would be breaking other Biblical commands. This leads Jacobs to admit that “One of the lessons…[is that] there is some picking and choosing in following the Bible, and I think that’s OK.” In other words, since God’s standard of righteousness is too high for us to realistically follow, we can lower the standard by picking which commands and rules to obey. How much better would it be to say, “We can’t come close to obeying all these laws, and since God demands perfect righteousness, I need to get it from somewhere else. Jesus lived in perfect righteousness, and tells us that if we believe in Him, He gives that righteousness to us” (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47; 2 Cor 5:21).

I pray that Jacobs comes to this conclusion. It is evident that the Spirit is working on him, for now that he is without the law, he admits that he feels “unmoored, overwhelmed by choice.” Paul did tell us that the law is a tutor, to bring us to Christ (Gal 3:24-25). Jacobs lived under the tutor for a year, and we can pray it will lead him to believe in Jesus for everlasting life.

BTW, I want to thank Geeding over at the Bag of Nothing blog for alerting me to this article.

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I wrote an article for Chafer Theological Seminary Journal about three years ago, and it just now got posted online for people to read. We often hear that while works are not required for justification, they are the necessary result of justification and true saving faith. I argue that this makes works a condition of eternal life. Here is the article so you can read it:

 Are Works the Necessary Result of Justification?

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There is a new post over at the GES Blog about “Where do we find the saving message?” If you were sharing with someone how they can have eternal life, where would you go in Scripture to show them what God’s Word says? Do you have passages picked out? If so, what are they, and why would you go there? Let’s hear what you have to say!

Click here to go to the site.

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For years I have been looking for a good alternate acronym to the Calvinistic TULIP to sum up what I believe. I came across one today at the Unashamed of Grace Blog. It follows the acronym PULPIT instead of TULIP. Since the key to getting an acronym to stick is wide acceptance and memorablness (is that a word?), go check it out, pass it around, and post a comment about it. This may be the acronym we are looking for!

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Ok, I indicated in a previous comment that I would refrain from debating this gospel issue any more because none of us on either side are getting anywhere with the others, and I have better things to do. But in light of what I came across today, I am compelled to begin another post. Besides, I guess public “debates” like this are not really for the debaters, but for those who are “on the fence” trying to understand and decide between the two positions. But even still, my follow-up comments to this post will be limited.

Following the attempts by some of the posters (from both sides of the debate) to get simple “yes” and “no” answers from each other to theological questions, I have a REAL LIFE situation to pose to the readers of this blog, and I want you to state with a simple “Yes” or “No” whether you believe the following woman is saved or not. Certainly, only God knows, but based on how you understand the Bible, the Gospel, how people are justified, and what she says, is the following woman justified, Yes or No?

And just so you know, I am not making this woman up. She is a REAL woman I encountered today in a round about way. So give her the benefit of the doubt. If she says she really believes something, let’s assume she really does believe it. 

She says she believes that:

1. Jesus is God…i.e., He is fully divine. 
2. Jesus is fully human, yet without sin. (Also, He was born of a virgin).
3. Jesus died on the cross and rose again from the dead three days later.
4. She is a sinner and needed Jesus to pay for her sin through His death on the cross so that she could gain His righteousness.
5. Simply by faith in Jesus, she has everlasting life which can never be lost.

So far, all of us would vote a hearty “YES.” I know I do. But here is where it gets interesting. She also believes that:

6. Humans are “divine like Jesus, but to a lesser degree” becuase we sin.
7. God is Allah, the same god the Muslims worship.
8. The Trinity is fiction…there is only one God.
9. The Koran is inspired by God and is on equal footing with the Bible. Since the two are in conflict on some teachings, neither can be taken literally.

So, what’s the verdict?

And here are the RULES for the comments on this post. YOU MUST, IN YOUR FIRST POST, BEGIN WITH EITHER A “YES” OR A “NO.” Following your one-word answer, you may then explain your answer. Also, in subsequent posts, you do not need to begin those posts with your answer, unless you change you answer.

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Ok, the cat is out of the bag (I guess it was never in the bag)…The article I referred to in the previous post is indeed the one by Tom Stegall. But I am also now including Rokser’s “Two Clarifications” from the most recent issue of the Grace Family Journal.

It appears from Comments to my previous post that although Stegall is accusing various Free Grace writers and speakers of having a “Crossless Gospel” what he really means is that we have “Crossless evangelism.” I see these two things as distinctly different since nobody ever shares the entire New Testament gospel when they evangelize. So the issue isn’t whether the cross is part of the gospel or not. Of course it is! The issue is, “Does a person need to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to receive eternal life?”

So to help clarify the debate, I thought it might help to share what I try to do when I evangelize…after all, this is what it is all about, right? Please note that I don’t exactly know what the evangelistic method is of Zane Hodges, Antonio DaRosa, or any of the other Free Grace people accused of teaching a “crossless gospel.” I do, however, know that the evangelistic practice I describe below closely resembles what Bob Wilkin does. I know this, becuase I work with him, and we have talked a lot about it. Even still, I am not speaking for him, but for myself alone.

But before I get to my practice, it is probably best to begin with what Stegall says a person must believe to receive eternal life. If I remember correctly, Stegall has five things he says must be believed if a person is to be born again. These five things were not listed in his article, but I think I heard him list them in a talk he gave at the Annual Fall Conference at Duluth Bible Church. (So my memory may be wrong on these five…). He says that for a person to be born again, they have to believe in: 

1. The death, resurrection, and substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.
2. The full humanity of Christ.
3. The full deity of Christ.
4. The sinfulness of man.
5. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Technically, this is more than five, but I’m not going to quibble over that.

My question is, “Why these five?”

What if a person believes all these five, but doesn’t believe in the virgin birth and believes that Jesus sinned? What if a person doesn’t believe in the Trinity, and instead is a modalist? What if they believe these five things, but believe that Jesus is “a god” just like the rest of us? What if they believe these five things, but don’t believe in life after death, and “salvation” is only a good life here and now?

Personally, I believe that all of these things are part of the gospel, as well as numerous other truths. But do I expect a person to know and believe all of this in order to become a Christian? No. So I don’t have a “crossless gospel.” I have a gospel that includes all five elements Stegall includes, plus a bunch of truths Scripture includes but Stegall does not.

So the real issue is, “What do I share when I evangelize?” Right? Though not directly stated, it seems this is what people want to know. Here is my answer:

I share any truth of the gospel I think is necessary to get a person to believe in Jesus for everlasting life. All of the truths of the gospel either prepare a person to believe in Jesus for everlasting life, or prove that He can make good on His promise.

So, when I evangelize, I always begin with the gospel invitation and tell them that if they believe in Jesus, He guarantees them eternal life.

Then, I allow the convicting and drawing work of the Holy Spirit upon that person and their natural, logical questions to lead me into what other information about the gospel I might share. Most people, I find, already know and believe that Jesus was God, that He died on the cross for their sins, and that He rose again from the dead. Even most unbelievers believe this.

So generally, the conversation centers around how Jesus can guarantee eternal life to those who believe or how it can be only faith without works, or why a good person cannot get into heaven. This is when we get to Stegall’s five truths plus any of the other gospel truths that will convince the person to believe in Jesus for everlasting life. One time, I actually talked to a person in the United States who didn’t know who Jesus was. I was pretty amazed that they had never heard of Jesus, but went on to explain to them that He was God, who came to earth 2000 years ago, and lived a sinless life, yet died a painful death on a cross for the sins of the whole world. His resurrection three days later proved that His death was acceptable to God as the payment for our sin. We were able to have a long and lively discussion about the gospel and the offer of eternal life. The conversation naturally led to all of Stegall’s five points, plus several others. But even if the conversation is short, I have still expressed the bottom line gospel invitation.

This, it seems, is the most natural and biblical way to evangelize. It’s what Jesus did. It’s what Paul and Peter did. I can’t find any place in Scripture where a person shares all five of Stegall’s points when evangelizing or defining the basics of the gospel. Even 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 10 don’t include all five of these truths. And when compared, those two passages don’t even include the same gospel truths. The truth is, I can’t find one Scriptural passage that includes all five of Stegall’s truths. He has to pick and choose from various passages to get his essential gospel truths, and these five seem pretty arbitrary.

So what do I share? I share anything and everything I can in the time I have that I think will get the person to the point where they become persuaded that simply by faith alone in Jesus they have everlasting life. Once, when I was a pastor in Montana, I was outside by my woodpile (we use wood to heat our houses in Montana) talking with a man about all of this, and he wasn’t persuaded. He said, “I just don’t know if all of this is true. If it is true, I wish God would just hit me over the head with a 2×4. Then I would believe it.”

I almost reached out and grabbed a 2×4 and wacked him on the head with it! If he said “Why did you do that?” I could have responded, “God told me to, and He wants to know if you’ll believe in Jesus for everlasting life now.” If I had done that, I would have called it the 2×4 gospel, because not only did I share with him about his sin, the deity, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I also got a 2×4 in there…all in an effort to get him to beleive in Jesus for everlasting life.

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