If God is Sovereign, then who resists His will?
If God makes one man rich, by His sovereign will, and another poor... who are we to criticize? or to act?
I mean, surely one can't take the position that it is WE who are responsible for the stewardship of justice and love down here, for that would be an affront to our belief in God's sovereignty...
unless we thought that maybe God is a tester of men's motives--that He delegates "trial portions" of His concerns, to... US.
but i don't know if we really think that. Seriously now... I really don't find that at the operative center of our decisions to leave suburbia behind, risk assault and worse on our streets, raise our kids in a warzone... no, it's not because of a belief about God's Sovereignty. In fact, if what we have done is in sin against the Sovereignty of God, we'll suffer the consequences for sure, okay...
but what we're about over here is actually about... well, just the plain, written commands of Jesus. We've (some of us) been praying for YEars that He would lead and change us into greater obediences to the plain commands of JEsus...into greater conformities to the descriptions of that Kingdom--that Community...
It is obscene to apply roundy arguments about sovereignty to the things that Jesus own words were so clear about, the whole time...
Whether or not we have all decided that God is a tester, we are all hoping to please him. its a basic desire to love him. John 14:15 and 21.
I mean, come on. You were in the room when we talked about this, weren't you? You spent like, years, listening to this without any word of outrage or comment of dissent. We sat at the table so many times, and you even said that this was right. Now you're gone and there's another whole in me.
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Lew,
ReplyDeleteSpurgeon vs the Hyper-Calvinists. The Hyper-Calvinists thought it was a "sin against the soveriegnty of God" to offer the gospel freely to all hearers -- they beleived it could only be offered to the elect. Spurgeon, a Calvinist with sense, rightly understood that God's soveriegnty gives hope that when we freely offer the gospel, some might respond.
William Carey, told by hyper-calvinist baptist ministers not to go on mission, because it would violate God's sovereignty to go to the "heathen" -- but Carey understood that God's sovereignty was the only thing that gave hope that his mission work might bear fruit.
The true believers in God's sovereignty (rather than the academic dabblers) find that God has sent them, and God works in them to long for obedeince. A denial of your calling to be with the folk of Northside simply on the grounds that it "denies God's sovereignty" is simply chasing after the wind.
Your ministry honors God. Soli Deo Gloria!
Russell
wow, thanks, russel! that was exceptionally kind. i wrote this post to a bit of a straw man/composite person. it's written to stir us and put to death that idea, finally, as it lingers in our communities/minds/hearts...
ReplyDeletei run into this as people knee-jerk to my buddy Zach Cornelius, as his passion is so keen and his zeal so intense...
O to God that we all drank deeper of the insanities of Grace, the irresponsibilities of love, for the wisdom of God is foolishness to men.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, and I'm also on for the 29th, Lord willing.