Let’s try that again: a question for you about sharing Jesus with women from other cultures.

There you go, Ben - a link for you. You might also like to check out the comments on this post, they were very encouraging and insightful: <a >a question for you about sharing Jesus with women from other cultures</a>.

Thanks, Ben, that’s brilliant. I’ll be posting a link to that one!

I, too, have been trying to prioritise evangelism, although unlike you I’m hopelessly ungifted so it’s a struggle. But I’m getting better at it through practice, and I’m having some great conversations with my neighbour at the moment. It took 8 years of relationship to get to this point, though!

I like your listening 2x talking guideline.

Jean.

Hi Richard,
Thanks for your tips brother. That is SUPER helpful. I will give that a belt. Another idea that seems to work really well for blokes is a ‘golf day’. Blokes talk best when they’re not ‘facing’ their friend.

Hi Nathan,
Thanks for your encvouragement. Encouragement is the WD40 of Christian Relationships. We need more of it. Correction, I need to do more of it!!!

This is, by far, the most encouraging post I’ve read on the Solapanel. Great stuff Ben, and some great ideas for “moving forward” on your challenge.

Love it.

I’m a missionary in Thailand with OMF in a new church planting situation.  Basically trying many of the great suggestions you have above. 

Something that have worked well have been our children’s birthday parties.  We’ve gone to our children’s schools and personally handed parents invitations to our children’s birthday parties.  We;ev got to know many new families this way.  This has worked much better than most of our “outreach” events in getting to know people.

Getting involved in your children’s sport is great too.  Taekwondo is huge in Thailand and I have an hour 3 times a week to sit around and chat with other parents.

Yes, Sandy, you’re exactly right. Different gifts for different methods of planting, regions etc.

Mikey, thanks for giving us a simple overview of the church planter assessment process.

I like the idea of number 3 - beginning a longer term coaching/mentoring relationship.

Would it be appropriate to indicate here whether you are looking for different things in terms of different types of planting - the guy who goes with a group versus the guy who starts with just one or two etc?

>>>...so we can say ‘God only forgives us when we repent’ and not deny the truth of justification by grace through faith alone…

Um, the problem is that “justification by grace through faith alone” is simply NOT TRUE. By elevating your dogma to “Truth” you resist and reject James who says that one is NOT justified by faith alone but by faith AND corresponding actions.

http://net.bible.org/search.php?search=repentance and faith&mode;=&scope;=

Hey Jennie!

It was part of trying to train my thinking into seeing even loss of sleep as something planned by God as the current context for his transformation of me by his Spirit through his Word. So, rather than feel defeated I should work out how to best co-operate with his Spirit!

Such a good way of putting it! Many thanks!

RE my high school friends: it helps we still keep in touch and meet up every now and then. There’s something about that school though; my sister-in-law, mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law all went there and managed to form fast friendships that lasted throughout their lives. My grandmother-in-law was still meeting up with her high school buddies well into her 80s. It probably helped that the school had a strong ISCF presence (and a history of such), but most of my high school friends aren’t Christian.

Dear Karen,
Thanks for such a great contribution! I love your system, and am impressed that you still pray for high school friends; so faithful.

Your comment about Bible reading reminded me that I would often listen to the Bible rather than read it in JD’s first year.

...And Daniel and Revelation go even better with sleep deprivation than Isaiah. Lots of bizarre images to make you wonder whether you’re awake or asleep…

Dear Lee,

Yes, and welcome. If you think this would be useful for people, by all means please use it.  And if the women in your group have other ideas to add to this list, we’d love to hear them.

It might be useful for the struggling ones to know that the imperatives that clutter my little list were meant to motivate me rather than condemn others. 

It was part of trying to train my thinking into seeing even loss of sleep as something planned by God as the current context for his transformation of me by his Spirit through his Word. So, rather than feel defeated I should work out how to best co-operate with his Spirit! 

Thanks for your encouragement,
Jennie

Tony,
The tract is looking great!  I also wanted to say that I appreciate your humility in opening things up for discussion in this format. Anyone (including someone who never shares Christ!) could respond and you still did it, leaving ego at the door, trying to make the tract.  Thanks for the Christlike example.

Blessings,
John

Thanks for a clear, practical and compassionate post, Jennie. There are several stressed, struggling and sleep-deprived mothers in my Bible study group and I’m wondering if you would be happy for me to print off what you’ve written (with proper acknowledgement, of course). I figure it’s something they could then keep handy for those lonely hours at night spent feeding and settling wakeful babies.

>>>...The question for me is whether sinners are capable of loving God first before they receive God’s grace, or whether the grace of God (that we receive by
faith) changes our heat so that we now love God…

Neither one follows the other… they are simultaneous, because they are two facets of the same thing.

Hello William,

Your posts are all off base because you see faith and repentance as two entirely separate things.

I’m glad we agree that the heart of the matter is whether faith and repentance are two things or the same thing.

I’m not sure that the four passages you quote, or their broader context, really help your assertion that repentance is another word for faith, and that obedience and faith are the same thing.  They all indicate that the two are linked and that a true repentance towards God cannot exist except as a product of faith, and that faith does not exist except where it results in repentance towards God.

So Matthew 13:44.  There is nothing here to say that repentance is faith.  Faith changes a person’s whole value system, as you say, when one realises where one’s treasure lies.  As a consequence one acts.  Faith (seeing the treasure and wanting it) leads to repentance (selling everything and buying). 

You could treat this as a literal and precise description of all the details of salvation, and not as a parable, and so press the fact that the man doesn’t get the treasure until he buys the field, and so say that the man saves himself by buying the field.  That seems an overly wooden way to read the parable. 

The basic point is that reception of the gospel by faith changes everything – all your eggs are in Christ’s basket, and it’s a total commitment.  That’s part of a biblical view of faith, and it’s a biblical view of repentance. 

Neither faith or repentance are half-hearted, in two minds, kind of things in the Bible.  But that doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.

Luke 14:33 similarly seems fairly straigthforward to me.  One can’t follow Jesus if one loves anyone or anything even remotely as a rival to him.  That hardly means that loving Jesus is the same thing as trusting him, or that Jesus saves me because I first loved him, rather than I loving him because he first loved me and saved me. 

It simply shows that one cannot be Jesus’ disciple is one does not love him first and foremost.  And I strongly embrace that.  The question for me is whether sinners are capable of loving God first before they receive God’s grace, or whether the grace of God (that we receive by faith) changes our heat so that we now love God.

That issue, when seen in its reversed mirror image, also counts for 1 John 2:15.  You seem to be implying that the love of the Father only finds its home in me because I first do some housecleaning and get rid of the love of the world first. 
I receive the Father’s love by turning away from the love of the world. 

I’d say rather that the love of the Father, when it makes its home in me, (when I receive it by faith) tosses out the love of the world that had been squatting there.  So I can’t love the world and have the love of the Father in me. 

But that doesn’t mean I have to get rid of the love of the world first before I can embrace the love of the Father.  It just means they are incompatible.  Which I fully uphold.

And James 2:26 only works for you if you ignore what it says.  If faith without works is dead, like a body without the spirit is dead, then faith and works are two different things, in much the same way that a body and its spirit (or breath on your view) are two things. 

If faith and obedience are the same thing then faith without works isn’t ‘dead’, it’s impossible.  My view is that faith must lead to works, must lead to obedience – which is exactly James’ point.  A faith that doesn’t lead to obedience isn’t saving faith at all, it’s the dead ‘faith’ of the demons. 

James’ whole argument of rejecting a faith without works as ‘dead’ (as opposed to being a contraditction in terms) completely repudiates your equating the two terms.

And, as just one example to counter you, I’d put up Romans 4:1-5.  Here Paul contrasts the person who ‘works’ – obeys God’s commands – and so receives their righteousness as their due (their wages) with the person who ‘does not work’ but trusts God who justifies the ungodly. 

There is simply no way that this contrast between ‘working’ (obeying) and ‘not working’ (trusting) can be reconciled with a view that says that the two are the same.  Especially when Paul is so provocative as to say that God justifies the ungodly (i.e. the disobedient).

Thank you for raising such an important issue, but I think you’ve profoundly misunderstood the Scriptures on this and (it seems from your blog) a range of important imatters.

Hi Cath,

I think we’re probably in agreement on this point then.  As you said originally, what you’re saying here is an important ‘fleshing out’ of some of the concrete implications of the original series. 

Thanks for keeping going until your key point was both made and heard.

Oh Jennie, such a good post, and exactly what I needed to read at the moment! It’s been six days since I gave birth and, of course, prayer has been as intermittent as my sleep. Fortunately before birth, I was using this system with six index cards (six cards because seven felt like I had to get through one card a day, seven days a week), and the system seems to have translated okay to life with baby. Each card lists a bunch of people/organisations to pray for, and they go something like this:

1. Family, and friends from high school
2. Blogroll friends and (*a bit embarrassed*) the comics industry
3. Church
4. University ministries—specifically at the University of Wollongong and the University of New South Wales (and people I know through them)
5. Moore College and Matthias Media (and people I know through them)
6. Missionaries and mission organisations

I find the cards help me focus, so if I completely lose my train of thought, I know where I’m up to and can pick it up again fairly easily. Sometimes I don’t get through the card in one day, but I don’t worry too much if I don’t; I just pick it up again later.

I’ve been trying to get through one card per day during feeds. It’s sort of working, even if I fall asleep in the middle of praying!

Bible reading isn’t going so well, but I’m hoping to fix that—once again, during feeds when I need something to read (I often do feeds in front of the computer). It doesn’t really help that I was in the middle of Isaiah just before birth ;P

Repentance is essentially just another word for faith. Consider this parable:

Matthew 13:44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Note that he his whole value system changed when he recognized where his treasure lay.

Luke 14:33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

One who loves the world cannot claim to love God.

1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Your posts are all off base because you see faith and repentance as two entirely separate things.

Obedience, likewise, is faith. As a man is composed of clay and breath, so faith, divorced of works, is dead:

James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit [breath] is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

It might be instructive to ask: “Why does Christ pray to us?”:

2 Corinthians 5:20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

Paul gives as a reason to pray, that they should inform God and educate God to what we want:

Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

Jesus said that if one is persistent and consistent in prayer, God will be annoyed into granting our requests:

Luke 18:
4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Hi Mark,
I think the kernel of our disagreement about moral equivalence between two poeple is that I am not focusing on the relative magnitude of the sin (and I do agree that one person can be ‘more at fault’ in a situation than another person in human terms). I am focusing on the equalising experience of ‘being in debt’ to the other person that I have injured. It does not matter what the size of what you owe, if you are helpless to pay it. Inability to pay or fix up a situation creates a relational dependancy on other for grace and forgivess - this is something I am powerless to claim as a right. Forgiveness is always a gift.

This is the equaliser I was talking about - that of mutual interdependance in a relationship for grace. If you give me the forgiveness and grace I cannot claim or deserve in our relationship and I am truly humbled, how can I refuse to give you something you do not deserve - but ask you to pay me back. The basis of the relationship is no longer rights, but covenant love.

But ultimately, I think it it is our experience of having being forgiven our own great sins by God from which we draw the strength to forgive great sins against us!

Thanks Jenny - I was hoping you’d say a bit more about your own family’s approach to these things and the thought-process underlying it.  I think you’re right about making a point of praying every day - unless God gives us opportunities and the boldness to take them, it doesn’t really matter where we are!

And thanks Michelle for the story about your own experiences and the way you’ve done things with your child’s schooling.  It was exciting to read about that family you’re getting to know.

Hi Nicole

Our kids (4 out of our 5) attend our local public school. I really feel that it is significant that we stay committed to the public school system so that we have Christians in these communities.  Most of my children do not have Christian friends and for many of their friends we are the only Christian family they know.

So while I’m not against Christian schools at all (I went to one for many years) I’m so excited by the opportunity for our family to shine the light of Jesus in this little community.  So many people we’ve met would have no other interaction with Christians otherwise. 

Each morning and afternoon walking to school I try to pray for the interactions I will have with other parents and teachers - asking that God will use us to somehow (in our weakness) bring people to himself.

Hi Nicole,

I went to a Christian private school until year 6.  Godly Christian teachers taught me and I felt loved and secure in those early years.  There were other kids who were not Christians in the school but because God was so much on the agenda, we children often talked about Christian things amongst ourselves and I learnt many important truths from my teachers.

My family moved to Australia, and I then went to a selective, secular, all girls and strongly feminist public high school. As I engaged with my friends and teachers in discussions about Jesus when the opportunities arose, I was grateful for the time that I had in the Christian school.  I had firm and strong convictions of the truth of the gospel because I was so faithfully taught by my teachers and parents.  I did not long to go back to the more sheltered Christian environment, but I was glad that I experienced that situation when I was younger and less confident.

It is now almost 30 years since I left primary school.  I have recently reconnected with some of my primary school friends (facebook does that to you).  To my amazement, they asked me about my Christian life, and shared their concerns for a friend who had fallen away, and another with difficult life circumstances.  They are still praying for each other and are following up those friends.

Isn’t that wonderful?  The legacy of Christian teaching all those years ago has remained.

When my husband and I had to choose where to educate our child, we chose a Christian school.  We have seen her faith strengthened and our teachings at home confirmed, not contradicted at school.

Our school deliberately accepts a proportion of children from non-Christian families, and so the opportunities to engage with those parents are certainly not absent. We have deliberately cultivated a close relationship with a non-Christian family from the school.  We find that they are open to discussions about God because their children are exposed to it day-in, day-out and they ask questions at home that their parents can’t answer.

I am not against public education.  I am grateful for my excellent education in the public system, but I count it a privilege to have been taught in a Christian school and am thankful that my child is able to attend one too because I have experienced such benefits from it.

Thanks Sandy for the Daniel parallel!

And thanks Sarah and Jennie for the examples from what you’ve done in your own families - I always find it really helpful and encouraging to see (or hear about) real lived examples of the sort of things we’re talking about, and how it has worked out in practice.

Thanks Peter! that is a helpful reminder. I suppose it ultimately comes from Jesus too! and his understanding of servant leadership. A leader is never meant to be one who is distant from the people he leads but down in the dirt with them.

Praise be to Jesus for not considering equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing. May our attitude be like this too!

Hi Nicole,

Thank you for this article. We also have chosen to place our children in public schooling - they are now both in high school.  It is scary but encouraging to see them work out being Christian in an environment with few others.  I am seeing that non-conformity to the world is a muscle that grows with exercise.  Also it is great that they have a good youth group that to which they want to invite their friends.

Hi Nicole,

I think it’s great to encourage us to consider how our schooling choice prepares our children for a future life of service, and how it provides opportunities for service in the present. I think these are higher priority questions than, “Which will provide the highest academic outcomes for my child?”

The school of our primary age daughters (in Mexico) is of a lower academic standard than schools in Australia (ie, there is much less independent, analytical or creative thinking). However, skills that our daughters are learning well at school here include patience, tolerance of things that are not the way they’d choose to have them, willingness to contribute outside their comfort zone, skills in loving and serving people very different from them (including people with disabilities).

I think this is a good list of skills that enable them to serve in a godly way now and in the future. I am glad that I’ve changed my perspective on what is valuable in a school experience.

Jenny, in this matter, I always think it’s worth pondering Daniel 1.

There we have something of a match to our context: God’s OT people are exiled and scattered among the pagan nations, rather than gathered in their promised land, just as we are today (cf. 1 Pet 1:1).

And we note from Dan 1:4 that bright Jewish ‘youths’ (ESV, and it really is the word for ‘boys’/‘children’ not just ‘young men’ as in NIV), were put into the pagan Babylonian education system and learnt their literature and language.

They may not have had much choice about this, but (perhaps in line with the command of Jeremiah 29:4-7 to settle down and seek the welfare of the city they found themselves in) they willingly entered into and engaged in this education.

Of course, as believers, there were times they had to draw lines in the sand (e.g. in their case, Dan 1:8, not to defile themselves in dietary matters). But at the end of the education, they entered into the public service of the pagan Babylonian nation.

My conclusion from this example is that we need not flee the secular or unbelieving education system, though we have to discern when there may be an aspect of it to refuse.

And from the probable ages of those involved, I think this example could apply not just to what we call tertiary education, but to the secondary age as well.

Hi Jenny!

I think your question is a good one. 

As a general principle, I think that kids need some exposure to the world as a context in which they are to learn how to relate to it as a servant of Jesus - we don’t prepare them well for going out into the world as adults if we insulate them from it totally in childhood and adolescence.

But I think that the kind and extent of that exposure is a matter of wisdom, and the circumstances in which the decision needs to be made will vary from family to family, from child to child and from school to school.

In our own experience so far, the local school has been a great environment for our kids to learn how to live as Christians - not without its challenges, but that’s part of how you learn!  But I know other friends, in different circumstances, who have made different decisions from the ones that we’ve made while still pursuing the same aims.

My aim in this post is not to prescribe one particular strategy for every family - my main concern is is with whether we’re asking the right questions and pursuing the right aims.

Hi Nicole - good on you for tackling this issue.

What is your response to people who would say that we need to protect our children from the realities of the non-Christian world until they are adults?  That we shouldn’t be putting them into situations that their young faith can’t cope with. This is a common argument for not putting children into a school context where they might end up being isolated as a Christian.

Any thoughts?

Jenny

*the face symbol morphed into “wink” and became plain odd*

Thank you so much for explaining this so thoroughly! It is, as you say, of utter importance. I think I finally understand, and agree with your good self (and, y’know, the Bible). Somehow in reading all you’d said I managed to miss the point that “repentance is something we do while faith is receiving something that Christ did”. Your last section was also very helpful.

Anyway I’ll mull it over for a bit and make sure I’ve got it straight. You’ll be hearing from me again if I haven’t. Silence and all is well .

Thanks Stephen for the comment.

When I said “to raise them up in order to send them out into the world as missionaries” I didn’t really mean anything more or less than “to raise them up to be followers of Jesus”.

My assumption is that all disciples of Jesus are called to relate to the world around them as missionaries.  This may or may not take the form of cross-cultural mission in a distant country, and it may or may not involve full-time, paid, vocational Christian ministry.

Hope that clarifies my meaning!

Nicole, your article says:

“Our kids’ formal education is part of a larger strategy we ought to have as parents to raise them up in order to send them out into the world as missionaries.”

This is rather odious.  God may have other plans for your children.  Is it for you to presume how they will spend their lives, ie conforming to the evangelical paradigm?  Surely our job as parents is to equip our children to enable them to discern their own called pathway?

It seems that heavy parental expectation is also alive and well in reformed christian patrenting circles.

Cheers.

Hi Sayer,
Thanks for these helpful interactions with my intial thoughts, and for your gracious response to my naughty tease at the end of the Calvin quotes.  I’ve scanned the pdf file you linked.  I agree that moving to specific texts of Scripture, and reflecting on Scriptural motiffs and themes, is where we should move next.  So here’s some thoughts:

because of personal subjective preferences, they choose one or another as a friend or a spouse whom they love specially, …two kinds of love. One, a uniquely subjective partnering love..and two, a universal love

I would say that love is love.  If there’s two different kinds of love then there’s two different concepts, and hence two different words.  The fact the Bible just uses ‘love’ suggests one concept with complexity within it.

I tried to couch my example to capture more than just our romantic approach to marriage.  In some cultures the person finds out who they are going to love in a marital way when they find them coming down the aisle/waiting at the end of the aisle.  Martin Luther’s love of his beloved Katie came because she had the personal subjective differences of being the last ex-nun standing whom no-one wanted to marry when Luther had taken responsibility to find the group all husbands.  There’s a huge range of successful marital loves out there that are not based in romantic choice but arise for other reasons.  That’s part of my point – ‘love’ is many-spangled thing.

I would suggest that the love involved in God saying, “Whoever believes in me shall not perish but have eternal life,”...is the latter not the former love. This is the universal love.

Sure, no problems.  But what about Ephesians 5:25-33?

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

John 3:16 talks about love for the world and that fits your ‘universal love’ category.  But Eph 5 is far, far more down the side of your ‘uniquely subjective partnering love’ – Jesus loved those who would make up his bride and so gave himself up for them.  (Unless you want to argue that Jesus can love ‘the church’ and not love the people who comprise the church).

A husband’s love for his wife is more like the love I was describing – a love that just is, not necessarily based on ‘merit’ or even subjective preference – and that cannot be required to be extended ‘fairly’ to others.  And I think I’ve got good scriptural grounds for bringing that into the mix in light of Eph 5.  That’s the kind of love that motivated Christ’s sacrifice.

Reviewing Ephesians 1 (verses 4,5 and 11), for example, I can see where confusion can arise as to what is referenced concerning predestination. The word eklegomai is used there and in 21 other places, including Luke 6:13 where it says, “Mary has chosen that good part.” The word’s principle use, then, is to describe the act of selecting or choosing one (or a few) from among several other options and possibilities. Nothing in the word inherently leads to concluding that it suggests predestination, or God choosing before the foundation of the world in chronos time. Granted, while it doesn’t preclude this direction it also doesn’t suggest it.
In verse five, the “before the foundation of the world” is in reference to both the noun “us” and the verb phrase “to be holy and blameless.” What is being chosen before the foundation of the world is not the particular individuals but rather the characteristics by which election is made. 

Okay, but if the basic meaning of the word is ‘the act of selecting one/a few from among other options and possibilities’ and the object of the verb in v4 is both the noun ‘us’ and the phrase ‘to be holy blameless’ then your view has a problem.

God chose us, and he chose the future where we would be holy and blameless.  That’s the most natural sense of what the verse is saying if both are objects of the verb.

If it was just us as the object – God chose us – then it would be just a statement that God chose us for himself.

If it was just ‘we would be holy and blameless’ as the object – God chose that we would be holy and blameless – then it would just be a statement that God determined that whoever belonged to Christ would be holy and blameless.

But it’s neither of those, it’s both together.  We’ve been chosen, and been chosen with a specific outcome in mind.  That’s most natural way to read the verse unless there’s pressing reasons not to.

Seeing the pdf file raises Ephesians 1:4,5,11, Romans 8:28-30, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Acts 2:23, and Acts 13:48, let’s start with those.  I’d also like to add Romans 9-11 into the mix as well.  Would you like to pick one or two of these off (and/or offer something else?) and explain how they should be understood and why?

Mark,

Thank you for providing more background on your and Calvin’s position on predestination. I’ll be reading Calvin’s chapter two again soon.

While I have not just yet read through thoroughly, I have a couple comments.

One, I expect that theologically I might best be described, with respect to Calvin, a four-point Calvinist, which is to say, not a “Calvinist,” but a four-point.

Two, while I greatly appreciate and honor your perspective that believes that your theological stance with regard to predestination results in a brighter light with regard to the “wonders of God’s grace,” I disagree with that conclusion. But, that is secondary, for the time being, to our conversation on predestination.

I think at this point, the best step for us to take, were we to converse further and bear fruit between us and with all is to go to the Scriptures and see what we can bring to light between us.

Grace (yes, amazing grace) and peace,

Sayer Strauch

Hello Jeremy, and welcome along,

thanks for this series. And yes I enjoyed your dialogue with Craig S.

You’re welcome, and I’m glad you enjoyed it, I think Craig did something quite substantial there.

Calvin is quite happy to define faith:  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.v.iii.html

Yep, and in my view every definition he offers should be carefully marked and mulled over.  He gives several definitions throughout the Institutes, and each one brings slightly different things to fore.  And each one is very valuable.

I don’t mean to sound grumpy but the lack of a working definition of ‘faith’ has made it very hard to follow what you mean by the distinction between faith and repentance.

No, I think being grumpy about that is a fair call.  I’m very sorry about that.  I kind of assumed that ‘faith’ was something (maybe one of the few things?) that could just be assumed as ‘common ground’ for ‘the core Sola readership’ (my hypothetical equivalent of ‘the ideal reader’).  So it didn’t need a definition, or even explicit discussion.  Sorry that’s made things harder.

So perhaps a clarifying question: in your mind, is the ‘acceptance’ of God’s promises an aspect of faith or repentance?

Definitely faith.  Ooooh so much faith and not repentance that it’s hard to express it.  Make that an aspect of ‘repentance’ and I’ll just give up now and go and join Pelagius and his merry band.  Because if that’s under ‘repentance’ then he was right after all.

Let me try and give some definitions of faith.  The definition you quoted is very important to me.  I’m also happy with Grudem’s threefold:

1. believe the truth of what God’s word declares

2. approve the truth of what God’s word declares (necessary in light of James 2:19)

3. personal trust in Christ

That was in his Systematic Theology that someone by email encouraged me to read.  I think Grudem and I agree basically about what repentance and faith are (but would probably have a lot to talk about when it came to their relationship with each other and to our reception of forgiveness).

A bit more fully: ‘trust’ is a common synonym for ‘faith’ for me, I’ll also take ‘assurance’ and ‘belief’ and ‘being convinced of’.  It can be spoken of as being directed at who God is, who Christ is, at what God’s promised, and at what Christ has done (or at what God has done in Christ).

However exotic my view (which I think is actually just Calvin’s) of ‘repentance’ is, I think my view of ‘faith’ is fairly humdrum for other evangelicals.  But perhaps you could flush out the issue with a few more directed questions?

concluding

as it was VERY costly for God to forgive us

No, I’m with those who have rejected this idea – Scott Newling in his Briefing review of Tim Keller’s book (IIRC), and Fiona Lockett in her similar critique on her blog.  It didn’t and doesn’t cost God anything to forgive us. 

Unlike us, he doesn’t struggle with forgiveness.  The ‘cost’ we pay for forgiving is real (I’ll put my hand up) but that’s because we’re deep dyed sinners who can be forgiven a simply unimaginable debt and still turn around and demand justice over a real, but vastly smaller debt (that’s a good description of me, sad to say).  To draw any comparison at all between us and God at that point is fundamentally ungodly and flies in the face of multiple passages of Scripture that do the exact opposite.

Now, to be able to extend forgiveness and uphold justice an unimaginable cost was paid.  But that’s because God is also upholding justice and not just forgiving us personally, but as a Judge declaring us in the right. 

But the cost is not at the point of extending the forgiveness to you and me.  At that point, God forgives sincerely and from the heart and without even a hint of reluctance or struggle.

It’s common to hear a prayer after an evangelistic talk that goes something like this: “Dear God, I have rejected you and ignored your will for my life. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you that Jesus died for my sins. Please help me to live with Jesus as Lord. Amen.”
What’s going on in that prayer? The first two sentences express repentance (as I’ve understood it). The third asks for forgiveness – but not because any recompense has been made or anything has been DONE. It’s asking for the GIFT of forgiveness. It’s seeking mercy and grace.
If my definition of repentance is valid, then it’s about saying, “I did the wrong thing, I’m sorry, and I need forgiveness.” Logically, then, if you are not repentant – if you don’t accept that you’re a sinner in need of forgiveness – how (why!) will you ever come to faith in Jesus?
So, could we say, “We are NOT forgiven BECAUSE OF our repentance, but repentance (recognition of wrongdoing) is (logically) a necessary step in order for us to come to faith in Christ and so to be forgiven”?

This is great stuff, Geoff.  It covers some similar ground that Fiona raised (on the thread for post 6) but with a whole fresh slant.

I think there’s repentance and faith in that prayer too, but not quite the way you see it.

Let’s assume you’re right.  “I did the wrong thing.  I’m sorry.”  Those are ‘repentance’.  Then, as you say, ‘if you don’t accept that you’re a sinner in need of forgiveness – how (why!) will you ever come to faith in Jesus?’

Can you see the problem?  What is the relationship of faith and repentance now?  I’ve argued that faith produces repentance.  Some have argued that faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin.  It’s also been argued that repentance is part of faith.  How have you constructed the relationship? 

Repentance leads to faith.  Until I repent, I won’t have faith, but true repentance will necessarily produce faith.  (I’m assuming that you don’t think someone could genuinely repent – accept that they are a sinner in need of forgiveness and be genuinely sorry – and not come to Christ in faith when they hear the gospel?  You can’t have a genuine repentance that leaves the person condemned?)

So justification by grace through faith alone, really means justification by grace through repentance, and its consequence, faith.  Are you happy with that?

Let’s return to the prayer.  ‘I did the wrong thing.  I’m sorry.’ 

I think the first of these would have historically been seen as connected to faith.  When we believe what God says, that we have nothing we can look to save us, then we are in a position to look to what Christ has done for us, and we want what he offers.  I don’t think that’s really ‘repentance’ – that’s ‘faith’, or at least a necessary part of faith.

The second would depend a bit on what’s meant by the statement.  Saying ‘I’m sorry’ can be an apology, an expression of our emotional state to our own actions, or a way of saying ‘I’m in the wrong’ or even ‘please forgive me’. 

If it’s the first two it’s repentance, if it’s the last two it’s another way of expressing faith – of expressing that stance that says, ‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling’.

That’s been pretty long, so let’s leave it there and see where you want to take things next.  But it was a great start, so many thanks.

However, without sitting down and working out a definition, I’d always thought of repentance as involving (but not necessarily being limited to) the realisation that you’ve done the wrong thing, then saying sorry and seeking forgiveness.

Sure.  No problem.  But that covers a relatively small portion of the biblical material.  Here I’m with Calvin:

A real conversion of our life unto God, proceeding from sincere and serious fear of God; and consisting in the mortification of our flesh and the old man, and the quickening of the Spirit. In this sense are to be understood all those addresses in which the prophets first, and the apostles afterwards, exhorted the people of their time to repentance.

Calvin’s not just talking about the prophets and apostles telling people to get right with God by saying ‘sorry’ and asking for forgiveness.  It includes that, but stretches out to include the putting off of sinful thoughts, desires, and actions, and putting on the new life of Christ – love, gentleness, purity, self-control, holiness and the like.  All of that is ‘repentance’ for us.  And if it isn’t, then you need a whole new term to describe that.  For then repentance has no moral content or implications, it is purely about our relationship.

If I’m a nasty piece of work in my relationship with people, repentance isn’t just saying sorry and asking for forgiveness.  It’s also trying to stop being a nasty piece of work, and trying to make amends when that nastiness has harmed others.  I’m not arguing for something less than what you want.  I’m arguing for something an awful lot more.

As an example, imagine a situation between two family members, where one (X) has wronged the other (Y). X comes to Y and says, “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I shouldn’t have done it. Please forgive me.” Is that not repentance? If not, what do we call this? (Genuine question)

It’s probably repentance.  But if the person keeps doing it, say seven times a day, day in and day out, and comes saying those words, would you still call it repentance?  If your spouse committed adultery seven times a day, day after day, and sincerely says this throughout would it be repentance? (Genuine question).  Does repentance for you have any moral content (any focus on my actions) as part of its essence, or is all about seeking to repair the relationship? 

I would suggest that an extra sentence needs to be in that statement either explicitly or implicitly: “I don’t ever want to do that to you again, and I want to try and make it up to you.”  If that’s cut out of the content of repentance, I don’t think I recognise it.

Y replies, “Well, thank you for saying sorry, but you really hurt me. Before I forgive you, you will need to DO something to make it up to me.” To me, that is not forgiveness. It is not the cancelation of a debt. On the contrary, it’s asking for the debt to be paid. It’s certainly modelled on not what God does with us.

Sure.  But even at my most mischevious I never went there.  What I tried to argue (implicitly) is that most of us, even though we seem to have dropped it from our speaking and thinking (I think because of some paranoia about moralism), still have some moral content to repentance.  You haven’t repented if you don’t intend to address the consequences of your sin on other people.

Now, if that’s the case, then my argument isn’t quite as malevolent as you seem to be suggesting.  If I can’t forgive until you repent, I need some indication that you will address the consequences of your sin on me.  I need an indication that you will ‘make it up to me’ as best you are able.  Once you’re there, then the somewhat commercial and corrupting nature of making forgiveness conditional on repentance becomes clear, I hope.

Now, if it is possible for you to repent and have no intention to make it up to me, then your criticism here is spot on.  I can make my forgiveness conditional on your repentance because you can repent of your sin against me and not have any intentions of addressing the harm you caused me.  I agree that solves the problem I set up.  I won’t necessarily get anything out of your repentance, because your repentance won’t affect how you live or treat me.  I have problems with your view of repentance though.

to be concluded

Hi Geoff,

thanks for taking the time to answer my queries. Much appreciated.

You’re welcome.  It was time well spent, because this was a humdinger of a contribution you offered in response – really opened some new and important issues up.  Thank you. 

I agree that trying to define things too tightly can be unhelpful at times, and understand what you’re saying. But I also think that definitions can be a crucial part of theology, and can help us make sure we’re agreeing / disagreeing about real, substantive issues….

JC Ryle’s ‘Knots Untied’: “It may be laid down as a rule, with tolerable confidence, that the absence of accurate definitions is the very life of religious controversy. If men would only define with precision the theological terms which they use, many disputes would die.”

I hate having to disagree with Ryle, but I’ll dissent a bit from the great bishop.  If our goal is to avoid religious controversy, then yes, accurate definitions is a great way to get there.  But I’m not sure that’s a good goal to have.  (Although there’s a huge sub-category of religious controversy that we should avoid, and which Paul calls on us to eschew.  I try and avoid those like the plague.) 

The Bible from almost the start to almost the end is a story of religious conflict.  If definitions are the ‘high road’ to the word of God having its way in our hearts and lives, then why doesn’t Paul start every epistle with accurate definitions of the disputed terms?  Why does Jesus teach in parables? 

The Bible is fairly parsimonious in the definitions it offers, I’d suggest.  And it certainly never does anything like, “Now, with this issue, we need to remember what x is, if you remember our definition from earlier….”. 

“The Bible’s method” (heh) just isn’t like a lot of what we do.  I’m not saying we can’t do that, I don’t think the Bible prescribes an epistemology or an educational theory.  I’m just saying I think I can point to some important things to say that my approach has some validity.

I’m happy to give definitions, despite what I said.  I’m not happy to have definitions do the heavy-lifting the way Ryle wants here. 

Let’s talk about the reality or the concept in various ways and from some different approaches and see what light that sheds.  Along the way we can throw up some definitions that seem to help make sure we’re somewhere on the same page.  And then let’s go back to talking about the thing in a range of ways to test our understanding of it.  That’s sort of where I’m coming from.

A line that stood out to me in your definition of repentance (from post 5) was “Recompense is an essential part of repentance.” It’s at this point that I think definitions are crucial. If that’s how we define repentance, then I absolutely agree with your conclusion. ‘Repentance’ is a work, and the gospel is that we are justified and forgiven apart from works. Hence forgiveness does not require repentance – defined in this way.

Great pick-up.  I’m surprised it took until now for someone to call me on that.  Yars, that was a naughty sentence – it was true in the sense that Mt 5:30 is true, not 1 John 3:4.  If I was to try and give a ‘proper’ (highly precise and accurate) definition of repentance I wouldn’t say something like that, it would be more something like ‘an intention to recompense to the degree possible is an essential part of repentace’. 

If the activity of recompensing is repentance, then I haven’t repented until I’ve completed the recompense.  And I can’t repent towards God because it’s impossible to recompense God.  That’s clearly wrong.

But let me give an example.  Say you deliberately cripple me.  It was your intention and you succeeded.  I’m permamently in a wheelchair.  And you happen to be a multi-millionaire.  You come to me, very sorry for what you’ve done, and clearly and genuinely desiring to be reconciled. 

But you have no intention of trying to give me assistance to get the help I need now.  You’re sorry.  You want to be reconciled.  But you have no intention to deal with the consequences your sin has had on me. 

Are you repentant?  I would say, ‘clearly not’.  And my deliberately inaccurate and provocative statement was designed to put that shot over the bow. 

Repentance is not just ‘relational’ – to do with your and my estrangement, it is also ‘responsible’ – to do with coming to terms with my actions and way of life and repudiating and changing to a new way.

continuing...