First, a little background for this post:
Generally from within the ranks of neo-Calvinism, a growing body of criticism has been emerging regarding evangelistic means that have been widespread among Southern Baptists. The use of the altar-call invitation has been one of the activities challenged by this critique. The use of a "sinner's prayer" is another challenged activity.
Consider, for example, this clip from the preaching of David Platt:
From the opposite perspective, take a moment to hear the words of Steve Gaines:
Also, I commend to you the analysis of Malcolm Yarnell, offered in his blog post, Is It Biblical to Ask Jesus into Your Heart?
And now, having oriented you to the debate, I offer my opinion. I think it might be helpful for us to draw an analogy to marriage vows as a good way to understand "The Sinner's Prayer."
I think we'd have to admit that both marriage vows and the sinner's prayer suffer from a great deal of abuse these days. The abusers are not the pastors, by and large, although there exists a class of mail-order-ordination "ministers" for whom the vows are simply a magic incantation to make people married and there exists a class of preachers out there who simply get people to repeat a prayer by rote in order to inflate their numbers. The existence of these folks entirely granted, the predominant abusers of marriage vows are the people reciting them, not the people officiating them. Their subsequent lives demonstrate that they were not sincere in what they said at the marriage altar. Likewise, the subsequent lives of many people who mouth a sinner's prayer gives ample evidence that they were not at all sincere in what they claimed to have been praying.
Another similarity is the fact that the Bible gives us neither the text of a set of wedding vows nor the text of a specific sinner's prayer. The substantive core of both is in the Bible—both the idea that marriage is a covenantal relationship solemnized by a sacred vow and the idea that conversion is associated with something that someone says in connection with an appeal to God are biblical concepts. The specific text of a marriage vow or a sinner's prayer, however, does not appear in scripture.
Now, what ought we to do about this problem with wedding vows? I don't hear many people suggesting that the solution would be to do away with wedding vows altogether or to minimize their role in the celebration of weddings. Rather, the better solution is to pay more attention to the vows rather than less. We should make certain that the vows of Christian marriage have been worded carefully, that they represent well all that Christian marriage entails, and that each participant makes his or her vows as someone who has been informed fully about the meaning of those vows as he or she gives assent to them. Can two people be married in God's eyes without exchanging vows? I suppose. Why would they want to be?
Likewise, it is foolishness to cast away the idea of a prayer formally stating repentance from sin, formally requesting forgiveness in the blood of Christ, formally appealing to God for a cleansed conscience, and formally declaring one's allegiance to the Lordship of Christ. Can a person be saved apart from having received specific guidance to pray that sort of a prayer? I think so. The thief on the cross comes to mind. Prayer can take a lot of forms. God is able to discern repentance and faith apart from our expressions of it. Verbal declarations of the Lordship of Christ come in bewildering variety. But why would one wish avoid praying such a prayer as a part of receiving Christ?
In both cases, it is true that some substantive something happening within the people is the substantive reality being celebrated, and not some incantational effect of the words. In both cases it is true that many are making a travesty of the phenomenon by their insincerity. In both cases, however, the vow and the prayer are opportunities to plumb the depths of the inward commitment and to solemnize it. We may be failing to realize the opportunity as well as we might, but that does not mean that we should dismiss it altogether.
29 comments:
Thank you for sharing these two videos, BART. Both are informative about two different perspectives in your faith.
I am familiar with a 'sinner's prayer' in my Church, this:
"O God, be merciful to me a sinner."
This prayer comes from the Bible:
"... the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.'
(from the Holy Gospel of St. Luke 18:13)
The early Christians of the East and today's Eastern Christians still say this version of the prayer:
Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me")
In the first years of western Christianity, this was said among Christian people:
'Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr'
It means: 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior'
Another version of it is still prayed in my Church today, and it is still prayed in the Greek:
"Kyrie, eleison. (Lord, have mercy)
Christe, eleison" (Christ, have mercy)
One of the most beautiful and ancient of hymns in Christianity, the Trisagion, expresses the Sinner's Prayer,
this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHi-1taeqeo
The crux of the matter is this:
"Likewise, it is foolishness to cast away the idea of a prayer formally stating repentance from sin, formally requesting forgiveness in the blood of Christ, formally appealing to God for a cleansed conscience, and formally declaring one's allegiance to the Lordship of Christ."
A sinner's prayer that essentially articulates what you have written is above reproach. I think what some people (not necessarily all) are advising against are sinner's prayers that are either biblically confusing or essentially un-biblical (in their content).
I am familiar with a 'sinner's prayer' in my Church, this:
"O God, be merciful to me a sinner."
___
I pray that one whenever I think about it. Several times a day.
It's good that someone is thinking of these things.
I suggest one examine the results. They are, indeed, similar. I also suggest that marriage has a greater success rate than discipleship rate does. Of course we cannot know whether discipleship is in any way linked to the "success rate" of "salvation prayers", but I certainly hope the rate of salvation is better than the rate of discipleship. But something ought to tell us that there are inadequacies in the process used by the people who ought to know better, in each instance.
It also strikes me .. how do we know with assurance, the salvation of Paul and the other apostles? By their "salvation prayers"?
This is a great topic to be discussing because it involves the best way to honor Christ and disciple people.
I think the best practice is to focus on terms that the Bible uses. The term "Believe" comes to mind the most.
But expressing belief is different. In the NT no "conversion" experience or expression of belief from one person to the next looks the same.
To one it's touching a garment, to another its asking to be remembered while dying on the cross, to another it's identifying with the metaphor of being a dog and getting crumbs from the table, to another it's believing that Jesus can simply say that his daughter is healed, to another it's showing oneself to a priest after being healed of blindness, and in another situation, one is rejected because even though he has lived a spotless moral life on the exterior and believes in Jesus at some level, he is unwilling to sell all of this possessions and give the money to the poor and follow Jesus.
Your analogy to marriage vows is a good one.
I do not oppose the use of the sinner's prayer, but the teaching around it could be improved in many quarters, and the concept of believing in Jesus, in who he is and his work, is the key, not in a lot of things that use language that is not biblical.
Louis
Bart,
I don't know either man well, but I suspect they're not that far off in their own personal understandings of conversion (faith/repentance).
What I suspect, based on the content of these videos, is that while Dr. Gaines apparently assumes that the proselyte (for lack of a better term) WILL receive biblical instruction as to what, exactly, "believe" and "receive" mean before being led in the prayer (or at least soon thereafter), Dr. Platt apparently assumes the proselyte DOES NOT, in situations where a formulaic "sinner's prayer" is employed, typically receive that critical instruction.
Louis,
I kicked off the trend of appealing to the gospels, so I take responsibility for that. But after seeing your list, I think there's some need to acknowledge that the gospel is not fully in place to be presented until Jesus has marched to Golgotha.
Belief is only one ingredient in the stew. Sitting in James Leo Garrett's class years ago was instructive for me on this point (and so many others). In the New Testament texts, belief is a peer with repentance and verbal confession as elements of becoming a Christian.
Stuart,
Platt's statement is clearly not a detached theological reflection. He's calling people out…criticizing practices like the sinner's prayer as dangerous, damning, and contrary to biblical teaching.
Platt and Gaines may well be compatible in their beliefs, but if they are, they don't know it.
Bart,
Borrowing from the analogy you offer in the original post...
I know (or at least I think I know based on several years of reading your writing) you well enough that I do not believe that you would marry a couple who had not first received from you a thorough and Scripturally informed explanation of the meaning of the vows they will be making. I sincerely do not believe that you would lead them through the exercise of saying some words of commitment to God and to each other without explaining to them the permanent nature of covenants in Scripture, or without explaining to them their responsibilities to God and to each other as an expression of Christ and His church. You might even consider the practice (of some) of leading couples through the recitation of marriage words (minus a Scriptural explanation and their subsequent commitment) to be dangerous, damning, and contrary to biblical teaching.
I would have expected you to agree that if a "sinner's prayer" is employed in the absence of sound explanation (at whatever appropriate maturity level) of what "repentance," "faith," "believe," "receive," etc. ACTUALLY MEAN, then such an exercise of leading people to repeat words (minus the explanation) might rightly be characterized as dangerous, damning, and contrary to biblical teaching.
And yes, I realize that you will be technically correct when you tell me that David didn't say those things, he said the practice itself is dangerous, etc.
But it's pretty evident that he means the practice as it is widely practiced.
Stuart,
Yes, I do indeed believe that the kind of instruction that you've indicated is indispensably important. I've tried to be temperate and judicious in my comments on this question, and I hope that the original post conveyed my acknowledgement that the sinner's prayer can be done well and can be done poorly, and that the difference between the two can make all the difference!
Perhaps it was Platt's intention to be just as temperate and judicious in his comments. But the substance of his critique—that the wording is not biblical…that the action itself is not biblical—seems, taken at face value, to be arguing for more than what you are suggesting.
It may be that you have a personal relationship with Platt and are able to provide some greater insight to his meaning. I readily acknowledge that I do not have that kind of insight. Context can indeed matter.
My intention in writing the post was not so much to focus on the personalities involved as to focus on the substance of what they were saying. I did provide the contrast between the two clips, but I did so primarily because it was the contrast between the two of them that started me to thinking about this. At the beginning of the post, the function of the two clips and the link to Yarnell serves the purpose of saying, "Here's why I was thinking about this subject matter about which I'm now going to write."
The role of their comments having been no greater than what I just mentioned, I must confess that I am ill-equipped to discuss either David Platt or Steve Gaines with regard to their overall, greater views of evangelistic methods and the nature of conversion. I'll leave that to others. I was just hoping to add to the ongoing conversation a simple analogy that I believe is helpful.
Bart,
I waited to post so as not commit the grievous blogging sin of the "triple post". But I did go back and re-read your OP and acknowledge that I did realize that at the very least you and I would agree on the need for the sinner's prayer (and marriage vows) to be done well.
No, I don't have a personal relationship with David, but I have heard him sound a similar refrain several times in several different settings going back several years. Perhaps that informs my conjecture that his beef is with the practice as practiced and not necessarily with the idea of praying as an expression of commitment.
I guess I missed that the two clips and Yarnell's article were merely just for information. Yes, I think I was somehow trying to tie them all together with your article. Thank you for the clarification.
Finally, I do confess that this subject in general is a bit personal for me. I grew up in a "raise your hand if you just repeated that" setting. I've also followed a "raise your hand if you just repeated that" pastorate. Also, a few years ago my child's well-meaning first-grade teacher prompted her entire class to "repeat after me" on the first day of school. The kids were from Baptist, Catholic, and "nothing" backgrounds. They had widely variant understandings of who Jesus is and what the name God even means. But to a child, they each prayed the prayer she led them to pray. All of that has led me as a parent and a pastor to a very cautious position with regard to "the sinner's prayer."
In any event, I'm sorry if I've bogged the discussion down by somehow missing your point or by seeming as though I'm merely defending David.
Blessings.
Stuart,
I, too, have seen—and worked to reduce—the kinds of abuses that you have highlighted. Part of what I'm trying to do with the analogy is to demonstrate that it is possible, even if one is right in seeing the problem (abuse of marriage vows or sinner's prayers) it is possible, with the best of intentions, to advance the wrong solution (doing away with them).
For example, Roman Catholics do not have any such idea as a "sinner's prayer" as a part of conversion, but this omission has not caused them to have a strong focus on the biblical gospel.
Drive people to a healthy appreciation of faith, repentance, and verbal confession of Christ as Lord. That, I believe, is where the solution lies.
Thanks for your ongoing readership and for your interaction here. I wasn't trying to make an argument that your comments or questions were bad ones. I was simply trying to show why I had put so little effort in the original post (and in my subsequent comments, even) to be prepared to answer them well.
Having spent the first 21 years of my life in very conservative IFB circles I saw and did a lot of witnessing and "Soul-winning." The emphasis was all about closing the sale and getting the person to pray the prayer. If you could just get them to pray the prayer then you had won their soul, and they were saved.
I know you aren't specifically talking about witnessing or soul-winning, but I think most would not have a problem with a particular prayer being cited for salvation as much as the overall context in which that prayer is said.
The dangerous thing that I've seen about the sinners prayer is that the idea is left with the person that if they just say the prayer then that is it, and they're saved. I've run into people who later in life would say things like, "Yeah I tried that Christian stuff, and it didn't work for me." After probing a little deeper I'd find that what they meant was at one time they had said the sinner's prayer and been assured that they were a Christian. Now sure in some cases they may have actually been saved and drifted, but I think there were a lot who weren't saved.
As a now Reformed believer I have a much different perspective on things such as this, and have come to the conclusion that our responsibility is more to share the Word of God (Rom. 10:14, 15), and the Holy Spirit will take that Word and bring about the new birth.
Romans 10:10 AMP
10 For with the heart a person believes (adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Christ) and so is justified (declared righteous, acceptable to God), and with the mouth he confesses (declares openly and speaks out freely his faith) and confirms [his] salvation.
The prayer is a result of what has already taken place in the heart.
Jason,
Thanks for pointing us all again to the fact that abuse of the sinner's prayer does indeed occur. I think we're all in agreement about that. Platt's actual wording goes much further than just suggesting that the sinner's prayer is a good thing (or even a neutral thing) that's just being abused, IMHO.
Also, I thought I'd point out that the syntactical arrangement of Romans 10:8-10 does not suggest causation from heart to mouth (although you might argue that from other passages). Rather, the action of the heart and the action of the mouth are presented as coordinate peers in this passage.
"But what does it say? 'Near to you is the word, in your mouth and in your heart.' This is the word of faith, which we preach: That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart [someone] believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation." (Romans 10:8-10, The Bart Barber, Sometimes Yoda-Like, Translation)
The gist of that passage is that the word of faith…the word of salvation…is present alike in heart and mouth. I think this is a strong argument for the underlying point of my original post: That the sincere agreement between heart and mouth is the sine qua non of conversion.
Thanks for reading and commenting Jason. God bless!
Brother Bart, you have offered an unique perspective on this issue that I have not seen elsewhere, though I unfortunately must say I disagree. I think the sinner's prayer and marriage vows are dissimiliar in at least the two following reasons.
First, you write that (generally) the "abusers are not the pastors" but "the people reciting them." This is much more applicable to marraige than to the sinner's prayer. In most cases of which I am aware, pastors/preachers do not go out looking for people to recite the marriage vows. People who have the idea of marriage in their hearts and minds come looking for a preacher to formally and publicly officiate what is already there. On the other hand, I am not aware of cases in which people hunt down preachers so they can recite the sinner's prayer to them. Perhaps there are some odd cases of this in which people have been previously instructed in this as the manner of coming to salvation, but I can't imagine this is generally true. Rather preachers who present the gospel urge people to repeat the sinner's prayer after them. If this is correct, whether one believes the sinner's prayer itself is right or wrong, we must see that the abuse of it mostly comes from the pastor/preacher/soul-winner. This would not be in someone's mind did not the preacher put it there.
Second, I believe that inserting the sinner's prayer in the place of formally acknowledging repentance and faith inserts it in place of something that Baptists (and the Bible) already have in place for that formal acknowledgement -- profession of faith before the church and baptism. This is the formal "vow" that is most equivalent to the marriage vow, in my opinion. I may be misunderstanding part of your post, but your use of "formally stating...formally declaring," "the substantive reality being celebrated," and an "opportunit[y] to plumb the depths of the inward commitment and to solemnize it" leads me to believe you mean something that is an outward acknowledgement of an inward reality (rather than the reality itself). If the sinner's prayer is a formal thing/outward acknowledgement, then it intrudes on a scriptural formal thing/outward acknowledgement. If it is not formal, then it is either efficacious or useless. If it is formal, it is intrusive.
Lastly, I have no quarrel with prayers as such -- but not only with the thief on the cross, even in all such cases in the Bible, I have not found one in which the witness/soul-winner had to pray the prayer of repentance and faith for the mourner.
Bart,
I think the Amplified captures the sense of the verse, but at the same time I can't quibble with your translation either. The EMTV is almost word for word what you've stated. I would agree there is more direct support for causation in other Scriptures.
I hear you saying this is sort of a side-subject to the David Platt argument. I'm not so sure. I see a tie-in. I'm sure you're aware that the word translated believe in Romans 10 (and in many places elsewhere) means to put your faith in, to entrust, and to put your trust in. I think Strongs also uses the word "commit."
Recently I've been studying faith, and a picture I've gotten is us dangling off a cliff with one hand and Jesus with an outstretched hand. The only way to take hold of his hand is to let go of that one hand and grab onto Jesus. That's much more than what is typically portrayed in the statement "believe in Jesus and accept him into your heart." There has to be an awareness of our sinfulness, a turning away from that sin in repentance, and a trust in what Christ did for us in dying for that sin and then being raised again in triumph.
When I hear David Platt's words I hear the caution that the prayer has become primary rather than the Biblical message of the Gospel that needs to be grasped in the heart. I wouldn't necessarily use all of the wording that Platt does, but I think the idea is spot on.
First of all, God reads the heart and knows what is there. While many may very well be trying to guide those who have no spiritual understand, and have no ill intent for suggesting a particular prayer, lost people are so easily confused. They being to trust in a form of words or an altar rather than Jesus Christ. If we present the Scripture and the substantive elements of Biblical repentance and faith, God will help the penitent find Him.
But I have an even bigger objection: the idea that salvation is a dual obligation contract: Those who are hopelessly lost and unable to help themselves should very well abhor their condition, but are in no position to even promise God future obedience. Obedience comes AFTER salvation. A vow to serve Him in exchange for His saving grace is no more grace, but works.
That part of the human 'soul' given to us by God has within it a great longing to be with it's Creator. That is the part of us where, when we are 'in Christ', the Holy Spirit dwells.
It is the part of us that people may mean when they say 'heart', but I do not know that . . .
that part of our soul is the place where the Holy Spirit enables us to pray in a way that needs no words
it is the part of us that longs deeply for God's peace and seeks His forgiveness because we have come to His Son and found a home there, a place of refuge and shelter, while we journey on our pilgrimage toward our heavenly home
all the 'words' that the deep man-made theology use to teach us about salvation cannot fully honor what Christ does in us, I think.
What is 'missing' may be something a small child could explain to us, if we would listen . . .
Whatever it is that we 'miss' in trying to capture an understanding of salvation in words, I know there is something that testifies to its existence in us, this:
among the victims of Alzheimers who are Christian people, sometimes when all ability to speak has left them, they can be heard singing an old, loved hymn. Their singing honors what we are 'missing' in the great man-made theologies about the mysteries of the bond of Christ in us, and our bond in Him.
He leads us into life. This we know.
Bro. R. L.,
Your points, the both of them, have a great deal of merit. Here's where they leave me.
1. Entirely acknowledging the abuse that you are highlighting (which I attempt to do in the original post), There is still the phenomenon—even in the New Testament!—of people who have been presented the gospel rightly but have made false professions of faith. You're right in that they probably made their false professions of faith when a pastor confronted them with the gospel, but people make false professions of faith even when the Christian presenting the gospel to them did so in just the right way.
If we understand one another rightly about this, then I guess we're down to quibbling over the statistics—how often does this happen as a result of an egregiously poor presentation of the gospel and how often does it happen because of disingenuousness on the part of the person professing faith in Christ. And that being the case, I confess that I performed absolutely NO research to substantiate my claim that false professors are more numerous than malpracticing evangelists.
2. Your point about baptism is really well-taken, and I suspect you knew how strongly it would resonate with me. I can only plead that I really didn't intend to press the analogy quite that far…to give "the sinner's prayer" the same significance as baptism. Perhaps I have no choice…I'll have to mull that over.
I think that the "appeal to God for a cleansed conscience" (1 Peter 3:21) represents a prayer (appeal) to God that is concurrent with conversion and is the spiritual something represented by the "removal of dirt from the flesh" that is physical immersion. It is this differentiation that helps us to avoid the errors of Campbell, I think.
Is that prayer inward only, or is it verbalized? Romans 10 compels me to think that there is an outwardly communicative component that is a part of salvation itself. I think that a verbal affirmation of Jesus as Lord is also a good thing to make a part of the rite of immersion, but the fact that Romans 10 connects this verbal affirmation with salvation, coupled with the fact that I do not believe that immersion is salvific, puts me somewhat on the horns of a dilemma here if I couple that verbal affirmation too tightly with immersion.
Maybe you can show me the way here.
3. I don't like one person praying for another. I don't like "repeat after me" prayers. I don't think that they constitute so grave an error as to prevent a person from being converted in the midst of that exercise, but I as suspicious of whether the Holy Spirit is at work in the spirit of a person who cannot express to God in prayer his repentance and faith. That having been said, I do not think it is inappropriate to indicate to a person that the content of a prayer should involve a contrite, repentant appeal to God for forgiveness and the cleansing of the conscience as well as an affirmation of faith in Christ and submission to His Lordship.
Jonathan,
I'm with James on this question (and Paul, I think). No person is in any position to accomplish righteousness and therefore no person is in any position to promise righteousness to God as a part of the "transaction" of salvation.
Righteousness is part of that for which we ask; it is nothing that we promise.
And yet, saving faith does show itself in works. These are not the accomplishment of the Christian, and you do well when you remind us about this, for it keeps us from boasting. These are, nevertheless, the eventual accomplishment of Christ in all of those who are His.
Brother, I was going to make a thoughtful reply, which your thoughtfulness deserves, but my thoughts and my time are not cooperating. So let me make some brief statements and get back with you.
1. I don't mean to downplay the problem of false professions of faith. Both our opinions are probably informed by our unique experiences. No doubt neither of us have any statistics.
2. Yes, I cheated! I felt this would get your attention. Now I think you have cheated me back, perhaps knowing my fear of the spectre of Alexander Campbell! As far as finding the way, I'm going to have to mull over this a bit.
3. "I am suspicious of whether the Holy Spirit is at work in the spirit of a person who cannot express to God in prayer his repentance and faith." Amen. I can agree that I don't think the unnecessary repeat-after-me would necessarily prevent a person from being converted. I would probably say converted "in spite of" it.
Brother Bart, I've tried to collect my thoughts for a more extender response. On the first point, I want to follow up by acknowledging that false professions of faith come at the point when a person is confronted with the gospel, regardless of whether or not the Christian presenting the gospel to them does so in the right way. I guess my entire concern proceeds from a presupposition that people who exhort folks to ask Jesus into their heart are doing it the wrong way. As I mentioned, we both are probably not only dealing with the Scriptures, but understanding things to some extent based on our experiences. I have the unfortunate experience with past interaction with what I would label as the "Hyles-Rice" brand of evangelism that counts numbers more than it covets souls. I've seen enough to give me nightmares were I prone to be the worrying kind. Raise your hand, repeat after me -- even a missionary who looked into a small congregation of people he didn't know and emphatically knew there was someone present who wasn't saved. I've seen oblivious soul-winners lead obviously disinterested parties through the whole process down the Roman Road through the repeated prayer to giving them "final assurance". The disinterested parties walked away with a smirk on their faces while the soul-winner went away with a notch on his belt. It's enough to make me puke, if you'all excuse the country expression.
As I review your reference to "the errors of Campbell," I now feel you were speaking mostly of baptism while I was including the preceding error of mental assent with no spiritual work in the heart. The Calvinistic Baptists who opposed Campbell found this to be a severe error, but it seems to me that some of the modern "neo-Calvinists" come closer to Campbell's mental assent than their forefathers spiritual work in the heart. So this (to me) does track with some of your concerns.
I take no issue with verbalized calling of the sinner to God. We see such in the Bible. "Lord be merciful to me a sinner," "Remember me when thou comest into Paradise" and so forth. I don't, and doubt you would, make audible prayer a condition of salvation. Else those who could not speak could not be saved. When I cried out to God, it was a real cry, but not audible to anyone else in the church house (I don't think). In my memory I bowed and spoke silently to God. But I did follow that up shortly with a profession of faith before the church. Personally, I don't try to untie all the intricacies of the details of salvation. But I do prefer that we stick closely with the Bible exhortation to repent and believe the gospel without creating a lot of other referents. With this, though, I take no exception to exhorting one to call on the Lord. I am impressed with the Ninevehites. When they got a view of the seriousness of the situation, they didn't seem to have much problem figuring out to/how to repent even without any coaching from Jonah.
I'm not sure I can show the way here, but one thing I do believe we Baptists should do is connect the act of baptism more directly with the profession of faith. Too often churches seem to receive a profession, wait for the stars to line up, check to make sure all fifth cousins can attend the service and maybe even send the professor to school for a year. Biblically, baptism was tied to the initial profession of faith.
I can't find anything in that comment to disagree with.
I think that Platt has gotten "easy believism" mixed up with "sinners prayer" and "asking Jesus into your heart." Easy believism is a big problem; it does seem to me. There are many people, who think that just because they believe in Jesus....purely a head knowledge....where they said a prayer and got baptized....that they are saved. When in reality, they're just as lost as the Demons, who believe in God and tremble, according to James. They have a head knowledge of God. They may have even said a prayer. They probably got baptized. BUT, they never really, truly got saved; because they never repented and put their faith in Jesus.
But, helping people to pray to receive Christ as their personal Lord and Savior is not "easy believism," as Platt has stated. If people have been counseled that they need to turn to God with all of thier heart, and put all of their faith in Jesus; then helping people to pray, or using the phrase "ask Jesus into your heart" is not "easy believism. If people have been counseled that faith is a surrendering faith; one that will produce good works due to a changed heart; then helping them pray, or to call upon the Lord, is not "easy believism."
So, I think Platt has really missed the point on this whole issue.
I think that Platt has gotten "easy believism" mixed up with "sinners prayer" and "asking Jesus into your heart." Easy believism is a big problem; it does seem to me. There are many people, who think that just because they believe in Jesus....purely a head knowledge....where they said a prayer and got baptized....that they are saved. When in reality, they're just as lost as the Demons, who believe in God and tremble, according to James. They have a head knowledge of God. They may have even said a prayer. They probably got baptized. BUT, they never really, truly got saved; because they never repented and put their faith in Jesus.
But, helping people to pray to receive Christ as their personal Lord and Savior is not "easy believism," as Platt has stated. If people have been counseled that they need to turn to God with all of thier heart, and put all of their faith in Jesus; then helping people to pray, or using the phrase "ask Jesus into your heart" is not "easy believism. If people have been counseled that faith is a surrendering faith; one that will produce good works due to a changed heart; then helping them pray, or to call upon the Lord, is not "easy believism."
So, I think Platt has really missed the point on this whole issue.
David
This crossed my mind.
The problem with using Wedding vows as an analogy is that that is a later invention in the traditions of marriage. It cannot be injected as an idea and linked to the biblical idea of accepting/receiving Christ as in the same way the modern wedding ceremony is done. In fact ancient weddings in Jewish and Greco-Roman culture did not have the "vow" as a part of the proceedings. It was a legal procedure followed by a celebration of the marriage. Simple signing of the documents and the ratifying of the covenant. Are we to suggest that becoming a Christian should carry the same pomp and pagentry as the modern wedding simply because it is done that way? There is no connection between belief and confession of Christ and the modern wedding vow.
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