Brief Mentions of Election

For those of us who have wrestled with the complexities of the doctrine of election, it seems strange that in so many of Paul's letters and in the book of Acts, the idea of election receives only a brief mention.

In Acts 13:48, we are told that "all of those who were appointed for eternal life believed." We immediately want to know what that means, but Luke doesn't give us any further help. Likewise, in Pauline epistles like those to the Thessalonians, Paul makes statements like, "For we know that God has chosen you" (1 Thess. 1:4), or "God chose you...to be saved" (2 Thess. 2:13). Again, we want more information on this important way of thinking, but none is forthcoming.

For many students of the Bible, these short mentions of this concept might indicate that the doctrine of election is not all that important to our spiritual growth, and indeed ought not to hold a central place in our theology.

Leon Morris, however, in his masterful exposition of the book of 1 Thessalonians in the New International Commentary of the New Testament, speaking of Paul's brief mention of the idea, says, "He undertakes no explanation of what election is, so that the Thessalonians must have been familiar with the concept; clearly it was part of the original preaching." Now, this is a big thought! What if the reason why the doctrine of election is not expounded in every epistle is because it was a central part of the gospel that Paul explained to every church he started?

That certainly seems likely given the fact that in the one letter he wrote to a church he didn't start, he spends 3 out of 16 chapters explaining God's purpose in election. I am, of course, talking about the letter to the Romans and the 9th through the 11th chapter. In fact, it seems like Romans must contain the meat of what Paul normally taught the churches that he founded, since Romans is considered the great doctrinal exposition of the whole Bible. If that is the case (and I don't know how it could not be), then election ought to be a central part of our teaching and preaching of the gospel as well. We ought to teach our people to understand God's primacy in salvation so that no man may boast and to the point where we can drop statements like, "God chose you to be saved" without anyone raising questions as to what we mean by that.

Don't Waste Your Pulpit

Here's a great short video from John Piper, talking about the absolute necessity to preach the word of God and not man's ideas. This would seem like common sense, but out of the dozens of churches I have attended in my life, I can count on one hand the number of pastors in those churches that actually got their message from the Bible. The grand majority know what they want to say first, and then use the Bible as backup for their ideas. There is not a subtle difference between these two paradigms.

"Judge Not" != "Never Judge"

My friend, D.J. Williams, has posted some very wise and timely thoughts from my former pastor, Eric Fields, on the subject of Jesus' instruction to "Judge not lest you be judged" over at Sola Miscellany.

By the way, "!=" is a computer programming code that means, "Does not equal".