Regeneration

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Make Disciples, Not Converts? Really?

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Cliches are normal in any language. Sometimes they are able to capture a snippet of thought accurately, other times they muddy the waters of theological judgment. Of course, the impact of any cliche is purely subjective, but it seems that western Christianity is full of cliches that are just not biblically supported. Obviously from the title, you know which one I have in mind so I won’t waste time getting to the point.

Where in the bible do we even find a hint that a convert of Jesus Christ IS NOT a disciple? For the most part, I get it. I get that the idea here is that we focus on making true disciples rather than just a mere decision to follow Christ. However, the reality of the matter is, when a person repents of their sin and trusts in Jesus’ finished work to save them from their sin, if their regeneration is from the Holy Spirit and they exhibit a life that bears fruit and perseverance in Christian character and godliness, that person is not only a convert, but a disciple of Jesus Christ. The moment anyone is saved from their sin, they become a disciple. A follower of Jesus. A convert of Christ. The idea that we can gain a convert but not a disciple is not only unbiblical, but absurd.

One of the ways this cliche gains ground is from the Carnal Christian doctrine and Decisionism. Although they are distinct in some ways, both feed off each other. They propose that a person can become a Christian, yet still live carnally. Also, they teach that a person can have Jesus as Savior, but not as Lord. Furthermore, you can make a decision to follow Christ, but still be a babe or carnal for most, if not all, of your christian life. If such a thing is believed and taught in your church, run.

For the most part, a person may have good intentions when stating this cliche, or they are ignorant of its presupposition. That happens. We want to try and provide someone with the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. Also, not everyone that states this cliche may come from a Carnal Christian perspective (at least not knowingly). But the main thrust here is to challenge even the possibility that someone can become a true convert to Christ, but not be a disciple. They may be a young disciple, a new disciple, or even a false disciple if they fall away. But, in the mean time, they are disciple nevertheless until proven otherwise. The same goes for the word convert. They are semanitcally interchangeable.

In Acts 3:19 Peter preached repentance and conversion. In Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas described to the Phoenicians and Syrians the conversion of the Gentiles. In Psalm 51, David mentioned teaching transgressor God’s ways and converting them (sounds like the Great Commission in a nutshell). In Acts 6:1 it mentions how disciples were multiplying. Acts 14 also mentions making many disciples, and they just started in the faith. And even verses that don’t use the words translated as “convert” or “disciple” in both old and new testaments still semantically explain what conversion and being a follower of Jesus/God is, and are an inclusive list which helps us to systematically understand that to turn from sin and turn to God is conversion and discipleship. Sure, it involves lifetime dedication, devotion, repeated repentance, and obedience to the one you profess to know and love. But it is still conversion and discipleship nevertheless. And to throw a wrench in this whole matter, even Judas was called a disciple when, in reality, he was not.

It would necessitate a bible study of multiple passages and words that would help illustrate my point further. Nevertheless, it is my hope that we grasp that this cliche doesn’t really demonstrate a biblical understanding of a follower of Christ. No matter how you slice it, a disciple is a convert and a convert is a disciple. They can be used interchangeably. And that is the beauty of language and words within language. There may be times when using the word “convert” describes an entry level understanding of just coming to faith in Christ, and other times when someone calls you a convert of Christ and you have been in the faith for years. The same goes for disciple. Some can call you a disciple of Christ and you just got saved yesterday, and you can be called a disciple after years of obedience to Him. It depends on the context and how the word is used. And Scripture illustrates this fact.

Therefore, if the Holy Spirit has indeed saved you, regenerated you, called you out of darkness into light, and you drop your nets, repent, and follow Christ, from that point forward you are a disciple and a convert to Christianity. However, remember that you can be a professing disciple/convert, but not truly be one. I pray the Lord opens our eyes to this truth.

-Until we go home

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A True Believer in Christ – Part 2

With so many professing Christians who, by their lives, deny the truth of the gospel, these messages are good for all!True Believer While no human is without sin until he dies or Christ returns, there is no basis for comforting a soul as being in Christ if there is NO mark of being a new creature in Christ.  There is no litmus test to prove one is redeemed, there will be signs of life in everyone who has been born of the Spirit of the Living God!

Part 2 is here. 

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Quotes (778)

“Paul does not say, [in Philippians 2:12–Ed.] ‘Work out something that will tell for your salvation’; he says, ‘Work out in the expression of your life the salvation God has worked in.’ If we think for a moment we shall soon know how much we are saved—What does our tongue say? what kind of things do our ears like to listen to? what kind of bodily associates do we like to be with? These things will always tell not only other people but ourselves what kind of salvation God has worked in. In regeneration God works us into relation with Himself that by our bodily expression we may prove Whose we are.

If you are trying to be a Christian it is a sure sign you are not one. Fancy trying to be the daughter of your mother! you cannot help being her daughter. But try and be the daughter of someone else’s mother! Unless God has worked in us we shall hinder Him all the time by trying to be His children; we cannot, we have to be born from above by the will of God first, be regenerated; then our working is not working to help God, it is working to let God express through us what He has done in us so that we may prove we are the children of our Father in heaven (see Matthew 5:43-48).

So many of us put prayer and work and consecration in place of the working of God; we make ourselves the workers. God is the Worker, we work out what He works in. Spirituality is what God is after, not religiosity. The great snare in religion without genuine spirituality is that people ape being good when they are absolutely mean [not ‘mean’ as in ‘angry, &c.’ But rather, ‘mean’ as in ‘useless to God’–Ed.]. There is no value whatever in religious externals, the only thing that is of value is spiritual reality, and this is spiritual reality—that I allow God to work in me to will and to do of His good pleasure, and then work out what He has worked in, being carefully careless about everything saving my relationship to God.”

Oswald Chambers
1874-1917

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Quotes (749)

Man has become so fallen that he cannot keep the law. Sooner might the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots, than he that is accustomed to do evil learn to do well (Jeremiah 13:23); but what man cannot do, by reason of the perversity of the flesh, God performs within him, working in him to will and to do of his good pleasure. Oh, what amazing grace is this, which while it forgives our want of will, also removes our want of power!

And, dear friends, is it not a wonderful proof of grace that God does this without destroying man in any degree whatever? Man is a creature with a will,—a “free will” as they sometimes call it,—a creature who is responsible for his actions; so God does not come and change our hearts by a physical process, as some seem to dream, but by a spiritual process in which he never mars our nature, but sets our nature right.

If a man becomes a child of God, he still has a will. God does not destroy the delicate machinery of our nature, but he puts it into proper gear. We become Christians with our own full assent and consent; and we keep the law of God not by any compulsion except the sweet compulsion of love. We do not keep it because we cannot do otherwise, but we keep it because we would not do otherwise, because we have come to delight therein, and this seems to me the greatest wonder of divine grace.

See, dear friends, how different is the Lord’s way of working and ours. If you knock down a man who is living an evil life, and put him in chains, you can make him honest by force; or if you set him free, and hem him round with Acts of Parliament, you may make him sober if he cannot get anything to drink, you may make him wonderfully quiet if you put a gag in his mouth; but that is not God’s way of acting.

He who put man in the Garden of Eden, and never put any palisades around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but left man a free agent, does just the same in the operations of his grace. He leaves his people to the influences that are within them, and yet they go right, because they are so changed and renewed by his grace that they delight to do that which once they loathed to do.

I admire the grace of God in acting thus. We should have taken the watch to pieces, and broken half the wheels, and made new ones, or something of the kind. But God knows how to leave the man just as much a man as he was before his conversion, and yet to make him so entirely a new man that old things have passed away, and all things have become new.

And this is very beautiful, too, that when God writes his law in his people’s hearts, He makes this the way of their preservation. When God’s law is written in a man’s heart, that heart becomes divinely royal property, for the King’s name is there, and the heart in which God has written his name can never perish.

– Charles Spurgeon

1834 – 1892

HT: Pyro