Despite what many have said or heard, Calvinism does not negate or downplay evangelism. Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield, William Carey, and Adoniram Judson were not exceptions to the rule. Rather, they are simply some noteworthy examples of evangelists and preachers who were both Calvinistic in theology and evangelistic in practice.
Of course, Spurgeon said it best. When asked why his doctrine of election did not move him to preach only to the elect, Spurgeon replied: “If you’ll go around and pull up their shirttails so I can see if they have an E stamped on their back, I will.” ¹
That God elected people to salvation from before the creation of the world, does not mean He does not choose to use means — human means — to bring that salvation about. God has ordained that no one be saved apart from hearing the word (i.e. the gospel) — Rom. 10:17, 1 Pet. 1:22-25, James 1:18.
I’ve explored how Calvinism and Evangelism are not at odds, in an earlier post here. Today, I want to encourage you to listen to my pastor, John Piper’s most recent message which illustrates how Calvinism informs evangelism.
We don’t have to assume it’s all or nothing — that we must win the person to Christ in this one encounter, or else. We don’t have to be overly concerned with how well we do in presenting the gospel. Ultimately, God is the one who saves, and he uses every meager human attempt for His purposes. No labor for the Lord is in vain — Is. 55:11, 1 Cor. 15:58. Instead, we should be joyful partners with God in His task. We should open our mouths obediently, and fit in to God’s plan in the unique ways He’s gifted us.
I’d encourage you all to listen to this message. Especially those coming from a fundamentalist background. The message (which is actually a follow up to last week’s message), both liberates and challenges. May God help us all to implement some of the many practical tips, Pastor Piper shares. May we all strive to be better proclaimers of the glorious Gospel of God’s grace.
Here are the messages:
I’m Sending You to Open Their Eyes — April 13
You Are God’s Midwife in the New Birth of Others — April 6
¹ This quote is taken from John MacArthur’s account of this in his book Nothing but the Truth: Upholding the Gospel in a Doubting Age (Wheaton: Good News Publishers, 1999), pg. 151-152.
Good Stuff Bob,
The “Midwife” sermon was powerful.
We must not let non-calvinists rewrite the impact of Calvinism in early American and English evangelism.
Gage Browning
Post Tenebras Lux
I am not “Calvinist” per se, but I enjoyed this post. I bounce back and forth. I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
To Gage’s comment, I think it is important that both sides recognize that they represent a human interpretation of scripture, and The Gospel is what makes the impact. Without the Gospel there would be no Calvinists or non-Calvinists.
Just a little something I noticed, but Whitefield is spelled with an “e” after the “t.” The only reason I noticed is because my kids attended Whitefield Academy. The school was named after George Whitefield.
Joel, thanks for catching my misspell. I always get his name wrong.
You are certainly correct that we all are humans and so have human interpretative approaches to Scripture. I think the more you try to understand what Calvinist’s actually affirm, the more you will sympathize with that system. It may not be perfect, but it does more justice to all the Biblical texts surrounding the issues of salvation better than other systems of thought, in my opinion.
Thanks for sharing and coming over to read my thoughts.
Blessings in Christ,
Bob
Thanks Gage.
I removed an off topic comment. I have a comment form or an email address for questions about what I think about something. If you don’t like something about someone, don’t use the comments of my blog to advance your agenda.
Joel,
I am an unashamed Calvinist so I understand very much that no man is the one who “makes the difference” so to speak. I didn’t mean and I never mean to imply anything else. The point I was trying to make is too often Calvinists are labeled with the notion of not evangelizing the lost. Bob pointed out that the early American and English missionaries, there were many Calvinists.
But Calvinists also believe in means. God uses means which He has ordained to spread the Gospel. One of those means is the preacher/evangelist. How will they go unless they are sent? (Rom 10)
Gage Browning
Post Tenebras Lux
Bob,
Remove the comment. It’s your blog. I’m happy to have it removed if it breaks your rules. I am hopeful, however, that when you do make a comment (accusation) on someone publically, which you chose to do, he can defend himself.
1) Could you refresh me on something that I don’t like about someone?
2) Could you tell me what the agenda is that I wish to advance?
I can tell you that my agenda is the true Gospel, the common salvation, and especially in that comment.
Kent,
I formulated a response and a defense, and had it posted for a while. Then I thought: this is not related to this discussion at all. I don’t have time to answer every doubt you have over my pastor and you don’t need to be using my blog to share suspicions you have over public comments made on Piper’s blog by Piper.
Part of me wants to defend and argue endlessly. But if you don’t want a defense, and aren’t interested, because you have already made your judgments, then this is a needless waste of time. My guess in this situation is that it wouldn’t matter how I respond, the response would not change your mind. Feel free to contact Piper personally, or submit comments on his blog. Perhaps he’ll respond directly.
In the interests of continuing to blog and write on important issues, I intend to limit my interaction in comments and keep it more in spirit with my commenting rules.
Thanks for the post Bob. From personal experience, as one who co-founded a ministry that operates only through evangelism, I have had some problems with this specific topic and was just thinking about it today. Many people, even close friends and fellow ministers, cannot understand how I merge Calvinism and evangelism (as many of them come from a charismatic background like myself).
Piper is always my first example, as he and DG ministries provide countless resources on the subject!
Because of the “angry” or forceful, Calvinist persona that surround many of the hyper-Calvinist of today, I try to only bring up the topic when others ask about it. Hopefully through these sermons and the other resources and I can further explain the connection between Calvinism and Evangelism.
Bob,
So as it stands, you don’t know what it is that I don’t like about someone and you don’t know that I have an agenda I wish to pursue.
I simply asked a question and put a link. If it’s defensible, mount a defense. If it is indefensible, then why defend it? You say I don’t want a defense. If it’s defensible, I do. I would be interested in your defense. Are you interested in the truth?
It’s interesting to me at how important it is to you that you can ask questions and get answers about things and that essentially fundamentalists, IYO, haven’t given answers, but when you are asked simple questions, you are offended by the mere questions.
As far as this post, I think this paragraph has the bulk of your point:
“We don’t have to assume it’s all or nothing — that we must win the person to Christ in this one encounter, or else. We don’t have to be overly concerned with how well we do in presenting the gospel. Ultimately, God is the one who saves, and he uses every meager human attempt for His purposes. No labor for the Lord is in vain — Is. 55:11, 1 Cor. 15:58. Instead, we should be joyful partners with God in His task. We should open our mouths obediently, and fit in to God’s plan in the unique ways He’s gifted us.”
I agree that we do rest in the Lord if we believe salvation is of Him. That’s seen in the example of Jesus, but I totally differ from “we don’t have to be overly concerned with how well we do in presenting the gospel.” God is glorified if we speak as the oracles of God. Paul worshiped the Lord in the gospel (Rom. 1). Notice in 1 Cor. 15:58 that the labor “in Him” isn’t in vain. The assumption is that other labor is in vain. 1 Cor. 2, 3 sees certain labor as vain. And Paul also said that our lifestyle is directly related to whether someone will glorify the Father in heaven (1 Peter 2:11, 12).
For instance, pandering to certain people groups by allowing their false doctrine and practice to be either approved or unconfronted doesn’t labor in the Gospel. That’s human technique to the glory of man. When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, he confronted her unrepentant sin and her worship.
If something is indefensible, don’t defend it.
Glad the post blessed you Brad.
Kent,
The comments are defensible. If you want the defense, you can email me, fill out a contact form, post about it on your blog and see if I comment, or send comments through the Desiring God blog. I already posted a defense here, which was up for a few hours, then I took it down.
This is off topic, and in my opinion, is a disuse of my blog. You are trying to discredit Piper, and think because this post mentions him, you can do so in this thread. If you don’t call that an agenda, I don’t know what is.
Your motives might be to defend the true gospel, and as such are noble. But the method used violates my commenting policy and the spirit of my blog. This post is about evangelism and Calvinism. Don’t derail it into what kind of thoughts on salvation one can infer from a small commentary affixed to a small quote out of a big book. Piper makes his views on the gospel plain enough for all to see.
As for the sentence in my post you are quibbling over, here was my point: some people become so paralyzed over fear they won’t say things just right, that they don’t say anything. You don’t have to over-obsess like that. Just speak up, and God will use that. Now, granted, giving a well-prepared, and carefully crafted gospel proclamation is better than a mumbled and bumbled comment. And yes, correct doctrine and lifestyle is important. My sentence wasn’t implying they weren’t.
As we’ve gone on and on still about this deleted comment of yours, I’m putting my foot down. Further comments from you on this post will be deleted.
Good post. In a recent SBC founder’s study, the findings were that nearly 30% of all graduates from a Southern Baptist seminary are 5 point calvinists. They also found that those Calvinists seminarians were more dedicated to evangelism than their arminian brothers.
http://psalm73-25.blogspot.com/search/label/Southern%20Baptist
Kent…
Dude…give up on this…consider the dead horse beaten
Reformed doctrine has set me free to perform evangelism with so much greater confidence, joy, and, well, love. I knew of nothing except Wesleyan/Arminian/charismatic doctrine for most of thirty years. It was up to me and my clever persuasions or a preacher’s heart-tugging altar call to get an unbeliever to “pray the sinner’s prayer.” Now, I realize that God is the Great Evangelist. He uses Christendom with all of our imperfections as a means to proclaim the Good News.
More than any other tradition Calvinism explains the cosmos, mankind’s condition and behavior, and God’s actions from Creation to the culmination of time and beyond.
Calvinism is not evangelistic? Please don’t believe that. Biblical Reformed doctrine sets a person free to evangelize.
Bill in St. Lou,
Great comments. I agree totally, and would that we all are so energized by this doctrine to go out and reach the lost for our Lord Jesus.
Blessings in Christ,
Bob
Awesome! Just a tidbit from Spurgeon…
“I fear lest God should forsake me, to prove that he is the author of salvation, that it is not in the preacher, that it is not in the crowd, that it is not in the attention I can attract, but in God, and in God alone.” — Delivered on May 10, 1857.
I just returned from T4G conference where Piper was a guest speaker. I have never heard better, radical, gospel saturated Holy Spirit filled preaching in my 33 years of life.
And 25 of the years were spent in ” KJB, (it is THE Bible not a translation) Independent, fundamental, soul-winning, separated, Baptist churches.”
Then, while asst. pastoring in a church like the described above, God saved me. Truly born-again, I saw that when God saves people, He does it for a reason, to conform them to the image of His Son and to glorify Him.
When the fundamentalist preacher saves them by getting them to bow their head and pray a prayer, there is no repentance, just the jackpot lottery of heaven. I have witnessed for 25 years, churches more interested in decisions than conversions. Appreciate the blog Bob. Keep courageous, this is the gospel we are contending for. Decisional regeneration is a plague.
Joe VonDoloski
Vanderbilt, MI
Thanks, Joe. Blessings to you from the cross.
I’m envious that you got to attend T4G. I just finished posting on it.
Hey Bob…I think that a story from overseas might help this understanding of Calvinism and Evangelism…it really helped me better understand…
I wrote about it over at contend if you want to check it out…
I, as you, get very tired of this thought that Calvinism kills evangelism…I really don’t get it…
Thanks, Seth. Good post.
Bob, as usual Piper’s sermons have blessed me. Thanks for this post.
For me, when I embraced the reformed, Calvinistic theological positions, I came to feel more like Bill in St Lou. There is a great sense of freedom when we are able to trust the whole evangelistic process to our sovereign God.