After being ‘healed’, this guy sincerely wanted to be a disciple, and he indeed was–presumably–but Jesus had different plans for him. Jesus didn’t necessarily give him what he wanted when he became a “believer,” but instead, Jesus “sent him out” to give witness to his own gentile people.

I think this story is practical for everyday believers because the first question is if they want to follow Jesus at all, whereas the second is will they respond and be obedient to what Jesus would have them do. For example, I can imagine that a lot of guys want to take leadership roles within the church, but they suck at being witnesses to their own families, friends, etc.

My question is that if you can’t be a witness in contexts outside of formal ministry, then what makes you think you can inside?

Or, on the other hand, is the disciple content with the command of Jesus? This guy didn’t complain when Jesus told him no and to go home. I wonder how our pride might get in the way of Jesus’ ‘no’ for us. We pray to do such and such, and he says no. Do we lose faith like the rich young ruler and walk away, or do we follow his lead in whatever way he directs us? There’s a lot of “dirty” work in the Christian church that doesn’t earn accolades. Will we take that work on? Is it glorious enough to strive for, or should we let a “less spiritual person” do it?

Another question might be, how does one “know” what Jesus would have them do? Well, there’s prayer, discernment, NT examples, godly counsel, etc. etc. It’s not easy of course to discern the will of God, but this passage makes it evident to me that as a disciple I need to be following God and giving witness to him and what his Son has done for me in whatever context I’m in, whether it be the gym, the highland games, the grocery store, starbucks, and of course work. God can do more with an faithful and obedient pauper than he can with a rebellious and unfaithful king. I fear, however, that I always want to be the king in all my situations without being either humble, faithful, or obedient. This is where I go back to the cross!

I’m sorry you still don’t have a job. I didn’t know that. What are you doing all day? Reading… That’s pretty cool…

P.S. On a side note, I once had a theology professor at NU mock Calvinists in general by saying that they’ve had “weak” missiology throughout history. I immediately objected and said that was just not true, and then proceeded to present counter evidence. This was easy and he shouldn’t have been so cavalier about Reformed Theology. It’s easy to point the finger at a system that is seemingly difficult and sometimes downright offensive to our “personal” autonomy and “freedom.” I just fear that sometimes we proclaim “our” freedom as ours, and in that case it can become slavery. Again, this is why I like your emphasis on surrender.

Got to go…

One other quick thing — I do think it’s important to remember that, though it’s not from us, we are called to “do” something in response to Christ. That’s why I like the language of surrender. In surrendering, you’re “doing” nothing but you are still responding. That seems the best way to describe our response to Christ, at least to me at this point.

I would only add that I think a lot of so-called “Arminians” are actually closer to this than people realize… I know some Arminians who would fall into the error that you describe, but I think many more are simply trying to deal with the paradox and don’t want to fall into the absolute “determinism” held by some hardcore Calvinists. So my guess is that those of us in between the extremes, Calvinists and Arminians, are probably not that far apart. I think you’re right though, at the end of the day, I’m a bit more on the Reformed side. But I don’t think it’s a clear boundary that anyone can point out.

Thanks for the response to my post. I kind of chuckled when I read your first line, about sounding Arminian, haha. You know I wasn’t trying to be incendiary or anything like that when I made those comments.

In any case, I have good reason to think that you and I agree more than we disagree, for we both view Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith, and it is by grace through faith that we are saved. Our principle inquiry (which will never be known until the eschaton ) concerns how we are to understand ‘salvation by grace—through faith’ and what that actually means and why it matters. But there are indeed more issues present in the inquiry than just semantic misunderstandings and/or ambiguity.

I suppose where I generally disagree with Arminian perspectives on how to explain soteriology is when it comes to “helping God with the decision” of salvation, and I think you stated it well and the dilemmas that go along with the whole situation in your points. It’s almost as though Arminian theology creates more problems than it solves because of the doctrinal perspective of synergism relative to monergism. That said, your concluding remarks are indeed well thought out and buttress the ultimate paradoxical scripture (from my perspective), Romans 9! If James is that little pesky book, as you stated, then chapter 9 of the Book of Romans is the titan of faith dilemmas. Whatever the case, though, I think we are not only called to have faith in God alone, but we are to have faith in the goodness and love of God alone. This—alone—makes the whole dynamic of God’s sovereignty a tenable venture, both philosophically and theologically.

Again, all and all, I generally can’t really disagree with your theological line of reasoning, and that’s because I believe that your reasoning is basically just another way to state a genuinely Reformed perspective on theology, while being honest about the limitations of our finite minds concerning God’s grace and how his grace is administered to the world, and how we apprehend the mystery of it. But consider this: at least the Reformed perspective is actually 100% dependent on God’s sovereignty, kind of like Kierkegaard’s perspective on Abraham.

The only thing I can challenge you on from reading your response is your point about being more “…sympathetic to the Arminian position…” Are you sure that you’re more sympathetic to the Arminian position? Doesn’t seem like you are at all because you just defaulted in your previous statements to a non-arminian theological perspective. I suppose that maybe just being honest about the dilemmas is in itself pushing the ramification of the paradox further and further.

How does the Arminian position, by saying that election is dependent upon faith, push the boundary? I personally think the Reformed position does a much better job because it’s at least saying that we’ve got to deal with the paradox—through faith. The Arminian position, on the other hand, attempts to “solve” the problem by tweaking the concept and nature of “faith.” They make faith, well, not true faith because faith now “does” something. (By the way, this is a tangential point but the Word of Faith movement within Pentecostalism sees faith just this way—and they run with it. They see faith as a causal force; words being the container of that force, and through saying and speaking the right words through faith they can literally create their own reality. Of course this usually entails getting rich! Wow, if we have faith, then that “does” something. Faith helps God in his decision for us, yada yada yada…) Basically, I just don’t buy it because I think the Arminian position that faith somehow “helps” God in his decision for us is absurd and in fact denies the paradox.

In the end, an unnamed author says it well: “Arminians believe that they owe their election to their faith, whereas Calvinists believe that they owe their faith to their election.”