I admit that I suffer from Acute Birthday Dyslexia. It's a common problem that people my age have. Most may not know they have this malady, but once it is identified and defined, then those who have this will readily admit they have it too. It really is not a stigma to have Acute Birthday Dyslexia; in fact, I relish I have this phenomenon, because it is to my advantage, at least in my mental state.
You see, I am 45 and dyslexic.
Later this year I can no longer lay claim to having Acute Birthday Dyslexia. It would prove to be of no benefit whatsoever come September. And by all means, I will be cured of ABD in 2010 and for the four years thereafter.
This is not to make light of those who genuinely suffer from dyslexia, but at least it is not a fatal disease like cancer. Dyslexia does, though, create some unique challenges in life.
There is another kind of dyslexia that often goes unreported and undetected. Sadly, it seems to effect only those who call themselves Christians. It is serious in nature, not because it is fatal; although at times, it can be if taken to the bitter extreme.
What it does, though, is make the Christian life less fulfilling and more problematic. It is Acute Doctrinal Dyslexia.
It all starts with such verses as Acts 13:48, but it goes much farther than that.
"Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed."
I heard a new label given for a particular breed of churches recently. This new identifier was to warn people to shy away from these type of churches. It goes something like this, "Well, I wouldn't go to that church, if I were you, because after all, it is a P.E. church."
When I first read that, I tried to rack my brain in figuring out what that could signify. P.E.? Could that be a Pragmatic Evangelical church? That would be a very contemporary type church that is willing to try about anything, so long it achieves its purpose of getting more people in the church's front doors.
Or could P.E. stand for something I was accustomed to in my younger years (long before I had ABD), like Physical Education? Could that be a reference to a church that has a family life center and one that really emphasizes physical fitness?
What in the world could a P.E. church be?
I read on to discover that a P.E. church is one that believes in Predestination and Election.
Just when I thought I heard about almost everything. . .
Here's the bombshell. Every New Testament church actually is a P.E. church in some way, and every believer in Christ is a P.E. Christian in one regard or the other. There is no getting around it, unless that church or that Christian does not believe in the Bible, which would then disqualify them from being a church or a Christian in the first place.
Every church and every Christian HAS to believe in predestination and election, because those words (and their many synonyms) are all over the pages of Scripture. Unless we do something what Thomas Jefferson did when he came to the miracles of Jesus and began cutting those portions out of his Bible and we begin crossing out every mention of the P.E. words in our Bibles, then we are "stuck" with believing in P.E. After all, those words did not get there because Martin Luther, Augustine, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, the Puritans, the Pilgrims, Jonathan Edwards, John Bunyan, William Carey, George Whitfield, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, John Piper, Dr. Albert Mohler and all other past and present P.E. people decided to put those words in the Bible.
The bugaboo comes down to this then--what does one mean by predestination and election? How does one define those words? It is NOT, "do we believe in those words?", unless we get to pick and choose which words in the Bible we can believe and do not believe.
An earlier blog article tackled this issue from the angle of a multiple choice test. The word "choice" is there by design.
Either we believe in UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION or in CONDITIONAL ELECTION. Granted, the latter is the most popular version today. But when is the last time we are to decide truth based upon popularity and opinion polls, even among Christians?
Conditional Election states it like this: God (or Jesus) allows men to choose on their own if they want to trust Him or not, and after any person makes that critical choice in God's favor, then God chooses to save that person conditioned upon man's earlier choice.
Hershell Hobbs, the beloved Southern Baptist statesman here in Oklahoma, defined election in a memorable way: Election is when God casts a vote for you to be saved; the devil casts a vote for you not to be saved; and you have the tie-breaking vote. That is the doctrine of election, according to Mr. Hobbs.
(Before I proceed, and out of deference to Mr. Hobbs, I must point out two glaring errors in his tidy definition. The first one is the devil has equal say with God. There goes God being the absolute sovereign ruler in the universe, if that is the case. The second error is even more troubling--man has more say than God and the devil!)
For over twenty years in my Christian life, I wholeheartedly adhered to conditional election. It was the safest and most crowded path to be on as a Christian, and even more so as a pastor. So I know how people wrestle with these matters, and I am pretty familiar with all the standard arguments.
If conditional election is true, though, if that is the way in which we should view all those P.E. verses in the Bible, then what do we do with Acts 13:48? How should it then read? Shouldn't it say something like the following?
Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as believed, these are the ones God appointed
(or ordained, or elected, or predestined) to eternal life.
But alas, I do not know of one Bible version in any language in the world that puts it that way. Get out your favorite version and read it for yourself.
Those who want Acts 13:48 to say and read what I typed in above, in order for it to square with their understanding of election, suffer from scriptural and doctrinal dyslexia. They got it all backwards. The Bible states "as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed", and not the other way around.
If you suffer from Acute Doctrinal Dyslexia, I can relate. It may be hard to admit, and it may be hard to forego. Old habits are hard to die, but there is hope. You don't have to suffer from this forever. There is a cure.
It is one thing to be uninformed or untaught on this, and to even be argumentative to a point on this matter. Been there, done that myself. It is quite another thing for a person to become increasingly angry, hostile and even bitter toward the doctrine of unconditional election, as is taught in Acts 13:48. That extreme case of doctrinal dyslexia can be downright fatal spiritually. (John 8:47)
To throw mud at this scriptural truth is far worse than biting the proverbial hand that feeds you. It is attacking the very Hand that saves you. If it were not for unconditional election, no one would ever believe. And why is that? Because all of us are dead in our sin. (See previous blog on total depravity.)
Just remember this--there is no human being that is not in hell that does not deserve to be there, and there is not a human soul in heaven that deserves to be there.
"My Lord, I did not choose You,
For that could never be;
My heart would still refuse You,
Had You not chosen me.
You took the sin that stained me,
You cleansed me, made me new;
Of old You have ordained me,
That I should live in You.
Unless Your grace had called me
And taught my op'ning mind,
The world would have enthralled me,
To heav'nly glories blind.
My heart knows none above You;
For your rich grace I thirst.
I know that if I love You,
You must have loved me first."
Hymn 289 in the 1991 Baptist Hymnal,
words of Josiah Conder, 1789-1855
Saved by God's unconditional grace,
Chris
