2.3 A Lasting Conversion (radical evangelicalism series)

2.1 The State of Faith in America
2.2 Dunk and Run
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Lasting Conversion
8. So what is a lasting conversion, an eternal conversion? What is the conversion that ultimately matters?

Let me start by speaking practically rather than technically. The most imporrtant conversion is one that lasts to eternity. It is true that a person can be truly converted and yet fall away (Heb 6:3; Jude 24). But the end result is as if the person was never truly saved at all. They are like the seed along the path, scorched by the sun, or choked by weeds. They are Israelites that do not enter the promised land, "whose corpses fell in the desert" (Heb. 3:17).

9. How does a lasting conversion begin? It is ultimately a matter of the Holy Spirit. This is the repeated message of the New Testament. 

Repentance is a precursor to conversion. Faith is an essential lead up. All along the Holy Spirit has been involved, drawing you to Christ. Baptism is significant, an "outward sign" of God's working inside us.

But, according to the New Testament, the Spirit is the moment of conversion. "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they are not his" (Rom. 8:9).

The Spirit is God's "seal" of ownership on us (2 Cor. 1:22). The Spirit is the "guarantee," the "downpayment" of our future inheritance (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:14). Without the Spirit in us, we are not yet truly and fully converted.

We see this in the book of Acts. In Acts 8, in Samaria, a group of individuals have been baptized, but they have not received the Holy Spirit. This is a problem because Acts 2:38 gives the clear pattern: Repent, be baptized, and you will receive the Holy Spirit. Something was wrong.

By the same token, conversion can happen without baptism. In Acts 10, Paul has hardly finished presenting the good news to Cornelius and his men before the Holy Spirit has come upon them. In that incident, baptism simply enacts what the Spirit has already done inside of them.

10. How do we know if we have received the Holy Spirit? I suspect that, for most of us, it will chiefly manifest itself as a "peace that passes understanding" (Phil. 4:7). [10] As the hymn goes, "blessed assurance, Jesus is mine; oh, what a foretaste of glory divine."

However, Paul tells us explicitly what the presence of the Holy Spirit looks like, and this is true not only in me as an individual but in the church collectively. He tells us that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23). 

Are these the characteristics that most would use to describe the American church? Not likely. In that respect, we have to wonder how much of the American church is actually truly converted.

The Parable of the Weeds makes it clear that not everyone in the church is actually part of the Church (Matt. 13:24-30). The true Church is "invisible." It does not coincide with the people who hold up a Bible or quote Scripture. Indeed, Satan has the entire Bible memorized (e.g., Matt. 4:6).

Matthew puts it sharply, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 7:21). The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats also puts it starkly. Those who did not use what God gave them in the service of those in need turn out to be goats rather than God's sheep. They find their end in eternal judgment (Matt. 25:45-46). [11]

11. We have to conclude that either a good deal of the American church is either not truly converted or not fully converted. My pastor used to put it this way. "Don't worry. You're all still going to heaven. You're just not fully converted yet." [12]

I would put it this way. Some in the American church are not truly converted. But many others are not fully converted. Like Paul's description in 1 Corinthians 3, their faith is mixed with hay and straw (1 Cor. 3:12). 

That is one of the main purposes of this book, to call the American church to a truer and deeper faith. It is a call to recognize where our faith has been corrupted. And for those with fake faith, it is a call to genuine faith.

[10] There are individuals whose "peace receptors" are damaged. While 1 John 3:20 probably was not psychologizing originally, there is great truth to the fact that, when our consciences are not working properly, God knows the real story. Once upon a time, I found David Seamands' book, The Healing of Memories (David C. Cook, 1986) very helpful on this score.

[11] Note that the Parable of the Talents immediately preceeds the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. While this parable is often read as a capitalist manifesto, in context, the investment of talents would seem to be giving away what God has given us to those in need. We miss this context because of the glasses we are wearing when we read.

[12] Steve Deneff, College Wesleyan Church.

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1. What is Evangelicalism?
1.1 Revivals of the 1700s and 1800s
1.2 The "New" Evangelicalism
1.3 The Poltical Takeover

2. The State of Faith in America (1)

1. What is Evangelicalism?

• Revivals of the 1700s and 1800s
• The "New" Evangelicalism
• The Poltical Takeover

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1. The big news in a recent Pew study was that the decline of Christian faith in America had paused. [1] The theme of previous years had been the "rise of the Nones," individuals who claimed not to have any specific faith at all. [2] A few years ago, that was the fastest growing religious demographic. In this more recent study, the percentage of young men in particular has held steady and was roughly equal to young women who professed faith.

The Devil is in the details, of course. What is this data really saying?

An intriguing theory is that the retention of male faith might have something to do with influencers like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Wes Huff. [3] There is much talk about recovering masculinity within Christian faith, and these voices seem to be having an impact among young men.

However, it does not seem that they are bringing young men at large toward faith. Whom they seem to be helping are young men with some sort of background in Christianity. That is, they are helping a small swath of young men retain faith by inspiring them to live responsible lives.

Meanwhile, the fastest decline in faith would seem to be among young women. One of the more striking findings of the study was that young men and women had evened out in their faith -- as opposed to earlier days when the faith of young women significantly outpaced that of young men.

2. At the same time, we can ask what faith they are retaining or are being converted to. Here, the exit of women from the church may give insights. Why are they leaving? Are they leaving, for example, because the church has largely ignored them -- even as their voice has been empowered more and more?

Just a few years ago, the #MeToo movement called attention to the pervasive bullying and abuse that women get in society. According to one study, 82% of women have experienced sexual harrasment or assault in their lifetime [4] According to another study, almost half of all women (45.1%) have experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetimes. 21% reported completed or attempted rape, and 39% reported unwanted sexual contact. [5] 

Did the MeToo movement change anything? According to the Newcomb Institute at Tulane University, no. [6] The question for the church is not merely whether male behavior has changed in society (it hasn't). The question for us is whether the church has offered women any reason to believe the situation is any different among believers (it hasn't).

3. A person saved is a person saved. If I genuinely come to believe in God because I thought I saw a unicorn eating lunch at Denny's, that is still a soul saved. It's important to keep that in mind. If a man keeps his faith because of a skewed version of Christianity, that's still a soul saved if the conversion is genuine.

At the same time, it is not enough to dunk and run. Paul is quite clear, despite protests to the contrary. "Run that you might receive the prize... I discipline my body and make it my servant so that I might not be disqualified after myself having preached to others" (1 Cor. 9:24, 27).

What we don't want to happen is to "inoculate" people to faith. We don't want to give them a taste and then for them to spit it out of their mouths. We want them to partake of genuine faith and to stick around for eternity.

4. I thus consider this a fair summary of faith in America at the moment. While it may have experienced a slight uptick or plateau in the last couple years, we do not know how the graph will continue. The trendline for the faith of young women is in steep decline. What is holding the demographic is that some young men who grew up in a Christian context are returning to the faith of their childhood.

Will that be a permanent return? That is another good question and one that should cause us to make sure that the faith we are advertising is genuine Christian faith. We would hate these converts to be seed on rocky soil -- or seeds among weeds or bird food (Mark 4).

Are we converting these young men to a club (while losing the young women) or are we bringing them to a lasting, well-anchored faith? That is a key question for this chapter.

[1] Religious Landscape Study, Pew Research Center (February 8, 2025), conducted from July 17, 2023 to March 4, 2024.

[2] Ryan Burge, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going, 2nd ed. (Fortress, 2023).

[3] Cf. Anthony Delgato, "Comeback Christians."

[4] "Rates of sexual harassment and assault nationwide still high after #MeToo movement" (September 16, 2024).

[5] National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2023/2024 Sexual Violence Data Brief.

[6] The study quoted in n.4 is found here: #MeToo 2024 Report.

Acts 9 Explanatory Notes

Here are explanatory notes on Acts 9. You can also follow my daily podcast commentary on Patreon, as well as YouTube videos on the Greek (see the bottom for links).

Acts 1
Acts 2
Acts 3
Acts 4
Acts 5
Acts 6
Acts 7
Acts 8

2. The Calling of Saul (9:1-31)

• 9:1-2. While we do not have any evidence that Paul actually put other believers to death, these verses clearly indicate it was his intent. He goes to the high priest for letters, perhaps suggesting that he is working in some way for the Sanhedrin.
• We are forced to speculate about Paul's motivations. As a Pharisee, working with the Sadducean leadership was presumably a matter of pragmatism. They need not have the same motivations. The high priest is presumably keeping the peace. The Hellenists are perhaps seen as seditious with their critique of the temple. Paul presumably also sees the Jesus movement as a threat to the purity of Israel.
• Psychologically, Saul presumably wants to suppress his identity as a Diaspora Jew, Roman citizen, and Hellenist of sorts. This dynamic would explain his focus on persecuting the Hellenistic wing of the church.
• As a Pharisee, Saul behaves more like a Shammaite Pharisee than a Hillelite. If so, he would be quite zealous for the Law and nationalistic in his hopes for the political future of Israel. If, as I suspect, the Hellenistic wing of the church was in continuity with Jesus in its inclusive tendencies and thus its laxity on purity rules, Saul would not only abhor them personally but see them as a liability to the future of Israel.
• Damascus is a long way from Jerusalem and not at all under the jurisdiction of the high priest or the Sanhedrin. Perhaps Saul is seeking specific individuals whom he knows to have fled there. The connection of Damascus with Essene literature is intriguing (i.e., the Covenant of Damascus document).
• This is the first instance of Jesus-followers being called, "The Way." One suspects a connection to Isaiah 40:3 and the ministry of John the Baptist. We also should not forget John 14:6.
• Note that, as women are full participants in the gospel, they are here mentioned as full targets too.
• 9:3-9. This is the resurrection appearance of Jesus to Paul. Paul will speak of this experience as the moment of his apostolic calling. He considers himself the last of such apostles (1 Cor. 15:8). An apostle, in this particular sense, is someone to whom the risen Christ has appeared (1 Cor. 9:1) who has then been sent as a witness to the resurrection. Paul of course did not qualify as an apostle from the narrower standpoint of Acts 1:21-22, for he was not with Jesus from the time of John the Baptist.  
• It is a misconception to think of Paul as his Christian name, while Saul is his pre-Christian Jewish name. First, Paul did not change religions when he believed. That is an anachronistic conception. He converted between one Jewish sect (Pharisee) and another (Jesus movement). Acts continues to call him Saul for almost 15 years after he believes on Christ. Rather, Paul would seem to be a Roman name he had from birth, a name he suppressed as a Pharisee. Saul is his Jewish name, but not a name he ever stopped having.
• 9:3-4. Paul sees a light and hears a voice. "Why are you persecuting me?" Would that God stopped all of us in our tracks when we get off track.
• 9:5. Paul says, "Who are you, sir (kyrios)?" But there is a double entendre. The word for sir is also the word for Lord. Yes, Jesus is the Lord.
• 9:7. There are some minor variations in the later repetition of the story in Acts. In this first telling, the men hear the voice but do not see anyone.
• 9:8-9. They take him into Damascus. He is now blind. For three days he fasts and presumably prays for the Lord to give him further guidance.
• 9:10-19. These verses tell about Paul's interaction with Ananias, a believer in the city of Damascus.
• 9:10-12. The Lord tells Ananias to go to Saul. Ananias is understandably nervous. Nevertheless, his response is like that of the boy Samuel, "Here I am, Lord."
• 9:13. This is the first time that believers are called "holy ones" or "saints" in Acts.
• 9:15-16. Here we see the mission God has planned for Saul. He will be an apostle to the Gentiles. The mention of kings probably foreshadows Paul's later appearance before Nero, of which the audience of Acts would be aware.
• Paul will also suffer for the Lord, perhaps an allusion in part to his future martyrdom, of which the audience would be aware. He may have done some persecution for a while, but he will endure more than his fair share in return.
• 9:17-18. Ananias is obedient. Saul receives his sight back, but we know from his own writings that he would continue to struggle with his eyes for years to come (Gal. 4:15), and many think struggles with his eyesight were his "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7).
• It is implied that PTaul receives the Holy Spirit here at the hands of Ananias. This fact indicates that one does not need an apostle to receive the Holy Spirit. Indeed, on the Day of Pentecost and in the Spirit-filling of Cornelius in Acts 10, it is not necessary for someone to lay hands on you to receive the Holy Spirit.
• Paul is also baptized in water, which is normative in Acts.
• 9:20-22. Saul immediately starts preaching that Jesus is Lord in the synagogues of Damascus. Jesus is the "Son of God," the anointed king of Israel. This seditious claim (since the Romans considered Caesar to be Son of God and Lord) was presumably the core basis for Paul's authority to arrest Christians in the first place.
• The irony is thick. Saul is now doing exactly what he was trying to stop.
• Paul's knowledge of the Scriptures now makes him a powerful advocate of Jesus. He knew the arguments of the Jesus-followers. They likely had gnawed at his heart as he argued against them. There must have been a seed of doubt within him even as a Pharisee. Now the conclusion flips, and he becomes unstoppable in argument.
• 9:23-25. We learn some interesting details of these days from Galatians and 2 Corinthians, where Paul gives his own account of these days. For example, we learn that there is a three year period tucked into the time between his faith in Christ and his return to Jerusalem (Gal. 1:18). 
• During this time, he visits "Arabia," which seems to refer to the Nabatean kingdom just to the east of Damascus (Gal. 1:17). This was the boundary of the Roman Empire.
• In 2 Corinthians 11:32-33 we hear Paul's version of his escape from Damascus. In his account, it is not the Jews of Damascus but the Arab ethnarch under King Aretas who is trying to arrest him. Paul presumably got into trouble for his preaching in Arabia. It is hard to know whether he was already preaching to non-Jews this early. Perhaps we can picture a Jonah-like message of coming destruction. Perhaps he goes to Arabia to get beyond the reach of the Romans and the Sanhedrin.
• It has been suggested that the year AD36 was one in which King Aretas would have held more sway in Damascus than previously, because Herod Antipas was briefly defeated in battle. If so, this fact would place Paul's conversion around AD33.
• 9:26-30. Paul finally goes back to Jerusalem. From Galatians we know this was after three years. In Paul's own account, this was somewhat of a stealthy trip, which is understandable given his former role there. In his account, he only sees Peter and James, the brother of Jesus (Gal. 1:19). He was unknown to the churches of Judea at large and only stays 15 days.
• 9:26-27. The apostles are understandably hesitant to see him. Barnabas, as we will come to expect, serves as a go-between, a minister of reconciliation. 
• 9:28-29. Again, this is not the impression we get from Paul's own writings--that he preached to Hellenists and went in and out among the leadership. Interestingly, Paul considered himself a Hebrew of Hebrews (e.g., Phil. 3:5; 2 Cor. 11:22), not a Hellenist. Yet Acts frequently places Paul in Hellenistic contexts.
• 9:30. Saul returns to his home in Tarsus, which will apparently be his center for the next seven years or so. It is hard to imagine him simply sitting put. Since Paul does not conduct a mission to Cilicia or Cappadocia in Acts, we can wonder if he did so during these years, covering the eastern part of Asia Minor up to Pontus.
• 9:31. In this summary statement, the church in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee undergoes a time of peace. The implication seems to be that, with Saul now a believer, there is no anti-champion against the church. 
• We are reminded that persecution in the early church was sporadic rather than sustained. It was local rather than global. It is often thought that the church thrives under persecution. It might be more accurate to say that the church tends to thrive just after persecution.

B. Peter's Ministry in Judea (9:32-11:18)
     1. Peter in Lydda and Joppa (9:32-43)

• 9:32-43. We now see Peter getting out of Jerusalem and preaching the gospel in Judea. We also see him once more embodying the power of the Holy Spirit in ways that parallels what the Holy Spirit did through Jesus.
• 9:32-35. In these verses, Peter heals a paralyzed man in Lydda named Aeneas. Lydda was along the Judean coast.
• 9:32. Believers are once again called "holy ones" or "saints."
• 9:35. The miracles performed in the church clearly were an instrument of evangelism, as many people come to the Lord after seeing them.
• 9:36-43. This is the story of the raising of Tabitha from the dead. Luke seems clearly to want to demonstrate a continuity between the acts that Jesus did through the Holy Spirit and the acts of the church through the Holy Spirit. The implication is that all those who have the Holy Spirit can do such acts, and there is no indication that such power will change during this time of the Spirit.
• 9:36. Tabitha seems to mean "gazelle" in Aramaic, of which the Greek is "Dorcas." Luke is writing for a Greek-speaking audience, so has a bias for the name Dorcas.
• She was full of good works and acts of almsgiving, which Luke only considers to be positive virtues fitting a follower of God.
• 9:37. The mention of an upper room may suggest some affluence.
• 9:38. Peter is invited to come, presumably to take part in the mourning of her virtuous life.
• 9:39. The other widows show him garments she had made.
• 9:40-41. Peter sends them from the room and (through the power of the Holy Spirit) raises her from the dead. Then he presents her alive.
• 9:42. Once again, the miracle proves to be a powerful mechanism of evangelism.
• 9:43. Peter stays with a tanner, someone who skinned dead animals and prepared their hides for sale. It was a smelly and messy business, looked down upon. Yet it was part of life. We find out later that Simon's house was along the sea (10:6), which makes sense in the need for water.
• One wonders, however, if this is yet another example of the fact that the gospel is for everyone. God loves and receives this tanner just as much as he receives all those who believe on the Lord.

Patron video 

• Paul's Early Biography

Podcasts on the English of Acts 9

• Acts 9:1-9
• Acts 9:10-19a
• Acts 9:19b-27
• Acts 9:28-35
• Acts 9:36-43

Videos on the Greek of Acts 9

• Acts 9:1-9
• Acts 9:10-19a
• Acts 9:19b-27
• Acts 9:28-35
• Acts 9:36-43

SP4. The Spirit sanctifies the believer.

This is now the fourth and final post in a unit on the Holy Spirit in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit had to do with God and Creation, and the second was on Christology and Atonement.
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The Spirit sanctifies the believer.

1. In terms of priority, the body of Christ is primary, and the individual believer is secondary. Yet every individual is valued equally, created in the image of God, male and female, people of every tribe and nation, people of every status. All are loved whether sinner or saint.

God is love, so he loves every individual. But there are many individuals in the Church. So it seems obvious that there is more love dispensed to the Church as a whole than to any one individual in the Church. The health of the whole Church takes priority over the liberty of the individual Christian (e.g., Rom. 14; 1 Cor. 10).

Accordingly, the way in which the Spirit engages the individual is a microcosm of the way he engages the Church as a whole. The Spirit sanctifies the Church and makes it God's own. So the Spirit sanctifies the individual believer. The Spirit purifies the Church and makes it righteous, and the Spirit purifies the believer and makes us righteous. The Spirit empowers the Church for mission and service. The Spirit empowers the individual for mission and service. The Spirit leads the Church into truth. The Spirit leads individuals into truth.

2. If Christ is the basis of atonement, all the grace relating to salvation is dispensed through the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that dispenses prevenient grace, the grace that comes to us before we are able to go looking for God. It is the grace that enables us to move toward God. It is the grace that empowers us to be able to repent and exercise faith.

It is the Holy Spirit that dispenses the grace that justifies us and acquits us of all our sin. The Holy Spirit is God's "seal" of ownership (2 Cor. 1:22), such that if someone does not have the Spirit, that person does not truly belong to Christ (Rom. 8:9). The Holy Spirit is an "earnest" of our eternal inheritance (2 Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14), which is both a guarantee of that coming promise and a down payment of what is to come, a "foretaste of glory divine."

The Holy Spirit is thus the central factor in the incorporation of a person into the body of Christ. You can be baptized and not have passed from death to life (Acts 8:16). You can have passed from death to life and not been baptized (Acts 10:44-48). You can have undergone significant change and movement toward a godly and righteous life. You can have prayed the sinner's prayer and agreed to all the creeds of Christendom with your head.

But unless a person has the Holy Spirit, he or she is not yet in Christ. [1] It is the Holy Spirit that gives witness to our spirits that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16). The Holy Spirit thus brings us the assurance that we are children of God. It is the act of the Holy Spirit whereby we become "in Christ" and when we speak of Christ in us, we are speaking of the Spirit of Christ, Christ's presence in us somehow mysteriously mediated by the Holy Spirit.

3. It is somewhat popular at the moment to speak of conversion as a long gradual process rather than an instantaneous one. [2] There is of course a good deal of truth in this claim. It usually does take a good deal of time for a person to change.

It's also a slightly different question from whether you will escape the judgment. Most believe that unbaptized children will escape the final judgment, and yet they have neither been baptized nor have they received the Holy Spirit. If so, then one can technically be "saved" in that sense without baptism, faith, or having even received the most crucial element of all--the Holy Spirit.

But the Holy Spirit comes in an instant, and in that sense, you become part of the people of God in a moment. There may be a long process leading up to that point, and there is almost always a long process thereafter. But this is a different issue than being baptized into Christ by receiving the Holy Spirit, which must thereby always happen definitively in a moment.

The disciples cannot be used as an example of gradual incorporation into the body of Christ, even if they changed gradually. The Holy Spirit simply was not given in the manner of the new covenant until the Day of Pentecost. In that sense, none of the disciples were "in Christ" until the Day of Pentecost, when they were baptized into Christ in an instant. [3]

4. How does one know that this baptism, this receiving of the Holy Spirit has taken place? There can and often have been noticeable signs. The book of Acts testifies to the sudden ability to speak in other languages, a sudden boldness to proclaim Christ's resurrection, the sudden ability to perform miracles and healing. In the American revivals of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, people often felt an overflow of emotions and might start shouting or even running the aisles of a church.

But did everyone in the early church experience these sorts of dramatic manifestations or emotions? Not likely. We can imagine that the most typical manifestation of the Holy Spirit is a sense of peace and assurance, a sense that, in fact, you are received by God and at peace with him.

No doubt there will be some who do not feel different. Some, perhaps because of their past, may not feel anything at all. But are you truly committing to God with your whole will to the extent you know how? Are you making a choice of faith for God? Are you willing to make that faith public, including a public confession of faith in baptism?

Then you should trust that your sins are forgiven and that the Holy Spirit has taken control over your life. Sometimes God uses others to give us an assurance in such cases. Seek out someone you trust. God often empowers others in the body of Christ, especially those he has called to minister, to proclaim to us that our sins are indeed forgiven (cf. John 20:23).

3. The Holy Spirit thus sanctifies us and sets us apart as belonging to God. He purifies us of our guilt of sins past and he overcomes the power of Sin present and future. The Holy Spirit is behind initial sanctification, the act of cleansing us of our past sins and setting us apart as God's children. The Holy Spirit is behind progressive sanctification, the increase of righteousness and godliness in our lives.

When we get to the point of complete surrender of all our lives in every way we know how, the Holy Spirit can sanctify us entirely, making it easy to do the good we want to do. But we will always have room for growth until the day when we are glorified, when our mortal, corruptible bodies, our flesh subject to Sin and temptation, is transformed into resurrected bodies that are made like Christ's glorious resurrection body.

The Holy Spirit thus empowers us for obedience. The Holy Spirit imparts righteousness and godliness to the believer so that we are not only legally in right standing before God, but the Spirit actually makes us good. We are not, as Luther taught, doomed always to be both sinner and saint, but the Spirit empowers us not only to do the good but even to want the good. [4]

3. The Holy Spirit not only empowers us for purity. He also empowers us for ministry. We have already mentioned the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in Acts. The Church is praying in an upper room in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit comes on the Day of Pentecost. The Church is born. The Spirit brings everyone there into Christ.

Immediately we see a change. They are witnessing with boldness to the crowds, even in languages they have never learned. The next day, Peter and John heal a lame man. Later in Acts they and others will cast out demons.

The mission of the Church is the mission of God. The mission of God is the redemption of everything in the creation. The Spirit empowers the Church--both on an individual and corporate level.

The Holy Spirit sanctifies the believer. He purifies us. He incorporates us each individually into the body of Christ. He empowers us.

Next Sunday: E1. The Church is the body of Christ.

[1] We are not talking about tongues here, for not all who receive the Holy Spirit in Acts speak in tongues and the rest of the New Testament is practically silent on the topic, except for a couple chapters in 1 Corinthians.

[2] E.g., Richard Peace, Conversion in the New Testament: Paul and the Twelve (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

[3] In this sense, Peace's book is inadvertently trying to address two quite different questions at once, one a question of change and the other a question of incorporation. Given this blurring of questions, it is no surprise that his book barely mentions the most important element in conversion of all--the Holy Spirit.

[4] Simul iustus et peccator, semper repentans -- "At the same time, righteous and a sinner, as long as we are always repenting"

Gentile conversion to early Christianity

How did Gentiles conceptualize their conversion to earliest Christianity?

Yesterday I was contemplating the following break-down:

1. Some within the earliest church believed a Gentile needed to convert fully to Judaism. We call these the "Judaizers." We find hints of them in Acts 15:5 with Christian Pharisees, Pharisees who had believed in Jesus as Messiah without stopping to be Pharisees. Paul's opponents in Galatia similarly were Christians who believed Paul's Gentile converts needed to convert fully.

The tone of Galatians suggests that some did. So one group of Gentile converts to the Jesus sect became circumcised and fully converted to Judaism.

2. A second group--let's call it the James/Peter group--also saw full conversion as the optimal course for Gentiles. But they did not force Gentiles to convert fully (Gal. 2:3). Perhaps on the model of the stranger in the land, they believed that Gentiles could be saved from the coming wrath of God if they put their faith in God and his Christ. They expected them to follow some basic purity rules in order to have table fellowship.

3. A third group is the Pauline group. Paul fully included Gentiles within the "seed of Abraham" alongside Jews on the basis of faith. They were grafted into the tree. Did they see themselves as converting to a form of Christian Judaism? Perhaps it is misleading to put it that way in that "Judaism" was not a word that meant what we use the word to mean now.

Did they see themselves as converting to a Jewish sect? Obviously the word sect is a modern one, but I think they surely saw themselves becoming part of a Jewish group.

4. Finally there were probably Gentiles, especially as time went by, perhaps especially after the destruction of the temple, who saw themselves as outside Israel. The fiscus Judaicus, the tax on Jews first levied by Vespasian after the destruction of Jerusalem, was no doubt a driving force among Gentile believers to distinguish themselves from Judaism.

Unsurprisingly, the "parting of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity may have ultimately been driven at first by money.

The Power of the Spirit (4)

... continued from Friday.
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But this is exactly what it means for someone to be a Lord. A lord is a master, someone whom you must serve and obey. We do not have masters today in most contexts, certainly not in America. We do not have kings who can have us put to death if we do not submit to their authority.

It seems that few people have a real comprehension of what a God is. We take God for granted, almost as if he exists to serve us rather than the other way around. So the notion that we would want to give God complete authority over our lives may at times seem foreign even to many who actually call themselves Christians.

So there is nothing wrong with using the idea of being filled with the Spirit for a new sense of purity, power, and authority God takes over our lives that comes once we surrender completely to him. Although it is not exactly biblical language, holiness preachers were on to a marvelous image when they talked of the fullness of the Spirit. After all, will God take full control of our lives if we have not given him all of our lives that we know to give?

But this idea, valid though it is, does not seem to be what the book of Acts had in mind. [1] As we have seen, the coming of the Spirit in Acts primarily has to do with the initial experience of Christians when they first believe in Jesus as Messiah and are baptized.  The situation of the disciples is different because the Spirit had not yet come in this way until the Day of Pentecost.

In Luke-Acts, the Day of Pentecost, as we saw earlier, is finally the fulfillment of the prediction John the Baptist made that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. [2] The disciples could not have been filled with the Spirit in this way until after Jesus died and rose from the dead.

So what is the coming of the Holy Spirit about in Acts?  Yes, for those who are first believing on Jesus, being filled with the Spirit is truly the mechanism of past sins being cleansed.  Baptism is the outward act with our bodies that corresponds to the spiritual act the Spirit does in cleansing our sins. Acts 15:9 tells us that the hearts of the Gentiles had been purified when they received the Spirit.

But Acts focuses much more on the power that comes when people receive the Holy Spirit.  Isn't this exactly what Jesus predicted in Acts 1:9: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you"?  And it is exactly power that we see the disciples have in the chapters that follow the Day of Pentecost.  They receive power to perform miracles, such as the healing of the lame man in Acts 3. They receive boldness to witness to the resurrection even though they are persecuted for it.

And this power is available for believers even today. In Romans 8:9, Paul tells the Romans that a person is not truly a child of God if he or she does not have the Holy Spirit. Most people today do not experience as dramatic an experience as those in Acts, although some do.  Most today experience a peace, a calm assurance. [3]

Luke-Acts draws a line to us, as if to tell us that in the power of the Spirit we can do the same miracles today.  Luke-Acts shows Paul doing the same miracles that Peter did, which were the same miracles that Jesus did.  The three points make, as it were, a line that points to today.

[1] Again, if the Spirit-fillings of Acts were about a distinct spiritual experience like entire sanctification, we would surely expect Acts to be more explicit about it. We should always question interpretations of this magnitude that require us to read between the lines. Interestingly, John Wesley himself did not use Acts to present his teaching on sanctification anywhere in his writings.

[2] Again, John 20:22 is not part of the narrative of Luke-Acts. As far as Acts is concerned, the Day of Pentecost is the first time the promise of Luke 3 comes to pass.

[3] For whatever reasons, some believers are also plagued with difficulty experiencing the love of God. In such cases, the body of Christ often steps in to embody the love and assurance of God for them.

Whitesels Waypoints 2

I'm reading through Bob Whitesel's new book, Waypoints, this month, Waypoints. The first post on it is here.

Bob's book has 16 points a person might be on the Christian journey. I strongly prefer not to think of these as the process, which is why Bobby Clinton's rigidly regimented leadership sequence gets on my nerves big time. I don't think Bob means it rigidly either. What I find Bob's book helpful for is to see the kinds of needs a person at a particular point might have and to see the kinds of things that might conceivably get such a person moving in the right direction.

Of course movement is a mysterious mix of grace and free will, so no promises that such tactics will work. Bob's advice certainly makes sense as the kinds of things that might, from a human perspective, facilitate change. And in the mystery of God's will, why wouldn't we try, especially if a person's heart is bent to cooperate with God's grace?

Waypoint 15 (you'll remember his chapters go backward) is "Awareness of a Supreme Being." This is the person who is not an atheist who disbelieves. This is the type of person who has a minimal sense of God or the possibility of God, but they are not at Waypoint 14, where a person has some awareness of the good news.

I like this chapter and we had Wesley Seminary @IWU students read it as part of our missional course. What I like about it is that it sketches out the levels of human needs a person has. A person who is starving is not likely to want to talk to you about theology. Maslow's hierarchy of needs can be sanctified. Bob suggests that unless a person's basic physiological and security needs are met, you will not likely get very far with them talking about God.

Bob suggests research first: 1) live among them, 2) meet in group settings, 3) don't clone someone else's ministry. Then design your ministry: 1) include non-churchgoers int he planning and 2) allocate sufficient money. Finally, connect and evaluate: 1) do a trial run, 2) be a good-doer not a do-gooder (don't give off fake vibes).

Waypoint 14 involves people who have some sense of God but 1) are skeptical or 2) tend to ignore Him. For those who ignore Bob suggests 1) help them to see the seriousness of God's existence, 2) help them picture the future. He backs these things us with several points: 1) injustice and poverty are the result of human activity, 2) humankind was put in charge of the creation, 3) humankind is in charge of caring for the needy, 4) God requires sacrifice.

He closes the chapter with an interview with Ron Sider, who is a good example of someone who balances spiritual with physical concerns.

Bob Whitesel: Spiritual Waypoints 1

The first professor Wesley Seminary had was Bob Whitesel, author of numerous books in the areas of church growth and missional leadership. His most recent book is Spiritual Waypoints and I'm reading it this month as part of the faculty integration of foundation and praxis. I'll return to Oden at some point in the future.

My two chapters today are the Introduction and chapter 16. He cleverly has numbered the chapters to go down to where chapter 0 is the goal. He is trying to think about our walk with God not as one moment in time, conversion, but as a process and a journey. Not everyone will cover this entire journey, and I don't think he means to say that all the waypoints along the way have to be visited. He is suggesting that the expectation that a person will jump from one end of the journey to the other can be problematic.

He's doing several things in this book at the same time. For example, he interviews key individuals on the missional scene throughout the book. In chapter 16 (the first chapter), he interviews Richard Peace of Fuller.

He is also trying to hold the balance between the Great Commission and the Great Commandment without leaving one or the other out. He sees the "evangelistic mandate" (souls) as primary if you have to choose--but you don't. It has to be both/and, both souls and the "cultural mandate" to help people in their material, earthly needs.

Chapter 16 is about a person who has no awareness of a Supreme Being at all. Bob--following Peace--strongly suggests that it is not problematic to think of movement to agnosticism as a good thing because it is progress on the journey. Looking at it from a particular Christian perspective, Bob thinks of agnosticism as having some awareness of a Supreme Being even though they have not committed to such belief. Of course some agnostics might define themselves as someone who does not believe we can know if there is a God, while not denying the possibility of God's existence.

Bob suggests three types of atheist who may demonstrate a ripeness for movement: 1) the unselfish activist, 2) the confrontational activist, 3) the self-absorbed artist.

He suggests two things to do to mobilize toward such individuals: 1) release your "organic intellectuals," by which he means Christian intellectuals who engage various spheres of public life; and 2) make sure whatever Christian community to which you belong models things like: a) truth telling, b) fair dealing, c) an "ask-assertive" environment that invites questions and discussion rather than shoving the answers down your throat and d) imagery of hope, that says we have something to offer in an often hopeless world.

5 Elements of Conversion (Joel Green on 1 Peter)

I have so many possible things to post today my head is spinning. Here is a quick and dirty one, about all I can justify this morning:

Working through Green's 1 Peter commentary with a class. Here are five elements of conversion he mentions in his treatment of 1:22-2:3 (1 Peter [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007], 50-51):

1. In antiquity, it might refer both to event and to process and connote either transition from one religion to another or moving deeper into one's own religion.

2. Conversion entails autobiographical reconstruction--reformulation of who you think you are.

3. Conversion is a profoundly social act with immediate and far reaching social consequences.

4. Conversion involves incorporation into a new community with its distinguishing practices.

5. Conversion involves the adoption of a new symbolic universe, the valid one, a new way of looking at the world. Green elsewhere uses language of the conversion of the imagination (the title of a collection by Richard Hays, reminds us of Charles Taylor's social imaginary, taken over by James Smith in Desiring the Kingdom). Green defines the imagination in this context as, "a basic image-schematic capacity for ordering our experience" (26).

Book Review: Richard Peace's Conversion in NT

Peace, Richard, Conversion in the New Testament: Paul and the Twelve (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

In this clearly written book, Richard Peace basically argues two things. First, he argues that Paul's "conversion" in Acts provides us with a basic model of the core elements in Christian conversion (11-12, 19), of truly becoming a Christian. Secondly, he argues that while the conversion of the twelve disciples involved these same elements, the dynamics of their change involved much more time and took place much more gradually (12-13). When Peace draws the implications for evangelism at the end of the book, he thus presents two models: 1) encounter evangelism, based on Paul's conversion, and 2) process evangelism, based on his sense of the conversion of the Twelve.

First, Peace looks at the accounts of Paul coming to Christ in Acts and abstracts three basic elements: 1) insight (seeing one's true state before God and who Jesus really is); 2) turning (from before to after); and 3) transformation (25-26). His chapters two through four unpack these three elements of Paul's conversion in Acts one by one. Peace considers these three elements essential to all true conversions to Christ. [1]

However, he does not believe that the way they unfold need always be the same. In the case of Paul, his conversion was an event that largely took place all at once. By contrast, Peace argues, the conversion of the disciples "took place in fits and starts over the course of their years with Jesus" (106). He spends the next six chapters analyzing the Gospel of Mark as a story showing the gradual conversion of the twelve disciples. He presents his understanding of the structure of Mark's gospel and of how the understanding of Jesus progresses as the gospel moves along.

In this review, it is these first ten chapters we want to look at. On the one hand, surely Peace has done well to outline what most will agree are usually central elements and dynamics to Christian conversion. Repentance born of insight leading to transformation seems an excellent way to conceptualize key elements you will usually observe in a human in the process of conversion.

Further, Peace's contrast between event and process will also be familiar. We observe some people who undergo some sort of dramatic turn around in a moment's time. Yet we also observe other people whose lives have changed over a much longer period. After a long and gradual process of change, they wake up one morning and say to themselves, "Wow, I'm a Christian."

What is deeply problematic about Peace's treatment is that he has almost completely overlooked the most important element in "conversion" in the New Testament, the one that stands at the very heart of Paul's own understanding of becoming a "Christian." And this element holds the potential of significantly revising Peace's presentation of the Twelve's conversion. Here we are speaking of the Holy Spirit.

At least for Paul, Acts, and Hebrews, the critical moment of getting "in" to Christ is receiving the Holy Spirit. Peace does mention transformation as a key element in conversion. And buried deep in another section of some 353 pages of text we do find a comment that comes out of the blue and disappears just as quickly, "The Holy Spirit is a key agent in conversion" (219). But Peace does not speak of the Holy Spirit in his material on transformation. And the Holy Spirit is not just a key agent in conversion. Reception of the Holy Spirit, for Paul and Luke-Acts is the defining element of conversion. [2]

Paul says in Romans 8:9 that "if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ" (TNIV). Paul calls the Holy Spirit in 2 Corinthians 5:5 an "earnest" of what is to come, just as Ephesians 1:14 calls Him an "earnest" of our inheritance. Most modern translations unpack what an "earnest" is, such as when the TNIV says the Holy Spirit is "a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." Anyone who has purchased a house will be familiar with "earnest money," money that guarantees you are the one getting the house and that serves as a downpayment toward that purchase. The Holy Spirit thus guarantees our coming salvation from God's judgment because the Spirit is God's "seal of ownership on us" (2 Cor. 1:22). And since spirit is the "stuff" of heaven, the Holy Spirit is a "foretaste of glory divine."

The book of Acts is even starker in its Spirit-theology of conversion. The incident in Samaria in Acts 8 makes the point most clearly. Here is a group of individuals who have believed and have even been baptized in the name of Jesus (8:12). But there is a problem. They have not received the Holy Spirit and are thus not "in" yet. Peter and John come up to Samaria and lay hands on them so that they will receive the Holy Spirit. A person can receive the Spirit before they have even been baptized (Acts 10:44). A person can receive the Spirit after baptism (8:17). But unless the Holy Spirit has come, the person is not yet "converted."

From the standpoint of Acts, then, the key ingredient in conversion is neither insight, nor turning, but the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. We might speak of longer and shorter lead ups to that moment of receiving the Holy Spirit. But the book of Acts and Paul know nothing of anything but a moment of instantaneous reception of the Spirit. In the world of Luke-Acts, the disciples may be learning over the course of Jesus' ministry. But until Jesus has ascended and sent the Holy Spirit, they are not yet Christians. They are not truly "converted."

In the world of Luke-Acts, the Day of Pentecost is the beginning of all conversions. The lives of the Twelve during Jesus' earthly ministry are in that sense much like the lives of any Old Testament prophets. Until the Spirit comes on them in Acts 2, they are not yet "in" the new age. Whether Matthew and Mark have such an understanding of the disciple's pilgrimage is difficult to know, since they are largely silent on the issue. Certainly if one takes Acts 2 as a reference to a real, historical event on the Day of Pentecost, then one will adopt this view in relation to the other gospels as well. And Matthew and Mark do anticipate that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8).

I am reminded of the difference between the way we make different sounds with our mouths. There are some, like the letters r and l, that are like liquids that will continue to flow as long as you have breath. But there are others that are called "stops." These are letters like b or d. You can take as long as you like getting ready to say the letter. But you can only say it in a moment, and then it is said and done.

God can do more with His people than He did with the small portion of early Christian believers we hear about in the New Testament. To clarify the nature of conversion in the New Testament does not in itself end our discussion of how God converts people today. But it is worthwhile at least to listen to what the New Testament has to say on the topic. And for a significant portion of those writings, over half the New Testament, conversion is ultimately a matter of a moment when God's Spirit comes to inhabit that new member of the people of God.

[1] There is an important caveat in this entire discussion, one that Peace himself at least partially recognizes, and that is that the entire notion of conversion is ripe for anachronism. The very term conversion is not a New Testament one in the sense we are using it here, yet it is a major category for us. That is a recipe for reading things into the text that were not actually a part of the original meaning. Such things may be true, but we are not really getting them from the text.

Since Krister Stendahl's 1963 lectures, a vigorous debate has ensued over whether it is appropriate to call Paul's encounter with Christ a "conversion" (See Paul among Jews and Gentiles [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1976], 7-23). The general consensus, which with Peace agrees, is that the word conversion is appropriate if one is speaking of a radical change of direction or change from one group to another. However, it is highly inappropriate if one is thinking of Paul changing from one religion to another. Christianity remained a subset of Judaism throughout the period when the New Testament books were written.

[2] The only way that Peace can consider "turning," repentance, an important element of conversion for Paul is to base his camp in Acts. In terms of Paul himself, repentance is not a major category in his writings. We cannot know, of course, to what extent he may have emphasized it in his preaching, but it does not function prominently in his letters in the New Testament. Repentance is thus a very important element in the theology of Luke-Acts, but not of Paul's letters.