What is the Gospel message?
How does it become effective in the lives of those who hear it? How important is it in light of the biblical
teaching of election and predestination from our previous lesson?
In Romans 8:30, Paul indicates a definite there is a
definite order in God’s saving purpose: “Those whom he predestined he also
called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified
he also glorified”
According to this passage, all who are “predestined to
believe” also receive God’s call, and all who are thus called are also
justified. Has that been your experience? How does that fit in with the apparent
rejection of the Gospel call by so many who hear it?
The Doctrine of the Gospel Call is the subject of lesson 19
of my 34 lessons in systematic theology. Anyone who reads the Bible on a
regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has
revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the
point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a
particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could
well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context?
My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with
strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll
define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m
confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m
confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own
beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so
many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was
written by divine inspiration.
I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of
theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne
Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig
deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as
many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the
class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF
chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as
well.
Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared
resources are as follows:
Lesson 19: https://youtu.be/Z6n4g76jF8w
YouTube Channel: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman
Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56
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