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Constructing your theology based on a selective reading of the Bible is like erecting a house on a partial foundation. The cracks will appear quickly, and before long, the entire structure will tilt dangerously in one direction. Important truths will be at risk of collapsing. Some may not appear at all.
Consider, for example, how we think about God’s sovereignty. We know that God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). But if that truth is embraced without registering the Bible’s further teaching that God often accomplishes His will through unfolding circumstances and individual choices—what theologians call secondary causes—the resulting understanding of God’s sovereignty will be structurally compromised. Before long, the significance of repenting, evangelizing, taking precautions against daily dangers, or working to alleviate our neighbor’s suffering may fall from view.
Such was the case when, not long ago, an ethics professor in Atlanta claimed that believing in God’s sovereignty is akin to asserting that you need not pull people out of the rubble of a collapsed building because God intended the earthquake to happen, or that scientists should not try to cure disease because God ordained the disorder. Most Tabletalk readers, I imagine, will recoil at such lopsided theologizing. But are there still areas of Christian living in which we harbor a misguided confidence that God will accomplish His will regardless of what we do?
Please notice the word misguided in the previous sentence. We can and should rest in God’s comprehensive and unstoppable providence through our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:3). He can direct planets (Job 38:33) and build His church (Matt. 16:18) without you or me. But anytime an able-bodied person refuses to work while expecting daily bread, or a young lady longs for a friendship to develop without reaching out, or a new believer hopes to grow spiritually apart from a local church, the person risks missing out on the ordinary means—the regular choices and actions—through which God aims to bless us. A firm belief in God’s sovereignty should not lead to a passive or apathetic Christian life. Instead, confidence in God’s sovereignty should fuel an active pursuit of godliness, since by such efforts God promises to sanctify His people (Phil. 2:12–13). God’s rule ought to provoke genuine grief over the world’s evil and trust that God will one day eradicate it (Rev. 21:4). And His predetermined purpose should make us rejoice, pray, give thanks, and sing—not despite but because we are living each day as written for us before the foundation of the world (Ps. 139:16).
So let us be Calvinists. But, as I have heard it said, let us be “Calvinists who sweat.” Do the last two words even need to be said? If you build your life on the whole of God’s Word, you will find that that is just what true Calvinists do. They sweat in service to God and neighbor, without sweating anything (see Heb. 13:6). What a wonderful way to live.