The Missing Pieces
I just finished a book called The Missing Pieces. It challenges our modern approach to evangelism and what we include and what we omit from the Gospel message. The missing pieces of the Law, conviction, repentance, transformation and judgment leave the Gospel presentation full of glaring holes in many evangelical churches these days. Can one be truly converted without completely understanding what the Gospel IS and what it requires?
I do have a dilemma. Let’s see if I can articulate it. Are there people who are so lost in their sin, so absolutely devoid of conscience and spiritual sensitivity, so strung out on drugs and alcohol that they need rescuing….and rescuing immediately? Could it be that they don’t even have time or mental capacities to come to an understanding of sin and its consequences and the course of action they need to take to experience salvation?
I met two young ladies from Teen Challenge last week. They were seated at my table at a Bible Study for women at our church. They told their stories briefly and there seemed to be many missing pieces in their conversion stories. I didn’t hear a thing about the law, conviction or repentance. I just heard the miraculous, awesome power of God – a God who met them exactly where they were – absolutely broken, near death, completely at the end of the line. In a moment’s time, they were both delivered from death and transferred to the Kingdom of His Son. Addictions gone, death defied. Transcendent peace overflowing. Did they know enough to even repent? Did they know how to step up to life? I don’t think so. They did cry out to God in their despair and He heard and delivered them.
So my dilemma is this. Can conversions such as these be authentic? Did God save them in spite of the missing pieces to their comprehension? Will they understand salvation and all its components later as they come to know the God who rescued them, as they begin to search the Scriptures? In other words, can a person be saved in spite of pieces that are missing? Can the puzzle be completed post-salvation?
I do have a dilemma. Let’s see if I can articulate it. Are there people who are so lost in their sin, so absolutely devoid of conscience and spiritual sensitivity, so strung out on drugs and alcohol that they need rescuing….and rescuing immediately? Could it be that they don’t even have time or mental capacities to come to an understanding of sin and its consequences and the course of action they need to take to experience salvation?
I met two young ladies from Teen Challenge last week. They were seated at my table at a Bible Study for women at our church. They told their stories briefly and there seemed to be many missing pieces in their conversion stories. I didn’t hear a thing about the law, conviction or repentance. I just heard the miraculous, awesome power of God – a God who met them exactly where they were – absolutely broken, near death, completely at the end of the line. In a moment’s time, they were both delivered from death and transferred to the Kingdom of His Son. Addictions gone, death defied. Transcendent peace overflowing. Did they know enough to even repent? Did they know how to step up to life? I don’t think so. They did cry out to God in their despair and He heard and delivered them.
So my dilemma is this. Can conversions such as these be authentic? Did God save them in spite of the missing pieces to their comprehension? Will they understand salvation and all its components later as they come to know the God who rescued them, as they begin to search the Scriptures? In other words, can a person be saved in spite of pieces that are missing? Can the puzzle be completed post-salvation?
posted by Diane Dahlen @ 4/28/2006
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