I remember growing up as a kid never being really heavily exposed to Biblical theology. I never really attended church much but I could tell a little from the culture that people were “religious” and had a sense of the creator God. Although I was never exposed to theology (in retrospect as a born-again believer) I can look back on the culture that I lived in here in the south and see very heavy presuppositions in the lives of the “religious folk” I lived around. There were presuppositions about God that they were living out that I would find later are in direct contrast to His word.
One might say that growing up with a non-Christian background would be a curse. God’s common grace (as differentiated from his special grace in salvation) is for all of His creation (it rains on the just and the unjust) and Christians normally see living outside of the covenant blessings of a Christian home or church family as a curse or “bad thing” for lack of a better word. I agree completely, but I want to put something into perspective.
Living outside of the special grace of God allowed me to, after being truly born-again, approach the scriptures with no theological presuppositions. I had no “special glasses” that I was wearing when reading God’s word that would filter out certain doctrines. I had not equipped myself with any particular church’s thoughts and viewpoints, nor armed myself as it were with certain barriers and blockades to fight against and resist competing exegetical thoughts on God’s word. I simply read God's word as it was. I faced God and wrestled through His word line by line and bowed before His holy word with fear, reverence and awe. I wanted to understand the mind of God in whatever capacity the Spirit would give me and continue to give. I approached God with my mind as a clean slate for Him to write on it as He wishes. With all of that came battles through historically controversial passages and more than one restless night of reading and prayer.
With all of that said, I wanted you all to take some time to listen to an exegesis, or drawing out of the meaning, of Romans 9. Before listening, please go get your Bible, sit down and pray that God strip away all of your presuppositions and ask Him to help you understand His word in truth. The reason for this post is the fear that there are many, many professing Christians living out a cultural distinctive that have no real grasp on God’s word. That scares me.
Now, open your Bible to Romans 9, click play below and read along. Pause it anytime you need to and think, pray and think again.
So, some of you might be asking after listening to that, "How in the world does this have anything to do with evangelism?" Well, I believe if you are asking that question you never truly understood the passages at hand.
A quick note:
I am in no way suggesting that if you come to a different conclusion that your presuppositions are the sole reason why. Nor am I suggesting that the culture that you grew up in is the sole reason why. I am suggesting, however, that these play a huge part into many faulty, shallow, eisegetical (or forcing into the scriptures your own meaning and interpretation), man-centered interpretations of scripture. There are many applications of scripture, but only one true interpretation.
