Theology – Page 2

Why Creation Matters, Part 6: Isaiah

March 19, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood | Part 4: The Sabbath | Part 5: Deliverance

I commented in the previous post that there’s a lot of Creation theology in the Latter Prophets, what Protestants call the Major and Minor Prophets. Something I didn’t mention last time is that the passage discussed in that post, 2 Kings 18.9ff, has a close parallel in Isaiah 37.14ff; the same event is described in both passages.

I’d like to spend this post looking at Isaiah’s Creation theology; the next post, looking at Jeremiah’s; and the third taking a dip into the Minor Prophets.

Isaiah is one of the earliest writing prophets, laboring in the 700s BC. During his time Assyria is the world power, taking the Northern Kingdom of Israel into captivity and ending its royal line. But surprisingly, Isaiah writes of a time when Assyria is effectively no more; rather he looks ahead more than a century, to when Babylon will be the power—that prophecy alone would have been surprising, if not completely unbelievable—and when Judah will have its time in exile.

But he looks beyond that too, to a (Persian) ruler named Cyrus, whom he calls his “anointed one”(messiah) and to someone else, whom he calls “My Servant.” All of these passages use Creation theology.

Isaiah 42.5

This is the first of Isaiah’s famous “Servant Songs,” which culminate in the well-known Isaiah 53. After describing the humble and gentle character of his Servant (Is 42.1-3)—as well as his certain victory (Is 42.4)—Isaiah records the words of God himself, beginning with his reference to the Creation (Is 42.5). The God who can do this, he says, will certainly call and keep and empower his Servant, who will liberate not only his covenant people, but the Gentiles as well (Is 42.6-9).

The God who created the cosmos will certainly rule it wisely and well and will accomplish his own purposes throughout its existence.

Isaiah 44.23-45.18

This passage, which lies between the first two Servant Songs, focuses on God’s deliverance of Judah from captivity in Babylon and their consequent return to the land. The God who created the universe (Is 44.24) and who overrules the plans of the wicked, those who defy the created order (Is 44.25), and who empowers his servants (Is 44.26), will certainly restore Judah and Jerusalem (Is 44.26). Further, he will use the pagan king Cyrus of Persia to accomplish this (Is 44.28).

Keep in mind that Isaiah is writing well over a century before Cyrus was even born. God can do that too. Cyrus is “my shepherd” (Is 44.28) and “my anointed [Messiah]” (Is 45.1). He can no more oppose or frustrate the will of God than a lump of clay can resist the potter. The Creator will do all his will.

Isaiah 48.13-15

God continues to assert his will over Babylon (also called the Chaldeans). The God who tells the heavens what to do faces no challenges from a temporary earthly kingdom—and one whose domain is merely local (if a big local from its perspective) at that.

Isaiah 51.13-17

God now turns his attention from Babylon to Judah. If your God has made heaven and earth—and your own Scripture starts with that foundational fact—then why are you afraid of Babylon, your oppressor? How does it make any sense to be intimidated by an entity that is utterly powerless before God your maker?

Indeed, if the Creator pronounces your sentence completed (Is 51.17), then what can possibly cause it to continue?

Isaiah’s Creation theology is straightforward: the Creator’s demonstrated power to begin the cosmos is convincing evidence of his power to maintain and direct it—whether through the successful ministry of his Divine Servant, through conforming decisions of pagan kings, or through the informed trust of his people.

Creation matters.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 5: Deliverance 

March 16, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood | Part 4: The Sabbath 

Having surveyed the first section of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Torah, or Law—the 5 books of Moses—we turn now to the second, the Prophets. This section is normally divided into the Former Prophets, what we Protestants call the books of History, and the Latter Prophets, what we call the Major and Minor Prophets. There’s a lot of creation material in the Latter Prophets, but I’m going to touch on just one passage in the Former.

During the reign of Hezekiah, Assyria invades, conquers, and takes into exile the northern kingdom of Israel, where Hoshea is king (2K 18.9-12). Ten years later, as one would expect of an invading king who has faced resistance from both these kingdoms, the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib, turns his attention to the southern kingdom of Judah. He begins by merely demanding tribute in the form of silver and gold. Hezekiah strips the precious metals from Solomon’s Temple and turns them over (2K 18.13-16).

Sennacherib, however, is not yet done. Perhaps noting Hezekiah’s initial cooperation, the Assyrian sends emissaries, backed up by a large army, to mock Hezekiah and to threaten to destroy Jerusalem (2K 18.17-37). He calls for the city’s complete surrender, if necessary against the wishes of their king.

This is no mean threat. In these days Assyria is the Big Kid on the Block, the conquering army that can operate at will across the Near East. Sennacherib’s emissaries have made threats, and they can keep every one of them.

But things are different in the South. Whereas Hoshea, the northern king, had been evil, Hezekiah is godly; and placing the Creator of heaven and earth on the scales tips them infinitely toward Hezekiah.

The godly king humbles himself as he seeks God’s presence in the (much reduced) Temple. He sends messengers to the leading prophet at the time, Isaiah, and requests his prayer for the nation (2K 19.1-4). Isaiah responds, apparently quickly, that God will deliver his people from even this essentially omnipotent king; he will need to return to his land, where God will judge him with death (2K 19.5-7).

The prophecy eventuates. On his way out of Judah, Sennacherib assures Hezekiah of his eventual return and the defeat of Judah (2K 19.8-13). His ground? That the gods of the surrounding nations have not been able to deliver their people.

Ah. Logical flaw, comparing the gods of the nations to Judah’s God. Hezekiah takes Sennacherib’s written diatribe before the Lord in the Temple and tells him:

“O Lord, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁶Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. ¹⁷Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands ¹⁸and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. ¹⁹Now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O Lord, are God” (2K 19.15-19).

Powerful words. The gods of the nations do not deliver, because they cannot; they are not gods, or even persons, or even sentient beings at all. They are wood and stone, themselves the creations of men’s imaginations and craftsmanship.

But Judah’s God, this God, is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He made all things from nothing, with spoken words. Any God who can do this can do anything else, if he wants to. And if his prophet has assured Hezekiah that Judah will be delivered, then it will most surely be delivered.

And it is, spectacularly. The angel of this God massacres the Assyrian army as they sleep in their tents (2K 19.35), and upon returning home, Sennacherib is murdered, ironically enough, as he is worshiping his own (false) god.

This Creator God can do anything. He certainly can deliver his people from finite enemies.

Now, the God who created and made covenant with Hezekiah is also the one who created and has made covenant with his people today. We are safe in his care.

Creation matters.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 4: The Sabbath

March 12, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood 

Moses gives us one more application of Creation that I’d like to note. One of the Ten Commandments, the fourth, makes a direct reference to the creation as a basis for application to how we live. I note that two of the commandments—the second and the fourth—receive considerably more column inches than the others. (Not that any of the ten are “less” important than the others, of course.) The second, which forbids graven images, protects the holiness of God; since God is unlike any of his creatures, to make an image of him is to represent him as less than he actually is.

Does the fourth commandment do something similar? God says that his people are to honor the Sabbath—because he did. Interestingly, there is a second recounting of the Ten Commandments over in Exodus 31, where God says something that ought to get our attention. He says there that by resting on the seventh day, God “was refreshed” (Ex 31.17).

Now, God doesn’t get tired; he’s omnipotent. And creating the universe, even in just six days, was not at all taxing for him. But when he finished his astonishing work, since he had created time as well as space, he took some of that time to sit back and enjoy—take pleasure in—what he had created. We know, because he created sunsets, that he enjoys the beauty of sunsets; we know, because he created flowers, that he enjoys the beauty of flowers.

One of God’s attributes is aestheticism.

And because we are in his image, we should take the time to sit back and enjoy a job well done.

Aaaahhhh.

Is there more to it than that?

I note that in Israel, violating the Sabbath was a capital offense (Ex 31.14). Does God kill people for being insufficiently aesthetic?

I suppose, given enough time and thought, I could try to make a case for that, but I don’t think it’s necessary; these passages add further depth to the significance of the Sabbath.

God calls this practice “a Sabbath of rest” (Ex 31.15). We’ve noted that he was not tired at the end of the Creation week, so the seventh day did not serve as recuperative for him. But he knows that we, his people, whom he loves, do get tired, and as he provides all our other needs, he provides our need for proper rest and recovery from exertion. He goes further than that; he commands it. We must rest, as a sign of our relationship with our Creator God.

Work/life balance. It’s a thing.

We think we show our love for God by doing all the things. Well, if we love him, we do obey him. But we don’t show love for him by abusing ourselves in his service; we plan regular times of refreshment, of enjoying his presence and the beauty of where he has placed us in his created world.

Which brings us back to aesthetics, doesn’t it?

Some years ago I was blessed to visit in the home of a Messianic Jewish family in Arad, Israel, on a Friday evening. We gathered around the table for supper, joined hands, and sang their traditional song:

Shabbat shalom!
Shabbat shalom!
Shabbat shalom, shalom!
Shabbat shalom!

We smiled, and we circled the table, and I experienced newly the joy of entering into God’s Sabbath rest, receiving it as a precious gift, and delighting in it for itself alone.

How much we 9-to-5 commuters abandon, and unnecessarily.

I don’t have room here for a thorough discussion of Sabbath theology; there’s a lot more to it, and there are whole books on the topic, from both sabbatarian and non-sabbatarian perspectives, and in each of these directly opposing views there are strengths and motivations to appreciate. Suffice it to say that it is a deeply important concept—and the reason it is important is that it is rooted in the doctrine of Creation.

If we have no Creator, we have no provider; we have no meaningful beneficence; and we have no assurance that there is one who loves us perfectly, knowledgeably, and wisely for time and for eternity.

Rest.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 3: The Flood

March 9, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning 

As Moses continues his narrative of beginnings, he comes quickly to an account of the Flood, God’s global judgment on human sin. Perhaps you’ve never noticed how thoroughly the flood account is imbued with Creation language.

The account begins with the observation that “man began to multiply on the face of the earth” (Gen 6.1)—which is a direct response to God’s command to multiply in Genesis 1.28. A few verses later (Gen 6.6), Moses states that God “repented” that he had made man on the earth. Thus Moses introduces the Flood as, in effect, God’s reversal of the Creation event: his Uncreation, if you will.

And so begins the account. God describes all the life he created in Genesis 1, using the same language: “man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air” (Gen 6.7)—“all flesh, wherein is the breath of life” (Gen 6.17). God orders Noah to preserve two of each of these life forms (Gen 6.20), specifying “male and female” (Gen 6.19).

As he continues his instructions, he specifies not just two, but fourteen–seven pairs–of the clean animals, again including both male and female (Gen 7.2), and specifying both beasts and fowl (Gen 7.2-3).

Sidebar: Some question why God specified 7 pairs of each clean beast—and some are completely unaware that this specification was even made. Why this command? Well, for starters, we’re told that upon exiting the ark, Noah made a large sacrifice (Gen 8.20), and after going to all that trouble to preserve breeding pairs, you don’t want to kill them. I also note that that dove eventually didn’t return to the ark (Gen 8.12). Further, I speculate that Noah and his family might have eaten some meat on the ark, and further, they may have wanted some breeding insurance for clean animals as the repopulation proceeded.

Back to our account.

As Noah and his family enter the ark, the Creation language is repeated (Gen 7.8-9). And then they wait for seven days until the rain starts (Gen 7.10). Is this intentionally matching the Creation week? Maybe.

Summarizing the entry into the ark, Moses recalls the Creation language of “after its / their kind” (Gen 7.14), “the breath of life” (Gen 7.15), and “male and female” (Gen 7.16). As the water rises and the death begins, Moses repeats the language: “of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man” (Gen 7.21, 23). He speaks further of “the face of the earth” (Gen 1.29) as the now-emptied home of animal life (Gen 7.23).

As the rain continues, “the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth” (Gen 7.18). This too recalls Creation language; in the beginning the Spirit was on the face of the waters (Gen 1.2), and on the 2nd day God separated the land from the water. This gracious provision for life in the Creation week is now reversed; the means for life among land animals is removed, and all flesh “in whom is the breath of life” dies (Gen 7.22).

After the ark lands on dry ground, Noah waits for seven days (there’s that period again) to send out a dove (Gen 8.10), and another seven days (Gen 8.12) to sent it out (successfully) again. Is this an intentional doubling of the Creation week to imply the completeness of God’s restoration of his good Creation? I’m just suggesting this; we don’t have any way of being certain of the significance.

So on “the first day of the first month the waters were dried up from off the earth” (Gen 8.13)—for the second time (Gen 1.9-10). And into this new world “every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” emerge to “be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth” (Gen 8.17-18).

And the account closes by recounting God’s words: “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Gen 8.22).

Creation order is restored.

So we find that Creation and the Flood are intimately linked in the plan of God. In response to man’s sin, God undoes his miraculous creation—miraculously—and then returns it to its original state, despite the presence of sin. He shows his mercy more spectacularly than he did by creating humans to begin with. And he can do this, obviously, because he was capable of creating the cosmos in the first place.

Creation is the basis for mercy. It matters.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 2: From the Beginning

March 5, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

Moses himself, the author of the creation account, begins to interpret and apply it almost immediately. He finds his opportunity in two specific events: the initiation of the godly line, and the Great Flood.

After the account of the Fall (Gen 3) and the birth of Cain and Abel and Cain’s murder of Abel (Gen 4), Moses begins to trace the line of “the seed of the woman” (Gen 3.15). That line is clearly not through Abel, since he is dead and without any named offspring, and it’s clearly not Cain, the murderer and outcast (Gen 4.12), as his offspring Lamech demonstrates (Gen 4.23-24). So Eve has a third son, Seth (Gen 4.25), whose name means “to appoint,” implying that he is either “the seed of the woman” or the seed’s progenitor; indeed, shortly later “men began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4.26).

Moses chooses to begin chapter 5 by announcing a formal genealogy: “This is the book of the generations of Adam” (Gen 5.1). But at the beginning he chooses to spend some column inches on the birth of Seth, more than is usual in a genealogy. He begins by referring back to his creation account—specifically the key fact that Adam and Eve were created “in the likeness of God” (Gen 5.1). Borrowing almost precisely from his earlier language, he emphasizes that both Adam and Eve, both of whom are essential in producing the godly line, are created directly by God and are in his image (Gen 5.2). He even says that God “called their name Adam” (Gen 5.2), which sounds odd to us until we realize that the name “Adam” simply means “person” or “human” (e.g. Gen 2.5).

Now Moses applies that language to the birth of Seth:

And Adam … begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth (Gen 5.3).

Likeness. And image. Just as God, so to speak, created “after his kind” (Gen 1.11), so Adam and Eve did as well. And this language is more specific than “after his kind”; it’s a mirror image in certain ways.

What’s the significance of this? It tells us that the image of God is not a “one-shot deal” effective for just a single generation or birth. It continues; Adam passes that image and likeness on to his offspring, who pass it on to theirs. We’re all, all of us, in that image and likeness.

We find evidences of that in later Scripture. The New Testament repeatedly describes man, or all mankind, as in the image and/or likeness of God (1Co 11.7; 15.49). It describes Christ as particularly in that image (2Co 3.18; 4.4; Co 1.15; He 1.3), and believers, who are “in Christ” (2Co 5.17), as further conformed to that image (Ro 8.29; 1Co 15.49; 2Co 3.18; Co 3.10).

I find it interesting that in the first reference to “image” in the New Testament, Jesus implies something further about its significance. In Matthew 22.20 and its Synoptic parallels (Mk 12.16; Lk 20.24), Jesus points out that since a coin bears the image of Caesar, it must belong to Caesar, and should be paid as a tax. What he does not say, but clearly has in mind, is that whatever bears the image of God—mankind—must then belong to God, and not to the state. We are his by right of creation, and he has marked us with his image—a brand, if you will—as visible evidence of that.

The first significance of creation, then—established from the very beginning—is that God is our Owner and Lord, whether we acknowledge that or not. I suspect that a significant motive in the invention of other creation stories is the desire to circumvent, even to suppress (Ro 1.18), that fundamental fact.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 1: Introduction

March 2, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Some years back, I wrote a series here explaining why I am (still!) a young-earth creationist, even though more and more of the cool kids are eating at a different lunch table. In evangelical academia, most scholars, while rejecting the atheistic evolution of, say, Richard Dawkins or the late Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, or Christopher Hitchens, have adopted one of two theistic accommodations of evolutionary theory: either theistic evolution, typified by Biologos and its founder Francis Collins (most famous for his time as leader of the Human Genome Project, which produced a fully mapped human genome in 2003); or what I would call discontinuous or punctuated evolution, typified by Hugh Ross’s Progressive Creationism, which posits that God worked direct acts of creation at points along the timeline that natural processes could not account for. (Theistic evolutionists are generally nearly as dismissive of Progressive Creationism, labeling it a “god of the gaps” solution, as they are of Young Earth Creationism, which they view as uneducated and therefore ignorant.)

I think it’s noteworthy that although evangelical scholars are generally old-earth creationists, the same cannot be said of the folks in the pew, or even outside the church: a 2024 Gallup poll recorded the most popular view as “God created humans in their present form” (37%); slightly fewer held that “humans evolved, God guided” (34%); and fewer still held that “humans evolved, God had no part (24%).” (Compare an earlier Pew Research Center survey here.) This spread is remarkable, given that public education has promoted atheistic evolution exclusively for well over half a century. I wonder whether there is something inherent in humans that resists atheistic “solutions”; it’s almost as though one has to go to college to be pressured away from it.

At any rate, the earlier series represents my thinking on the “age of the earth” question. Here I’d like to broaden and refocus the discussion a bit.

Some years ago my colleague (and doppelganger, before I grew a beard) Dr. Bill Lovegrove challenged the BJU university body, in a chapel message, to search the Scriptures for passages after the creation account in Genesis 1-2 that refer back to that account and draw some sort of conclusion or application from the fact that God is the Creator. I did that, and I’d like to share the results of that study here. Bill’s a scientist (engineer), but what he suggested is in fact a biblical theological study, which is where my training is; it’s right down my alley.

So where does the Bible refer to God as the Creator, or to the creation event, and then apply that truth in some way to our thinking or behavior? You might be surprised at how frequently, and broadly, it does that. Such passages appear in every section of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh—the Law, the Prophets (Former and Latter), and the Writings. They appear in the New Testament as well—the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the epistles of Paul, Peter, and the author of Hebrews, and the apocalyptic book of Revelation. That covers all the biblical genres, as well as the entire biblical timeline, from the earliest narrative in Genesis and the oldest biblical book (Job, I think) through the exilic and post-exilic writers (Jeremiah and Nehemiah) and through the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation.

Because of the wealth of biblical data, I suspect this will be a long series. And that’s kind of the point.

This is not some minor doctrine. Creation matters.

Next time, the earliest biblical data.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 4: What, and Where / How?

January 15, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Why Disciple? | Part 3: When?

As I anticipated in the previous post, I think a couple “journalism questions” remain for our survey of discipleship:

What happened when you were converted?

Where do you go from here?

And because I’ve written on these questions here before, I think a couple of links and a comment or two might be sufficient for this post.

We begin discipling a new convert by explaining to him where he is, or what happened to him when he came to Christ in repentance and faith (or, in today’s common expression, “got saved”). God was doing things in his heart before that happened, and a whole raft of things, many of which he didn’t notice, happened to him at the moment of conversion. And God’s work will continue in him in the days ahead, and for the rest of his life.

He needs to know these things in order to understand his place in God’s plan now.

I’ve written about those things in this series, using the analogy of opening presents at Christmas. It’s a long series (22 posts!), because it needs to be.

We conclude by answering the question “Where do we go from here?” To some degree the last few posts of the series linked above will help to answer this question—there’s progressive sanctification and filling and glorification—but our new brother will need some help with getting there—with fulfilling his responsibilities in the shared (“synergistic”) work of progressive sanctification.

For these helps, I suggest another earlier series, in which I use the analogy of working out, or building muscle. That’s just 6 posts, covering what we call the three (or maybe five) “means of grace.” It’s a subject that I think is taught less clearly than it ought to be these days.

May we all comprehend, and apprehend, our inheritance and our responsibilities in this remarkable spiritual journey.

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 3: When?

January 12, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Why Disciple?

I suppose there are two “when” questions having to do with discipleship:

When should I seek to make disciples (“evangelize”)?

When should I call for a decision in evangelism?

The first question, I think, has already been answered in our survey of the Great Commission: “As you are going,” Jesus said, “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 29.19).

That means it’s a natural extension of daily life.

Now, Jesus told us to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Mt 10.16). I know there are people who would disagree with me—vigorously—but I think that statement at least implies that we should evangelize in ways that are reasonably adapted to the culture in which we’re working.

An example. Some Christians preach on street corners. You can do that; I’ve done some of that myself, in years past. But in our culture, such people are typically viewed as, well, crazy, or at least socially maladjusted, and I haven’t heard of their having much success. The only response I ever got was from someone who was inebriated, and there was no way that I could take him through the plan of salvation in that condition.

Evangelism is simply a part of the way we live our lives. Recently I flew somewhere on Southwest, which at the time didn’t assign seating. The way that works is that the first people to board grab either an aisle or a window seat, as close to the front as possible, and then they all fervently hope that nobody sits in the middle. I boarded relatively late, and as I walked down the aisle I could see that fervent hope on every face I passed. I managed to get an aisle seat waaaay in the back, and when a big guy came down the aisle to claim the middle seat, I just slid over so he could have the aisle seat. He commented on that, and I said, “I’m the littlest guy in the row; makes sense for me to sit in the middle.” (I’m happy to say that this was not a transpacific flight; if it were, the decision would have wrenched my soul.) We had a long and congenial conversation about spiritual things—turned out he was already a believer—and the guy on my right heard the whole thing, even though he wasn’t inclined to join the conversation.

So when do we evangelize? All the time. As we go. Wisely.

My answer to the second question might be controversial as well. I’ve already written some thoughts on how much pressure we place on children to convert. Stop here and go read that brief piece. I’ll wait.

No, really. Go read it.

All right. We can do serious damage when we pressure people to accept something they don’t understand or agree with. Prayers are not magic words; God knows the heart, and even a prayer with all the right words is useless if the one praying doesn’t mean them.

That’s true of adults as well as children. Would that enebriated man on the sidewalk in Boston have been regenerated if he had prayed a prayer that I recited to him, but that he likely would remember only dimly, if at all?

No, he wouldn’t have been. But if he did remember it dimly, then for the rest of his life he could tell future evangelists that he’d already done that, and “it didn’t work for me.”

There’s no way I’d set up a situation like that.

So when do you call for a decision?

The Bible says that salvation consists of repentance—turning from sin attitudinally—and conversion—turning to Christ in faith. Repentance, without which salvation simply will not happen, is animated by conviction of sin, a sense of sinfulness and of guilt before God. And how does conviction happen?

Someone shouting at you?

Someone telling you a sad story that moves you deeply?

Someone telling you about the eternal fires of hell and scaring you half to death?

No. Not by themselves.

Conviction, the Scripture says, is a work of God’s Holy Spirit.

So when do we call for a decision, a prayer of repentance?

When we see evidence of conviction. In a child, or in an adult.

Otherwise, we’re just inoculating the person against evangelism.

Next time, we’ll finish the series by laying out the content of discipleship:

What happened when you were converted?

Where do you go from here?

Part 4: What, and Where / How?

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 2: Why Disciple?

January 8, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

If we’re going to be equipped to disciple others, we need to start with the basics:

What is discipleship?

Why is this a priority? (or, to put it more bluntly, why should I care?)

I’m going to answer those questions in reverse order.

It all begins with God’s will.

Just before he returned to heaven, Jesus left his disciples with a command, the one we call The Great Commission. It appears in Mark 16.15, Luke 24.46-49, and Acts 1.8, but its classic expression is in Matthew 28.18-20:

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. ¹⁹Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.

Jesus begins by asserting that he has obtained all the authority (“power”) there is in the universe.

That’s quite a claim, and it’s backed up elsewhere in Scripture (e.g. Co 1.14-20).

He’s not bluffing.

So the Great Commission is based on the infinite, universal authority of the one giving it. It’s not merely an option.

And what does this authority command?

The main verb of what follows is “teach.” This word means simply to “make disciples.” When are we to do that? Here Jesus uses a participle, “going,” or “as you go.” So whenever you’re out, take the opportunity to make disciples of all people groups. Of course, to do that you need to go to all the people groups. That’s a key basis of what we call “missions,” and I note that he didn’t restrict the command to a subset of professionals. His command assumes that we’ll all be going, and that as we go we’ll take the time to make disciples in the places where we go.

Next he uses two more participles to tell us how we’re to do that. First, we’re going to baptize them. That assumes, of course, that they will have been converted, will have expressed repentance from sin and faith in Christ. And second, we’re going to teach them what they need to know—what Christ has commanded of his disciples.

As the church has functioned throughout its history, some have specialized in certain people groups—and that makes sense. But all of us have been given this command, and by an infinite authority at that. As we go, wherever we go, we should be telling of Christ’s work, encouraging others to repent and believe, and helping to teach them what happens next.

We all have the obligation to evangelize. All of us. Not just the professionals, whether pastors here in the States or overseas. And once, through our evangelistic labors, someone has believed, we have the obligation to teach him. To disciple him.

Apparently, 2 out of 3 of us aren’t doing that.

Maybe they’re too busy screaming at their political opponents about how stupid they are.

I doubt that’ll open many doors. And I doubt that our infinite, universal authority will be pleased with our priorities, or our devotion to the real cause.

The Bible includes many examples of evangelism; we would do well to study those examples and consider how we might apply them to our time and culture:

Pentecost (Ac 2.38)

Temple (Ac 3.19-26)

Sanhedrin (Ac 4.12)

Sanhedrin 2 (Ac 5.31)

Simon (Ac 8.20-23)

Saul (Ac 9.20; 22.16; 26.18-20)

Cornelius (Ac 10.43; 11.17-18)

Antioch (Ac 13.38-39)

Iconium (Ac 14.1)

Gentiles (Ac 15.9)

Philippian Jailer (Ac 16.30-31)

Berea (Ac 17.12)

Athens (Ac 17.30-31)

Corinth (Ac 18.8)

Ephesus (Ac 19.4-5, 18-19)

Rome (Ac 28.23-24)

There’s no lack of patterns provided.

Next time we’ll consider how to proceed in evangelism.

Part 3: When? | Part 4: What, and Where / How?

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 1: Introduction

January 5, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We hear a lot about discipleship in the church these days. Pastors and teachers often point out that discipleship is the focus of the Great Commission (we’ll get to that in a bit), but a recent Barna study (2022) concluded that while about 56% of Christians are being discipled, only about 33% are discipling others.

A couple of caveats.

Accurate surveying is a complicated business; minor inattention can produce huge errors, and every survey that does its statistical work prudently will report a certain “margin of error,” usually 3 to 7 percent, based on sample size and other factors. (The margin of error in this study is +/- 1.5% at 95% confidence.) But even a very large sample size can yield unreliable results—as is the case in virtually every Facebook poll, in which the respondents self-select. That said, Barna is a well-regarded research group.

Nowhere does the article report how Barna defined “Christian”; it says simply that the respondents self-identified as Christian. (I didn’t read the study itself, which is behind a paywall.) Given Barna’s history, I think it’s safe to assume that they were interacting with evangelicals.

The article also doesn’t define “discipleship,” though I’m sure the study itself does. Given that only 56% percent of Christians are “being discipled,” I’m confident that the definition does not include pulpit ministry.

With those factors in mind, I think we can take the percentages as reasonably accurate. That said, though the percentage of Christians who are being discipled is significantly higher than the percentage of those who are discipling others, I still think it’s lower than it ought to be; and the number of those discipling others is disturbingly low.

When a subset of the survey group was asked why they’re not discipling anyone, the most common response was that they didn’t think they were qualified. I rather suspect that apathy and/or fear play a larger role than the survey indicates, but because people are not likely to give answers that find fault with themselves, I doubt that any survey would yield reliable data on that question.

So then. A large percentage of self-proclaimed Christians are rendering only casual obedience, if that, to Jesus’ last command.

Maybe we should try to clarify, in a few posts, what discipleship is all about.

I plan to proceed by tracking the basic journalistic questions:

Why should we disciple others?

What does discipleship consist of?

When should we call for a decision in evangelism?

What should we teach the disciple about salvation? (This will consist of a blog series I posted some years ago. A link will suffice.)

How should the disciple be enabled to grow? (This too will be an earlier series on this blog.)

We’ll start down this path next time.

Part 2: Why Disciple? | Part 3: When? | Part 4: What, and Where / How?

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash