The Gospel is Not Discipleship

It's a great title by Michael Horton:

This is a response to John Mark Comer, who apparently (not to my knowledge) has become the new hype (from C.S. Lewis to Chesterton to Schaefer to Stott to Packer to Piper to Keller) of the Ameristian kingdom (particularly the Gen-Z), many students are reading his works.

Comer: I often get asked why don't you preach the Gospel (Calvinistic view of the atonement?)
Horton: There's no Calvinistic view of the atonement, there's a classical Christian doctrine of the atonement.

I think Horton missed Comer's point here. Sure, it's a play of word and Comer failed in that. But I believe what Comer was trying to say with Calvinistic view of atonement is predestination, election, that you are elected -> become "frozen" chosen. This is a common problem in some of today's churches (i.e. the last two Grace churches that I've been to: OPC Westfield, PCA Bridgewater). Unfortunately, the likes of Horton are not sensitive enough to call these out.

Horton's play at this is to distinguish the Gospel from Following Jesus. Which is fine. But this is where many fail, we can't just listen to the words people use, we also need to listen to the motives behind those words, the true meaning they intended. We are not fully free of guilt by just calling out others' wrong use of their words, the burden is also on us to attempt to understand what one truly means with the wrong choice of words they chose. Such is what our Lord the good Teacher has shown us whenever He answered questions that are beyond expectations!

Since I don't know this Comer guy, not interested to find out now, but I'll take the reputations of the likes of Horton, to caution a sort of Post-Mordernist/Barthian flag. However, Comer could just be another Francis Chan kind, because I think he seems to be addressing some real problem in the Reformed churches: i.e. Being frozen. Being complacent. Being satisfied with only coming to church and get verbal self-confident faith of their justified state from the pulpit. If that is so, Comer is gaining traction.

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