Bible Question: Many churches have the ceremony and on the hand written bulletin, after the sermon, ( Hymn of Invitation ) which during a song that centers around the confession of faith and the taking of first steps of salvation, my question, ( which is not petty) the scriptures never describe that we ( invite ) Jesus into our heart. I feel that this is an act of surrender, not an invitation. Let me explain, the grace from above comes to the humble, where is the humble in asking for an invite. The very word is wrong, and to make it worse, it is a man's tradition, which has no place in salvation. Many people every year are brain-washed with this act of ceremony, to me has no weight or valid right to even be done. I will find it interesting as to the response I get from this question. |
Bible Answer: If I understand your question correctly, you have more than one issue. The first is you don't like the use of 'invite' or 'invitation' to describe the act of accepting Christ's salvation by grace. The second issue is the ceremony that the church uses. Acts 4:12 explains that there is only one name we can be saved under. So how do we become ‘saved’? Ephesians 2:1-9 explains we have very little to do in our own salvation, it is totally up to God’s saving grace. Romans 10:9 explains how we accept God’s gift of salvation. We do two things, confess and believe. Does the church ceremony save some one? No, but it does provide a means for the message of salvation to be communicated to an individual. So does the ceremony have value? Only in the aspect it is a means of delivering the message of the Good News. Is the word ‘invite’ the best word? I looked up the definition of 'invite' which is to request the presence or participation of; formal request. In my mind, using the word 'invite' doesn't cross any Scriptural boundaries. Are there better words, it truly depends on your audience. If you start talking to someone about justification or sanctification that has just walked in off the street, you may quickly lose them using ‘biblical’ terms on concepts that are foreign to them. Does that mean we dummy down everything? Only to a point of having the time to bring the new believe up and only as far as not compromising the Gospel. When you start teaching your child to read, you don’t hand him a copy of War and Peace, but you start out with See Spot Run. As you teach and train the child you introduce the deeper concepts based on the simple basic principles. As our culture has become more Scripturally illiterate, some of the concepts have to be simplified until we can educate them (Sunday School, small groups, etc.). Do we have to be careful with the terms we use? Yes! Do we have to be careful about placing to much value on a ‘ceremony’ or particular action? Yes! As a church, if all we ever do is offer a Sunday ‘invitation’ to accept Christ and then send the new believer out the door, we are greatly failing in our charge. Matthew 28:19 Brad |