In the King James or Authorized Version of the Bible, “atonement” occurs only once in the New Testament, in Romans 5:11. An example is “sacrament,” an important word that refers to baptism and the communion, yet is not found in the Bible.Īnother example is “atonement,” an important word used by the church to refer to what was accomplished by Christ’s death: he died to atone for-to pay for-our sins in order to reconcile us to God. Some biblical concepts are accurately expressed by words that are not found in the Bible. That a word is absent in the Bible does not necessarily mean that it is scripturally untrue. If you remove the element of commitment from it, the sentence would lose its meaning.ĭoes the word “commitment” (or the verb “commit”) occur in the Bible or are we merely fabricating it? In the latter case, the statement would make sense only in relation to commitment. Commitment is sometimes stated explicitly, other times implicitly. Total commitment is the foundation of our relationship with God. The Bible teaches not just commitment but total commitment, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Don’t accept what I say out of my own opinion-see for yourself what the Bible teaches about it. That is why we will look into the Bible to see what it says about commitment.
The cost is too high!” To this I would answer, “But commitment is taught everywhere in the Scriptures.” Whenever I raised the subject of commitment, many would say to me, “If you talk about commitment, no one will go to church or become a Christian.
The church’s failure to teach commitment has resulted in the dead churches all around us.
COMMITTED DEFINITION FREE
People in our so-called free society are not interested in committing to God. But as I waited on the Lord for an answer, and examined what the Bible may have to say about it, I began to see that the root problem was a lack of commitment. I felt sick in my heart, and wondered what exactly was the problem.įor a long time I couldn’t pinpoint the problem. They were constantly thinking about expanding this facility or that facility, or doing outreach in order to expand the organization, much like a business trying to expand its market. They seemed less interested in a relationship with God than in church income or church property. When I conversed with some of the pastors, I felt that I was talking with some businessmen. They seemed less interested in a relationship with God than in church income or church property.Īs I listened to the church sermons, I soon discerned a lack of emphasis on the deep matter of our relationship with God. I said to myself, “What’s happening here? I can’t even fellowship with my fellow Christians.”Īs I listened to the church sermons, I soon discerned a lack of emphasis on the deep matter of our relationship with God. Did you come straight out of the first century?” After hearing about my experiences of God, they would say to me, “These things took place in the book of Acts but not anymore. They gave me a puzzled stare as though I had come from outer space. When I shared with them about what God had done in my life, they couldn’t understand what I was talking about. I couldn’t talk to them about the deep things of God, or for that matter the elementary things. I said to myself, “This is freedom? These Christians have no life in them!” I simply couldn’t fellowship with them about the Lord. When I finally arrived in Hong Kong, I said to myself, “It’s so wonderful to be in this free society where I can worship God in church or buy a Bible at a bookstore.” But when I started visiting the churches there, I soon realized just how dead the Christians were. So commitment to God was not something that the church had to spell out explicitly. We knew very well that without commitment, we would not survive as Christians. I did, however, have the advantage of knowing God in China at a time when it was dangerous to be a Christian and when our pastors were being sent to labor camps. When I was a young Christian, no one told me about commitment. If we take it out of the Bible, we won’t have any Bible left to read, for commitment lies at the heart of our relationship with God. The subject of commitment runs through the whole Bible.
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