Tonight, I just want to share an old Chinese parable as retold by author Sahil Bloom:<\/p>\n\n\n
A minister approached the king and asked, “If one person came to you and claimed there was a tiger in the marketplace, would you believe it?”<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
The king replied, “No, of course not.”<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
The minister continued, “What if two people claimed there was a tiger in the marketplace?”<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
The king paused and said, “I might begin to have some doubt.”<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
Finally, the minister asked, “And what if three people all insisted there was a tiger in the marketplace?”<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
The king responded, “If three people claimed it, I would believe there\u2019s a tiger.”<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
The minister concluded, “Your Majesty, there is no tiger in the marketplace, yet with enough voices, even the most absurd claim can seem true.”<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
This is a good lesson to keep in mind whenever you hear a preacher repeat illustrations, analogies, and even theological propositions that they have heard from other preachers or seminary professors.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
This is on my mind because I watched a few clips from a documentary made about 5 years ago, American Gospel: Christ Alone<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Nowhere does it identify itself as Calvinist propaganda, but that is what the movie is.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
As a whole, apparently, it takes aim at the “prosperity gospel” and I’m all for that. But what is held up as the proper gospel in its stead?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
None other than Penal Substitutionary Atonement:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Propelled by an unwavering devotion to “justice”, the Father has to “pour out His wrath” and inflict punishment on His own Son as our substitute in order to forgive us.<\/p>\n\n\n
Having 50 men repeat that lie on camera for 2 hours straight just might convince some people there’s a tiger in the marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n
Hopefully not too many.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I was pleasantly surprised – and a bit amused – to find that I could not watch the whole documentary because it is behind a paywall!<\/p>\n\n\n
Apparently, sharing <\/b><\/i>the gospel is out and selling <\/i><\/b>the gospel is in.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tonight, I just want to share an old Chinese parable as retold by author Sahil Bloom: A minister approached the king and asked, “If one person came to you and claimed there was a tiger in the marketplace, would you believe it?” The king replied, “No, of course not.” The minister continued, “What if two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2651,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}