Hear the Whole Matter

He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. - Proverbs 18:13

   I get messages from time to time after a podcast episode goes out. Most of them are encouraging. Some of them are thoughtful questions from believers who are wrestling with something I said, and I welcome those. But every now and then I get a message from someone who has taken a single phrase, sometimes a single sentence, isolated it from everything else I said, and built an entire indictment on it.

   It happened recently. I put out an episode about the simplicity of the Gospel, how the good news of Christ is not a theology exam you have to pass, how we come to God with empty hands and cling to a finished work. And in the course of that message, I used some language that was, shall we say, not precise enough for one particular listener. I said something about Christ fulfilling the penalty of the law for sinners, and I used the word "sinners" without immediately qualifying it with "His people" or "the elect." And that was enough. That single word choice became the basis for a correction. The implication was that I had compromised the doctrine of particular redemption. That I was speaking like a universalist.

   Now folks, I want to be careful here, because I don't want to be unkind to anyone. I'm not going to name names or quote anyone directly. This isn't about one person. It's about a pattern I've observed over many years in sovereign grace circles, and it's a pattern I've been guilty of myself. So I'm not standing over here pointing fingers from some position of moral superiority. I've been the nitpicker. I've been the one dissecting other men's words looking for the flaw, the slip, the imprecise phrase that would allow me to categorize them and dismiss them. I know what that impulse feels like from the inside.

   But I've also grown weary of it. And I think Scripture has something to say about it.

The Pharisees and Their Fences

   There's a concept in ancient Jewish tradition that I think is deeply relevant to what happens in theological circles today. The rabbis had a principle: build a fence around the Torah. The idea was that if the Law said one thing, you should add additional rules around it to make absolutely sure nobody even got close to breaking the original commandment. If the Law said don't work on the Sabbath, the fence would define exactly how many steps you could take, how much weight you could carry, what activities counted as work and what didn't. The fence existed to protect the law.

   It sounds noble on the surface. But you know what happened? The fences became more important than the law itself. People got so consumed with maintaining the hedges that they forgot what the hedges were supposed to be protecting. And when Jesus showed up and healed a man on the Sabbath, they didn't rejoice that a crippled man could walk. They were furious that someone had broken through their fence.

   I see the same thing happening in certain corners of the sovereign grace world, and I say that as someone who holds firmly to the Doctrines of Grace.  I believe in particular redemption. I believe Christ died for His people, specifically, intentionally, effectually. I believe every point of what we call TULIP, and I preach it regularly. But I refuse to build a fence around my language so high that I can't even use the phrases Scripture itself uses.

   And that's really what struck me about the exchange I had. Because here's the thing. The Bible itself uses what we might call broad gospel language. Paul writes in Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." John the Baptist declared in John 1:29, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Paul told Timothy, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief" (1 Tim 1:15).

   Now, are those statements universalist? Of course not. We know from the whole counsel of Scripture that "the world" in John's Gospel doesn't mean every individual without exception. We know that "sinners" in Paul's letter to Timothy refers to those whom Christ actually came to save. We understand these passages within the framework of sovereign grace because we've heard the whole of what Scripture teaches. But the phrases themselves, taken in isolation, could be twisted by someone who wanted to twist them. And yet the Holy Spirit saw fit to inspire those very words. God Himself was not concerned about guarding every sentence with a qualifier. He expected His people to hear the whole matter.

Hear the Whole Matter

   Solomon had something to say about this. Ecclesiastes 12:13 says, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." There's wisdom in that phrase, "the whole matter." Solomon didn't say, "Hear a fragment and render judgment." He didn't say, "Take one sentence out of a man's teaching and build your case." He said hear the whole.

   Proverbs 18:13 puts it even more bluntly. "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." If you respond to a man's teaching before you've actually heard what he's teaching, before you've taken in the full context and the full scope of what he's saying, that's not discernment. That's folly. And Scripture calls it shameful.

   I think about Ecclesiastes 10:8 as well, which says, "He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him." Now, some hedges have a purpose. Some boundaries matter. Doctrinal precision matters. I'm not suggesting we should be sloppy with the truth or careless with our words. But there's a difference between maintaining a hedge and demanding that everyone else build their hedge in exactly the same place you've built yours. There's a difference between caring about truth and weaponizing precision against fellow believers.

   If you listen to anything I've ever taught, you will hear me affirm particular redemption. You will hear me speak of God's elect, of Christ's finished work for His people, of sovereign grace from beginning to end. That's not something I hide. It's not something I'm ambiguous about. It flows naturally from me because it's what I believe in my bones. But I also refuse to speak in a way that's so hedged, so carefully fenced, that it no longer sounds like a human being talking. I'm not writing a theological confession every time I open my mouth. I'm having a conversation. I'm preaching Christ. And I trust that the people listening, if they listen to the whole of what I'm saying, will hear clearly where I stand.

Generous Listening

   I think grace should make us generous listeners. If the grace of God has truly humbled you, if you really understand that you were saved not because of your theological precision but because of Christ's finished work on your behalf, then you ought to be the most patient, the most charitable, the most willing-to-hear-the-whole-matter kind of person in any room. Grace doesn't produce suspicious critics. It produces people who extend the same patience to others that God has extended to them.

   I think about how many times God was patient with me when my theology was a mess. When I was young in the faith and saying all sorts of things that were imprecise, incomplete, even flat-out wrong in places. God didn't cast me off because I used the wrong word in a sentence. He was patient. He taught me. He grew me slowly over decades. And He's still growing me. I don't have it all figured out, and I never will this side of glory.

   So when someone preaches Christ and Him crucified, when someone points sinners to the cross, when someone affirms that salvation is all of grace and none of works, maybe the first response shouldn't be to scan their language for the one phrase that wasn't careful enough. Maybe the first response should be to rejoice that Christ is being proclaimed.

   Paul himself said something about this in Philippians 1:18. "What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." If Paul could rejoice when Christ was preached even by people with impure motives, surely we can extend a little grace to a fellow believer who used the word "sinners" instead of "His elect" in one sentence of a forty-minute podcast.

   I'm not asking anyone to lower their doctrinal standards. I'm asking them to raise their standard of love. Listen to the whole matter. Consider the whole of a man's teaching before you render your verdict. And if you find that the man preaches Christ, clings to sovereign grace, and rests in the finished work of the cross, maybe give him the benefit of the doubt on the phrasing.

   We're not the guardians of everyone else's vocabulary. We're beggars who found bread. Let's act like it.

   Grace and Peace! - B.