Written by A.W. Workman |
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Whatever our cooperative situation with other believers—be it church membership, ministry, the workplace, the family—let’s strive to more often view others through the lenses of sovereign gifts that might at some point save the day.

We recently had a mini team retreat where we looked into the spiritual gifting and personality wiring of the different members on our team. At one point, one of my teammates quoted me as once telling him, “You have the strengths you do for a good reason. Sooner or later, they will save the day. We need your gifts, honestly, so that we won’t die!”
While we had a good laugh together about this particular melodramatic wording, I honestly stand by these words. Not only do I recognize the goodness of the diverse natural and spiritual gifts on my team, I need them. Even if we weren’t engaged in church planting somewhere like Central Asia. My belief in the sovereignty of God is such that I know that he has brought these particular teammates, for this particular season, because their gifts and strengths will be the key to making it through tricky and terrible situations. When I will not know how to thread the needle, when I simply won’t know what to do or what to say—somehow, one of them will. And it will make all the difference.
Consider this quote by Corrie Ten Boom: “This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”
Read More

Tracing our lineage back to Adam gives the racist a proverbial punch in the face because, in a very real sense, we all have the same ancestors. Though we may look different, speak different, and act different, in the end we are no different. We are humans made in the image of God, and that is more than enough.

The doctrine of the imago Dei—the image of God—is foundational to the Christian faith. We believe all people—man, woman, the unborn—have inherent value, worth, and dignity because they’re created by God (Genesis 1:27). Humanity is sacred because of the imago Dei. We have more value and worth than the cockroach because it wasn’t created after God’s likeness—we were (Genesis 1:26).
The imago Dei is one of many doctrines of our faith that is under attack. And one of the more prevalent ways it is under attack is through racism. Racism is the torch that many people use to light the imago Dei on fire.
“To the extent that racism is rooted in the twisted belief that one segment of the population is superior to another,” Don Morgan wrote, “it’s not hard to see how race-based discrimination is a direct assault on the sanctity and dignity of human life.”
Whether you want to use the word race or ethnicity, Morgan is correct. Race- or ethnicity-based discrimination is a direct assault on the sanctity of human life.
What is racism, anyway? The Oxford Dictionary defines racism as “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.” To be racist is to be prejudiced against another person simply because of different skin color. To be racist, in the end, is to blatantly ignore the imago Dei.
With that said, what are some ways in which racism is an attack on the image of God? And, more importantly, how should Christians respond?
Less than Human
We saw it back during the time of slavery, and, to an extent, we see it today. Those who are racist treat others as less than human. They treat them as though they weren’t created by God. This attack on the image of God is prevalent throughout our society in many ways:
Read More

As Americans raised in a democratic republic, we cling tenaciously to the principle “one person, one vote.” It is very easy (and almost natural) to carry over this principle to our understanding of redemption from the guilt of our sin. We mistakenly assume that God should give everyone a chance to go to heaven, and if people refuse God’s gracious offer, then people, in effect, send themselves to hell by refusing God’s gracious gift. This makes perfect sense on democratic presuppositions because in the civil kingdom (the political sphere) each individual is assumed to be entitled and empowered to determine their own course in life. And if this is true in American political life, then it should be true when it comes to the salvation of sinners. Right? Well, no. The Bible does not allow us to understand humanity’s redemption from sin in such rosy terms.
Because of Adam’s sin, we are all sinners by nature and by choice. As his biological children and heirs, we are born guilty for Adam’s act of rebellion in Eden. The Bible speaks of this as being dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1). This simply means that we are unwilling and unable to do anything to save ourselves. Because we are dead in sin, we cannot even take those first steps toward God that some Christians mistakenly think we should be able to make (cf. John 6:44, which tells us that on one can come to Jesus unless drawn by the Father). It is common to hear Christians describe God’s grace in generic, medicinal terms, or as a rescue from peril such as, “grace is like a medicine which, if we are willing to take it, enables us to come to Christ,” or that “grace is a life-ring which we must grab and cling to, or we will drown in our sins.”
Our problem is not that we are spiritually sick, weakened and impaired by our sin, or that we are morally corrupt. It is much worse than that. The Bible says we are dead in sin. Dead people do not, and indeed cannot, come to God. God must act upon us while we are dead in sin or else we stay dead! He alone can make us alive with Christ (cf. Ephesians 2:1-10). As Paul recounts here, God does everything necessary to save us from our sins when we are unworthy of such salvation, and unable to do anything about our predicament. Democratic presuppositions simply don’t apply to matters of sin and grace. Humanity’s plight (the curse and death) and God’s sovereign grace are the proper categories here. From beginning to end God must save us because we are unable to do anything to save ourselves. This is where we find the very heart of God’s saving grace—the doctrine of election.
Read More