And now you must go into the forest and cut down the largest tree with ... a herring!

Previously, I dealt with the question of whether or not "faith is a gift" and what that means, and doesn't mean.

Along those lines, the Bible insists human beings do what they cannot in their natural state, which is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is the necessary condition for justification, but just because we ought doesn't mean we can.

James Montgomery Boice explains a common misconception:

"Sometimes evangelicals express their ideas in the following fashion. They say that God first gave the law to see if anyone could keep it. But since no one did or can, God now comes to us with a slimmed-down or much-facilitated gospel, as if he were saying: ‘I know you can’t keep my law. So let me ask instead for something you can do. Just believe in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus, I’ll save you.’ If that is the way God operates, faith becomes a work—something you or I do on the basis of which we are saved—and there is ground for boasting." (Romans, 409)

In other words, the ability to believe is a gift enabled by the regenerating Holy Spirit.

See also:

• Gunny's "Only a fool looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."
• Tom Ascol's "Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism & Arminianism"
• James Galyon's "Born Again in the SBC"
• John Piper's sermon "Regeneration, Faith, Love: In That Order" (listen, watch, or read)
  

Sometimes, I can't tell at all what's going on in that head of yours.

It's not very common, but every once in a while I get a church that expresses interest in me as a pastoral candidate. Years ago I had a church interested when a friend passed along my name.

The first thing I do in such a situation is look for a doctrinal statement. After reading the church's, I wrote the following:

"I had a quick question for clarification regarding the doctrinal statement of the church.

It says that one of the tasks of the Holy Spirit is to 'to regenerate the unbelieving,' but then in Salvation the statement says that, 'all who repent (turn from sin to God) and receive by faith Jesus as personal Savior & Lord, are born again of the Holy Spirit. '

My query is just whether the church views regeneration (being born again) as preceding (as is stated in former) or following (as is stated in the latter) faith."

The following is response from the chair of the search committee:

"Dear Rev. Hartman,

I am sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your email. I can certainly see why you would have a question. We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus alone. We believe that the true believer, sealed by the Holy Spirit is eternally secure. I appreciate your bringing this to our attention, b/c to tell you the truth I think it is probably a typo., which needs to be fixed. We definitely believe that faith is the prerequisite to salvation.

If you would like to send a resume, it can be forwarded to me at ..."

While I appreciated and agreed with the response, the fact that my issue wasn't even understood told me there was no need to submit a resume.