My Short, Eye-Opening Stint as a Youth Pastor

How I Got Drawn into the Lordship Debate—part 5
by Phil Johnson

fter college, I spent a few years on the staff of Moody Press as a manuscript editor. I loved the work, and it conditioned me to read things critically and carefully. (I probably learned three times more about theology in my first two years as an editor than I did in five years of college as a theology major.)

But my heart was in church ministry, and in 1979, a few months after Darlene and I were married, we moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, where I spent three years as assistant pastor at Central Bible Church. My main responsibility was leading the youth group.

It was during those years in youth ministry that I was forced to face the lordship issue squarely.

I'll never forget my first meeting with the youth group. It was a modest-sized group—about twenty kids. We had a brief time of introduction where each member of the youth group gave a short self-introduction. I had asked them if they were believers to describe how they came to faith. Every one of them claimed to be a Christian. And in almost every case, they grounded their hope of salvation in some supposed moment of faith in early childhood when their parents led them in praying to "invite Jesus into my heart." In most cases, they said this occurred when they were about three or four years old—too young even to remember the moment. But every one of them hung their hope of heaven on to some point in the past when they supposedly "accepted Jesus as savior," and that one-time moment of faith was the sole basis for their confidence that they were saved.

Ominously, however, when they talked about their hobbies, interests, and aspirations for the future, not one of them articulated any passion or ambition that was remotely related to anything spiritual.

As time went by and I got to know these kids personally, I began to have serious questions about whether some of them were genuine Christians. In fact, (with a few notable exceptions) the kids who seemed to dominate the group lived lives that were no different from their non-Christian friends—and some of them were significantly worse. If they had any real interest in the youth group, it was for the social activities alone. They had no desire for spiritual things, no apparent love for Christ, no ambition for personal holiness, no real esteem for the things of God—absolutely nothing that would distinguish them from the pagan kids in the neighborhood.

In fact, some of the pagan kids lived lives that on the surface seemed morally superior to some of these church kids who insisted they were Christians.

I began to teach a series of Bible studies from the 1st epistle of John. Of course, that epistle includes a lot of truth that will shatter a pseudo-Christian's false confidence. In time, we studied verses like 1 John 2:4, which says, "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." And 1 John 2:15, which says, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." And 1 John 3:10, which says, "In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother."

Numerous statements like those throughout 1 John strike directly at the heart of the no-lordship perspective on saving faith. So as that youth group studied those passages, young people began coming to me to admit that they had never really loved Christ before. Some of them asked for help understanding the gospel. A few of them confessed that they had only recently come to possess genuine saving faith.

Of course I rejoiced whenever a young person told me that, and I expected the students' parents to rejoice as well.

Wrong. The response I began getting from parents was surprising. I remember a frantic call I received one night from a woman in our church. She said, "Phil, I'm not sure what you have been teaching in the youth group, but our son came home and told me he has just become a Christian for the first time."

Nothing in her tone conveyed that she was upset by this, so I said, "Well, praise the Lord." I had been praying for that student in particular.

But she suddenly got very agitated with me and said, "No, you don't understand. He has been a Christian since he was 2 years old. I held him on my lap and personally led him in a prayer to receive Christ. He's always been sure of his salvation until you started teaching in 1 John."

It turned out that she was very upset with me. She informed me that a few of the parents in our church had conferred on the matter, and they were concerned that I was teaching their kids "lordship salvation."

That was only the second time in my life that I heard that expression. It turns out that these parents had been exposed to Ray Stanford's Handbook of Personal Evangelism, and they wondered if I was teaching their kids heresy.

Before long, that woman's son's life changed so dramatically for the better that she soon saw the reality of conversion in his life, and she realized that something genuine had finally happened to give her son a true love for Christ. God had changed his heart, and he was truly and soundly converted. He went on to study at a Christian university and is still walking with the Lord today.

But that episode brought the lordship controversy back to the forefront of my thinking. What, precisely, does the gospel call sinners to? Discipleship? Conversion? Surrender? A notional faith, or a life-changing trust? Is love for Christ something different from and extraneous to faith? And if called upon to distill the essence of the gospel in one succinct plea to sinners, what would that include? Did I really, truly understand the gospel?

The irony that I was in full-time ministry and still not settled on those questions hit me upside the head like a railroad tie. I realized I had erred seriously by not thinking those questions through carefully and settling the issues in my heart long ago. So I became determined to research the matter biblically and settle it once and for all in my own conscience before I evangelized any more students.

I acquired Ray Stanford's evangelism handbook and studied what he had to say on the matter. And at about the same time, I began to listen to John MacArthur's radio broadcast.

That was barely a year after the launch of the Grace to You radio ministry. At the time, Tampa Bay was one of only three metropolitan areas in the country where you could hear the broadcast.

But I began to listen, and I noticed that John MacArthur frequently touched on subjects related to the lordship issue. His ministry is and always has been expository rather than topical, so he never preached a sermon on the lordship issue per se, but his handling of the gospel and all his teaching about salvation began to clarify for me the very issues I was grappling with.

I strongly suspected from the gist of his teaching that he too had encountered personal criticism from advocates of the no-lordship position. I wished that he would write a book on the subject. I even daydreamed about the using my editorial skills to help him boil down some of his preached material into book form. I made up my mind that if I ever met John MacArthur, I would suggest to him that he should write such a book.

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