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Thoughts on emphasizing 'Personal Relationship'

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **9/17/15 1:14 pm**

The man they call the pope recently made some comments against the idea that one could have a personal relationship with Jesus apart from the mediation of the church.

I doubt I'd agree with him on his ideas of our relationship being mediated through Jesus. But I do think he is addressing a very real problem in Evangelicalism.

We never see the apostles in the Bible, telling people to get saved and 'have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ' or a 'personal relationship with God' or say the phrase 'Personal Savior.' Our relationship with the Lord is a benefit of our salvation, but the emphasis in a lot of evangelical evangelism isn't the same as what we see in the Bible.

Evangelicals including Pentecostals have gotten fixated on the word 'personal.' Keith Green wrote an article in which he asked why Christians nowadays had to load down the Gospel with a lot of double talk. Why say 'Personal Savior' instead of 'my Savior'? You don't say, 'This is my personal sister' or 'This is my personal belly button.' You say 'my sister' and 'my belly button.'

I suppose 'Personal Savior' was a phrase developed in sermons that explained to somewhat churched people that Jesus wasn't just the Savior of mankind, but the Savior of the individual who needed to get saved. The phrase makes sense in this context. But it makes no sense without explanation to an unbeliever for an Evangelical preacher or street witnesser to insist they accept 'Jesus Christ as your Personal Savior.' Why cloud the issue with 'personal'?

I've got a personal computer. No one can use it but me. It's mine. You can touch it if you don't want to. Then you tell me Jesus is my personal Savior? Is it any wonder some people think they just need 'Jesus as my personal Savior' and a relationship just between themselves and God?

You hear someone say "My faith is a personal matter between me and God. I don't want to discuss it." If the person is an evangelical, those who study the Bible know the guy is off in his thinking for saying that. But where did he get the idea? He may have gotten it because evangelicals preach the Gospel as 'a personal relationship with Jesus Christ' and Jesus as 'personal Savior' even though this is not the way the Gospel was presented by Jesus or the apostles.
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