Reformed Rap and Pragmatism: Part 2

In my last post I wrote that I am hesitant to accept the pragmatic arguments being offered in favor of reformed rap.  It is not that I disagree with their conclusion, but that the same argument can be used to affirm all manner of practices that ought not to be affirmed.  I promised to follow that post up with another post giving the reason for my hesitancy.  You can find the previous post by clicking here.

As I was recently reading a blog post that was written in response to the NCFIC panel, I thought, "I have heard this pragmatic argument before."  As I thought about it for a minute, my memory was jarred.  It was at a recent meeting of pastors in my area that I heard this same argument.

No, we were not having a discussion about reformed rap, though that would probably have been very entertaining.  We were having a discussion about whether lost people should be invited to go with us on mission trips.  Some of the pastors, me included, were arguing that the purpose of a mission trip is to take the gospel to lost people.  Lost people cannot take the gospel to lost people.

Others were arguing that lost people like to serve too, and we may have the opportunity to share the gospel with them as we serve alongside each other.  One of the pastors at the table chimed in with a story from a previous mission trip he had taken.  He went on to explain that there was a man that went with him on that trip who was not saved prior to going on the trip.  While on the trip, the man heard the gospel and was saved.  God used that trip in this man's life to bring him to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Praise God!

The pastor went on to argue that since God had used that trip in this man's life, we ought to be willing to take lost people on mission trips with the hope that they will witness something different about the Christians they are serving with, hear the gospel, and be saved.

I praise God that He used that trip in this man's life to bring him to salvation.  However, that does not mean that we should make it our practice to invite lost people on mission trips.  The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the argument.  There are a whole host of reasons that we should not take lost people on mission trips of which I cannot get into here as it is beyond the scope of this post.

Pragmatism is not a good primary argument.  We must study the Scriptures to determine what God has to say about a particular issue, not just what works.  God has given us His Word and it is useful for faith and practice.  I do not mean to suggest that pragmatic questions are never helpful.  Often they are, but they must never supersede the teachings of Scripture.  Many of those responding to the NCFIC panel would have been on much more solid ground had they appealed to Scripture primarily and pragmatism only secondarily.

We must be very careful about the arguments we make in favor of the positions we support.  It may be that our position is correct but that our argument for that position is deeply flawed.  We should carefully consider whether the same argument that we are using in one context for something good can be used in another context for something bad. 

This is the kind of precision we are called to as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.