Yes, yes, Christ saved you--but WHEN?

When I was in high school, a good friend of mine spent many evenings in conversation with me before deciding to "get saved." (He was converting from not Islam or paganism or, worse yet, secular humanism--he was baptized Lutheran. That's a topic for another time.) When he told me about deciding to embrace the more personal faith of our evangelical church, he didn't say anything about a particular moment at which he prayed and accepted Jesus. This worried me, and I said so (and offended him).

It was only later that I learned that the idea that salvation is largely about a moment in time and the uttering of a few sentences is, in the larger world of Christendom, not a particularly popular or traditional one. (It was later still that a seminary professor articulated what I've come to believe is a common and serious evangelical heresy--embracing faith over works to the point that faith itself becomes a work.)

Erik Thoennes has far better evangelical cred than I do. In this great essay for CT, he offers some good correctives to common ideas about getting saved.