Many are Called, Few are Chosen (Tony Evans' Interpretation)

There are some verses in the Bible that will always be confusing and cause disagreement.  And the "many are called/invited, few are chosen" verse is one of them.

Matthew 22:1-14: "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.  He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.... So his servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.  But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.  'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.  Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 'For many are invited, but few are chosen.'"

Some people think this is about unbelievers or false Christians being sent to hell (but how could unbelievers have even gotten into the "wedding feast"?).  Some think it's about believers losing their salvation, which I don't think is possible.  And I've wondered if being sent to "outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth" could be about backslidden believers losing their place in the rapture or missing out on eternal rewards/blessings.  [FYI, I think the "fiery furnace where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:42, 13:50) might be different than the "outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 8:12, 25:30, and I'd say 24:51).  I lean towards thinking these are two different times/places when people weep and gnash their teeth: the first is when unbelievers are sent to hell, the second is some sort of punishment/loss for believers who didn't live as they should (which is why it's tied to warnings of watching for Jesus to return, of living ready for His coming).  But this is just my idea.] 

But Calvinists think this passage is about God choosing who gets into His Kingdom, into heaven.  They think that "many are called" means God gives a general call of salvation to all people but that only a "few are chosen" by God to be saved.  They think this supports the idea of election, that God chooses who gets saved and causes the chosen ones to respond to the gospel call.

And, of course, I don't agree with them.  [I could agree if it was that God calls all people to be saved (giving them all a genuine, real chance to be saved) but that He only saves those who choose to willingly believe in Jesus, that He chooses those who first choose Him.]

I think it has to be something other than support for Calvinist election.  


And after reading a note on this verse in the Tony Evans' Study Bible, I've now got another possible way of looking at it that does not support Calvinism.  Dr. Evans gives an interpretation I'd never thought of before but that's definitely worth considering, especially since he is my favorite and most trusted pastor/theologian (far surpassing any Calvinist theologian out there!).  Here it is, mingled with my added explanations:

According to Dr. Evans, this parable about being thrown into outer darkness isn't about eternal "heaven or hell" salvation at all or about being kicked out of heaven.  It's about the millennial kingdom, when Jesus comes back again to rule on earth for 1000 years.  The man without the proper clothes is a true believer, but he wasn't living the way true believers should be living when Jesus comes back again.  And because of this (and even though he was raptured with all true believers), he lost the rewards and full blessings he could've received in the millennial kingdom: specifically, the right to rule alongside Jesus.  And it caused him great emotional pain.  (This is close to my idea that true believers could possibly miss out on the rapture - because it's about true believers losing something but not their salvation and it explains the repeated warnings to be ready for Jesus to return.)

Dr. Evans says that "many are called, few are chosen" means that while all believers are called to the millennial kingdom, only a few - the faithful ones - will be chosen to rule alongside Jesus during those 1000.

I'd never thought about this before, that the "outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth" could be about the millennial kingdom.  It's a whole different way of looking at it, something interesting to chew on, to consider.  And it may just help tie everything together: the truths that God doesn't choose who gets saved, that true believers can't lose their salvation but can lose spiritual rewards/blessings, and that God repeatedly warns believers to be ready for when Jesus comes back again.

This might just be the key to the puzzle.


Of course, you don't have to see things my way or Dr. Evans' way or anyone else's way.  We should all be reading the Word for ourselves, wrestling with its teachings, being teachable, and growing in spiritual knowledge and wisdom as we grow in the faith.

But I will say this: After years of reading/hearing various theologians' and pastors' theological views, I totally, highly, and 100% recommend Dr. Tony Evans.  To me, he is one of the most accurate (and practical) theologian out there.  And even after 37 years of being a Christian, I still learn something new from him all the time.

Seriously, I think everyone should have the Tony Evans Study Bible and his Theology You Can Count On book.  (And he's got a huge, great commentary which I'm going to read through this year as my New Year's Resolution.)  

Get these and read through them.  Read through the Bible while reading his study notes.  The more you do, the more pleasantly surprised you'll be by how easy the Bible is to understand (so much easier than confusing, contradictory Calvinism), how encouraging it is (so much more soul-filling, heart-healing, and faith-strengthening than Calvinism's depressing, fatalistic views of God and salvation and human life, etc.), how trustworthy God is (so much more than the two-faced, deceptive, double-talking Calvi-god), and how practical the lessons of the Bible are (so much more than the lofty, high-and-might, overly intellectual teachings of Calvinism).

Seriously, get these resources from Dr. Evans and you won't be sorry.  And you'll be well on your way to knowing God as He should be known and to understanding God's Word as He meant it to be understood.  And your faith and heart will thank you for it.  

Most Popular Posts Of The Month:

List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist" posts).  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.]    And so here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinists," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify as a Calvinist, I tried to figure it out based on the statements of faith of the groups/churches they belong to, the books they write, the things they say o
Read more

Why Is Calvinism So Dangerous? (re-updated)

Image
Because it  appears  to teach biblical truth while actually teaching  the opposite  - while using  manipulation and cult-like tactics to suck you in!  And it's spreading.  Stealthily, fast, aggressively. (We watched it happen firsthand in our church, which is why I wrote this blog.  See  "What's the best way to make people agree with your Calvinist views?"    Sadly, we ended up  leaving that church , a place we attended almost 20 years.) [ I updated this November 2022 to try to shorten it.  I failed.  But I hope it's more readable and streamlined at least.   If you only read one anti-Calvinism post of mine, I think it should be this one.  But I'm warning you, this post is long.  Very long.  So pack a lunch and bring a sleeping bag.  But it has to be long because Calvinism is so deceptively convoluted that it takes time to peel off the layers so that you can see it for what it really is.  My hope is that with this one long post, I can show the deceptiveness of
Read more

Is The ESV (English Standard Version) a Calvinist Bible?

Just in case anyone missed this post (the longer title made it easy to miss the "ESV" part) ... "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?") In that post, I write about a bunch of verses that I believe were intentionally translated to be more Calvinistic or based on manuscripts that were too corrupt to be trusted (click on it to see the verses).   And why would I think that the translators of this Bible version would do that? (From that post...) The ESV and ESV Study Bible are majorly preferred by Calvinists.  In fact, it's often considered "The Calvinist Bible."   Why?  And why would translators of a Bible make these kinds of Calvinist tweaks to Scripture? Wayne Grudem and J.I. Packer were editors on the  ESV Study Bible   (this is for the ESV Global Study Bible).  Grudem and Packer are both popular, strong, dogmatic Calvinists.  Very Big Names in the world of Calvinism.  Grudem in the General Editor and Packe
Read more

Snippets to Ponder, part 2 (#9-13)

Image
[Topics in this post: The lack of God's love; spiritual PTSD; what's sin and injustice for us to do is okay and justice for God to do; liar; and "non-Calvinism is disgusting and immoral."  Click here for part 1 ] #13:   This is not a snippet from anything but just a thought I want to add, now that you see what Calvinism teaches.  Calvinist pastors preach often about how depraved and wretched and sinful we are, about how we should fall on our knees in gratitude that God chose to save anyone at all when we are all so terrible, and how we should be okay with God's right to predestine people to hell because  (according to them) God gets glory for it and because  they deserve it even though God predestined it.  Blah, blah, blah. But do you know what we don't hear much about from Calvinists: God's love (unless it's for "the elect").  The two greatest commandments: Love God and love others. Calvinists are so overly-focused on their doctrines of tota
Read more

A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?")

(For just the "Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible" part of this post, click here .) In my normal Bible reading today, I came across a verse about "singleness vs. marriage" that destroys Calvinism in a few short words: "But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but who has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin - this man also does the right thing."   ( 1 Corinthians 7:37, NIV ) When you get past all the layers Calvinism wraps itself in to disguise the bad parts, it ultimately teaches - at the heart of it all - that God causes/controls  everything , even controlling our wills and causing our sins.  (But He then punishes  us  for the things He caused us to do, which would make Him unjust, no matter how much Calvinists try to deny it and cover it up.  See  this post  for some links about that.)  Calvinism ultimately teaches that everything we do is because God preplanned it, ordai
Read more

How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist (simplified version)

(For the extended version of this post, which I recommend, click here .  It is loaded with lots more information.  This simplified one is just the highlights.  And feel free to copy this and share it with others, to help them learn to identify Calvinism when they see it.  Just make sure to share the link to this blog so that they can find the original post.  Thank you.  New : For the super-short version, click here .  And FYI: I found a couple times when the Calvinist author of an article I linked to changed their article after I linked to it.  So if their article doesn't seem to match what I said about it, it may be because they altered it. ) We just left our church of almost 20 years because of the dogmatic Calvinist pastor who recently came on board.  ( Read my "Letter to Our Elders Regarding Calvinism Growing in Our Church" here.)   And I was thinking about what precautions I might take to make sure we didn't end up in another Calvinist church (that is, whe
Read more

Leaving Calvinism: Comments from Ex-Calvinists #11

Here is the last of the ex-Calvinist testimonies.  The first one is from this post:  X-Calvinist Corner .   (It's an Arminian website, but I am not Arminian.)  I am going to highlight some of the comments that stood out to me the most.  If you want to read everything that everyone said, click on the link above: Dana Steele writes: I grew up in a Calvinistic Baptist church from age 11.  The 5-points of Calvinism (TULIP) were taught regularly with great enthusiasm ... But it wasn’t until college that I began to understand and embrace the “Doctrines of Grace” and TULIP more fully....  I also learned to love the doctrine of election because it meant that God loved me personally and specifically in a unique way.  Though it made me a little embarrassed to think that God did not love everyone this way, I was content to leave this as a mystery.  Who am I to question God?  I was just glad I was one of the lucky (I mean chosen) ones. ... [As A Calvinist]   I had developed a sense of theologi
Read more

The Cult of Calvinism

Here are links to a few posts that reveal the cult-like side of Calvinism: "Why Calvinism is a Cult" "Calvinism is a Counterfeit Christian Cult" "Calvinism, Cults, and Control" I left a comment at Hoppers Crossing Christian Church about their post "Calvinism, Cults, and Control."  I will also print my comment here for your information: I was reading your post "Calvinism, Cults, and Control" (2/02/20) and so much of what you said fits the Calvinist church we recently left.  Here are some of the cult-like things that happened after a Calvinist pastor took over our non-Calvinist church: 1.   From the beginning, he started laying the groundwork that disagreement with him (about his Calvinist view of predestination and God's sovereignty, in particular) was not allowed and that anyone who did disagree with him was unhumble and disagreeing with God.   Things like (paraphrases): "Humble people have no problem with God's sovereignty
Read more

Calvinism in the Evangelical Free Church

Before we left our church because of Calvinism, we sent a long letter to the elders , expressing our concerns.  However, none of the elders cared enough or were concerned enough to do anything about it.  And so we left our church home, the place we had been at and loved for almost 20 years, the church we raised our kids in. After awhile, I became concerned that maybe the Evangelical Free Church, in general, didn't realize that there were dogmatic Calvinist pastors taking over their churches, blocking other views, manipulating people into agreeing with them.  And I thought maybe they would want to know this, especially since it seemed to contradict their "official stance" about this issue, which I believed was supposed to be a middle-of-the-road approach, falling under the heading of "significance of silence" (where they don't let the small controversial issues become big divisive issues).  I figured that if a pastor in one of their churches was manipulat
Read more

The Occult, Demons, and Free-Will

I wasn't looking for this and usually don't watch videos like this, but it was in a list of suggested videos and caught my interest.  And since it's Halloween, I thought it was worth sharing on my other blogs, especially because she's so real, honest, humble, and matter-of-fact about it.  (I don't like overly sensationalized stories.  And FYI: I haven't watched any other videos of hers but these.) "Halloween warning from an ex-witch (warning heavy talk)"  (26 minutes long) And even better is her testimony about coming to Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior:  "From the occult to Christ"  (8 1/2 minutes long).  So awesome to see her testimony and her journey of faith!   But what really caught my attention - what made me think to also share this video on my anti-Calvinism blog - is when she said that during a Reiki session, some witches told her that they saw her spirit guides and that the spirit guides want to "help align your chakra about
Read more