Strategies for Evangelism
Someone at the Des Moines Campaign for Liberty event gave me Mark Cahill’s One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven. The one thing, is that you can’t share the good news of Jesus’ atonement for our sins with nonbelievers in heaven.
The book is filled with stories and strategies of how Cahill goes around witnessing to people. Apparently he is quite successful at it, because even many atheists end their conversations by saying, “Thanks for the way you handled that,” meaning he doesn’t jam the J-word down people’s throats.
For example, Cahill knows that when he flies somewhere, he is going to witness to the person next to him. He has many different, non-threatening lead-in questions. E.g. he’ll strike up a generic conversation, and then once he has built a rapport, he’ll ask, “Can I ask you an interesting question?” Of course the person says yes, then he might say, “When we die, what do you think happens? Where do we go?”
And then whatever the person says, Cahill will treat it respectfully, but if the answer isn’t, “We face the God of the Bible and I sure hope I have given my life to Christ at that point,” Cahill has a variety of arguments to defend his own answer to that question.
It’s a very interesting book, and one thing that I’ve struggled with myself. On the one hand, I remember when I was an atheist, that it made me extremely uncomfortable if people would point-blank ask me, “Do you know Jesus?” or things like that. I personally did not come around to Jesus through that direct assault.
On the other hand, if I actually believe that people who don’t understand things the way I do, are going to miss out on eternal paradise, well gee whiz I should be devoting a lot more time to helping them grab the life preserver. It doesn’t mean I have to be obnoxious, but it certainly means I should be doing more for their welfare.
I’m wondering if any of you guys and gals have done cold calls for Christ, as it were. I remember once a guy approached me in the parking lot of a grocery store and said, “Sir, do you know Jesus?” and I said, “Yes I do!” It made my day, to see him being so earnest in his beliefs.
I also remember one time I was cutting the lawn in Hillsdale, and two Mormons approached me. I can’t remember exactly the back-and-forth, but even when I told them I was a born-again Christian, they were still trying to get me to realize I was missing certain things.
I said, “Look guys, I appreciate what you’re doing, but I have to get back to the lawn.” They were fine with that and went their way. Of course I don’t believe the things they do, but I have to respect people who go door to door, inviting ridicule from just about everyone else for their religious convictions.
Re: “When we die, what do you think happens? Where do we go?”
This is how I handle the situation:
http://nedroid.com/2009/03/beartato-9/
I was always rather reserved and bad at small talk, but I got inspired by George Constanza in a Seinfeld episode when I was in college. Whatever my instincts were, do the complete opposite. So, I skipped the small talk and dove right in with very personal questions. No kidding, I asked people “So, are you religious?” by about the 3rd or 4th question after meeting them. Rather quickly, I had more friends than I could keep up with. It’s not what you say, but how your ask. Be humble, and know that you will only be one piece in a large puzzle. Marginal Salvation, if you will.
Yes, I have done a bunch of “cold calls” for Christ. American people seem to be wising up to the “witnessing strategies”. Many non-evangelical Americans are now armed with an internal EE detector, and they will quickly realize that they are sitting next to a religious “nut” on the plane, and there is no way of escape short of drawing fire from the air marshall. That is what makes sharing our faith so difficult. We do not want to be obnoxious, but just about any way you slice it, if we intentionally steer a conversation toward the biblical gospel, it will often offend or make most people very uncomfortable. Now that is no excuse not to share the gospel, but evangelism instructions should come with a warning label. Warning: This may not go well!
Unlike the portrayal of many 3-step evangelism courses, some people will be polite and listen, while others will be downright rude and indignant. Still others will seek to avoid the conversation at all costs, but many will have already thought about the issue and concluded that the biblical gospel is nonsense. The reason for this (acccording to evangelical theology) is that the un-converted human mind sees the gospel as being silly, primitive, arbitrary, or just downright offensive. However, it is important to realize that according to the Apostles, it is precisely the “Gospel” story which God has vested with the power to pierce hearts and change minds, as Paul discourses in Romans 10. Paul boldy states in Romans Chapter 1 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Paul’s proclamation of the Gospel ended up getting him killed.
No matter the tactic or strategy, eventually we must allege that Jesus was the Son of God, lived a perfect sinless life, was willingly crucified on a cross to save sinners from the judement of God, then rose again from the dead . In the end, we can’t trick people into becoming believers by using subtle tactics on an airplane. We must *teach* them in a straightforward (yet polite) and sincere manner what the ancient writers proclaimed about Jesus, their sin, and the only way of forgiveness. Some will believe, but many others will go away thinking “that was a very long flight next to one of the most obnoxious religious zealots I ever met”. In some places, we may even be reported to authorities and thrown into jail.
In fairness to Cahill, he does indeed walk people through the Ten Commandments to show that they are guilty under the Law and are going to hell, then he explains Jesus. In fact on some people, they were ready to accept Jesus and he didn’t do it with them, because he didn’t think they understood what they were saying. So he wasn’t trying to trick people into “becoming believers,” he was just trying to get them to open up on spiritual matters without initially saying, “Guess what? I’m going to heaven and you’re not. Sucks to be you.”
“Guess what? I’m going to heaven and you’re not. Sucks to be you.”
Yeees… he didn’t want to say that initially, but that sure was what he was thinking, hey?
Yes it sure was. Which is why he has devoted his life to trying to convince people to see what he believes is the truth.
1cor 15:29 Do you believe in baptism for the dead?
Bob ,
I was the one that gave you the book. I think Mark’s usual goal is just to plant seeds and get people to start to think about eternity and let God and other Christians to water those seeds and plant more. Before meeting Mark I was always under the mindset I’ll show other people through my actions but he really challenged me.
If we know what Jesus did and that when you die the only way to heaven is through him and we don’t share the good news, how selfish or unloving is that? He always encourages people to seek out the truth, not just something to believe in. I could believe jumping of the empire state building would not kill me but that would not matter once I jumped because the truth is I’m going to die. That is something that crosses the spectrum in to politics and economics also. Just because you believe welfare works or that a progressive income tax is the best way to help the poor doesn’t mean that it is true. Always seek true. Mark also wrote One Heartbeat Away which is a great book to give to unbelievers.
As an atheist raised in a Jewish family, from the time I was 6 and exposed to all of the mystical stories I was able to determine that these were all nothing but stories because in our reality none of these things could be possible. I still have never been exposed to a compelling argument in favor of any form of religion. I say this because in high school I was a standard neo-liberal, as most of my family/community was, however as soon as I became slightly interested in learning about politcs/economics/history I quickly became a libertarian/austrian thinker because it seemed like it was based in truth rather than opinion.
I am ultimately confused when people claim to have been atheists during their youth but later in life realized the truth.
I guess what I’m trying to get at is that when approached by someone of faith, there is not and could not possibly be any one argument or talking point that I have not already heard, considered, and tossed out as nonsense, that would be able to switch and alter my views. I’m sure many of you have heard other people talk about how they used to be libertarians because they were pot smokers or because they were anti-war but now they see it’s just a utopian fantasy. These people confuse me as well because I know all they are saying is along the line they compromised with their morals. Libertarians believe in “something” where as neo libs and conservatives change their views with the political atmosphere. Atheists also believe in “something” even if it is nothing, while religion is ever changing in what your are told to believe according to the bible. I’m not an expert but I am aware that a few lines after the passage used to support bigotry against homosexuals in preventing them from access to legal marriage, it states that no one should mark themselves (get a tattoo in modern society) yet I have rarely of the church coming together in favor of anti-tattoo legislation.
I have done cold calling and watched many others do it. The problem with it is that some people are impressionable (the kind hypnotists like) and you’ll get confessions that don’t mean anything. I was in a church once that boasted of baptizing 3,000 people a year for 10 years, yet the church had not grown but by about 100 people.
The style of evangelism you think works will depend on your theology of how people become believers. If you’re an extreme Calvinist, for example, you won’t bother much with evangelism. If you think evangelism is all up to Christians and God enters only at the moment of praying the sinner’s prayer, then you’ll spend a lot of time cold calling. But even the best cold callers that I have known admit that only about 10% of conversions they see are real.
I’m currently reading “The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism” by Edward Feser. I’m not a Calvinist, but I have been convinced for a long time that people already know a lot and just rebel against what they know. Paul wrote something to that effect in Romans when he wrote that people suppress the truth in unrighteousness and that no one will have an excuse at the last judgment. But Feser’s book made me realize how easily accessible the knowledge about God and morality is and yet how much most people, especially philosophers, scientists and intellectuals, rebel against that knowledge. There is prerequisite knowledge about God and our own immorality that people can easily discern from mere reason (no Bible or witness needed) that is necessary for them to accept before they will be open to the Gospel. Most people by the time they are teenagers have already gained that knowledge and rejected it, which makes them poor candidates for the Gospel. As Jesus said, the road is narrow and few people find it.
So if you have the theology about salvation that I have described above, then you won’t be very interested in cold calling. Even in business, cold calling results in 99% rejection. It’s worse in evangelism. What you will want to do is sound marketing: canvass a large group of people to find the 1% who have at least some interest in spiritual things because they haven’t already rejected the prerequisite knowledge about God and their own immorality. Then spend you time on those people.
Evangelism isn’t like selling cars; it’s a major change in world view. I once read a paper on public relations that divided change into three concentric circles. The outer circle the author called opinion. He said opinions are easy to change. PR and advertising deal with opinions. An example of an opinion is which brand of toothpaste to use. In the next inner circle are attitudes. An example of attitudes would be whether to brush your teeth or not. Attitudes are very difficult to change and PR/advertising don’t deal with them, luckily. Changing attitudes requires 3 years of counseling or a major emotional event in one’s life, such as the death of a loved one, according to the author. World views are at the center of the circles and the author said they are almost impossible to change. He wouldn’t even talk about them further.
“Even in business, cold calling results in 99% rejection. It’s worse in evangelism. What you will want to do is sound marketing: canvass a large group of people to find the 1% who have at least some interest in spiritual things because they haven’t already rejected the prerequisite knowledge about God and their own immorality. Then spend your time on those people. ”
If you are really a fundamentalist and believe the Bible at all, then surely you can show me in the Bible an example of where this type of evangelism “marketing” is done???? I’m so disgusted with the “marketing” and business strategy excrement that is platered all over the evangelical church these days. It is fake, and utterly repulsive to talk about soteriology like it is a business plan. Next point: Your witnessing strategy is unbiblical and flat out wrongheaded. Pre-requisite knowledge about God before they are worthy to be witnessed to?? You sound like a hypercalvinist. You don’t really mean what you are babbling. Are you worried about witnessing to the unelect? Orthodox evangelical teaching has always stressed the good faith offer of the gospel to every person, regardless of our preconcieved notions about their level of interest or understanding. Next, your statements get even more incredible:
“Most people by the time they are teenagers have already gained that knowledge and rejected it, which makes them poor candidates for the Gospel”
My dear confused brother, every teenage and adult person on earth who has not already been saved has already more or less rejected the truth of God (all have sinned). That is a prime symptom of being lost. This is also precisely why they are perfect candidates to hear the Gospel. The *Gospel* is the *power* of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. Babble from confused Christians has 0 power. It is the Gospel story that God has ordained as his instrument of power to pierce the soul of even the hardest, vilest sinner. Do you believe this?
Hey K Sralla, I’m sure fundamentalist can stick up for himself, but sometimes I think you don’t realize how abrasive you sound in print. (Then again, maybe you are doing that intentionally. :))
ksralla: “surely you can show me in the Bible an example of where this type of evangelism “marketing” is done???? ”
Easily. Jesus and all of his disciples did it. The examples are too numerous to list all of them. But here are a few. Jesus used miracles to attract huge crowds. He presented the gospel and then worked one-on-one with those who responded. Later when he sent his disciples out to visit every town in Israel, he told them to offer the Gospel to the whole town and those towns that didn’t accept it the disciples were to shake the dust from their feet. Paul would go to synagogues and address the whole synagogue at once, or he would go to the market place in town and address large crowds. Then he would work with those who responded. The pattern is pretty obvious: address large crowds first and work intensely with those who respond. BTW, John the Baptist used the same approach.
“Pre-requisite knowledge about God before they are worthy to be witnessed to??”
I didn’t say worthy. You wrote that. I wrote that a certain amount of knowledge is “necessary for them to accept before they will be open to the Gospel.” In other words, before they will be ready to believe. You can think of belief on a continuum. On the left is no knowledge whatsoever about God and morality. On the far right is someone like the Apostle Paul. Moving from left to right involves gaining knew knowledge, but also requires previous knowledge before moving on. I can flat out guarantee you that someone raised in a non-Christian culture who has heard little of the Gospel will not accept it the first time he hears it. Evangelism is easier in the US because most people have a great deal of the knowledge they need to understand the Gospel; but in other ways it’s harder because they have already rejected it.
ksralla: “It is the Gospel story that God has ordained as his instrument of power to pierce the soul of even the hardest, vilest sinner.”
Then explain why Jesus and his Apostles utterly failed to win over the nation of Israel. They had some minor successes, but God destroyed Jerusalem and the nation because of their wholesale rejection of the Messiah. Somehow, the story didn’t penetrate enough sinners’ hearts to convince God to call off the judgment.
Bob: “Hey K Sralla, …sometimes I think you don’t realize how abrasive you sound in print.”
He doesn’t bother me. People become hysterical when their cherished myths are threatened and they have no defense.
Roger: “there is not and could not possibly be any one argument or talking point that I have not already heard…”
A little humility might be helpful at this point. Have you read “The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism” by Edward Feser? I’m an old man and had thought I had read and heard all of the arguments, too, but learned a great deal from Mr. Feser. It was very humbling, but enlightening.
BTW, after learning more about Aristotle’s philosophy from Mr. Feser, I realised where Mises got his excellent a priori reasoning skills. Natural law theorists used the same approach.
ksralla: ” I’m so disgusted with the “marketing” and business strategy excrement that is platered all over the evangelical church these days.”
The problem with evangelical use of marketing is that they don’t understand good marketing techniques. There are more fallacies and myths in business marketing than in religion. Good business marketing needs to be based on solid research, most of which is not. Nevertheless, good business marketing is nothing but an understanding of how people think and respond to incentives. It requires understanding human nature. In other words, it’s applied logic. Now God plays the most important role in anyone’s salvation, but we have no control over what God does or when. All we can control is what we do. Should we go about evangelism with as much irrationality as possible in order to display our “faith”, or should we approach evangelism with at least some rationality. If we use any rationality at all, then we have to understand human nature and approach evangelism just as any business would apply good marketing techniques.
Sorry to take over the blog, but I had some more thoughts on evangelism in the night.
Some things that will mess with your soteriology: No group of people in history had been better prepared by God to accept the Gospel than Israel, yet the vast majority rejected it.
Also, everyone interested in evangelism should read “Into the Den of the Infidels” that Voice of the Martyrs published. It’s testimonies of Muslims who have converted to Christianity and it’s totally mind bending. Most had no contact with a Christian or the Bible. The most common experience for Muslim converts is that at some point they had a dream or experience a vision while awake of Christ that sparked their interest in Christianity.
Here is one story that I read, though it isn’t in “Den”: An elderly lady in Iran was surfing the satellite channels in here apartment when she stumbled upon the movie “Jesus”. At the end of the movie the channel displayed the verse from Revelation, “Behold I stand at the door and knock…” At that moment, someone knocked on her apartment door. She opened the door and there was a figure that looked exactlly like Jesus in the movie. She invited him in and talked for a short while, but what she remembered most was that the vision told her to call the number on the TV screen and then left. So she called the number and told the guy who answered about the vision. She eventually became a Christian, though not immediately. Muslim converts will make hash of what anyone thinks they know about evangelism.
Fundamentalist’s theological and interpretational errors are too numerous to list all of them: Here are a few:
1) “Jesus used miracles for the purpose of attracting huge crowds”- Probably not. The chief reason given explicitly in Matthew’s gospel was so that the people would know that Jesus had the power to forgive sins (Matthew 9:6). The other reason is that Jesus had compassion for the sheep without a shepherd (9:36). In fact, at several points, Jesus “sternly” instructed the newly healed not to tell anyone (Matthew 9:30). Now that is not what one would probably say if they were looking to advertise.
2) “He presented the gospel and then worked one-on-one with those who responded”-Sometimes, and sometimes not! Sometimes he simply told those who came to him for healing to “Go” (Matthew 8:4, 8:13), without further instruction or teaching recorded. Most often, it is recorded that he worked one on one with his chosen disciples, and even then, most frequently with the inner circle of disciples. So much for designing a “marketing strategy” from the examples of Jesus! Just about the time you think you have him figured out, he does something totally unexpected, like giving the crowd some really hard theology in John 6 that sends nearly everyone including his disciples packing.
3) “The pattern is pretty obvious: address large crowds first and work intensely with those who respond”- But sometimes Paul addresses small crowds first, and later works with the entire church intensely through his letters. Consider the case of Lydia in Acts 16: “On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” The observation can be made about Jesus. Remember the large crowd with the woman at the well? I don’t.
Oftentimes, Paul was not trying to attract a crowd as part of any “strategy” for evangelism, but rather he was trying to avoid the lynch mob to save his neck.
4) “I wrote that a certain amount of knowledge is “necessary” for them to accept before they will be open to the Gospel” -The Gospel itself contains this necessary and vital knowledge. The complete gospel story contains the information that we all are sinners in need of forgiveness, plus the good news that through faith in Jesus Christ alone, there is remission of sin. What part of “it (the Gospel) is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16) do you not get? Finally, read this: “It has always been my ambition to preach the *gospel* where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”- Paul (Romans 15:20-21)
5)”I can flat out guarantee you that someone raised in a non-Christian culture who has heard little of the Gospel will not accept it the first time he hears it” -Your guarantee is false. None of the pagan Gentiles who Paul evangelized came from a Christian culture, and the Bible records the story of many who were converted dramatically upon hearing Paul’s proclamation of the gospel. In fact, Paul saw many more converts from paganism than he did from adherents to Judaism. All Paul’s church plants, they were former pagans! Even today, Christianity is shrinking numerically in “Christian cultures” of western Europe and North America, but growing rapidly in pagan cultures of Africa and the far east, where there is the least pre-requisite Christian education. Missionaries I know tell me that in general, persons who have never before heard the gospel are now much more receptive to its message than the hardened in the west. These missionaries are not preaching to stadium crowds, but are working in small villages where the people struggle finding water, raising food, and obtaining basic education. As the gospel is shared, souls are being converted by the power of God through the sharp scalpel of the Gospel message, not some hair-brained marketing strategy.
I really don’t mean to be abrasive, but I am sincerely heartbroken that the evangelical faith is in such a state of disarray and confusion.
Bob, I have indeed been told before (mainly by my sweet wife) that I can be too abrasive (in person as well as print). Your pointing this out is a good piece of free advise, and I will work harder on toning it down. Here’s what’s going through my minced meat brain: For a number or years, I taught an adult Sunday School class, and was amazed at how little theology and scripture most evangelical Christians are actually familiar with. Modern American evangelicalism is sadly a mile wide and an inch deep. I hope I am able to raise some important points worthy of further consideration, and in a constructive way challenge Christians to think about these issues with a genuinely scriptural mindset.
KBS
KSralla: “In fact, at several points, Jesus “sternly” instructed the newly healed not to tell anyone (Matthew 9:30). Now that is not what one would probably say if they were looking to advertise.”
Jesus told followers not to tell anyone only after the rejection of him by the Jewish leaders. Earlier he did allow people to tell others about himself. And I didn’t mean to imply that the only purpose of miracles was to attract a crowd. Of course they had a more important point. But I doubt Jesus would have had crowds to preach to without the miracles.
Ksralla: “Most often, it is recorded that he worked one on one with his chosen disciples…”
That’s not evangelism, is it? Of course there were exceptions. The Samaritan woman is one. But the pattern is regular, such as when he entered Jerusalem he would go to the temple where he would find, guess what, large crowds to address.
Ksralla: “Just about the time you think you have him figured out, he does something totally unexpected, like giving the crowd some really hard theology in John 6 that sends nearly everyone including his disciples packing.”
And why did Jesus have the large crowds at that time? Jesus answers that they were following him because he fed them. His miracles had attracted huge crowds and he was trying to separate out those really interested in what he was selling from the mere hungry. In marketing it’s called profiling.
Ksralla: “But sometimes Paul addresses small crowds first, and later works with the entire church intensely through his letters.”
I never wrote that Paul worked exclusively with large crowds. Of course he worked with small ones. I wrote that he visited synagogues. And when he worked with churches through letters, that wasn’t evangelism now was it. I think we were discussing evangelism, not edification of believers.
Ksralla: “The Gospel itself contains this necessary and vital knowledge.”
Your stubborn refusal to even try to understand what I wrote is very impressive. I’ll try once more and then give up. If you don’t believe in God at all, or you believe in a pantheon of gods that doesn’t include the Biblical God, the Gospel will not make any sense to you. Pay attention to how Paul addressed the Athenians at Mars Hill. He did not start with the Gospel.
Ksralla: “the Bible records the story of many who were converted dramatically upon hearing Paul’s proclamation of the gospel.”
Where?
Ksralla: “All Paul’s church plants, they were former pagans!”
That’s simply not true. Paul always went to the Jews first in every city and Jewish converts formed the foundation of every church with gentile converts added later.
Ksralla: “Missionaries I know tell me that in general, persons who have never before heard the gospel are now much more receptive to its message than the hardened in the west.”
I think you are responding without even reading my posts. As I wrote above, no one was better prepared to receive the Gospel than the Jews in Jesus’ day, but they rejected it. Again, you refuse to even try to understand what I wrote. I’ll try to make it as simple as possible. No atheist will believe the Gospel without first acknowledging there is a God. Believing in God is a prerequisite for understanding and accepting the Gospel. No one who denies that they are immoral will even be interested in the Gospel. They first have to understand and agree that immorality is a problem. If people reject God and immorality, then witnessing to them will have no effect.
As one theologian put it, if people respond to the truth available to them in nature and their conscience, God will give them more truth. But if they reject the basic truths available to them in nature and conscience, then giving them more truth won’t change their minds and is a waste of time. It’s similar to Jesus’ instruction to not cast pearls before swine.
Hi fundamentalist,
I’m not taking sides here, but I am getting lost in your position. You wrote:
“I think you are responding without even reading my posts. As I wrote above, no one was better prepared to receive the Gospel than the Jews in Jesus’ day, but they rejected it. Again, you refuse to even try to understand what I wrote. I’ll try to make it as simple as possible. No atheist will believe the Gospel without first acknowledging there is a God. Believing in God is a prerequisite for understanding and accepting the Gospel.”
On the surface that seems contradictory. The fact that the Jews were the best prepared, and yet rejected the Gospel, would seem to support (your interpretation of) K Sralla’s point, right? I.e. you are saying you need to soften people up to get them to accept the full truth, you can’t go right for the conversion with someone who doesn’t have the foundational belief structure. So on the surface, the fact that some Gentiles were more easily converted to Christianity, versus Jews (who were waiting for the Messiah sent by the Lord, and just needed to be convinced that Jesus was He) is problematic for your case, right?
Ksralla, you’re abrasiveness doesn’t bother me at all. I’m used to it coming from people who can’t defend their believes rationally. It does seem odd to me, though, that you think lame insults are a valid substitute for reason and evidence.
Fundamentalist: “A little humility might be helpful at this point.”
I’m pretty sure you are the one who says if I don’t believe what you believe that I will be on my merry way to hell. If there is any lack of humility it is in the arrogance of such a belief. No I have not read that book, but it seems that you are saying it is THE book that will explain it all. In each of our exchanges here you always refer me to some book that will tell me how I am mistaken.
If we are going to accept that there is a supreme leader out there and it is god, I certainly will not accept that his thoughts can be known by man.
Roger: “If we are going to accept that there is a supreme leader out there and it is god, I certainly will not accept that his thoughts can be known by man.”
So you want to rig the game so that heads you win and tails God loses.
Bob: “you are saying you need to soften people up to get them to accept the full truth, you can’t go right for the conversion with someone who doesn’t have the foundational belief structure.”
No I’m not trying to say that. Maybe I should apologize to Ksralla for being unclear, and it is clear that I was unclear since it wasn’t clear to you, either. What I meant to say was that general knowledge about God and morality through nature happens to everyone, but most people reject it and try to suppress it. If people reject that knowledge, they won’t be ready or able to accept more specific knowledge about Christ. In the case of the Jews in Jesus’ day, and the West today, most people have rejected both the general knowledge and much of the specific knowledge about Christ, so giving them more specific knowledge about Christ will do no good. Those are people the Bible describes as very hard hearted. God has many ways of softening hard hearts. That is one of the main purposes of difficult times.
The parable of the sower and the seed is the analogy. The rocky soil represents people who have rejected the general knowledge they received from natural revelation. The hard, trampled ground represents people who have been witnessed to many times and repeated rejection has made them even harder hearted. Since Jesus said that most people will be like that, then we need to find people whose hearts are like the good, tilled soil and spend most of our time on them. That’s what Jesus did. He would preach to large crowds, like the crowd for the Sermon on the Mount in which he had to get into a boat to address the crowd because it was so large, and then work intensely with those who respond. does that help?
Roger: “If there is any lack of humility it is in the arrogance of such a belief.”
The belief that some people are going to hell isn’t arrogance if it’s true. It’s not arrogant to believe the sun is hot.
Roger: “No I have not read that book, but it seems that you are saying it is THE book that will explain it all. In each of our exchanges here you always refer me to some book that will tell me how I am mistaken.”
No. I’m saying that the book will contain things you don’t know. You claimed earlier that you have heard all of the arguments against the existence of God. I would venture that all you have done is read Dawkins, Hitchens and other popular atheists. Have you real the real, serious atheist philosophers such as Nietzche, Camus, Sartre?
Forgive me. I assumed you were open minded and willing to read arguments you have not read before. I can almost guarantee you that you haven’t read the arguments in Feser’s book before.
The more I think about it, the more I think the parable of the sower and seed says it all. The sower didn’t plant one seed at a time, fertilize it and devote all of his time to making it grow. He “broadcast” the seed over a wide area that included many different types of soil. To switch metaphors, he cast a broad net. But back to the sower, he didn’t try to change the condition of the soil. Soil condition was a given for him. He then concentrated on the good soil. In a similar way, we as evangelists can’t do anything about the condition of the soil. That is something only God can do. We can only broadcast the message to as many people as possible, then disciple the people whose heart are the good soil.
“then we need to find people whose hearts are like the good, tilled soil and spend most of our time on them”
Still not there. The problem is that you are not God, and only God can see clearly into the heart and mind of another human being. You do not have a soil meter installed when you become a Christian. Jesus told us to go and make disciples, and as I tried to make clear with scripture, there are many examples in the NT that violate your “business model” of evangelism. Thanks for at least partially admitting you were wrong though. That is advancement. Now let me try to close.
“But I doubt Jesus would have had crowds to preach to without the miracles” – John the Baptist did not do miracles, but he attracted a crowd too. Your “I doubt” statement reveals the whole crux of the problem you have with the classical version of evangelism. My brother, you should not doubt that God works salvifically, primarily through the instrumental means of the preaching and teaching of the Gospel (Romans 10). By definition, the word “evangelism” means the preaching and teaching of the “evangel” otherwise known as the gospel. Jesus did this with large crowds, but also one on one with his disciples and others, and in small crowds throughout the course of his ministry. Paul and the other Apostles did the same. If you are not preaching and/or teaching *the Gospel*, you are not doing evangelism by definition. Maybe apologetics or something else, but not evangelism.
“Your stubborn refusal to even try to understand what I wrote is very impressive” – I carefully read your argument and strongly maintain it is wrong scripturally, and further declare it is incoherent and contradictory to your other statements. It also shows you do not understand Paul’s carefully written and explicit theology of salvation that he gives in his letter to the Romans. Your refusal to acknowledge the words of the Apostle Paul quoted above takes the prize. Your “evangelism as a business model” idea (among others), is leading you into some very unorthodox and bizarre practical positions.
Now finally, please consider very carefully what I am about to write, and please think it through and study the scriptures carefully before reacting to it. If we can get this right, the Biblical examples of evangelism will make more sense, and we can finally organize this entire discussion into something coherent: Below is the classic Reformational/Protestant idea about soteriology as held by Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Butzer, Beza, Knox, all of the Puritan divines of the Westminster assembly, Owen, Bunyan, Whitefield, Edwards, and later by the likes of Spurgeon and others. This doesn’t make the position necessarily true, but it should at least give pause that such giants of the faith all believed this was the scripturally correct position.
Regeneration is accomplished by the *Holy Spirit alone* and yields a new mind and will which is *only then* truly receptive to God, so that when the Gospel message now falls on this newly regenerate mind, repentance and justifying faith in Christ result, and this genuine faith is given visible evidence by works of obedience to Christ as Lord. The gospel also falls on the unregenerate, and what results is either outright rejection or superficial outward religion that most often fades away with time, and hardly ever alters one’s moral actions.
Do you see now why I am trifling with your understanding of evangelism? It is derived from a deeply held theological position which all the men cited above sincerely believed was unscriptural. You have previously made clear your position that it is up to the evangelist and his/her well-crafted logical, non-gospel arguments to help accomplish the changing of a mind and fertilize it prior to the preaching of the gospel. This is Finneyism at it’s worst. The only way salvation can occur is when the “Gospel” reaches a mind which has been supernaturally awakened by the Holy Spirit. The awakened mind plowed by God is the “good soil” in Jesus’ parable. We can use rational apologetics to argue for God’s existence, but that is not evangelism. Evangelism is by definition simply preaching and teaching the evangel (the Gospel).
He then concentrated on the good soil. In a similar way, we as evangelists can’t do anything about the condition of the soil. That is something only God can do. We can only broadcast the message to as many people as possible, then disciple the people whose heart are the good soil.
Yes! You do get it. Joy and peace, I am a happy man.
Ksralla, I don’t know who you’re arguing with, but your characterization of my beliefs and posts have nothing to do with me or what I have written. I don’t believe any of the things you attribute to me.
A friend of mine once said, “I can’t tell you what God can do for you but I can tell you what He did for me.” My message to people consists of telling them what a creature I had become…the way I lived, the way I thought, the things I had done. When my life was falling apart I reached to Him but treated Him like my own Jeanie. I prayed for what I wanted and gave Him instructions as to how He should do it. I now imagine the grin on His face, knowing that I was nearing my own destruction; a destruction of the life I made for myself. When the pain was too great to bare I reached out to Him and surrendered totally. My life turned a 180 at that point. I think people are turned off when they perceive the person witnessing to them as being “holy” or as judging them. They can relate to a person who openly admits their own shortcomings from the past and the miracles that happened since surrendering.
Fundamentalist,
I sincerely never meant to misrepresent your point of view. I truly thought I understood your ideas and disagreed with them, but after your further comments, maybe I was wrong. With your last comment, we seem to be ever so close to having complete agreement. Hopefully some interested bystander learned some biblical and systematic theology in this exchange.
My best regards
How do you know that the Bible was not written by Satan?
After all, the Bible accuses God of being a mass-murderer (Noah’s flood). And it accuses God of watching idly while his son is tortured to death. These are the kinds of deeply libelous accusations a devil would make.
Fundamentalist perhaps you could enlighten me to one of these arguments from Feser and we can go from there because I will not be reading his book. Now let’s examine your argument of how the existence of hell is absolute truth. We know in order to be religious one must have faith. Faith is a belief without evidence. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
Every time you respond to me you never actually respond to one thing I say. All you continue to do is tell me how I lack humility and have a closed mind. Now I refuse to get into a name calling session out of respect to Mr. Murphy. I have not read Nietzsche, Camus, or Sartre. I have read one Hitchens book and I read his Slate column. I know this may dissapoint you but I feel it is more important to read specific aspects of history/econ/and current events that I am dusty on and awesome sci-fi. Not to mention spending the entire day at work reading what everyone in the world is talking about.
When it comes to arguing religion I don’t see how any other book can or should be relevant other than the holy one. Either it is true or it isn’t. With that said I try to form my opinions and then I read about stuff. Not the other way around. Of course when you stumble on to truth when you have been believing a lie opinions can change. I already stated that I had a “Stossel” like transformation where I was a neo liberal and then quickly stopped being one after being introduced to Milton Friedman….he was my first. That was about 5 years ago and I’m only 23.
I challenge your notion that I am closed minded. First of all I am on here talking with what seems to be mostly believers and while i may be a ‘tad’ harsh I think I am polite even when I am being told I am going to hell. Not to mention I know (or I have a vague understanding) of what Mr. Murphy believes yet I do not stay away from his blog. I read all the Keynesian economists to see what they are up to. Do closed minded people listen to other opinions?
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