A Quote by Mark Dever
We live in a time when people are increasingly skittish about evangelism - Christians and non-Christians alike. People are suspicious of evangelism, and misunderstand it, which contributes to our reluctance to share the gospel. When you add our fear of others' reactions as well as our natural laziness to the equation, it's not hard to see why we make such little progress in sharing our faith.
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So relational evangelism? Go for it, as long as it turns into real evangelism. You hanging out having a beer with your buddy so he can see that Christians are cool is not what we’re called to do. You’re eventually going to have to open up your mouth and share the gospel. When the pure gospel is shared, people respond.
Unfortunately, many of our churches calibrate their life to these nominal Christians. The predictable result is that you get fake, hypocritical churches that confuse the message of the gospel and make it hard for others who are trying to do genuine evangelism.
At the end of the day, the biggest obstacle to evangelism is Christians who don’t share the gospel.
We begin to change the dynamic of our relationships as we are able to share our reactions to others without holding them responsible for causing our feelings, and without blaming ourselves for the reactions that other people have in response to our choices & actions. We are responsible for our own behavior and we are not responsible for other people's reactions; nor are they responsible for ours.
Fear is not at the heart of Christianity nor of our nation. The very essence of Christian faith lies in forgiveness. Christians believe that Jesus died so we may live. He took upon himself our sins so that we may be forgiven and thereby gave us a model of forgiveness for others. This is a cycle that allows civility and progress in the face of man's faults and imperfectability.
Christians and non-Christians have something in common. Were both uptight about evangelism.
In America most orthodox Christians become defensive or testy when they are asked even to break into a sweat. Most of our efforts up until now have been more symbolic than anything else. We are great at holding conventions, gathering for strategy meetings and seminars, holding congresses on evangelism. But where are the people to run our own antidefamation league?
Every believer should evangelize. I know some Christians think that evangelism is only for people with special gifts for it, but I don't believe the New Testament teaches that. While Paul does say that some believers have the call to be evangelists, all of us have the responsibility of evangelism.
We Christians sometimes think we need a plan for evangelism. I don't think Jesus had an evangelism plan. I think He just interacted with the people He came into contact with.
It is inaccurate to think the gospel is what saves non-Christians, and then Christians mature by trying hard to live according to biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our minds, hearts, and lives by believing the gospel more and more deeply as life goes on.
Question: Why are we Masters of our Fate, the captains of our souls? Because we have the power to control our thoughts, our attitudes. That is why many people live in the withering negative world. That is why many people live in the Positive Faith world. And you don't have to be a poet or a philosopher to know which is best.
Why should we be willing to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. By faith only we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception?
For me, my faith is a really big part of my life, and it is important for me to walk it out every day, .. Part of our faith as Christians is the command that we let people see who we are as Christians. I'm doing my part to show who I am and that I'm not ashamed of it.
It is interesting, that termites don't build things, and the great builders of our nation almost to a man have been Christians, because Christians have the desire to build something. He is motivated by love of man and God, so he builds. The people who have come into (our) institutions (today) are primarily termites. They are into destroying institutions that have been built by Christians, whether it is universities, governments, our own traditions, that we have.... The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation.
I do what I believe the Lord did, and that is walk in love with all mankind, which I don't see a lot of Christians doing. Christians can be so judgmental that it can turn off people who are considering converting. It makes me a little embarrassed, to tell you the truth, when I hear Christians criticizing others.
When you ban people from predominantly Muslim countries from coming into the U.S., even people who accompanied our soldiers and helped them on the battlefield, but you say, "But, of course, there's gonna be an exception if you're a religious minority," - OK, so that means Christians, there will be a different rule applied to Christians from these countries than others - that's a religious test. And that is completely contrary to our national traditions.
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