The Methods Versus the Message
Written by R.C. Sproul |
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Ultimately, evangelism is less about the method one uses and more about the message one proclaims. Evangelism, remember, is the proclamation of the gospel—telling the story, announcing the news.
Many Christians go their entire lives without being used by God to be the human instrument and means by which a person comes to Christ. My own calling is not as an evangelist, but seeing another human being come to Christ is the most meaningful ministry experience I’ve ever had.
I once was hired by a church to be the minister of theology, which meant that my job was to teach. They also added to my job description “minister of evangelism.” I said I didn’t know anything about evangelism. So, they sent me to a seminar to train in evangelism.
The minister leading the seminar talked about how to memorize an outline, how he uses key questions to stimulate discussion, and how there’s a pattern to the way in which evangelism is to flow. The idea behind the method he used was to focus attention on the ultimate issue of a person’s individual redemption—how can he justify himself before God? Most people will say that they have lived a good life; very few will say that they have been justified by faith alone in Christ alone.
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You Can’t Do Everything & Not Everything Is for Everyone
There can sometimes be a reflex in churches that insists every effort must be made to include everyone all of the time. Certainly, if everyone can make one time and nobody can make another, it makes sense to think about that and make decisions accordingly. But in the end, no church can do everything.
Whenever talk of something a church is doing comes up, it doesn’t take long before all the whataboutery starts. It’s great that we’re providing X, but what about Y? It’s great that X is on at this time, but what about all the people who can’t make that time? It’s great that you are reaching this group of people, but what about that group of people? It’s great that you provide for this need, but what about that need? On and on and on it goes.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it can often be good to think about different things you might do as a church. Is it possible to meet a particular need that you currently aren’t is a good thought process to go through. If we are trying to serve people in the church, might moving times allow a different demographic to join in? Are people being unnecessarily excluded or are we doing things because there is only one particular way the thing will work? Are we simply blind to certain needs and people and knowing about them might alter what we do? All these are valid questions to ask and think through. The problem is not in their being asked, nor in their being thought through, but in the stymying effect whatabouttery can have on actually doing anything at all.
Let me offer you two very freeing thoughts when it comes to the church, its activities and what it might care to do. First, no church can possibly do everything. Second, not everything is for everyone. Both are absolutely okay.
First, no church can possibly do everything. If we build our church around a felt-needs approach, we will inevitably miss out some people’s felt needs. It is impossible for any church to perfectly serve the felt needs of everyone in it all the time. There will inevitably be times when somebody feels they have particular needs that aren’t being met. More to the point, the church does not exist to meet every felt need under the sun. It exists to makes disciple-making disciples and to equip them for works of service by allowing the Lord to do his work by his Word and Spirit. Whatever people’s felt-needs might be, the church is primarily there to meet a specific need.
If the result of putting on a women’s group is an immediate call of but what about the men? or what about the youth? we are essentially saying, unless we can run all these things, we will run none of them. Maybe we are in a position to run a youth group but aren’t in a position to run a men’s group. That doesn’t mean we don’t run the youth group. It just means we run what we are able, when we are able. The point isn’t to exclude and insist certain demographics don’t matter, it is just a basic response to the question, what is it feasible for us to do right now? If no church can do everything, we have to think about what we can do. If we are intent on doing what we can, it makes no sense not doing what we can do simply because there are some other things that we cannot do.
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Burying Idols and Changing Clothes
Written by Grover E. Gunn |
Monday, November 14, 2022
Notice what Paul said, “Such were some of you, but you were washed.” The converted sinner must no longer identify with the sin that once enslaved him. He must be willing to say, “That is what I once was, but that is not what I now am. For the old me that once was has been crucified with Christ.”In Genesis 35, God appeared to Jacob while he was living in Shechem. God then specifically commanded Jacob to return to Bethel and to erect an altar of worship there. Now that God had fulfilled His promise to take care of Jacob during his flight from home, Jacob needed to fulfill the vow that he had made there at Bethel decades earlier. Jacob’s time of halfway obedience was over, and now he obeyed God as the angels obey God in heaven. Jacob obeyed fully and without delay.
Jacob prepared his household for an encounter with God. Some in Jacob’s household may have possessed some idols that they had taken with them from Padan Aram. You might remember the household idols that Rachel had taken from her father Laban. Others in Jacob’s household probably possessed idols that they had recently plundered from the city of Shechem. Certain earrings were also idols.
There was nothing intrinsically evil about an earring shaped, for example, like a crescent moon. There was, however, an extrinsic problem with such jewelry in a culture where such a shape was associated with a moon god or goddess.
Jacob told his household to put away all such idols. Valuable as these objects might have been, everyone, without delay or resistance or complaint, turned such objects over to Jacob, who then buried them. The word here translated “hid” can refer to hiding for later retrieval, like a pirate’s burying treasure on an isolated island. The word can also refer to hiding something that needs to remain hidden, like Moses’ burying the Egyptian whom he had slain in his days as a prince in Egypt. In this context, the meaning is hiding something to remain hidden because what is being hidden is something forbidden.
In addition to putting away their idols, Jacob commanded everyone to put on new clothes. This is similar to how Israel prepared to meet God at Mount Sinai under Moses by washing their clothes. Both changing clothes and washing clothes can symbolize changing one’s character through a spiritual renewal. The Apostle Paul later used this symbolism when he commanded Christians to put off their sinful ways of living and to put on righteous ways of living. The Spirit of God must have been moving in Jacob’s household because they obeyed both his commands without questioning them.
This principle of burying idols and changing clothes continues to apply today. For example, if a man today seeks to be ordained as a minister or elder or deacon, then he needs to bury his idols and change his clothes. There are those who have engaged in homosexual acts in the past, who now claim to be converted and called to ordained service in the church. This is possible, even as the Apostle Paul made the transition from persecutor of the church to sacred apostle.
Yet some who make this claim today refuse to bury their idols and change their clothes. They say that their sinful desires are an aspect of their essential self that cannot be changed. They refer to themselves as gay Christians. Some continue to dress and groom in ways that culturally identify them as homosexuals. Some continue to participate in and celebrate certain identifying aspects of homosexual culture.
Our response to this must be an insistence that men bury their idols and change their clothes as a minimal requirement for being ordained as ministers or elders or deacons. Our response in new covenant terms must be the like the statement of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? … And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Notice what Paul said, “Such were some of you, but you were washed.” The converted sinner must no longer identify with the sin that once enslaved him. He must be willing to say, “That is what I once was, but that is not what I now am. For the old me that once was has been crucified with Christ.” How much more this should be true of those who seek to be ordained as officers in the church.
Dr. Grove Gunn is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of the MacDonald PCA in Collins, Miss.
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Martha and the Resurrection
Grief is Complex, Even in Believers
Martha was a good woman, and conscious of her loss as much as Mary was. She gets first word of Christ’s approach, and goes to meet Him, while Mary knew nothing of this, and stayed indoors.
Among those who are truly gracious, some are more tender and spiritual then others. Some are more affected with griefs, and more broken under them, than others. This may teach the godly, and especially weak and tender hearted ones, not to measure every one by themselves, for those who have real good, may have really different dispositions.
Whatever comfort or sympathy people meet with from friends in their trouble, yet comfort from Christ is also needed. Martha and Mary had comforters, yet Martha went and met Jesus, when she heard of His coming, to welcome Him as a needed guest.
However, when Martha meets Jesus, she challenges Him with her regrets that He had not come sooner and prevented her brother from dying. This weakness and infirmity broke out of her, and got a headstart of her better side. When we are in straits, we should treat with suspicion the emotions which burst out of us first of all (Psalm 116:11 & 31:22). So though we cannot justify the impassioned outbursts of the saints, yet we ought not to examine them too narrowly or censure them, because they are really only a violent temptation which tramples on grace only temporarily. After her first outburst, Martha settles a little, and corrects it with a profession of her faith that Christ, if He wished, could yet put everything right.
So, alongside her faith, Martha had her own dissatisfaction with how Christ had acted. Yet her faith prevails to the extent that she does not stay away from Him, but goes to Him. Unbelief is never deadly, as long as it does not keep you from coming to Christ. Whatever complaints you may have about Christ’s dealings, yet faith is still the conqueror, as long as you pour out all these complaints into Christ’s own bosom.
Jesus Brings Comfort Gently
“Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again” (verse 23). He replies to her meekly. Passing over her infirmity, He comforts her with the promise that her brother would rise again.
Great are the consolations which God has laid up for His afflicted people, and He will do great things for them. It is a satisfactory and proper consolation against the death of these we love, to believe in a resurrection, in which they shall rise again. This is what Christ uses to comfort her.
Christ puts this promise only in general terms, “Thy brother shall rise again,” not mentioning the time when it would be. Even though He was going to raise her brother presently, yet simply the promise of a general resurrection is itself full of comfort (1 Thess. 4:13–14, etc.). We have no reason to stumble when we have no warrant to expect the same particular favour as Martha received, because Christ propounds this comfort in these general terms.
In Martha’s own case, Christ put it this way, partly to exercise her faith, and to let her and us see, in practice, how far short our expectations may be of what Christ will actually do for His people. She looked for the resurrection at the last day, but He was going to raise her brother almost the next minute. Partly also, He let her consolation come in bit by bit into her narrow-mouthed vessel.
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