Featured The forgotten power of open air preaching

Don't you remember, Mac warned about E. M. Bounds at the Strange Fire Conference:



26:40
PHIL JOHNSON: I’d say deplorably bad theology, and you’re right. That is the entry level for a lot of young people. Jesus Culture was the music group this year at Louie Giglio’s Passion. John Piper was a speaker there. So this is not some far-off extreme out on the fringe. This stuff is bleeding into the mainstream of our churches.

MAC: You know, this is classic marketing, make people discontent, make them feel like they’re out of touch, out of date, out of style, out of mode. So you take a typical kid, put him in that environment, he is clueless about this kind of experience. "What is she talking about?" When I was in junior high, and, you know, there was never a time when I didn’t believe in the Lord, and I read Thomas à Kempis. I didn’t even know what he was talking about. But I thought, you’re missing something, you don’t have it. I’ve never had these 'mystical feelings' of the presence of God. So I got a book on prayer by E.M. Bounds, remember that, Phil? And it got worse. What is this? Then I got, Tom will identify with this, Witness Lee, and I’m a junior-high kid, I’m a high-school kid. I’m basically your average football player, baseball player guy who just loves the Lord and is wondering if I’m missing everything. I mean, they’re literally, they’re literally dupes for this kind of thing. You take a kid who knows his life isn’t right, who sees this kind of esoteric, almost transcendental kind of religious experience being portrayed before him, he has no idea what’s out there, he’s not theologically informed

 

Poppycock. YOU brought up Bounds as support for your position; someone brought up that Bounds' theology is suspect, as evidenced by the author you most readily ascribe to.

Consider the analogy: a certain man I've become aware of has a lot of money. I want a lot of money, too; but in the process of learning how this man made his money, I find out he cheated on his taxes.

I want the same result that he has; should I follow the same method, or consider other alternatives?

You're dangerously close to eisegesis -- finding reasons to support what you do, rather than letting scripture drive you to do something.

If scripture is telling you to open air preach, then do it, and stop worrying about defending it, because you don't need to. And if people are actually driving you to question, and find reasons to defend, what you're doing -- then maybe you *should* be questioning whether you should be doing it.

 

Forgotten power? How many converts and disciples have you made in all the 'open air preaching". If you haven't seen any how can you claim "forgotten power"?

 

Prudent people tend to question things.

 

You have time to post on the internet, right?

 

Part of what Jesus commanded was that we make disciples. If you want to look at scripture as an example look at Acts 2 and 4. The gospel was preached and people were saved on the spot and of course added to the church. If looking to the command of Jesus and looking to scripture as an example is being a pragmatist then I stand guilty, but what it really is, is discovering what God has said and how God has worked in scripture. Failure to make disciples is failure to obey God's word. period.

 

If you can't defend it yourself, are you sure it's correct?

A "B" student knows the material; an "A" student can actually regurgitate it.