God's Not Dead

That convinced me that using my own story to sell the Gospel was wrong, a topic in another thread I felt I could mention in an aside.

Having been an atheist, the problem here is that if you get a hook in them using their god: reason; Then you have likely failed in the end at converting them. They will love their god of reason over one of the virtues of God: faith. They may go to church every Sunday, go to small groups, and get involved in various ministries as a volunteer, as I did, but inside they are dead. They will not value simple faith in the unseen world and future.

I will pull some stuff out of my own testimony to help:

The biggest issue keeping me from salvation as a baptized man, who thought himself to be a Christian, was my love of science and reason over faith. Because I had received evidence that God exists by getting [three miracles] through two prayers, I figured I had solid proof for God’s existence, and I began to belittle faith as something bad. The truth is that I didn’t want to believe anything on faith. This was because I believed the only way to show the truth was with reason and science. A belief I kept from my atheism. I believed this despite the fact I knew that most Christians went on nearly blind faith when it came to belief in Jesus Christ and His salvation of them. I was also in willful disobedience to a bible verse I knew of, which was Hebrews 11:1. It states: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” ​

So I warn you in your evangelism that you must get them to leave behind their old life and self as atheists and put on the new or you may have lost them regardless of a prayer or decision in the moment.

 

It is to be taken as far as necessary to earn a right to be heard by the lost without compromising the gospel message.

 

I hope you don't mind if I take a crack at that from my own perspective. It is clearly anything that is a "disputable matter" (Romans 14:1).

We are not given a specific political system for gentiles in the bible. We are not given a specific set of social mores for gentiles in the bible, although there is a ton of moral commands to be obeyed. We are not given a culture for gentiles to live by in the bible. We are given a ton of truth to be taken on faith, a truth that ultimately is the whole unabridged Gospel of Jesus the Christ.

 

I am at a loss for this type of evangelism. It may work, and it is no different than the bait Paul used in Athens (Acts 17:22-31). I say though that with atheists the follow up is key. They have no idea how religion works or why people would sing to God. They are little babies in need of being taught how to drink milk and stand.

 

I understand how nice your vision of the church sounds, but, from my own PoV, we are commanded by the bible to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves in one of Jesus' discourses on evangelism (Matthew 10:17). We are also commanded shrewdly use wealth for seemingly evangelistic purposes (Luke 16:1-9). This goes to show as a sampling of verses on the topic that shrewdness is not wrong to use in evangelistic outreach. Paul was shrewd in Athens as I mentioned earlier in this thread. Of course, what we give through our shrewdness is the Gospel.

 

I hate to disagree in way Elder, but my reading of the bible seems to indicate that there are many baits to be shrewdly used as Paul did. However, there is only one hook and has been: the love of Jesus shown in the Gospel since we love Him only because He loved us first (1 John 4:19), a love we know to be there on faith.

 

I do get that the Law is a lousy hook, it seems more like one of many baits to be used on people for the sake of momentary shrewdness.

Perhaps this reply I had to TCassidy best encapsulates what I believe:

I hate to disagree in way Elder, but my reading of the bible seems to indicate that there are many baits to be shrewdly used as Paul did. However, there is only one hook and has been: the love of Jesus shown in the Gospel since we love Him only because He loved us first (1 John 4:19), a love we know to be there on faith.​

 

I do not understand something here everyone. The church uses one bait and hook lately in its study videos like those by Billy Graham. Someone I do not endorse because of his cozy ties to those who do not preach the Gospel such as Roman Catholics. That said, the church tells everyone that sin keeps us form God and heaven, even one sin (the bait). We are saved by the death of Jesus the Christ on the cross who bridged the gap between God and man through his love for us (the hook). Isn't this a simple the Law brings guilt and punishment, and love and the the Cross brings heaven selling point?

 

That's challenging, I'll have to think on it.