God's Not Dead

There is NEVER a time a person comes to the Lord outside of hearing the word of God.

"Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God."

Note: "hearing" according to this Scripture is a faculty given through the word of God. That hearing ability results in faith.

There is no reason to "debate" an atheist. They hear the Word or they don't.

 

This is a good point, although a hard one to hear. It goes completely against our nature and popular American church culture.

Back in the days when I would frequently encounter Mormons, I would enter into dialogue with them. We would talk about various issues and beliefs, and I could easily "win" the debate because I was quite familiar with their scriptures and practice, and I also knew the Bible. Many times when we were discussing various Mormon claims vs. the claims of Jesus and the scripture, I would clearly demonstrate that the Mormons were wrong - even to the point that the Mormons I was speaking with conceded that it sure looked like I was correct. I even had two Mormon missionaries unable to properly respond to issues with their scriptures and the false claims of Joseph Smith. In my way of thinking, that should have meant that they would automatically become Christians.

However, it is much easier to make a Mormon an atheist than to lead one to Christ, simply because you can engage a Mormon on the level of reason - and devastate their belief system - but you can't give them God-given faith.

In a similar way, you can prove an atheist to be in error (although that is much harder, since unbelief takes no real intelligence or defense) and they may still persist in their unbelief because they do not have God-given faith. They will just develop new arguments.

Beyond all of that, even if a person is open to faith, a debate/argument involves the ego and they will want to "win" the argument so that they will not have to admit they are wrong. You could demonstrate something conclusively, but they will decide to continue to embrace a false view simply for the sake of their ego. (Psst! That happens a lot here.)

When the Spirit is working with you and you enter into a discussion with someone of another faith or an atheistic faith, you can afford to be humble, patient and risk "losing" an argument if they happen to find an area of ignorance or inconsistency on your side. Since the results do not depend on you, you don't have to "win." You also can set the tone for the discussion to avoid letting egos get in the way. On more than a few occasions, when things started to get passionate, I have come right out and stated that I have no interesting in continuing the discussion since I value my relationship with the person more than winning an argument. Every time I have done that, the tone immediately shifted to a more respectful and calm level and we continued talking about the subject in an honest and comfortable way. The Spirit honors that humility, and I have seen a modest number come to faith. And I know the Spirit is working with others who are not yet at the point where faith begins to appear, but the seeds are sown and are germinating.

 

Keep it focused upon their sin debt and who Jesus is/what he did!

 

Excellent!

To many assemblies want to use worldly devices to sell the truth, when it should be remembered that the cross brings its own rebuke.

So to use such worldliness to sell the gospel must ultimately diminish the cross to being unobjectionable.

 

This has been somewhat addressed over the last few pages; but please allow me to point out the specific fallacy here.

Your church is NOT the only group that sees value in reading books. That is a red herring, a generalization, and/or simply missing the point.

The point of the thread is, what books would we recommend that you suggest to an atheist? The answer has been given by several folks: The Bible. Period. If he/she won't listen to Moses and the prophets, he/she won't listen to anything else.

And let's face it: if their mind is changed, well, that's about 8-12 inches too high.

So as you're often fond of saying about your street evangelism: Preach to him the Word of God, and let the Spirit do the rest.

 

No, I got your real point, I just embellished it for you. I'm sorry that I was hard to understand.

 

I used the term "bait" and "hook" because they seemed apt to describing the shrewd way of thinking it takes to make the presentation of the Gospel most attractive, something the bible tells us to try and do (Titus 2:9-10). My go to here is Paul in Athens in Acts 17:22-31. Paul even uses their own pagan religion against their idolatry by claiming he is the messenger of an UNKNOWN GOD. Of course the Gospel is always what we give to others, it can be couched using words and actions that make it attractive, but always there is the problem that the Gospel is foolishness to the world (1 Corinthians 1:22-24).

That said, I will use a more biblical term now: Making the Gospel message attractive in word and deed, while knowing it is foolishness to all who are perishing, as we were.

 

Atheists rely on emotion to disbelieve in God more than reason, I have typically found. They have a deep emotional reason for rejecting the Living God of the bible. Arguing with an atheist to sway them is pointless. However, I am not against Evangelist6589's idea that Christian apologetics can be used in a way that gets a discussion of the Gospel attractive to do for an atheist or Deist. A Gospel that will on the surface of their rationalism seem like nonsense.

Evangelist6589, I wonder if you are just using the Law without a presentation of the Gospel? Or are you doing something holistic: Attract with Christian apologetics, convict with the Law, and give them the answer?

 

What results were accomplished in Athens as a result of Paul mixing world and Cross?

 

Whoa, that seems to be inserting a criticism of Paul I would not be willing to make. The Book of Acts seems to be like the Books of Chronicles. They tell of the righteous deeds of those being written about. Also, the Athenians were listening to his words until he mentioned a core part of the Gospel (the Resurrection), which split the assembly (Acts 17:32-34). Again, foolishness to the Greeks.

The problem I most have with your reply agedman is that it criticizes the actions of Paul in Acts for an error that the bible doesn't make plain is an error.

 

Can you remind me what that is again?

 

You may be assuming that Paul (just as any other missionary) did not learn from mistakes, or was some how endowed with such Godly wisdom, he was above examination and critical analysis.

It is because he was, as all believers, one who maked mistakes, that we can greater understand the principles he taught.

One of those principles being,

“ 15Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise,16making the most of your time, because the days are evil. 17So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is..” (Eph 5). ​

 

In the WOTM, they like to ask people if they think they are a good person. That's a lead-in to ticking off some of the Ten Commandments that is supposed to ensure that the hearer understands that they are not a good person. Then they present a particular view of the atonement as "the gospel," instead of a fuller, richer, more biblical gospel. The message the WOTM typically presents is a message focused on "going to heaven" instead of the broader call to discipleship and transformation, the eventual destruction of evil, resurrection of the dead, and redemption of the world.

 

Sounds worrisome. evangelist6589, would you be willing to walk us through some encounters you have had with atheists? Baptist Believer brings up some worrying things about WOTM, that I will only be able to discern by knowing more of the "how" you present the Gospel.

The first thing I need to mention though, is why convict with the Ten Commandments when you have the more advanced and important Sermon on the Mount at your disposal?

 

I realize that it is a common interpretation to believe that Paul made an error before the Athenians that he later regretted, but I don't think that holds up to a careful review. He was actually quite successful at the Areopagus (aka "Mars Hill") and had a number of converts, including one of the leading members - Dionysius.

Paul began by discussing with them things that they already knew and demonstrated that they themselves admitted as a culture that they were not aware of all of the gods. They had even erected altars to "an unknown god" (there's a rich back story that they would have known). Then Paul gave a summary of the scriptural teaching about God (i.e. Creator, relationship to humanity, the futility of idols and false worship, the need to embrace new spiritual knowledge, the resurrection of the dead, and salvation). Paul was using scripture in a broad way, as well as knowledge of their culture. Moreover, I doubt Luke recorded the whole message, but instead recorded the broad outlines of it for posterity. Even through we don't have a record of Paul using direct quotes from scripture, he was referencing the truth of scripture throughout.