Originally posted by SBCbyGRACE:
Amish: "Can you provide the scripture that says that we have a responsibility to communicate in an engaging way?"
I can provide biblical examples -- Jesus & Paul.
Amish: "I can show you one that says it doesn't matter."
Then I ask again -- why do anything other than read from the text?
Amish: "You would have a point about "communicating timeless truth in an irrelevant manner" if the word of God wasn't alive. But it is alive and it depends not at all on the flourish or delivery of the speaker but on God alone."
I have not suggested it DEPENDS solely on the flourish or delivery of the speaker (another example of how much easier it is to attack the straw man). As I stated above, God is sovereign and humans have a responsibility. Salvation is of God. That is the grander theological picture, but if we live in that world alone, we excuse ourselves into passive irrelevance.
Your blending of theology and methodology stands at the root of the problem here.
Amish: "The PDC method is pragmatic, extrabiblical and will only result in masses of people following "another Christ"."
It is foolish statements like this that discredit the hypers from meaningful dialogue.
Rick Warren is a means whereby God is fulfilling His plan.
In my interaction with many, many hypers I have discovered they often know a lot about John Calvin and the theological mysteries but have usually not been a part of personally leading someone to Christ in a very long time (if ever). I can voice this complaint b/c I have been a part of the theological education subculture for a large part of my life.
It is so easy to take pot shots at those guys who, in your opinion, are "watering down" the gospel b/c it provides an excuse for one's own lack of evangelistic zeal. After all, God is sovereign.
After the events in John chapter 6, Jesus lost a lot of followers because they could not accept his teachings on election. They were false believers and temporary converts. Only the 12 stayed with him.
The beginning of acts only describes 120 by the time pentacost comes around. Not a good track record for someone who had crowds of over 8000 people coming to hear him preach at a time. That is not a very good percentage record.
Even early on in Christs ministry he would not give himself over to them because he knew what was in the hearts of men. They were drawn to the spetacular and not the message. He knew they were just following him because of the "fireworks".
Paul wrote that he did not come to the Corinthians with excellence of speech or wisdom but he was concerned that they knew Christ crucified only.
As for your crying that I am "attacking a straw man" and "I do not understand the PDC model" I give you a quote from the PDC.
On page 219 “It is my deep conviction that anybody can be won to Christ if you discover the key to his or her heart . . . . The most likely place to start is with the person’s felt needs.”
The straw man becomes flesh.
Rick Warren also makes the grave error of changing the focus on the service from worship to evangalism. By making your services "seeker sensative" (Which is impossible because there are none who seek God. See Romans) you have changed the focus from God to man.
The purpose driven life does the same thing. There is hardly/nary a mention of repentance or the fact that man is a sinner. And when you preach a partial gospel like that, you are not preach a gospel at all but a conterfit gospel that is devoid of truth.
You cannot sugarcoat the gospel, it is offensive in nature to those who hate God. You cannot shuck and jive people into the kingdom.
When you think that if you get the right sound system, if you refuse to preach doctrine in your sermons, when you dress a certain way or can save people by finding out their felt needs then you have infact said that it is up to man and the reason that people are going to hell and not heaven is because man is not faithful instead of the truth that God is sovereign and no one is going to hell that should have gone to heaven.
As for evenglistic zeal, mine is pretty high. Results do not equal success and if you have "converted people" by being ashamed of the whole gospel, well they are most likely a part of same group of "disciples" that left Christ in John 6.
Dave