Apr 22 2008
Wrong Way of the Master?
Ray Comfort did a video series on ’sharing your faith’ awhile back called the Way of the Master. It usually involved confronting someone with “If you were to die tonight, why should you get into heaven?” The point was to get bystanders to admit that they have lied, cheated, stolen, then tell them that they’ve violated God’s laws and were therefore guilty and needed to get right with God. After all, God has a plan for their life, right?
Michael Spencer at internetmonk has an excellent piece on the problem with this approach. His point? Jesus never asked those kind of questions. In fact, he didn’t come asking questions at all. Michael says:
I think it’s telling that the two most prolific evangelism programs in evangelicalism both approach their audience with questions that Jesus never used.
“Do you know that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?”
“If you were to die tonight, and God were to asked you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would be your answer?”
According to Mark, Jesus did not approach his world with a question at all, but with a proclamation[:] Mark 1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand [my emphasis]; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Christ spent a lot of time talking about ‘the kingdom of God’. He didn’t invite people to make a decision for him and He didn’t do altar calls. He showed that He was the son of God, He called sinners to turn from their lives of sin, and He died and rose that we might partake in the Kingdom of God.
Spencer is an amillenialist and I’m not. We have differing views of what heaven is or will be, but we agree that the result of a ’salvation experience’ is a turning away from sin toward a life that is a new creation. He says,
Inviting people to reserve a place in heaven is shortchanging the Gospel, and creates the problem of justifying the demands of the Kingdom of God in the interim. In the Great Commission, Jesus calls us to evangelism that invites persons to become disciples, obeying all that he commanded. This is not a second level of “fine print.” It is the Kingdom of Heaven and Jesus the Messiah as they are to be presented to the world.
Where fundamentalists and evangelicals typically get into trouble is the “what happens next” when a wayward sinner repeats the sinners prayer. It’s more than getting them plugged into a bible church or having them read the Gospel of John, though those are arguably good things to do. I would contend that even more important is showing them what a Christ-like, Spirit-led life is really about. It’s showing them what it no-kidding means to be a part of the Kingdom of God. That’s a tall order and I’ve seen very few folks who can do it effectively.
