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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Unanswered Bible Questions Author: fallen4shell Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | let your light shine in dark places | Luke 5:31 | fallen4shell | 218727 | ||
Thank you, Searcher, for your input. "Every knee will bow." YES! praise God this is a great and awsome truth! I couldn't agree more that this is an act of worship...but if a person bow their knee before the Father are they classified as an unbeliever? Also, there is still no mention in any of those verses of such conversion taking place within the context of a meeting of [those who are already] believers. As for Romans 10:13-15 it seems abundantly clear to me through those verses (and many, many others) that God expects us to GO OUT and preach the gospel...there seems to be no mention anywhere that I can find about gathering up lost people and BRINGING THEM TO the preacher to hear or BRINGING THEM TO meetings of believers who have gathered to worship the God they have already been saved by. I agree wholeheartedly that we cannot rely (nor should we) on people coming to church. Christ, indeed, has instructed us to let our light SHINE OUT INTO DARK PLACES! Did Christ instruct us to try and get everyone to come join us under the bushel so that they, too, can see the light? I would submit that our focus should be to take our light OUTSIDE the "four walls" and let it shine throughout ALL THE EARTH. Thus, back to my original question....where in scripture do we see any support for this notion that we should be trying to get lost people to come back and join us "inside the four walls"? |
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2 | "lost" or "unbeliever" | Luke 5:31 | fallen4shell | 218724 | ||
If this question is addressed to me: by "lost" or "unbeliever" I was simply referring to those who do not profess to be Christians. I make no judgement as to the authenticity of another's salvation. | ||||||
3 | Should "lost" people come to church? | Luke 5:31 | fallen4shell | 218652 | ||
Where in the Bible does it ever command/imply that "lost" people should be part of the church (church specifically referring to a group of people coming together to worship OR collectively referring to the body of believers in any given area)? In old testament times were the heathen allowed to sacrifice (or worship their own gods) in the temple? Have you ever seen a verse in the new testament where Paul or Peter or any of the apostles talked about recruiting unbelievers to come and worship with the believers? In fact, is not the very DEFINITION of the church a body of believers? How then can a professed "unbeliever" be in any way part of something that, by it's very definition, excludes him. It seems to me that bringing someone who does not believe in God to a service which is [supposedly] set aside to WORSHIP God is, to say the least, counterproductive for both us and them. So why do we do it then? Well, I suppose that the easiest and most common answer to that question is so that they can hear the message of Christ and then [hopefully] accept Him. While that seems at first glance to be a worthwhile goal, we should take a minute to think about what we are sacrificing for it. Have not so many of our "worship" services become solely dedicated to "getting people saved" instead of focusing on coorperately worshiping OUR amazing God? Please understand that I do not question the explicit instructions given for us to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but if I remember correctly Jesus commanded his disciples [followers] to GO OUT and preach the gospel to all nations and to GO OUT and baptize, etc. He sent people out with instructions to teach and heal and baptize, not to invite unbelievers to worship with them in the temple (or anywhere else for that matter). What sense does it make for us then to invite the unsaved to come to our worship services? It seems to me that evangelism should be a very active and EXTERNAL endeavor rather than the passive internalization that we have made it. Shouldn't the unbeliever first believe in Christ before they are asked to worship Him? When and why did this whole practice of "inviting lost people to church" become so popular among Christians? Was this ever mentioned as a legitimate strategy for converting people to become followers of Christ? |
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