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NASB | John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 1:1 In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. [Gen 1:1; Is 9:6] |
Bible Question (short): Wisdom as Evangelism? |
Question (full): I came across a stituation in which I was evangelising with someone. They are more educated than me by a long shot, two seminaries, one big degree and such. I did not know this person very well and was taking class from them, we went out to the park for class credit. This guy was trying to catch fish by asking passers by if they would like to discuss The Moral Argument, The Cosmological Argument, The Anthroplogical Argument, The Teological Argument and so on. Passers by who were caught would be presented with an argument for that God exists as The Absolute Moral Law Giver, The Uncaused Cause, The Creater of Man in His Image, The Intelliegent Maker of Creation and so on. Then this guy would point out the fatal flaw in the rational of the passer through setting an intellectual trap by showing them how their veiw was hypocritical, lacked rationality or otherwise did not measure up to the logic and wisdom of what he had presented as his argument. This was an Apologetics course and the point was to learn how to apologize for the faith. After pointing out their fatal flaw he would then try to get them to admit God existed, if he could get them to do that, then and only then would he give them the gospel message of Christ's atoning death. He invited me to something called,"spiritual munchies", a get together of believers and nonbelievers to hear a bit of Jesus wisdom from the gospels. The scripture was Mathew 7:1-5. I sat there for two hours while we ate and discussed the elements of the text, like what is a log in your eye and what is a measure of judgment. The unbelievers were never given the gospel message of Christ's atoning death. I confronted this guy and asked why he didn't just give them the message that could save and that it bothered me that we were being unequaly yoked with unbelievers studying scripture that has the power to equip the saved with wisdom, but which does not have the information necessary to save. He said the wisdom of Jesus has the power to draw people salvifically to God and that he was doing pre-evangelism. He said there is a mandate to use wisdom to evagelize. I said the aposltes never used wisdom to evangelize in fact Paul talks a lot about not using wisdom to evangelize because they are seeking wisdom and that Christ and His atonement are our wisdom according to Paul. He accused me of hiding behind the gospel and being unwilling to deal intellectualy with people who can respond to rational,logical wisdom in order to get saved and that my methods of giving people the scriptures and the message of Christ's atonement was running away from the world. I Corinthians 2:1-8, 1:18-31, Colossians 2:2-10. Scripture to support his point if you think it can be validated, opinions please. |