Category Archives: Evangelism

The Two Religions

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If you survey the religious landscape of modern culture, you will encounter an astonishingly diverse range of views. But beneath the surface, these seemingly disparate spiritualities share a common worldview, one that is radically opposed to the Christian faith. In the final analysis, there can be only two religions—worship of the Creator or worship of creation.

On September 30, in a Google Hangout, Dr. Peter Jones, the Executive Director of truthXchange, discussed his new Ligonier teaching series, Only Two Religions. You can watch this below.

The Facts are Never the Problem

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Lyndon Unger writes:

A while ago, I reading Acts 4 when I noticed something I hadn’t seen before and I thought I would share with the fantastic Cripplegate readers. Acts 5:14-21 is a great little text that gives a wonderful example of the noetic effects of sin; how sin affects the mind and the rational process. The unbelieving mind is anything but neutral regarding facts and their relationship to God, and Acts 4:14-21 displays that in rather stark language.

Acts 4 follows Acts 3, where Peter and John heal a lame man who’s more than 40 years old (Acts 4:22). He’s lame, asks for money, they command him to rise up and walk, and he does (Acts 3:1-9) in full view of many people in the Temple and thousands had heard about it almost immediately (Acts 4:4). Everyone knows the guy because he’s been lying on his mat for a long time (Acts 3:10) and then Peter preaches the good news of the resurrection of Christ in the temple (Acts 3:11-26). Then, in Acts 4 Peter and John are called before the Sanhedrin the next day and the Sanhedrin read them the riot act (Acts 4:4-13). Then, comes this passage:

14 But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. 15 But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, 16 saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. 17 But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” 18 So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” 21 And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened.

Now that’s an amazing apologetics text with some amazing implications to apologetics and evangelism.

– The facts were irrefutable.

– The guy who was healed was standing in plain sight; everyone know he was the guy who had been paralyzed, lying outside the temple for decades. Continue reading →

How much detail when evangelizing?

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Sproul JrDr. R. C. Sproul, Jr, in an article entitled it follows that truth is one. While we can talk about distinct propositions, the truth is that truth is monolithic, one piece, simple rather than parts. Such means, of course, that His revelation is not part cake, and part icing, part substance and part sizzle. It’s not as though justification by faith alone is the painting and election is the frame. We are called to believe all that God has revealed, and every error in our thinking is at least implicitly dangerous.

Our Error, His Success
That said, we do err and our failures cannot rule out His success. Our goal with those to whom we preach Christ, just like with ourselves, can’t be to get them perfectly sound on everything. Those of us who have a deep interest in theology, who are given to seeing the connections between our affirmations, are tempted to pray like the Pharisee, “I thank you Lord that I am not like other men. I affirm all five points of Calvinism. I can recite the Westminster Shorter Catechism and I not only know the ordo salutis, but know what ordo salutis means.”

Mercy for Sinners
Our calling for ourselves, and for those we are witnessing to, is that we would reflect the wisdom of the publican who beat his breast and cried out, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner.” What we all need to grasp first is that God is God. He is Lord over all reality, and has authority over us. Because we fail to submit to His law, we are rightly under His curse and judgment. Our only hope is to throw ourselves upon His mercy, to confess before Him not just our sins, but our standing as sinners.

The life, death, and resurrection of Christ is why we can have peace with God. He is the reason we can cry out for mercy with hope. And it is because of His ascension that we know that He is Lord even now. Thus the early church had as its first creed the eminently simple, Christos ho kurios, Christ is Lord. So our message is eminently simple — repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Make Disciples
A person brought to an understanding of their need for redemption, and God’s provision in Christ is now well prepared for more. We catechize converts quickly, but not before they are converts. Such a one, I would argue, needs to come to understand the glorious truths contained in the Apostles’ Creed. And from there, the convert, like the rest of us, is called to learn the whole counsel of God. We are called, after all, not to make mere converts but disciples, teaching them to obey whatsoever He has commanded (Matthew 28:20).

One important caveat — to say we need not say everything in order to proclaim God’s grace in Christ is not at all to say there are things we should not say. God’s sovereignty in our salvation is not something we hide from those outside. Indeed there is nothing He has revealed to us that we should be ashamed of, or that we should mask in order to win souls.