8.3.2016 LIVING PROOF (1989) by jim petersen (sharing the good news of Jesus by your LIFE AND GOD'S WORD)

19  christopher lasch identifies the direction he believes society is taking with the title of his book The Culture of Narcissism. in it he summarizes the factors that signal the death of what he walls 'the culture of competitive individualism' and the emergence of its logical successor, 'the pursuit of happiness to the dead end of a narcissistic preoccupation with the self'.

21...Allan Bloom, in his opening sentence in The Closing of the American Mind says, 'there is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes...that truth is relative'. bloom's thesis is that since openness is perceived as being the highest virtue among our educators, the relativity of truth has become a moral postulate. but one we embrace this postulate we cannot really think at all. 'thus what is advertised as a great opening is a great closing'...
..while the christian ethic is rooted in faith, hope, and love the prevailing systems are characterized by self-centeredness. wanda urbanska, the author of The Singular Generation, says 'we are singular - the first generation of americans who aspire to be self sufficient - and first generation of americans who aspire to be self-sufficient - and who, almost instinctively, commit ourselves to a lifelong dynamic relationship with ourselves'. self - fulfillment is the driving value of our generation.

22  ..Os Guniness makes a helpful distinction between secularism, secularization and the secularized. Secularism is a philosophy. as such it can be analyzed and defined with precision. Secularization is a process by which religious ideas become less and 'less meaningful and religious institutions more marginal'. secularization rubs off on people unlike the philosophy, it is contagious, so that wherever modernization goes, some degree of infection is inevitable...

the secularized comprise a large segment of the western world's population. expressed in ephesians 2.12, they are 'without God in the world'..

many..are at least a generation removed from experiencing life in relationship to god. they do not regard God as a valid basis for a personal philosophy.

23  ..secularisim can function as a religion, but just as its more formal expression in humanism, it is inadequate to meet man's needs.
a dozen years ago, we were living in the US, where one acquaintance described his PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY as 'hang loos, avoid commitments, do your thing and let others do theirs'. one of our currnet neighbors described his view of life in similar terms. 'life..is like the butterflies. they spend their time flitting from flower to flower. when it's over, it's over. the idea is to look as pretty as you can while you flit.'

24  ..in Idols of Destruction, herb schlossberg notes that some 'social scientists assign the shift to despair to a single decade: the 1960s'..this..is now readily observable.

in sweden, family counsellors talk about 'never children'. they have never heard anyone say 'I love you'. they live with unmet emotional needs, wrestling with loneliness and insecurity. they are incapable of normal emotional expression and relationships.
25  85 to 90 % of today's teenagers regard questions like 'Did Jesus live? or 'was He the Son of God as irrelevant and unimportant.
27  ..fundamental differences that we don't really understand make us fearful and insecure around the nonchristian. because we feel such a distance between 'us and them', we carry on as if such people didn't exist. efforts at evangelism are often either an unannounced assault on a stranger or little more than being nice to someone.
...humanism..faith in man himself-rushes in to fill the vacuum, undermining christian ethics and values.
we are not dealing merely with ideas and philosophies; we are dealing with PEOPLE. ideas find their existence only in people's minds. in the zeal of our battle against ideas, we christians often confuse matters by placing ourselves in a position of war against those who hold to those ideas. but ewe must always remember that we are sent to such people.
28  ...our main concern is with building bridges.

29..effective communication presupposes an understanding between communicator and receiver. and when we make little effort to truly understand, we lose communication.
30..1. man is created in God's image
2. man is fallen. (man knows good and evil. genesis 3.5)
3. man is influenced by his society. (experiences futility. ecclesiastes 2.22-3)
33  ..man's persistence to survive, his perseverance in the face of the absurdity of it all, is another part of the riddle of man...we spend years dying. guilt eats away at our health. (psalm 38.3-4)

why does man resist death the way he does? why is he so obsessively fearful of it? the Bible says that satan holds the power of death and that man is held in slavery by his fear of death (hebrews 2.14-5)
death is perceived as an enemy that man will do anything to fight off to preserve his futile existence. why?
34  there lies within man a drive for immortality. (ecclesiastes 3.11)
so there does exist a positive common ground. we can communicate spiritual truth. man can understand and respond because God has sown certain things in his heart.

environment...'do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world' romans 12.2)

35  ..what is it about man that allows him to blindly embrace the values and characteristics of those that surround him, even when those values are obviously irrational and destructive? can this no be traced back to man's fallen nature? in romans 1, we are told that when men cut themselves loose from God to strike out on their own, they lose the ability to reason properly. 'although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. although they claimed to be wise, they became fools'. (1.21-2).

in 1979, a study was done among teens in sweden, who were asked to respond to the statement, 'i think the following could give my life more meaning...of those surveyed, 87% thought that meaning could be found in a good job, 85%..marriage partner, 84% ..sports and recreation. . only 15% thought that reading the Bible and prayer could help ...about 80% considered the question of the meaning of life important, yet..85% considered it unimportant whether Jesus is the Son of God or not..75%..the question of God's existence ..unimportant..
41  obstacles to faith in Jesus' day..
public opinion..john 5.44
misinformation..7.40f
self-sufficiency..9.35f
concern with position..11.1-12.11
rebellion..matthew 26.63f

43  ..in john 6 Jesus was essentially saying, 'you are following Me for pragmatic reasons, but that is not good enough. if you are going to follow Me, it must be on My terms-and those terms are to accept Me as God!
47  THE GOSPEL OF
-POPULAR ISSUES...social justice..prosperity, civil rights etc.
-OUR PERSONAL EMPHASIS
-OUR ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEMS (roman catholic, reformed, pentecostal, baptist, methodist, etc.
-JESUS CHRIST

71  ..2 aspects of the process of evangelism in the New Testament.  the first is the PROCLAMATION of the gospel. this is an action through which the nonchristian receives a clear statement of the essential message. it is something that happens at a certain point in time...when someone declares the terms of man's reconciliation to God, the gospel has been proclaimed...

the second mode is the AFFIRMATION  of the gospel....a process of incarnating and demonstrating the christian message. this is effective among the unprepared-that is, people without a christian heritage, or those for whom christianity does not constitute a credible basis for their lives. they are depending upon some 'ism -humanism, materialism, existentialism, socialism or capitalism -to give coherence to life. with rare exceptions, drawing such individuals into the Kingdom of God requires more than a summary statement of the gospel.

97  we have seen that a person with a good testimony is one who, because his life is characterized by faith, hope and love, is redemptive in his relationships. wherever he goes, he sows life and hope rather than despair, conflict or death. such a person is the most significant figure in our society. Jesus called him the salt of the earth, the light of the world and the good seed. he is a singular exception in a disoriented world.

about the time the Watergate scandal was being revealed. i was engrossed in a book on politics, quite oblivious to the person seated next to me. evidently what i was reading stirred his interest because he initiated a conversation with me about the book. i soon learned that he was an attorney assigned to negotiating labor disputes. our conversation drifted to Watergate and I asked him what he thought its root causes were. he replied that it reflected 'incompetence in leadership and isolation from reality at the top'.
i said i felt at least one other factor had to be included and that was the absence of moral absolutes. he didn't understand what i was saying, so i illustrated it with the story of a california lawsuit.
in the early 60s, several restaurant owners in california began employing topless waitresses. the local citizens filed suit against the owners, charging them with immoral conduct. when the citizens won their case in the state courts, the restaurant owners appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court. there they got a reversal on the state court's decision and were given the legal right to continue operating with topless waitresses.
98  i pointed out to my companion that the disturbing thing about this case was the basis upon which it was won by the restaurant operators. the decision (along with a few other contemporary cases) set a precedent in American law that continues to undermine the entire system. the restaurant owners won their case with this argument: out topless restaurants are frequented by some of the leading citizens in the community; therefore, what takes place reflects the community's moral standards. since the citizens of a community are the ones who should determine its moral standards, what is going on in those restaurants is RIGHT. 
i explained that once we concede the assumption that it is the citizens who determine what is right and wrong, we have cut ourselves adrift in a sea of relativism. to dramatize the fallacy, using the same argument those leading citizens could decide they don't like Spanish-speaking people or any other group and justify killing them.
(if this sounds extreme, think for a moment of what the leading citizens of russia decided in the 1920s, Germany in the '30s, or argentina in the last decade. tens of millions of innocents have suffered unnatural deaths on the basis of precisely this rationale. paul johnson, the modern historian, describes how leaders, in the name of 'class', 'race or 'national security', discarded the idea of any absolute morality. he refers to 'an unguided world adrift in a relativistic universe'.)

returning to the watergate case, i reminded my companion of the repeated explanation by the defendants that they were just doing what they felt would accomplish their goal - keeping president richard nixon in office. i explained that once 'right becomes whatever contributes to the prevailing goals, the ultimate result is disintegration. he saw my point and agreed. so the two of us sat there for a few moments contemplating the unfortunate fact that since absolutes no longer exist in our society, our survival is compromised.
finally, inevitably, he asked, 'what absolutes would you suggest?
I said, 'i'm a christian.
he couldn't see what this had to do with it, so i went on to explain. 'let's suppose for a moment that both you and i are christians. that would mean we both believe in God. if we could accept that, He would be an absolute, wouldn't He?
my companion agreed.
i continued, 'but even if God exists, it wouldn't do us any good unless we had some word from Him as to what life is all about, would it?
again he agreed.
i went on, 'that's exactly what the Bible is - a word from God as to what life is about. so as christians, you and i would have two absolutes: God and His Word. that would be an adequate basis of truth for us to
99  operate on, don't you think/ this launched us into a dynamic discussion about Jesus Christ.

it is true that collectively man cannot thrive without moral absolutes. it is just as true, though perhaps less apparent, on the individual level.
a few years ago, our family moved into a new neighborhood during a temporary stay in the united states. one of our first friendships was with a young couple who lived down the block and across the street from us. while we were out for dinner together one evening, my wife and i told them we were thinking of inviting some of our neighbors to discuss common problems in marriage, the family and other human relationships, using the Bible as our basis. they reacted enthusiastically. the husband said, 'i think we could get everyone on the block to come. we don't know of a single couple in this neighborhood who could be called happy'.
ours is, in fact, a neurotic society. problems and tensions in society are widespread, while on the individual level man is asking survival questions.  'how do i cope with feelings of futility and insecurity? how do i get along with this woman? what should we do with our children?
answers to questions such as these will not be forthcoming from either our social scientists or our philosophers. france's 'new philosophers, mirroring our times, say all ideologies are dangerous delusions. they, and others, have concluded that there really are no answers to man's basic questions. with this conclusion, they are probably closer to the truth now than secular man has ever been!

God has predicted the end result of man's attempt to light his own way. in isaiah 50.11, God says, 'all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. this is what you shall receive from My hand: you will lie down in torment.
when Jesus said, 'I am the truth, it was good news indeed. He is our reference point, allowing the christian to walk through the ruins of man-made philosophies on a true course. as he walks in the light, in the truth that is Christ Himself, the Christian is a statement from God to the world that there is another option.
'you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. live as children of light ephesians 5.8 being light presupposes congruence: harmony between God's ways and our own. one thing that disrupts this harmony is the constant, subtle, often subliminal influences our society exerts on us.

100  Jesus was speaking about this danger in His comments on leaven (yeast). He warned His disciples to 'beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees' (matthew 16.6 RSV) 'and the leaven of Herod' (Mark 8.15, RSV). leaven symbolizes human imperfection (see exodus 12.5-20,  13.3-8; leviticus 2.11; I corinthians 5.6-8). Jesus was warning against mixing imperfect human ideas with God's truth truth. the pharisees had mixed their own religious traditions with the teaching of the Scriptures; the Sadducees were the philosophers of jewish society; and herod represented the world system. these three INFLUENCES - TRADITION, PHILOSOPHY and SOCIETY - seem inevitably to work their way into and become part  of the value system of any christian community to such an extent that it is possible to be a christian, but live almost entirely within a pagan value system and not even perceive it.
this possibility began to dawn on me when we moved to brazil and changed cultures. culture is hardly perceived as long as we do not leave the only one we really know. a fish doesn't perceive the water in which it swims and neither are we aware of our culture or the influence it exerts on our thoughts and actions. often we must step outside of it to understand it - and to understand ourselves.

i have since learned that this experience is common to those who cross cultural lines. one acquaintance..who spent many years as a missionary in the philippines, observed, 'i spent most of my time in the phil. trying to sort out which of my beliefs were american..filipino and... christian. i came to the conclusion that much of what i believed belonged to the first two categories.

as we moved into the brazilian culture, we gradually became aware of the origins of our value system. i was chagrined to discover that much of my 'biblical christianity' did not really come from the Bible at all. my attitude toward word and material things came out of cultural distortions of the puritan work ethic. my thinking processes and my approach to problem solving were marked by the computer revolution. marketing and consumerism had influenced my definition and evaluation of progress. madison avenue and television had helped to set my living standard.  i found i had a greater disposition for violence than the people we were ministering to - a result of our american history. my philosophy of child raising was affected by humanism. even women's liberation and the Beatles had affected me. what a shock to realize the collage my supposedly biblical christianity really was. i was a sub-Christian Christian!
as this dawned on me, i asked myself, 'is this the message i'm going to pass on to my brazilian friends? i thought i needed to 'brazilianize' my christianity. but i soon realized that also would be sub-Christian because
101 all human systems are marred.
it was at this point in my thinking that the phrase 'KINGDOM OF GOD' began to get my attention. for me the kingdom had always been one of those things to skip over in the Bible. it seemed distant, among the more impractical Bible truths. but now, for some reason, i began to mark the word Kingdom with ink every time i ran across it in my Bible. i was still at it tow years later, but didn't know why. whenever i would attempt to tell others what i was learning on the subject, i'd go blank - a sure sign i hadn't but the pieces together. i asked God for help to clear it up for me, because by then the Kingdom seemed to be standing out on every page. surely such a predominant theme was significant!
then i realized this was the third option! not an americanized christianity, nor a brazilianized christianity, but a christianity growing out of the culture of the Kingdom -THE KINGDOM CULTURE! not a provincial, flawed human order, but God's untarnished, universal domain - a whole new way of living. there it was, beautifully laid out by God for His people.  when the unique Kingdom culture comes into focus, the incongruities in one's life, the areas that had previously escaped the redemptive process, are called into account. no other biblical truths call our attention to the radical uniqueness of the Christian life as do the teachings on the Kingdom.

it was in the context of Jesus' words about the Kingdom that He spoke about the dangers of leaven. where does leaven come from? Jesus described the leavening sequence in mark 7.6-13. He pointed out that the process begins with a good idea. it is so good, it fact, we agree it should become a norm, a rule. consequently, a man's idea gains equal weight with the Word of God.

the next step is neglecting the Word of God while still adhering to that good idea. by now the ideal has become a tradition. we soon find the tradition more to our liking  than the Word of God, so we set His Word aside. finally, the tradition comes full circle. Jesus said, 'you nullify the word of God by your tradition' mark 7.13. this happens when our practice actually works against doing the will of God.
to illustrate, let's take one of the most successful forms that exists in our churches today - the Sunday school. the Sunday school was a good idea.

originally the sunday school was brought into being as a means of teaching children who did not have christian parents; children who would have had little opportunity to receive the gospel apart from it. in those early days, no self-respecting christian parent sent his child to Sunday school, as it would have been an admission of failure on his part. he would have been considered negligent of his responsibility to teach his own children, as wee are instructed in deuteronomy 6.6-7: 'these commandments...are to be upon your hearts. impress the on your children. talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up'.

102  apparently, the benefits of the sunday school were so evident that the attitude of the christian parents changed. soon no self respecting christian parent would neglect sending his children to sunday school.
the next step is predictable. dad neglects his scriptural responsibility for instructing his children in God's word and turns it over to the church - a responsibility the church simply cannot fulfill. the church cannot fulfill it because it is a parental responsibility. the sunday school can contribute, but it can't assume what only Dad can do.
this sequence illustrates Jesus description in Mark 7. when Dad lets go of his responsibility, disaster very often strikes HIM! his felt need for maintaining a godly life, for developing his mastery of the Scriptures and his ability to teach them drops off. when he delegates responsibility for his family, he's free to wander.
if there's any one thing that prods me into maintaining mental and spiritual discipline, it's the realization that my children and their children will inherit the fruit of my thought life. holiness seems very sensible when seen from this angle (see deuteronomy 4.39-40)

so how does it happen that incongruities leaven our christianity? to summarize,  'the good news is converted into behavior and behavior into habit. the habit can become mere custom and quite irrelevant. similarly faith tends to become creed and creed ends up as a mere recitation.

now what does this matter of congruence - that is, harmony with God's ways - have to do with reaching thee unreachable? it has a great deal to do with it. a congruent life is the secret of naturalness in communication. and naturalness is the secret of attracting rather than repelling with our witness. on the other hand, where there are incongruities in our lives we usually have to resort to devices or gimmicks to get our message across. 
we must ask ourselves, where did i get my opinions on everything: finances, success, marriage, child-raising, business, time-use, sex, people, pleasure, education, progress, society, sports, politics, organization and religion? did any of my beliefs come, in fact, from god's Word? it is not acceptable for the christian to borrow from the world's value system. as JB Phillips translated romans 12.2, 'don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remake you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed.
if we can trace our value system in these areas back to the word of god, communicating our faith becomes infinitely easier. any subject, if explored far enough, will lead us into a discussion of the good news. we
103  must always be prepared to explain why we are the way we are (james 3.15)

in my early christian life, when i first began witnessing to my friends, the great hurdle was always getting started. i never seemed to know what to say. i began keeping a page of 'openers' in a notebook. these were questions i would ask to get me into the subject. they included, 'was there ever a time in your life when you seriously considered becoming a christian? what did you think of the sermon? are you interested in spiritual things?
such questions can help, but they often backfired on me. i could never seem to get the timing right. i would 'casually' throw these questions out in the midst of an otherwise normal conversation. at that point everything became abnormal. my quarry would tense up and become almost as nervous as i was. then, awkwardly, i would go into my presentation. this approach was just as alien as the opening question. it consisted of heavy offers of eternal life and vague references to happiness now. where there is incongruence, that's about all we have to offer. what we represent is not substantially any different from what the receiver already has. even eternal life is not particularly attractive to him. he's already ambivalent about the life he does have -both hating and loving it - but not loving it enough to want it to go on forever.
a few years ago, i had been away from home for many weeks on a long trip and had been with people constantly. i was desperate to get away from people for awhile. so when i got on the plane, i sat in an aisle seat. the middle seat was vacant and the window seat was occupied by a young woman. as i waited for the plane to take off, i retreated as deeply as possible into a book i was carrying. it was purely an anti-social maneuver. but the young lady wanted to talk. she asked, 'what are you reading?
a book, i replied.
what is the name of it? she persisted.
psycho-cybernetics by maxwell maltz, i said.
do you study psychology?
no.
..by then the engines were running and we were beginning to taxi down the runway. she kept at it. i had a head cold and could hardly hear. finally, i closed the book and moved to the vacant seat between us and we began to converse.
i soon realized what she really had in mind was to pick up a man. going straight to the point, i said, i travel a lot and many times i am lonely. i often encounter temptations to be unfaithful to my wife. but i've decided it's not worth it. i know i could deceive her, but the basis of our relationship is our mutual love and confidence. she trusts me and i trust her.

104  'i've lived long enough to realize that meaning in life is not found in seeing what i can get away with or in bigger achievements or in a position or in how my leisure time is spent. i've learned that meaning is found in relationships. consequently, i don't intend to destroy the best relationship i have. if i came home having been unfaithful to my wife, even though she might not perceive it and even though i could keep it from her, i'd know. when would come to me with her blind confidence and i'd have to somehow create a distance between us. we'd be pulled apart and she would never know why. soon we would be strangers living together under the same roof.
the noes who would pay most heavily would be my wife and children. that strikes me as the height of selfishness.
she was dumbfounded.
then she began to open up. she said, 'i'm 24 years old. i ought to be getting married, but all my married friends have affairs and if that's the way it is, i don't want it. when my friends go away for a weekend, their husbands are soon knocking at my door. they are like little boys. i just don't think i could handle it if my husband were like that.
then she added, i've never heard ideas like yours. where do they come from?
you'd laugh if i told you.
no, i wouldn't ..
i got them from the Bible..i went on to explain to her what the christian message is and how it changes a person so he can get his life in order. by then we were about to land. what frustration! we were in the middle of my explanation. she was intensely interested in every word, but we had to quit.

as the passengers moved into the aisle, i let her go on ahead. when i cam off a bit later and walked up the concourse, i passed her standing with a circle of about 10 of her friends who had come to meet her. they were the ones she had told me about on the plane. she stopped me and made the round of introductions. i stood there for at least 10 minutes while she related our conversation to them. that just added to my frustration. i thought, if only i had a few days with these people. perhaps i could help change their darkness into light. i felt indispensable, but i had to go on my way.

but God was preparing me for one more big lesson. God is the one who orchestrates the reconciliation of people to Himself, not us. just one year later i was back in that same city. it was   sunday morning and i was seated in a church. in walked the same woman i had talked to on the airplane. she sat down directly in front of me. when the service was over, i stood up to introduce myself. it was unnecessary. her reply was, 'of
105  course, i remember. i'll never forget that conversation. what a difference it has made!

this story illustrates how having values rooted in the Scriptures will enable us to turn almost any conversation into a discussion of the gospel.
but, i must confess, i still have apprehensions when i see a new neighbor move in, when we move to another city or when i meet a stranger. my first reaction is often anxious. how will i ever get to that person? he doesn't look like the type. at these times, i have to remind myself there is no barrier that making his acquaintance won't resolve. eventually, a conversation over dinner or some leisure time together will lead us to a spiritual discussion there. we'll have to talk about SOMETHING.  and all conversations eventually lead to Jesus Christ.
Melker, a first century priest, described the ideal. 'the kingdom of God is to begin with us, in the inner life and rule there and from the inner nature all outward actions are to flow in conformity with revealed and written teachings and commands of God...until the outward is like the inward; and thus advancing on from individuals to nations.
A GOOD TESTIMONY (often just legalistic caricature)
when he was 13 ..my son todd asked, 'dad, HOW CAN I BE A GOOD TESTIMONY? i'm not as good a christian as michelle (his older sister). she's talking to her friends about Christ'.
my mind flashed back to the time i was 13. i remembered how i had been caught between two unreconcilable desires. i wanted to measure up to what i imagined my parents expected of me so far as having a christian testimony among my friends. but at the same time i had to meet my needs for approval among my peers. i remembered the guilt and tension this conflict caused me. now, how could i hale my son avoid the same problem?
finally i said, todd, DON'T WORRY ABOUT WORDS. just concern yourself with one thing. be a peacemaker. i explained that if he would be genuinely considerate of the other person and if he would take the initiative in resolving the conflicts that arose, he would be doing what God wants of him. this was something my 13 year old could handle.
a few weeks later, todd had an argument with eduardo, our neighbor's boy, and their friendship broke up.  when todd and i talked about this incident, we reviewed our discussion on being a peacemaker and read romans 12.17-8 together. 'do not repay anyone evil for evil. be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. todd decided to take the
106  initiative, visited eduardo and restored their friendship.
soon after that, eduardo's mother invited my wife over to her home to talk. she explained that her family had observed todd's friendship with eduardo and concluded, 'we think you have what we need. a 13 year old's life opened the door to another family.

the witness of a life! it is a truth rooted in god's purposes for israel and in the teachings of the apostles. 'our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy spirit and with deep conviction. you know how we lived among you for your sake. I thessalonians 1.5

this great truth has been reduced to the phrase 'having a good testimony'. but the phrase doesn't fit. in fact, this truth is sometimes further restricted in practice to mean merely reinforcing the caricature that both christians and nonchristians share of what a 'good christian' should look like. this caricature consists of those extrabiblical scruples that always seem to group around christian groups. we are afraid that if we do not live up to the expected IMAGE, we will offend those in the group as well as nonchristians. this fear maintains the caricature. the observant nonchristian picks up the cue- and holds the christian accountable for living up to his won criteria.

this is enough to virtually canonize that caricature of what it means to be a christian. as a result, the sad truth is that we effectively bar access to the gospel for many otherwise interested people.

'what must i forsake? a young man asked.
'colored clothes for one thing. get rid of everything in your wardrobe that is not white. stop sleeping on a soft pillow. sell your musical instruments and don't eat any more white bread. you cannot, if you are sincere about obeying Christ, take warm baths or shave your beard. to shave is to lie against Him who created us, to attempt to improve on His work'. (foot: elizabeth elliot, the liberty of obedience, pp45-6)
quaint, isn't it - this example of extrabiblical scruples? and perhaps amusing. the list has constantly shifted over the 1800 years since this one was actually recorded. it has even changed in my generation. it also varies according to who and where you are in the world. but in spite of the relative nature of our standards for christian conduct, we always tend to take them very seriously. (note: social as well as religious mores are among the many invisible but very real chains that seek to bind and mold.)
it seems that moralisms (human standards imposed as norms) inevitably emerge to threaten the dynamic in every expression of the body of Christ. there are a number of reasons for this...our concern is the effect moralisms have on the gospel's mobility in the world. Jesus maintained that the pharisees 'shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces' with their teachings matthew 23.13.

107whenever the emphasis is on what christians DO rather than what they ARE, this will be the effect to a greater or lesser degree.
Jesus spoke about this in the sermon on the mount. He said, 'let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. matt. 5.16.  later in this discourse, He seemed to contradict Himself when He said, 'be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them' (6.1) what was the difference between these two statements? their contexts set them apart.
Jesus' first statement introduced the thought that we should live in such a way that people see God in us. here His emphasis is on our uniqueness in relating to people and situations.

the context of the second statement has to do with activities: giving, praying and fasting. Jesus did not say, 'don't do these things. he commanded us to all three. what he said was, DON'T LET ANYONE CATCH YOU AT IT! why not? the answer relates to  the motives of the heart. if my christian activities are the most visible element of my faith, i'm probably guilty of glorifying myself. consequently, i'm bound to misrepresent God. outsiders will never want to come in once this begins to happen. who wants to quit eating, give his money away and spend all his time on his knees just to go to a heaven he's not even sure he will like?
we do the gospel considerable injustice when we attempt to promote our faith by publicizing our scruples, promoting our church activities or describing our devotional lives. if, after all this, someone still found the idea appealing, they would probably think, perhaps i should be a christian too, but how would i ever find the time?
what then is a good testimony? an individual with a good testimony is one who models the character of God. 'we have seen His glory...full of grace and truth john 1.14. what a beautiful, irresistible figure! not that of a legalistic caricature, but the reflection of the very Person of god. i believe that is what it means to GLORIFY GOD. it IS TO REVEAL HIS PERSON.

grace and truth, mercy and justice - these are the inseparable marks of God's person. in ephesians 4.15 ..we are told to 'speak the TRUTH in LOVE',  a similar couplet. truth without love destroys. love without truth deceives.
even Jesus' enemies acknowledged His commitment to truth. on one occasion, in a preface to a trap question, they made this observation:
108  'Teacher...we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. you aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who  they are matthew 22.16.  as members of His Body, we are called upon to imitate Christ by being honest. as peter wrote about Jesus, 'no deceit was found in his mouth I peter 2.22.

what does truth have to do with being a good testimony? for one thing, almost all of our world's social problems, from broken marriages to poverty, have their roots in selfishness and greed. the problems begin in the heart of man, so the solutions must also begin there. the opposite of selfishness is doing what is right even when it is to your disadvantage (psalm 15).  that is integrity. one of the most fundamental needs in this world is for men and women of integrity. and if integrity isn't found among the people of God, where will it be found?
when the christian models integrity (def. soundness of moral character), he affirms to the world that there is a better way of doing things.

we can exercise the grace of god only in our relationships with others. have you ever noticed how much emphasis Jesus gave to the quality of our relationships? when asked to identify the greatest of god's commands, He replied that all of the Law can be summed up with two statements, each involving a relationship: 'love the Lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...and love your neighbor as yourself matthew 22.37-9.
much of what Jesus has to say in His sermon on the mount consists of a call for us to be redemptive in our relationships. consider this paraphrase of matthew 5.21-48:
'you have heard it said, 'do not murder.
I say, don't be angry with your brother.
you have heard it said, 'don't be contemptuous of others.
I say, don't even belittle another.
be reconciled to your brother even before you stop to commune with god.
settle matters quickly with your adversary and out of court.
anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
you have heard it said, eye for eye and tooth for tooth.
but I tell you, do not resist an evil person.
give to one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
109  you have heard that it was said, 'love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father...perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

these are difficult statements to cope with. they seem impossible to put into practice. but that's the way the grace of God always appears - impossible, just the opposite of what we instinctively 'know to be right. whether it is on the level of faith versus works for salvation or unfairness versus justice in the day-by-day affairs of life.
GRACE, BY NATURE, IS WHAT A PERSON LEAST DESERVES.
that's how God relates to us and that's how He wants us, in turn, to respond to others.
insight into this truth of the grace of god - as we receive it and as we exercise it -could be called the starting point of all spiritual progress. as Paul wrote, 'this gospel is bearing fruit and growing ...among you since the day you heard it and understood god's grace in all its truth colossians 1.6.

all our natural inclinations run contrary to this great truth. paul tournier, the swiss psychiatrist and author, observed that our tendency is to be lenient or indulgent toward our own weaknesses (i'm overweight because it runs in my family) while bringing others to account (why doesn't he discipline his eating?) there needs to be a reversal in our attitudes here.

perhaps in part, the word conversion implies turning around. to do this means to seek to understand why another individual is the way he is and to make allowances accordingly, while holding ourselves responsible for our own behavior. this is the message of the 'forgiveness chapter, matthew 18. 'shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as i had on you? (v33) the chapter ends on a sobering note: 'in anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. this is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart' (v34-5).
unforgiving words on forgiveness! how can that be? i wonder if Jesus isn't saying, 'if you do not forgive or exercise grace in your dealings with people, it is a sure sign you never understood the Cross!'
to be treated with grace is to taste redemption. have you ever found yourself being accepted and understood when you expected and deserved just the opposite? it's overwhelming. but to act graciously toward someone else is even better.
so we may conclude that a 'good testimony' is a person whose quality of life identifies him as  child of his heavenly Father, full of grace and truth. like his Father, he is redemptive in his relationships, from the inner circle within his own family to the outer fringes where his enemies stand.

chapter 16 TAKING THE FIRST STEPS  (conversion occurs a step at a time)

 149  Dawson Trotman, founder of the navigators, USED TO PRAY THAT GOD WOULD USE HIM IN THE LIFE OF EVERY PERSON HE MET. that is a good request to emulate. if coming to Christ is a process, why not help every person we meet to move just one step closer to Christ? some people are only a step away and it would be our joy to assist in the birth. others are farther out, but the step we help them take would be just as significant.
basically, our social relationships are of two kinds. there are the chance encounters with strangers and there are the more permanent relationships with friends, neighbors and colleagues. the passenger in the next seat is an example of the first. the neighbor who asks you to sign his petition is an example of the second kind. when we think of sharing our faith, it is important to keep this distinction in mind, even though our immediate objective is the same - to help people take the next step.

in the case of a casual encounter, we need to exercise discernment to determine a person's background and thinking. we should be prepared to explain the gospel, but should avoid doing injustice to the person by forcing a premature presentation, by pressing the issue unduly or by being overbearing. in most casual encounters, our witness will be supplemented by the reinforcement  of other influences God is bringing to bear. on occasion we will be able to leave a person with a clear understanding of the essential message. when we are led to do this, we can be assured that God will use that witness in a positive way.
in the case of our more permanent relationships, we must be acutely sensitive to the attitudes and emotions of others. the gospel is urgent news, but that doesn't mean we have to rush and push to get it across. according to II peter 3.9, God is holding up the judgment of the world and the ushering in of His new creation until the stragglers cross the threshold. we can therefore assume that if God uses us to start something in someone's life, He also intends to bring it to fruition. therefore, we need to evangelize the people in our daily world by reinforcing the relationships between us in the process rather than by polarizing them.
150  most of us have only one sphere of friends and acquaintances. we can either see this sphere transformed into an increasingly fertile environment for the gospel or we can exhaust it with a slash and burn approach. the intent of what i have define as AFFIRMATION EVANGELISM is to make the most of the opportunities our more permanent relationships offer us.

i commonly hear people express a desire to know how to break into discussing the gospel with an acquaintance. as one put it, 'i need to develop a positive, nonthreatening introductory statement, something that gets me into the subject with someone. what do you suggest?
usually what people are looking for is a one step launch question - something that will carry them gracefully from a dead stop into an effective discussion about Christ in a single motion. in situations where god has already prepared the way, it's hard to go wrong at this point. almost anything you say will do. philip simply asked the ethiopian man if he understood what he was reading. peter asked cornelius why he had sent for him. but most of the people we meet are neither reading the book of isaiah nor have they had any recent visions. for the unprepared, there is no one easy step from where they are to where we want to go with them. this question of how to launch into the gospel in one step is equivalent to asking, how do i set the bl for a seventy yard field goal attempt?

rather than looking for a single step, it is better to think in terms of MINI DECISIONS. if evangelism is a process, then our functions to accompany our acquaintances on the road to Christ, showing them the way. we must walk the road with them, a step at a time. so we think in terms of steps, or mini-decisions. we can diagram the process as follows:

person spoken with|||||||||||||||||||||||||||DISTANCE FROM CHRIST||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||CONVERSION

when we see things from this perspective, our question changes. rather than asking how to present the gospel so that this person who is a long way out will respond, we ask what needs to happen to draw this person to Christ.
we evaluate the resources at our disposal: God has made us LIGHT; we have the HOLY SPIRIT and we can PRAY. this is a formidable arsenal. then we proceed, counting on god to effectively work as we use these resources.
151  the first steps toward Christ can begin with seemingly insignificant things:
initiating a hello
doing small favors
borrowing and loaning things among neighbors
conversing over the fence.
these grow into larger acts of friendship and hospitality such as a night out together, picnicking, etc.

as the distances are reduced, OBSERVE CLOSELY.
try to understand the NEEDS and INTERESTS of your new friends.
don't try to build your witness on the problem side of their lives or you'll get off on the wrong foot.

eventually you will begin to elicit from your friends some of the following 'pre-conversion decisions' about you:
* he's okay
*i'd like to get to know him better
*i feel comfortable with him. he accepts me.
* i'm going to find out why he's so different.
*it seems that he gets his outlook on things from the Bible.
*he's a christian, but he's okay.
*being a christian sure has its advantages
* i like his friends. i envy their confidence.
*it might be interesting to look at the Bible someday.

now our diagram looks like this:

person spoken to|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||THE BIBLE||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||CONVERSION
the christian----------------------------\
the Holy Spirit-------------------------\

when a nonchristian comes to the point where he is responsive to the idea of seeing what the Bible has to say, many of the major hurdles to faith have been overcome. the path that remains between his unbelieving state and faith in Christ becomes relatively smooth. this is because THE SPIRITUAL ARSENAL IS NOW COMPLETE. the Holy Spirit can now take up the sword that 'penetrates ...dividing soul and spirit...(and) judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart' hebrews 4.12. for this reason, it is far more effective to first aim toward bringing the nonchristian to the point where he WANTS TO EXAMINE THE BIBLE WITH US. to have this as our first objective rather than thinking in terms of a single explanation of the gospel at an opportune moment offers some very large advantages.
152  if handled properly, our examination of the Scriptures together with the nonchristian reinforces rather than polarizes the relationship. also, it allows us to lay a foundation of truth that will serve as a basis for faith. it gives the individual the time and freedom to fight and win the battle against his defiant will that has been saying no to God ever since physical birth. in short, the spiritual birth will be a healthy one.
so we add the following factors to our diagram:

the person spoken to|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||THE BIBLE|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||CONVERSION
the christian\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
the Holy Spirit\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
                                                               the Bible\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

AND MORE MINI DECISIONS...
once the nonchristian has begun to examine the bible with us, we can expect a new series of mini-decisions to occur. we might expect him to say, for example:

* the Bible isn't impossible to understand after all!
*the Bible says some important things.
*what the Bible says about life fits my experience.
*Jesus seems to be the key. i wonder who He really was.
*Jesus is God.
*i need to do what He says.
*i will believe in Him.

central to successful evangelism among people in the mainstream is getting them to examine the Bible with us in a context of affirmation and acceptance. this is in contrast to the more common approach where we count on a single presentation to move a person from unbelief to faith. but what we are suggesting is probably new to many and therefore gives rise to further questions. some of these are:
-how do i get people who don't even believe the Bible to want to study it?
-how can i keep their interest up so that they will continue week after week?
-what do i do with all the questions they are bound to ask that i'll never be able to answer?
-what about reaping?
-when and how do i do that?

Chapter 17 BRIDGING THE DISTANCE FROM INDIFFERENCE TO FAITH
discovering bridges of common interest

the world's least attentive audience would probably be found on the friday afternoon flights between la guardia airport in new york and national airport in washington, d.c. these flights are always full of businessmen, many of whom make the same trip a 100 times a year. invariably, before takeoff the stewardess comes on with the routine safety instructions. as she goes through her explanation, the inattention is absolute. she is endured and everyone is relieved when she has finally finished.

she fails to hold the attention of her audience for two reasons. in the first place, nothing she says is news. everyone aboard has already been through it countless times. in the second place, the dangers for which she is preparing the passengers are very remote. the felt need for what she has to say is just about zero.
what would it take for her to capture the attention of her passengers so that they would actually listen and finally learn how to use one of those oxygen masks?  suppose the plane developed serious mechanical problems at 20,000 feet and began to lose altitude. if that same stewardess would then repeat those same instructions to  those same passengers under those emergency conditions, she would have everyone's total attention! people are motivated to learn to the degree that the subject matter is perceived as relevant to needs or wants.
the secularized person has quit listening to the voices of religion for similar reasons. he has concluded that no news (new information) will ever be forthcoming. the christian claims and warnings appear hopelessly
154  redundant. if we are to recapture his attention, we must begin at the level of his felt needs and aspirations.
that is why Jesus said what He did to nicodemus. nic had climbed as far as he was going to in the jewish hierarchy. his achievements were his security. so when Jesus said, 'you'll never make it unless you undergo a second birth, He had nic's attention. to a woman in the midst of her daily chore of hauling water, Jesus began talking about water. to a fisherman He talked about fishing. to the hungry He talked about bread. he began with the familiar, the daily concerns and from these mundane matters He transported His listeners into new dimensions of understanding.

apathy is the most difficult obstacle we can face. apathetic people just don't care. they are indifferent. they are like the roadway in Jesus' parable of the sower matthew 13.4., which was so hard that when the seed was sown it bounced and then just laid there until the birds finally found it and devoured it. hardness is not belligerence or toughness; it is indifference. she can be a sweet, fragile, 115 pound teenager - and still be spiritually hard!
some people give the impression that they are indifferent about everything. they have seen it all and disbelieve it all.  but that is only an impression. everyone cares about something and that something is our starting point. we can be confident that whatever the starting point, the ultimate word on it will be God's Word. so our objective is to begin with a person's felt needs and then lead him to the point where he sees that those desires of his, whatever they may be, are ultimately met in Christ.

one obvious implication of what i've just said is that there is no single approach, no skeleton key that will unerringly unlock people's interest. often we will need to forge new keys to fit particular situations. this is not especially difficult. we must begin by being observant and sensitive. here are a few examples.
1. YOUNG PARENTS.  for many brazilians the family is still high on the priority list. if you ask a graduating university student in brazil about his aspirations, he will frequently tell you he is looking forward to marriage and children. he wants a comfortable family life and wants to be able to provide well for his wife and children. the brazilian society is child-oriented. it is also basically freudian.

at graduation the individual is often virtually impervious to the gospel. he is engrossed in other things. he is bent on getting into his
155  profession, getting married, etc. but if we look in on this young family 6 or 7 years later, we will find that life is not going exactly as planned. the family is feeling the consequences of their freudianism. mom and dad are now living under the dictatorial regime of their 3 year old, who has just stepped up his reign of terror to combat the recent intrusion of the newlyborn sibling.

the parents are at a loss. afraid of damaging their child's psyche by disciplining him for his behavior. they elect to endure the pandemonium. but it's too much. they begin to take their frustrations out on one another and soon the last vestiges of the earlier aspirations are dead.
now there IS a felt need!
we have picked up on this need by putting together a series of discussions on how to raise children according to the Bible. we find that many parents are at such a loss that even though they have ignored the Bible all their lives, they are eager to see what it has to say about child rearing. although the Bible and Freud are in disagreement on almost every point and although these parents would not be ready to recognize the Bible's inspiration, the Bible consistently ends up as the undisputed authority in our discussions. the experience of all parents tells them that what the Bible says is truth.

as i write this, my wife and i are helping an agnostic jewish neighbor explore the Scriptures. she was attracted by our children and has agreed to read the Bible because, in her words, i want to have children that will turn out as yours have. we have found that instruction in child rearing serves as an almost irresistible bridge fro indifference to keen interest for young parents.

2. UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. had we started with the same individuals 10 years earlier, they would have been totally indifferent to receiving instructions on child rearing. as students just beginning their university studies, their needs and interests would have lain elsewhere.
the first years of university life offer the long awaited opportunity to get out from under the scrutiny of parents, brothers, aunts and uncles. there's room to think, to question, to act. if there are any philosophical inclinations in a person, they will come to the surface at this stage in life. the student will look for some way to explain his existence and to justify his own behavior. so we have a different starting point.
in this case our bridge out of indifference might be along the lines of the following sequence  of statements.
a. man exists.  either he is here by chance, having evolved or he is here by creation. if there is a Creator, He has to be intelligent and powerful. the question is, which of these alternatives is true?

the Bible has a lot to say about relationships and discussions on the subject can be attractive and helpful. but in the case of this bridge, the practice is far more effective than the theory. talking about love and acceptance is no substitute for the real thing. simply move into a meaningful relationship. i've seen many people of this generation led into the Bible and on to Christ for no other reason than that they had been unconditionally befriended by the evangelist. the invitation to examine the Scriptures was accepted, not as a result of any overwhelming arguments or strong feelings of a need for answers, but simply because it represented one more opportunity to enjoy the love and warmth of that relationship.logic, i'm convinced, is overrated as a persuader. it finishes a poor second to love every time.
these three illustrations of bridge building are intended to be just that: illustrations. i hope they will inspire some creative thinking on how to build bridges to fit the needs and aspirations of those you are seeking to win. there are many others, such as the pursuit of success, having a successful marriage, etc. before going further, we should stop to ask ourselves two questions: 1.  what are some of the felt needs and aspirations of the people i am desiring to reach? and 2. in what way could these needs and aspirations serve as bridges?
the next logical question, which we will address in the next chapter, is, how do we go about getting our friends onto these bridges, moving along toward Christ?

Chapter 18 - GOING TO THE PRIMARY SOURCE
total reliance on the Scriptures

there are primary sources and there are secondary sources.
a primary source is an eyewitness.
in the sciences, he is the person who does the experiments. he does basic research and surfaces new information.
secondary sources report on things that primary sources have seen and done.

reliability is a problem with information of any kind, especially with any information that comes from secondary sources because they are never totally free from personal biases and subjectivity. communicators do not have to intentionally lie to be misleading.  as a person's own subjective perceptions are mixed with the facts he is reporting, distortions just happen.

the news media serve as an excellent example of how variable communication can be. even if everything reported on a given issue is true, the simple act of choosing what to include and exclude or the amount of time and space given to an issue, can determine favorable or unfavorable public sentiment.
another example of variable communication is the broad range of history books. a quick comparison of a mexican history book with an american history book, where the same events are recounted, reveals that frequently the heroes and the villains have changed hats. bravery is alternately described as brutality and an insignificant episode is interpreted as a great victory, depending on which country published the book.
when it comes to communicating the gospel to the secularized person, we strengthen our appeal immeasurably by letting him know we
160  intend to confine ourselves to an examination of the sole primary source that we christians claim: the Bible. although the average secularized person does not accept the inspiration or authority of the Bible, the idea of taking a look for himself at this famous book is likely to be attractive to him. it defines the parameters of the discussion for him and for us. he thus feels that the odds are more even, that he will be free to think and decide for himself.
frequently, the nonchristian fears being indoctrinated and manipulated. christian books and tracts abound; they are in endless supply. although many of them can be extremely helpful, all of them fall into the category of secondary sources. they are someone's perception of the primary source. as such, they are often viewed with suspicion by the nonchristian. he is never sure he is really getting the full story. thus, the skeptical or wary nonchristian who keeps his distance will often respond favorably to an opportunity to do some original investigation - if the environment is right. so our goal is to create that right environment as we simultaneously lead the nonchristian to see the wisdom of taking time to personally research a subject of this magnitude.
most people automatically reject new ideas. since it's part of human nature to resist change, whenever it's forced on us we react. this is because change is usually accompanied by a sense of loss. the familiar gives way to the unknown. someone has described change as occurring in 4 stages: rejection, tolerance, acceptance and assimilation. the first time we're confronted with something new, we tend to reject it. but after it is around for a while, we become tolerant of it. then we begin to see its positive possibilities; we begin to accept it. from there it's a small step to assimilating the idea; we make it our own.
when a nonchristian is first introduced to the idea of examining the Bible, he will often reject it. so WE INTRODUCE THE IDEA WITHOUT CALLING FOR A RESPONSE. 'someday i'd like to show you how to read and understand the Bible on your own' or 'someday i'm going to invite you to our monday night Bible study'. 'someday' is vague, noncommittal. but by reading a person's reaction to such a statement, it is not hard to gauge whether that day should be arranged for the next week or the next month - or postponed until further notice. 
after you repeat an abstract invitation of this sort several times, two things often begin to happen. first, your nonchristian friend has time to become accustomed and increasingly receptive to the idea. second, he's beginning to wonder when you're going to get around to making your

161  invitation good. the shoe is suddenly on the other foot. he's looking to you to keep your promise.

our immediate objective is to help a person begin to examine the Bible. from there on, our purpose is to lead him into an understanding of its central message:  that Jesus is God and that one passes from death to life through faith in Him. this purpose can be summarized in two questions:  1. WHO IS JESUS?  2.WHAT DOES HE WANT FROM ME?
the strategic importance of these 2 questions can easily be missed in the midst of the 66 books of the Bible with all of their diversity. as we invite a person to begin to examine the Bible on his own, we need to help him simplify his research task down to these essentials. the dialogue may go something like this:
A. if you're interested in examining the Bible, i'd like to help you get started.
B. i'd like to see what it says, but i think you need to know that i don't believe it the way you do.
A. that's fair enough. it's the only primary source we christians have.
if, after examining that source, you decide that it is not true, you have your answers.
you can lay to rest your questions about God and go your own way..
if, on the other hand, you find truth in the Bible, then you also have your answers.
either way you win.
B. that's fair enough.
A. now, the Bible is different from other books.
you don't just pick it up and read it from cover to cover.
the Bible consists of 1189 chapters, divided into 66 books.
it was written by many different authors over a period of roughly 1600 years.
to sit down and read it through in order to research your questions would be the equivalent of going to a library with a question and reading your way randomly through the books on the shelves to get information.
it would be better to get some help from the librarian.
he can save you much time and frustration by helping you pull the right books off the self.
that's what i'd like to propose to you: i'll help you find your way around.
B. i'd like that.
A okay, let's set a time.

we pick up the dialogue at the agreed upon time and place. it's in a neutral, familiar spot, either in your house or in his. you have brought
162  along an extra Bible, one with page numberings that are identical to yours. you are using a modern translation, intentionally avoiding the paraphrased versions. explaining that the particular rendering of the passage isn't in accord with the original intent doesn't exactly build credibility in the Bible. nor does it help to have to explain that 'quit you like men ' simply means 'be courageous'.

A. the Bible is divided into 2 parts:the old testament and the new testament.
the old testament has to do with things that went on before the time of Jesus Christ.
the new testament starts out with 4 accounts of Jesus' life by His contemporaries.
then there's a book that records the first years of the christian movement.
the remainder of the new testament consists of letters written to the fledgling groups of christians, or churches, that had begun to scatter out around the world in that first century AD.
 the theme of the whole Bible, the old and the new testaments, is the same.
it is that God is revealing Himself to man with the intent of rescuing him from his self-destructive rebellion. the basic claim of the Bible is that the man Jesus of nazareth is the apex of that revelation.

the old testament was written to get the world ready for this revelation.
the new was written to record the even and to explain its significance.
B. i follow what you're saying, but i can't promise i'll arrive at the same conclusions you have.
A of course not. all i'm asking is that you take a look.
whether the Bible is truth or not is beside the point.
for now the important thing is for you to understand that the christian position stands of falls on this one figure, Jesus.
if He does not prove to e what the Bible claims for Him, then christianity offers no answers for anyone.
can you see that?
B i see your point.
A my proposition is to give you the opportunity to examine the Bible for yourself so that you can draw your own conclusions on the question of Jesus' identity.
B right!
A as i said before, the new testament begins with four books that we call Gospels.
three are eyewitness accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, the other is by a physician.
why four?
it is as if four people standing on separate corners of an intersection witnessed an accident.
the four testimonies, although essentially the same, will vary according to where they were positioned and what details especially caught their attention.
163  by combining 4 testimonies, any event would be more thoroughly recorded. this is the effect of the 4 Gospels.
the sum of the 4 gives a quadraphonic record of Jesus' life.
i'd like to propose that we begin with the 4th Gospel, the Gospel of john.
john was one of Jesus' closest friends, so what we have in this book is an eyewitness account by someone who knew Him intimately.
his account begins on page 1137.
lets begin by reading the first three verses.
B 'in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. he was with God in the beginning. through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.
A did you understand that?
B no
A i don't blame you. let's see if we can decipher the meaning.
what does Word refer to in this passage?
B i don't know.
A look at verse 14.
B. 'the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.
A so evidently this 'Word' became a human being. who would that be?
B Jesus?
A. right. now reread the three verses putting Jesus in place of Word.
what is john claiming about Jesus?
B that He existed in the beginning.
that He was God.
that He created the world.
but i can't agree with that!
A i'm not asking you to agree, remember?
my part is just to help you understand what is written here.
would you agree that this is what john is claiming about Jesus?
B yes, but i can't accept it.
A fine, let's go on. could you read the next two verses?

and so it goes. our purpose is to guide our nonchristian friend through the book of John, helping him understand what the book says concerning two questions: 1. who is Jesus? 2. what does He want of me?
OUR IMMEDIATE CONCERN IS not to extract agreement or to win arguments;
it is TO PRODUCE UNDERSTANDING.
WE NEED TO LEAVE ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT AND DOUBT.
IT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT ALONE WHO CONVICTS OF SIN, righteousness and judgment,
NOT US.
IT IS THE BIBLE THAT REVEALS THE TRUE INTENTS OF THE HEART.
we should leave these responsibilities were they belong.
our part as we co-labor with God is to bring the nonchristian into contact with these powers
and to love him as he struggles his way out of his rebellion and into faith.

164  a set of guideline questions for the book of john has been included in the appendix at the back of this book. they are not comprehensive and with experience you will undoubtedly come up with additional questions that will serve better than mine. but i offer them as a start. it's usually best to try to cover one chapter of john at a time. obviously, you'll not exhaust the contents of a chapter in an hour's discussion. but if you can't resist going into every little detail, you'll soon be studying by yourself again!
now back to our dialogue.
an hour or so has gone by and we have just finished the first 14 verses of the first chapter of john.
we refer back to our original invitation: that we would help our friend research the message of the Bible for himself.
at this point, as far as he knows, this is the first and last discussion the two of us will ever have on this subject.
A that's enough to get you started.
my impression is that you are getting a hold of the meaning of the text.
how do you feel about it?
B it's complicated, but, yes, i'm getting it.
A it gets easier from here on as john begins now to narrate events in Jesus' life.
do you want to continue?
B yes.
A let's pick it up from here next time.
in the meantime, if you feel like reading ahead, do it.
underline anything that strikes you as being especially interesting or significant and put a question mark in the margin beside anything you don't understand.
let's get together again in a week or so and discuss your observations and questions.

rather than asking for a commitment to study through the entire book of john or even for a six weeek commitment, it is better to take it one week at a time. the more loosely we hold people, the freer they will feel around us. if we establish expectations and they don't fulfill them, there will be a sense of failure. we can avoid this simply by not expressing expectations or by not setting any standards. the continuing of the studies must depend on genuine interest in the subject and on the strength of the rapport or friendship between the 2 of us. 
the importance of reaffirming our relationship in between the bible sessions cannot be overstated!  a 15 minute drop in visit or even a quick phone conversation communicates acceptance and interest on our part
165  leisure time together is better yet. when you're with him, talk about him, about things that are of interest to him - sports or even the weather. but DON'T  just talk about the Bible. we will soon wear thin if we are only conversant on the first chapter of John.

sometimes the nonchristian is totally unabashed among his friends about his awakening interest in the Bible. more often it is the other way around. he struggles with feelings of embarrassment and fears of being ridiculed. we need to be aware of these feelings. nicodemus came to Jesus at night because he didn't want his colleagues to know of his interest in this controversial man. Jesus, of course, realized this, but he didn't send nicodemus away to come back when it was daylight. a person on his way to Christ is already battling with his inner demons. he doesn't need any additional enemies at the moment. so we need to be discreet and reassure him.

one way to honor this compunction of our friend is to be careful about where and when we meet to study. the location should be neutral and private. church buildings are out because they are not neutral. restaurants and offices are not private enough. homes are good.

many years ago, a friend and i conducted some evangelistic rap sessions in several fraternities on a particular campus. we got ourselves invited to conduct discussions. in most cases, the fraternity members would gather in the lounge and we would make our presentation, eventually throwing the session open for questions. afterwards we would organize those who were really interested into study groups.
in one fraternity we decided to have the study in jack smith's room, it went great the first week - we thought. but we had taken the rest of the fraternity by surprise. the following week they were ready for us. apparently they had spent the entire week getting ready for us!

everything was normal for the first 30 minutes. then suddenly a mocked-up radio program blared from a tape recorder placed just outside the door. there were a few phrases of music. then came the commercials, more music, then more commercials. he commercials advertised such things as genuine John-the-Baptist road sandals and pictures of Jesus that glow in the dark. jack smith and the other fraternity brothers participating in the study were mortified. my feelings were more of frustration. our study was being interrupted! as i look back on this episode, i can hardly believe we did what we did next. we continued to meet in jack smith's room!  the other fraternity members fled the study, so it was only jack and us. what could he do/? we were using his room! the harassment continued. finally, when jack's social life was in ruins, he got up the courage to tell us he never wanted to see us again.

somehow we justified what we did in the name of boldness. but the

166  pressures that accompany being identified with Christ always come soon enough. we should be the last to contribute to them!
in this chapter we have treated the subject of getting started on a one-on-one basis. very often this is where it all begins - with one individual.  if we start out with the idea that before anything can happen we must organize a group of nonchristians, we could easily overlook the individual opportunities. frequently these prove to be the greatest in the long run!  but the approach we have described here can, of course, also be applied effectively on the small group level.

Chapter 19 - THE BIBLICAL BASIS FOR FAITH

our objective in going to the primary source is to bring people to faith in Jesus Christ mark twain defined faith as 'believing in something you know really isn't true'. but VALID FAITH is just the opposite - it MUST BE BASED ON TRUTH.
one of the most helpful definitions of faith in the bible is found in romans 4.21; 'being fully persuaded that god had power to do what He had promised'.  faith is the confidence that god will do what He has said He will do. coming to faith then, means KNOWING what God has said and done and then STAKING ONE'S LIVE ON IT.  faith in God is not a leap in the dark. it is a CONSCIOUS, VOLUNTARY SUBMISSION TO HIS WILL FOR US.

evangelism provides the nonchristian with the kind of input he needs to resp9ond to God on the level of faith. for this we need to lay a base of truth. at what point can we know that has been accomplished? it is not always easy to evaluate.
in an unpublished paper on 'the doctrine of sin in cross-cultural church planting', wayne dye described the efforts of a group of missionaries working among new guinea highlanders. as they involved themselves with these primitive people, the missionaries became extremely concerned with the polygamy and betel-nut chewing they observed among the villagers - so much so that these two practices became the watershed issues for the christian fellowship.

the villagers, however, felt other issues were more serious. to them, a long life depended more upon the avoidance of discord.
dye reported one case where a number of converts had responded to
168  the missionaries efforts. they were baptized and for several years they tithed, attended church and obeyed the imported rules for christian behavior. one day the village leaders went to the missionaries and said 'we ought to have done enough by now to repay Jesus for His death'. then they reverted to paganism.
what happened? faith had not occurred at all. something that LOOKED  like christian faith had been constructed upon the highlanders' pagan presuppositions. consequently, the villagers had gone along with the missionaries until they tired of it, then went their own way again.

in a case like this were the contrast is so sharp between christianity and paganism, it doesn't require unusual perception to recognize what went wrong. but this same danger lurks wherever evangelism occurs and i is often very difficult to spot.
i met henrique in curitiba, brazil, in january of 1964. we met in an art store and truck up a conversation.
henrique was one of the most brilliant men i have ever known. he was a voracious reader with a retentive memory. he could discuss ay subject from byzantine art to the genetic code as if he had finished a book on the subject the day before. along with portuguese, he spoke flawless english and spanish. he also  spoke german and french. he was 21 when we met, recently married and the owner of a language school.
henrique and i drifted from the art store to a restaurant where we had tea. his first question was, 'what are you, an american, doing in curitiba? when i told him, he replied, 'fine. convert me first, then we'll have a whole school we can go to work on. he meant it. he wanted me to explain the gospel right there and he had decided to accept it even before he heard it. i held him off until the next day so we could sit down and work our way through the Bible. that next day henrique made a decision. a few weeks later his wife followed suit. he and i saw each other every day for several years. a deep friendship developed. we became like brothers.

but i had know henrique only a week or so when i spotted a dangerous weakness. i noticed it the first time we ate a meal together. he was uncontrolled in his eating. alerted, I  bean watching for other symptoms of lack of self control. they were present in the way he handled his money, in the way he ran his business and in the urgency with which he smoked. i was scared. 'the fruit of the Spirit is...self control (galatians 5.22-3).  but it wasn't there.

the bible was still a novelty to henrique, so he was busy devouring that. he was an audacious witness, but that too was still a novelty. i feared that when the newness wore off and continued progress had o depend upon a deeper level of motivation, we would be in trouble. we were.

when he ceased to open the Bible on his own, we  began to do it
169  together to compensate for his lack of personal discipline. daily for over 2 years, he and i met over the scriptures. consequently, henrique's life maintained a semblance of christian behavior. but i never saw the Holy Spirit do anything about his basic problems. i grew irritated with God and asked Him why I had to do His part of the job as well as my own. that attitude didn't help either.

i couldn't sustain those daily transfusions indefinitely. so after a couple of years had gone by, i decided i had to wean him. henrique would have to begin getting his nourishment from God Himself.

when we returned to curitiba after being away for a 7 month furlough, we found that henrique's business had gone bankrupt and he had divorced his wife and left town.

the last time henrique and i were together was in a restaurant in porto alegre in 1971. his second career and his second marriage were disintegrating. in the course of our conversation he said, 'you don't know how close you came to getting me to become a christian back there in curitiba!'

henrique had been attempting to live the christian life without being a christian and i had been trying to help him. how futile! henrique had made a decision but i had not helped him lay an adequate basis or faith. consequently, he and i spent 2 years perpetuating an illusion.

we must take care that faith is constructed on the only sure foundation, the rock of the living Word of god, incarnate and written (ephesins 2.20).  faith cannot res on anything else without being compromised. it cannot be syncretized with other religious beliefs or pagan or humanistic presuppositions. we come to God on His terms, not ours.

how easy it is to gloss over big issues with a few glib phrases, elicit a prayer or some other action we interpret as 'a decision',  and move on, happy with our success. one of the challenges for the missionary is to discern whether those he is ministering to have actually put their faith in Jesus Christ or are merely following the missionary himself. sometimes an entire generation can go by before such a misplace trust is discovered.
so wherever evangelism takes place, the witness should seek for a genuine response. superficial, well-meaning decisions tend to sabotage the real thing. in henrique's case, he had done everything i told him was necessary for conversion. so both he and i assumed a spiritual rebirth had occurred when it actually hadn't. wen this happens, the effect will be either confusion, as in our case, or disillusionment.
when a person has tried our offer and is expecting the promised benefits which never materialize, the end result is likely to be disillusionment.when i shared the gospel with a next door neighbor while living in the US, he replied, 'Hell, i've been saved three times. he had

170  tried it, but it hadn't worked, so he was into something else.
how do we avoid this?

three elements of personality are involved in making a decision to become a christian or in making any significant decision for that matter. they are the emotions, the intellect and the will.

for example, a young man meets a young woman. they are immediately attracted o one another. they both say to themselves,  'now there is someone i'd like to marry.  at that point, if the emotions had their way, there would be a wedding. but the intellect intervenes, questioning the impulsive emotional response. would we be compatible? what is she really like?  can i afford to support her?  both conclude it would be better to take some more time and answer a few questions before hey proceed. so the 2 begin spending more time with each other. he eventually concludes hat she is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. now his intellect has sided with the emotions on the idea of  marriage.
but the final and heaviest vote remains to be cast - that of the will. it stops the march toward the altar with the questions, 'am i willing to give up this lifestyle for another? what about my freedom - is it worth the trade?  am i willing to assume the added responsibility?  the marriage will occur only when the will finally agrees with the emotions and the intellect. and so it is in coming to Christ.

isn't this the message of the parable of the sower?...(matthew 13.19-23)

the difference in the response is in the difference in the soil, not in the seed. 4 kinds of soil. 4 different responses.

1. there was the seed sown on the path. the path was hard. there was not enough loose soil there to produce even an emotional response. we all know people like this. indifferent, they seem not to care about spiritual things. these are the most difficult of all to attempt to win. such people may be cultured and gracious, but impervious to the Word of God. heir only hope is for God to break up their hardness, thus changing the consistency of the soil, and preparing it to receive the good seed with people like this the place to begin is with intercession. god does break up their hardness as we pray. i've seen him do it often and it's always impressive.

2.  then there's the rocky soil. his person hears and initially receives he word with joy. he responds emotionally, but lacks and adequate basis for faith, so his response is short-lived. what happened? these people do their thinking after making a decision. they have second thoughts about what they have done and feel embarrassed over heir gullibility or impulsiveness. very often they will avoid those who were responsible for leading them o the decision.

in such situations, the parable explains, there was no real understanding in the first place. the intellect had not been satisfied that what was being decided could stand up to closer scrutiny. for some reason, the person just wasn't mentally ready for a binding commitment to Christ.

3. some seed falls on the thorny soil. here the seed does germinate. it looks good.  surely this time there's life! but other seeds lie unnoticed in this same soil. they are 'the worries of this life' and the 'deceitfulness of wealth'. hey are other concerns and ambitions. the will is harboring other commitments which in time choke off the person's response to the gospel.

why does a person like this make a decision to become a chrisian at all? he may make a decision simply because he has run out of arguments against the gospel. he can no longer come up with any good reasons whey he shouldn't become a christian - even though he really doesn't want to. it's usually not very difficult to destroy a person's arguments against the gospel. often when someone finds himself in this position, he simply says, 'you win'. he gives in to the truth, but he doesn't submit his life o Christ. his will remains intact.
have you ever stopped to reflect on how easy it would be for God to prove His existence to every breathing soul? or take Jesus - why didn't He o back to the temple in jerusalem just one time after He rose from the dead to give just one discourse and personally confront those who had killed Him 3 days earlier? instead of doing that, He limited Himself to

172  visiting those who already believed. had He returned o the temple, the whole world would have acknowledged His messiahship. why didn't He do it? i believe it was because He wasn't interested in the kind of response such an act would have encouraged. the world would have capitulated to His sovereignty against its will. there would have been no faith, no love, just a grudging admission as to the truth of His message.
the day will come when what i have just described will happen, but it will be the Day of Judgment.

another reason a person will make a decision to become a christian, while at the same time insisting on keeping his own will intact, is that he thinks he can make it work that way. but he can't. we come to god on His terms or not at all.
Jesus went though a phase of popularity in this 3.5 years of ministry. masses of people followed Him everywhere. they liked what He had to say. they were fascinated by His miracles. they wanted to make Him king. judging by outward appearances, Jesus was highly successful. but rather than being impressed b the response, He deliberately stung the multitude with a series of very hard statements that offended them and drove them back to their homes (john 6.25-66)

what was the issue? the people were following Him for the wrong reasons. He told them that unless hey were prepared to accept Him as the only source of eternal life, they had nothing in common with Him. although they liked Jesus, they weren't ready to give Him a central place in their lives. offended by His demands, they went their way.
the will has always been the greatest hindrance to personal faith. that is because man's basic problem ever since the Fall has been rebellion. satan told eve, 'you will be like God (genesis 3.5). that was an attractive offer! rebellion is insisting on being one's own god. (isaiah 53.6)

God is limited in what He can do with a rebellious individual. He created us in such a way that He cannot violate our freedom of choice. this fact is reflected in an appeal God made to His people: 'why will you die, O house of israel? for i take no pleasure in the death of anyone...repent and live (ezekiel 18.31-2)
often we evangelize those around us as if ignorance were the main obstacle to faith. it is an obstacle, but a secondary one. imagine how easy it would be to evangelize you city if the task merely involved informing the ignorant! but salvation means submission to Christ. there can be no other way.

4. the fourth soil is the good soil. 'it is the man who hears the word and understands it'. we know he's good soil because he's faithful. where there's fruit, we know there's life.

173  how do we know when spiritual life has been created? who do we know when a baby had been born? life speaks for itself. becoming a christian is equivalent to receiving the Holy spirit (romans 8.9) can it be possible for the Creator of all that exists, the One who possesses all power and wisdom, to slip into a life and remain there unnoticed/ the proof of spiritual life is not merely in being able to gibe the right answers to certain questions. it is in the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit: 'love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control' galatians 5.22-3.

Chapter 20 - THE DYNAMICS OF CONVERSION

we have concluded that the basic obstacle to faith is rebellion, not ignorance. if his is true, the means God uses to draw man to Himself will bear it out. as we saw earlier, God influences nations and works through circumstances and events o prepare people for His message. beyond this God has other INFLUENCES at His disposal: THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE SCRIPTURES and THE CHRISTIAN. these are the 3 basic means God uses in His work of reconciliation...

the need to get something going was almost overwhelming as we began our ministry in curitiba, brazil in 1964.  there we were with all the trappings family living implies. on one occasion, at the height of my frustration, i wrote in my journal, 'i am a full fledged missionary now. i have a house, a car and a camera.  the only thing missing is a ministry'.
we were foreigners, strangers in town and didn't know a soul. i found myself casting about for something i could do, some activity that would justify my existence to myself.

i soon discovered it's not hard to find hings to do if you are not choosy. opportunities began opening up, but as i considered them, God
176  convicted me with an unsettling thought from matthew 15.13. it dogged me everywhere i went and still does. Jesus said, 'every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots'.
how simple it is to get into some activity out of a misplaced sense of duty or because we were asked and couldn't say no or because it was something we just felt like doing. i realized that if god was not committed to what i got myself into in curitiba , eventually my efforts would be pulled up by the roots. nothing would remain. considering the options, i elected to turn down the opportunities i was contemplating and live with my tensions. GOD WAS GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE THE FIRST MOVE. my dependence on the Holy spirit reached a new level of desperation. i reviewed some promises in isaiah 45. 13-4. for 6 months i began every day by opening my Bible to these verses, praying and claiming those promises for our ministry in brazil.

Jesus said,  'apart from Me you can do nothing john 15.5 IF THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT COMMITTED IN TANGIBLE WAYS TO WHAT WE ARE DOING, WE SHOULD FIND OUT WHAT'S WRONG OR GIVE IT UP. after He had risen, Jesus told His disciples to go to jerusalem and lock themselves in a room to wait for the holy spirit to be sent. that was all they were capable of doing until the Holy Spirit arrived on the scene.

in john 16.7-11, Jesus  described the role of the Holy Spirit in the reconciliation process. He said He would send the Holy spirit to His disciples and that when He came, He would convict the world of guilt in regard to..sin, righteousness and judgment. these are exactly the 3 things needed to change the consistency of the soil of a person's heart in order for it to receive the good seed, which is the word of God.
Jesus expanded on these thee things with three cause and effect statements: 'in regard to sin, because men do not believe in Me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father...and in regard to judgment, because the prince of his world now stands condemned' john 16.9-11.  the cause and effect relationship of these three phrases is not immediately apparent.

what does the Holy Spirit's convicting a person of his sin have to do with not believing in Jesus Chris?  it has everything to do with it. UNBELIEF IS THE ROOT OF ALL SIN.  it is synonymous with rebellion. in luke 16 we read about the rich man who, finding himself in hell, became concerned about his brothers. so he asked that lazarus, the beggar who once lived by his from door and who also had died, should be sent to his bothers on earth to warn them. abraham's reply to this request was shocking:  'they have
177  moses and the prophets (the old testament) let them listen to them...if they do not listen to moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. luke 16.29-31

here again we are reminded that the basic problem with man is not ignorance, but rebellion. when people don't believe the Gospel message when they come to understand it, it is because they don't want to. so God sends His persuader, the Holy Spirit, to convict man of his sin.

what about the second phrase? Jesus said the Holy Spirit would convict men of guilt 'in regard to righteousness' because He was 'going to the Father' (John 16.10. what is the relationship here? simply this: Jesus is the perfect standard of righteousness. His life defined righteousness. while He was physically present in this world, man's unrighteouness was laid bare. this is supported by His statements, 'I am the light of the world' and 'you are going to have the light just a little while longer. walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you' (john 12.35).  when Jesus left this world, He sent the Holy spirit to take over this function. today, the Spirit is the one who measures the dimensions of true righteousness in a person's heart, to show him how far he falls short. 

what about the third phrase, 'in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned' john 16.11?  what is the cause and effect relationship here? we live on a fallen planet that is plagued by sin. this whole creation is coming into judgment. satan, the prince of this world, has been mortally wounded.
meanwhile the nonchristian lives and acts as if both his achievements and his possessions will somehow last forever. one of the things the Holy Spirit does for the nonchristian is to make him aware of the precariousness, futility and brevity of his life.

THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS OF SIN, RIGHTEOUSNESS AND JUDGMENT. WHAT A RELIEF TO DISCOVER THAT THIS RESPONSIBILITY HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO HIM, RATHER THAN TO US!
the Bible is our authority. it is able to stand on its own against the unbeliever. our job, as a witness, is not to defend it, but to give it an opportunity to work.
but what do we do with the nonchristian who refuses to accept the authority of the Scriptures?  the secularized person's position implies either unbelief or a rejection of the authority of Scripture. then what?
WE SHOULD NOT ALLOW OURSELVES TO GET DRAWN INTO DISCUSSIONS OVER THE INSPIRATION AND AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE.  not that this is not an important issue, but it's just not the right place to begin. the truths of the gospel have

178  their sequence and we cannot deal with them out of that sequence any more than one could put a roof on a house that hasn't been framed up.
we have a friend, jorge, who became a christian. then his fiancee, elisa, accepted Christ. elisa's german father, who was still a loyal supporter of the third reich, was aghast. he came to our house to find out who we were and what we were doing with his daughter. he was so angry that as he crossed our living room he didn't see a large wooden coffee table in the middle of the room. he smashed into the table so hard he upset it. in his rage, partly because of what had happened to his daughter and partly because of the pain in his shin, he announced loudly that he was going to begin a study of the Bible from cover to cover to disprove its credibility. he was going to begin in genesis and work his way through and record all the errors and contradictions he discovered.

of course, he never made it. every question he raised remained inconclusive. he gave up somewhere in the deserts of leviticus and numbers. meanwhile, his daughter elisa grew into a strong christian.

almost all the people we have ministered to over the years have not at first been willing to accept the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures. nonetheless, only rarely have i had to discuss the subject, whether among nonchristians or with those we have brought to Christ. about the only useful information we have had to supply has been of a historical nature, the origins of the Bible, how the Scriptures came into existence and when they were written.

since the Bible IS authoritative, it assumes its rightful place as the new christian is exposed to it. gradually, unconsciously, he acknowledges its supremacy. this happens because the Bible is truth. the Bible brings light and truth to bear on the issues it addresses. when it considers man, life, society and the world, its words ring true.
but the Scriptures go one step further. they uncover the fallacies and inconsistencies in our personal philosophies.  'the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. hebrews 4.12
what else can the nonchristian do when confronted by the living, mind-revealing and prophetic capacities of the Scriptures but concede they are indeed authoritative?  he will either submit to Christ, or admit he's just not willing for Him to rule in his life.

what is the starting point? where do we begin if we are to bring about this kind of response? the answer to this question depends entirely on the
179  hearer's starting point. where is he in his understanding? what does he accept? what does he know?
whatever the case, as we saw in chapter 3, the entire christian message can be summarized with two questions. our aim is to BEGIN STUDYING THE SCRIPTURES WITH A PERSON AT WHATEVER POINT WE FIND HIM IN RELATION TO THESE TWO QUESTIONS..
WHO ARE YOU, LORD? and WHAT SHALL I DO LORD? (see acts 22. 8,10)

put another way, the two questions are,
who is Jesus? and
what does He want of me?

the Bible builds its case on one historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth. he said, 'if you really knew Me, you would know My Father as well. from now on, you do know Him and have seen Him...anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father'. john 14.7,9

the basic affirmation of christianity is that GOD is knowable because He HAS TAKEN THE INITIATIVE TO BRIDGE THE GAP between Himself and man. this is critical because if it were not true, man would be left to make his own way to God with only his 5 frail senses to go on. he would get nowhere. in short, either Jesus was God or God is unknowable. in that case, we would all be lost in a sea of relativism.
according to the Scriptures, God has revealed Himself in various ways throughout history, comsummating the process in Jesus Christ. 'in the past God spoke...through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His son...the son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being' hebrews 1.1-3.
'the exact representation of His being'.
you can't believe God exists?
then who is Jesus?
what about the justice of God?
do you have problems with it too? then look at Jesus.
what was His sense of justice like?
what about the problem of evil in the world?
how did Jesus deal with evil?
is the Bible the inspiried Word of God?
what did Jesus say about it?

until we settle this basic question regarding the person of Jesus, we cannot speak conclusively to any other particulars. but when we arrive at the conclusion the Jesus is God, we discover that many of our other questions, that once seemed so insoluble, suddenly become either redundant or easily understood.
the Bible brings people to this conclusion about Jesus. john said his Gospel was written 'that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name.'  john 20.31
180  Jesus took the unbelieving jews to task for missing the point as to the basic intent of the Scriptures. He told them they diligently studied the Scriptures 'because you think that by them you possess eternal life'. but he added, the intended purpose of the Scriptures is to 'testify about Me' john 5.39.
so the first function of the Scriptures in leading a person to conversion is to answer the question, 'Who is Jesus?' as we answer this question, the next one grows in importance.

obviously, if the nonchristian draws any conclusion about Jesus other than that He is God, this second question is irrelevant. but if the conclusion is that He is who He claimed to be, every other concern in his life is eclipsed by this question: what does He want of me?

if the incarnation is true, if God actually became man, this fact must be of utmost significance to every man on earth. consequently we must ask, 'what do You want of me?

for the nonchristian, the answer is narrowed down to a single word: BELIEVE.

on one occasion, the multitude that followed Jesus asked a question very similar to the one we are discussing here: 'what must we do to do the works God requires?' Jesus answered, 'the work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent'.  john 6.28-9

i'll never forget the day i understood the answer to this first question, 'Who is Jesus?' the only logical response i could think of was to put the answer to the second question into action immediately. i acquired a notebook and spent weeks combing the gospels for every command i could find. with two thirds of the notebook filled, i despaired. i realized i could neither live up to it all, nor even keep track of it. i hadn't understood the dynamic nature of my subject matter. THE BIBLE IS A LIVING BOOK THAT SPEAKS TO LIFE AS WE LIVE IT.  the Bible comes alive through the promptings of the Holy Spirit according to our individual needs.
the fact is, we never outgrow either of these 2 questions. continued progress in the christian life comes as a result of further insight into Jesus Christ. 'who is He and 'what does He want me to do? are the first questions for every occasion in life. they are also the primary questions we ask as we daily read the Scriptures.
in this chapter we have discussed how God employs a certain division of labor in the ministry of reconciliation. CHRISTIANS, individually and collectively, bear witness by their life and word. they bring the nonchristian within hearing range od the Scriptures. the SCRIPTURES reveal the truth

181  and testify of Christ. the HOLY SPIRIT convicts, draws the person to repentance and gives life.

following is an example of how these three functions work together.

abrahao was an agricultural student at the university of parana in brazil. his purpose for being in school was not as much to get an education as it was to stimulate political unrest. he was a communist. it happened that his roommate in the student boarding house where he lived was a new christian. his name was jark. abrahao ridiculed jark unmercifully until finally, in frustration, jark invited abrahao to one of our open studies. abrahao had gotten what he wanted, the opportunity to cause one more disruption.
A sat in a corner of our living room where the study was taking place, apparently disinterested in everything that was being said. suddenly, as the discussion was finally winding down and everyone was becoming more interested in having coffee than in what was being said, A's hand went up. he asked the discussion leader a well-placed question. the leader paused to regroup his thoughts. as he did so, A's hand went up again. he fired a second question. now there were 2 questions to cope with. the leader became confused. the pause lengthened. A moved in with 2 or 3 more questions, one on top of the other. finally, as the leader sat struggling with his confusion, A said, 'see, you don't know what you're talking about. you can't answer my questions'.

in the following weeks, A never missed a meeting. he did his best to create as much confusion as possible. i entertained the idea of asking him not to attend any more discussions, but i decided to make one last attempt to get through to him.
after our next study, as A and i were chatting, i asked him, 'A, what kind of odds will you give me?
he asked what i mean. i went on, 'what kind of odds will you give me that i am right and that you are wrong-that God does exist?
he laughed and replied, 'none!
then i said, 'do you mean to tell me you have examined all known knowledge and have researched everything unknown and that you have scoured the universe and now you stand before e saying, 'relax, there is no God?
he replied, 'i wouldn't say that.
i said, 'then you have to admit there is a possibility that i am right and you are wrong.
182  he conceded. i then pressed him: 'what odds do you give me? 20%?
he said, 'no.
i bargained for 15, 10 and finally said, 'you must at least give me 5%.
he asked me what i was getting at. i replied, 'if i'm right and you're wrong, you're dead. and since there is that possibility, the only rational thing for you to do is to check it out to see which of us is right.
he asked, 'how do i do that?
i replied, 'go to the original sources. anyone doing serious research bypasses the secondary sources (what other people have said about a subject) and examines the original data .
he asked, 'what are the original sources?
i said, 'the Bible
he said, 'i don't believe the Bible.
i said, 'that gives you and advantage over me. the Bible is the only original source we christians possess. if you can disprove the Bible, you win.
he asked, 'wht are you proposing?
i explained, 'the Bible is a thick book with fine print. you don't read it like any other book -from start to finish-because it is really a library of 66 volumes. you are going to need help in knowing which book to pull off the shelf first. my offer is to show you where to look and to help you understand what it says.
A accepted my offer and we set a date for our first meeting.
i introduced him to the gospel of john. we started by my asking him to read the first 3  verses: 'in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. through him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. john 1.1-3
i asked A if he understood what was being said, he didn't. i asked him, 'what does the word Word refer to?
he didn't know, so i referred him to verse 14: 'the Word became flessh and made his dwelling among us.
with a little help he realized the passage was talking about Jesus Christ. when he understood that the Bible claimed Jesus was eternal and that he had created all things, he was ready to fight. i defused his arguments by saying, 'i'm not asking you to believe or to agree with what is written here. i just want to make sure you understand what it says. do you?
he replied, 'yes, but...
i said, 'good, let's go on to the next paragraph.
as we worked our way through the next passages over the following
183  weeks, A didn't appear to budge an inch. he assigned every claim about Christ to legends or exaggerated accounts. i stuck to the single objective of helping him understand what the Bible was saying about who Jesus was. thus, in sp8ite of his rebellion, our meetings, though always electric, were debate-free.
meanwhile, my friends and i prayed that the Holy Spirit would accomplish His work of persuasion.

after a few months, i began to spot signs of change. A quit disagreeing with the Scriptures. he began to see the relationships between one passage and another. he gradually changed from being a generally negative person to being positive. he volunteered to spend his summer vacation working on a government-sponsored project for the poor. when the summer was over, he returned as an old friend, no longer as an adversary. without a word we went back to studying the gospel of john.

finally, i could cntain my curiosity no longer. he was so changed! as we sat down to study joh 13, i said, OK, A, what's happened?
he replied, 'yeah, it's true.
'what's tru/
'Jesus is God.
'so?, i pressed him.
'well, i guess i'm a christian now. but, he went on, i need to tell yo one thing. i'm politically active and i've taken a position which is against our government. i'm also anti-american. my friends criticize me for seeing you.
i said, 'go on.
he said, 'that's it. i just thought you should know.
'do you think it makes any difference with me?
'no.
then i said, 'i'd like to show you a verse. it happened to be in the chapter we were about to study.  we turned to john 13.13:  'you call Me 'Teacher and 'Lord', and rightly so, for that is what I am.
i asked a, 'what does it mean if Jesus is our teacher?
his reply was perfect. 'it means what we think and believe must come from Him. we refer our ideas back to Him.
'do you accept that?
'yes.
'what does it mean for Jesus to be Lord?
again his reply was excellent. 'it means that He's the boss.
do you accept that?
he said that he did.
we never did discuss politics or economics. A and i were now under the same teacher and under the same authority -Jesus Christ. both
184  of us were responding to the same call: 'be worthy citizens of the Kingdom.
what is the lesson from this illustration?

our job is to help a person UNDERSTAND. the burden of proof is not on us, but on the Scriptures. the responsibility to convince lies with the Holy Spirit, not with us. we are responsible to be faithful to that person by maintaining his exposure to the Word of God until a final decision is made, for or against.
i have a christian friend who is one of those beautiful people who attracts every person he meets. he always seems to say the right thing at the right time. he witnesses with ease wherever he goes and leaves people hungry for more. when we first became friends years agao, i thought, HERE IS ONE PERSON WHO IS GOING TO MAKE AN IMPACT.
it never materialized. he's beautiful like a butterfly, but you can never count on a butterfly to land on the same flower twice. bringing a person to Christ from far away requires perseverance and tenacity. it means establishing and maintaining a relationship as he goes through the throes of resistance. at times, it is only that relationship that prevents the nonchristian from rejecting the Holy Spirit and running away.
obviously, this is costly. it costs hours as well as emotional and spiritual energy. if we are not convinced of the eternal worth of the individual, we'll never do it.

God's means of communicating with unreconciled men and women are the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures and the christian. each has a specific function. the christian testifies to what he has seen and heard (I john 1.1-3) he brings the nonchristian into contact with the Scriptures. then the Holy Spirit does the convincing. it is through the 'living and active' word of God (hebrews 4.12) that an individual is born again.
it is important to keep this division of labor clear in our minds. for us to attempt to do the work of the Holy Spirit or that of the Scriptures is futile.  if a person is convinced by the Spirit of God and spiritually reborn through the Word of God, we can be confident of the kind of new life that has been created. it will bear fruit. as for us, we have had the privilege of making the introductions.

Chapter 21 - GUIDING SOMEONE THROUGH THE SCRIPTURES
Questions are our most valuable tool.

185  a good question is the best possible teaching tool. because Jesus was the foremost Teacher, no one could ask questions the way He could. frequently, with a single question He penetrated to the core of even the most controversial issues.

'which is easier: to say...'your sins are forgiven, or to say, 'get up, take your mat and walk? mark 2.9

'show Me a denarius. whose portrait and inscription are on it? luke 20.24

''but what about you?...who do you say I am? matthew 16.15

'john's baptism - ws it from heaven or from men? mark 11.30

Jesus' questions made an impact. they drew from His listeners conclusions they would never have faced up to otherwise. a study of the gospels for the purpose of observing Jesus' use of questions and their effect on others is in itself a course in communication.

communication takes place whenever understanding is transferred from one person to another. it is not what we manage to say to someone that is important; it is what is heard. what sinks in, that matters. the use of questions is especially effective in communication because this harmonizes with the way our natural thought processes work. as we think, we

186  constantly pose questions to ourselves:

what do i need to do next?
when can i work that in?
at what percentage point does the other option become favorable?

the sciences are structured on hypotheses and research.
a hypothesis is a statement that serves as a question.
research either confirms, disproves or modifies the hypothesis.
as we repeat this testing process, we make progress in our understanding.

i have entitled this chapter 'Guiding Someone Through the Scriptures'.
'guiding' is more descriptive of what we should do in the course of evangelizing than either 'telling' or 'teaching'. our purpose is to guide the nonchristian into the Scriptures in search of truth. we must recognize that his basic assumptions and values are not christian. some reconstruction must go on at this primal level of assumptions before he comes to faith and this reconstruction takes time. it involves discoveries and reformulations on his part. much of this will be subliminal, but it will take place. we need to be patient guides during this process.
if we limit our understanding of evangelism to TELLING (giving instructions regarding the body of truth), we will not have the staying power needed to work with people who must make a full 180 degree turn in their personal presuppositions and values.  such people need room to think in a stimulating, accepting environment. learning to ask the right kinds of questions is a key to meeting these needs.
generally we don't give much thought to  asking questions. we're usually more concerned about being able to ANSWER the questions nonchristians customarily pose. in fact, christians often fall prey to 2 misconceptions. they are the 2 sides of a single coin, which go like this:
1) i'm not qualified to get involved in evangelism because i can't seem to answer people's questions,
2) i'm ready for anybody because i've learned the answers to the top 10 questions nonchristians ask.

these miss the point because they assume that it is our answers to questions that are the most important. we need to know how to deal with questions, but we do not NOT need to know all of the answers. in reality, the ability to ask questions is more important in guiding someone through the Scriptures. we'll see why as we move along in this chapter and consider how to ask and how to answer questions.
HOW TO ASK QUESTIONS
we are prepared to lead a bible study only when we have formulated a few questions that will draw the other person into discovering the relevant truths of a passage. the ability to do this presupposes, of course, a fair
187  UNDERSTANDING on our part of WHAT THE PASSAGES SAYS AND MEANS.  that will take some work, especially the first time around.
in chapter 15 we talked about the imprtance of making evangelism a team effort. we will need that team at this point because few of us have the initiative or discipline to persevere week after week in Bible study when left to ourselves. hence, one of the first activities you might do together could be to study the book of John or whatever book you choose, chapter by chapter. you would study with two purposes: to UNDERSTAND THE TEXT for yourself and to FORMULATE QUESTIONS to use with others.
questions can have 3 functions. they can
1. LAUNCH a discussion on a subject
2. GUIDE a discussion and
3. serve to SUMMARIZE what has been said.
the following are examples of launch, guide and summary questions:
LAUNCH; what observations did nicodemus make about Jesus?
GUIDE; how did Jesus respond to thses observations?
SUMMARIZE: what can we conclude from this dialogue about our human abilities to understand spiritual matters?

the questions on the book of John in the appendix are mostly lauch questions. you will find that as you actually get into the discussion of a passage, you will be able to improvise most of the guide and summary questions. it is helpful to bear in mind that questions can serve all 3 of these functions. it is possible, with a proper use of questions, to move the discussion into deeper levels of communication.

there are a number of rather standard guide questions that are frequently useful. some of these are,
-why do you think he said that?
-what do you think he was getting at?
what else do you see in this verse?
-why do you say that?
-what do you mean?
-why do you think he uses the word_______here?

there are also some basic summary questions that you could use:
how would you summarize the main idea of this paragraph?
who would you say this in your own words?
who would you summarize the idea we've been discussing?

we have described 3 functions that questions can have in a discussion. there is also a variety in kinds of questions. there are questions for,
-UNDERSTANDING: what does it say? what else?
-INTERPRETATION or CLARIFICATION: what does this mean?
-JUSTIFICATION: how did you arrive at this conclusion?
-DIRECTION: mike, what do you think?
-COMPARISON: where did we see this same idea before?
-APPLICATION: how does this affect us?

we began this chapter by saying that questions are the best possible teaching tools. but they can also be used as weapons. in careless hands THEY CAN KILL OR MAIM COMMUNICATION IN A MINUTE. this is because questions are seldom neutral. a question is also a statement. the statement behind the old question, 'when did you quit beating your wife? is obvious. but there is also a staement behind an apparently innocuous question such as 'how does this chapter apply to you?  with one or two similar questions we can checkmate the person we're studying with at any time. it might go like this;
-what does this chapter say about you? (this chapter talks about you!)
-would you agree that what it says is true? (you must change!)
-what do you think you should do about it? (you must change now!)

with a few well-placed questions of this sort, what started out as an accepting environment with time and room to think is transformed into a verbal war game. and we have just ended it by pinning our quarry to the wall. it's so easy to do, but it will happen only once!

the wise thing to do is to restrict our application questions to those of a more general nature, such as 'did you learn anything about yourself in this chapter? then stop; back off. give the other person the room he needs to make his 180 degree turnabout. he'll get there.

when a nonchristian begins to study the Bible with you, one of his biggest unspoken questions will be, 'to what degree will i be able to express what i really think with him? what will be the reaction if i express my true doubts and questions? the person will first send out some rather 'safe' trial questions. how we react to these questions will affect the level of communication between us from then on. if we respond with dogmatism (which is a form of insecurity) or with defensiveness (which is another..)

189 the nonchristian will quickly understand the rules of the game and will proceed accordingly. he will either operate within our limitations - or he will disappear. but if we demonstrate an attitude that encourages the expression of doubts and questions, our effectiveness will be far greater.

even more effective that ASKING a good question is BEING ASKED A GOOD QUESTION by the person you are guiding. when the discussion of a passage is conducted on the basis of the questions the other person raises, the relevance of the discussion increases. so we should give the nonchristian the first chance. after reading a paragraph, we first ask him what questions come to his attention. sometimes he doesn't really understand enough to ask a question, but often he comes up with enough to carry the discussion. if, after he has had his opportunity, an important truth remains unaddressed, we can come in with our own questions.
when we approach our guiding session in this way, we create a climate where all questions - even questions unrelated to the text - are free to flourish. these are the questions the nonchristian has carried for years but has never had the freedom or opportunity to raise before. it is important to give these questions a genuine welcome when they come up. they may scare you to death when you don't have a notion of how to answer them, but you can worry about that later. the important thing is to receive the nonchristian's questions positively.
WHY DO PEOPLE ASK QUESTIONS? th motive is not always a desire to learn. they may not even want an answer. sometimes questions are asked with the intent TO TRAP OR EMBARASS. we'll can these CAPTIOUS QUESTIONS. or a person can ask a question in an EFFORT TO ESCAPE,  to JUSTIFY HIS OWN ACTIONS,  or JUST TO BUY TIME. we'll call these SELF-DEFENSE QUESTIONS. then there are STRAIGHTFORWARD QUESTIONS that are truly motivated by a DESIRE TO KNOW AND LEARN. these are honest questions.

questions need to be answered according to their intent. as this writer artfully put it, 'do not answer a fool according to his folly or you will be like him yourself. answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes proverbs 26.4-5. in other words, if we miss the intent or fail to perceive the motivation behind a question, we will fall into the other's trap. to try to give an honest answer to a captious question is to play the fool.
there are many illustrations of these three kinds of questions in the dialogues recorded in the Gospels. it is instructive to observe the way Jesus responded to questions. rather than taking a question at face value, He responded according to the motives of the questioner. in a dialogue in luke 10.25-37, we have examples of how Jesus handled both a captious question and a question asked in self-defense.

on one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. 'Teacher, he asked, what must i do to inherit eternal life?  this was a captious question. rathr than seizing it as an opportunity to teach, Jesus countered with a question. 'what is written in the law? He replied. 'how do you read it?

he (the expert in the law) answered: 'love the Lord your God...' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.

'You have answered correctly, Jesus replied. 'do this and you will live.  people who ask captious questions are not looking for information, so Jesus gave this person none.  he only reminded him of what he already knew. but that was enough to put the aggressor on the defensive.
but he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'and who is my neighbor? - a self -defense question.
this time Jesus replied with a story, the parable of the good samaritan, which He typically concluded with another question: 'which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?
the expert in the law replied, 'the one who had mercy on him'. self defense questions are frequently very much like this one, in which the legalist attempted to split hairs over who constitutes a neighbor. such questions are raised in an effort to evade personal responsibility or to justify oneself. Jesus' final reply, 'God and do likewise', certainly did nothing to restore the man's equilibrium. he probably felt devastated as he came away from that exchange.
but Jesus had all the time in the world for those who came with honest questions. 'when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything'. mark 4.34

Jesus is an impossible act to follow. but we can take some lessons from Him. we can either weary ourselves in vain preparing and expounding our irrefutable arguments and apologetics in response to insincere questions, or we can separate out the questions that come our way, taking the serious questions seriously and not allowing the others to disturb us. we need to realize that even if we could satisfactorily answer the captious questions, it would make little difference in bringing the questioner closer to Christ! so our responses need to be in accord with the INTENT  behind the questions.

191  if we are successful in creating an affirmative environment for the nonchristian, he should feel the freedom to raise all sorts of questions. he may test you with probing questions before asking honest questions. often  the intent of a test question is not malicious as in the case from luke 10. rather, the questioner wants to see if it will be safe for him to ask his more serious questions. it serves as a trial balloon. it is not easy, nor is it necessary, to identify the intent of every question. but there are a few simple guidelines that, if followed, can help sort out the questions for us.

when the nonchristian asks a question, you need to ask yourself, not him, several questions:
what difference will it make if i answer this question?
what will he do if i give him a satisfactory answer?
will he accept it and build on it?
or is this question more of a general statement of rejection than anything else?

if, after asking yourself these questions, you conclude that the nonchristian's question deserves an immediate answer and if you feel you are prepared to answer it, go ahead and deal with it.

one characteristic of the honest question is that the questioner is willing to wait for his answer. it won't bother him if you say, 'that's a good question but i don't know how to answer it at the moment. let me study it this week and i'll show you what i find out the next time we get together. the person who is trying to test or trap you, however, will want his answer on the spot. but we've already seen how when the motives are not right, our best answers won't make any difference anyway.

questions that arise out of the text you are studying are usually honest questions, which should be treated as they come up. but since nobody has all the answers, inevitably some questions will arise that we won't know how to answer. that won't bother the other person if it doesn't bother us. to say 'i don't know but i'll try to find out' will build credibility rather than undermining it as we might fear. we should write such questions down, then come back with the answers when we have them.

questions that are unrelated to the text, that come out of the blue, are the ones that require closer scrutiny. for example, what will God do to the heathen who have never even heard His name?

192 there might be one of several motives behind such a question. it could be asked in a captious manner, in which case the question is not really a question at all. it is simply a statement trying to justify the person's unbelief by saying that God is not just.

or, the question could be asked in self defense. perhaps the discussion is getting too close to home for comfort. the person needs time and space. he senses either you or the Holy Spirit closing in on him and he's not ready for that. so he throws in a difficult question to halt the advance. sometimes the person really does need that space and you should allow him to have it. if the intent is similar to that of the legalist's question, 'who is my neighbor? we should not give an answer.

it's not difficult to avoid being caught in a diversionary tactic of this sort. you can say, 'now that's an important question and we'll get to it. let me write it down. have the person repeat it so you can record it. by writing a question down, you communicate that you are taking the other person seriously, listening to him and respecting his concerns and doubts.

the next time you meet, you need to be sure you have that piece of paper with you. as you begin the session, take it out and place it on the table before you. this will communicate a great deal. it will say, 'i've not forgotten your question. we'll get to it and if you have any similar questions, they are welcome too!
frequently it is impossible to answer a particular question for the simple reason that it has been asked out of sequence. for example, how can we discuss the justice of a God whose existence is in doubt? so we need to communicate the idea that questions have their sequence to the person with whom we are studying. this helps him understand why we are postponing answering some of his questions and it makes him feel free to ass new questions to his list.
by recording extraneous questions as they come along rather than attempting to answer them immediately, we are able to retain control of the direction of the dialogue. we can decide when and how to deal with these questions. thus, we can neutralize the wrong motives present when a questions first raised. the desire to trap or test us fades as we consistently demonstrate love and acceptance. as the relationship grows, the nature of the questions will change.

there are important exceptions, of course, to this idea of responding to questions according to their sequence. frequently, it becomes apparent that a particular question is, in fact, blocking the road to progress toward
193  Christ. even though we may not have had the time yet to lay the foundations for an answer, we may realize that the questioner really needs some kind of an answer before he can go on.

on such occasions, our response could go something like this: 'i can see this is an important question to you, so i'll try to show you what the Bible says in answer to it. i would't be surprised if the answer doesn't satisfy you (he has not yet conceded to the authority of the Scriptures), but just for your information, this is what the Bible says about this question.
whether the person accepts or rejects the answer we give in this situation is secondary. the improtant thing is to answer the question from the Bible.
when studying with people who don't believe the Bible, it is especially important to consistently use nothing but the Bible.
our position is: 'you're not ready to accept the authority of the Bible? that's understandable. one of the reasons we're sitting here together is to give you the opportunity to judge for yourself whether the Bible speaks the truth or not. so i'll try to keep my own opinions our of the discussion. we'll consider my personal opinions to be no better than anyone else's.  when you ask a question, i'll try to restrict myself to showing you what the Bible says in response.
any other position eventually serves to undermine the authority of the Bible. once we mix opinions, whether our own or those from secondary sources or traditions,  with truths from the Bible, we create a second authority: man himself! whenever this occurs, man eventually ends up having the last word.

this attitude of letting the Bible speak for itself must be based on our own deep confidence in the Bible. since it is the truth, it is authority. as such, it is fully capable of taking care of itself. as it addresses the issues of life and as it speaks of man and his society, it always rings true. as this occurs again and again, the nonchristian, usually subconsciously, simply begins to concede to the Bible's authority.
there is one key question that, when answered, unlocks the answers to most of the other questions. many of the previously impossible questions become easy, if not redundant. this watershed question is, of course, the one we raised in chapter 3, that of Jesus' identity.

Jesus' identity is the premise upon which our other answers are
constructed. for example, until a person acknowledges the deity of Christ, he is faced with an unresolvable dilemma when it comes to his relationship with God. this dilemma is described in luke 7.29-30: 'the people...acknowledged that God's way was right, because they had been baptized by john. but the pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by john.
one group said God was just; the other said He wasn't. those who said He was just had been baptized by john; those who said He wasn't just hadn't been baptized by john.  but what did john's baptism have to do with a person's position on God's justice? it was a baptism of repentance. to repent means to conclude that you are in the wrong. we have to come to that conclusion before we can admit that God is right.
in other words, IF GOD IS JUST, I AM NOT JUST.  but if i am right, then God is wrong. since i'm not ready to admit i am wrong, God has to be the one who is wrong. therefore i must find some injustice in Him. this is where the questions about the destiny of the heathen or the severely retarded child frequently have their origin. IT IS THE REASON WHY MAN, AFTER HE HIMSELF HAS TRANSFORMED THIS WORLD INTO A HELL, BLAMES GOD FOR THE MESS. either we must find something wrong with God, or we must assume the blame ourselves. but if we assume the blame, we also sentence ourselves to judgment with our own words.
when we settle the question of Christ Jesus' identity, we can bring ourselves to the point where we face up to our own injustice. it would be quite valid to translate romans 1.17, 'in the gospel the JUSTICE  of God is revealed'.
you question God's justice? examine Jesus' life. was He ever unjust? no. but also, in Him, there is deliverance from our own unjustness. we can face up to it.

once this is understood, the remaining questions almost answer themselves.
-you have a question about God's existence? that question is redundant now that we've identified Jesus as God.
-what is God like? look at Jesus.
what are the origins of the world?
what is man?
what is life all about?
the answers to these and similar questions are found in what Jesus had to say about these things.

195  as you grapple with the matter of guiding someone through the Scriptures,
here's some practical advice.
THINGS TO DO
-remember that 'telling is not teaching'
- remember that your job is to guide into the discovery of truth.
- rely on the Scriptures by letting the Bible assert its own authority and letting the Bible reveal the truth.
- use questions as your primary teaching tool
- learn to handle philosophical questions
- learn to capitalize on serious questions
- allow the person you are guiding to think and discover the answers
- keep conflict between the individual and the truth, not between the individual and you.
be aware of and sensitive to feelings and apprehensions.
-make the individual comfortable.
-control the characteristics of the study.
- control the make up of the group.
-keep a list of difficult questions and answer them in their logical sequence
- avoid arguing in defense of the Bible
- avoid debating on any subject.
- avoid giving the answers, especially dogmatic answers
- avoid feeling threatened by the strength of the opposition or by your own lack of knowledge.
- avoid defending philosophical positions
- avoid insisting on agreement
- avoid judging behavior

RESULTS TO EXPECT
- the Bible will assume its authority.
- the Bible will over power with truth
- the Holy spirit will do His part, both revealing and convicting
- the identity of Christ will become evident.

Chapter 22 - A TIME TO SOW, A TIME TO REAP

197  'as for you, you were dead'. ephesians 2.1
our ministry is to the dead. that's what evangelism is: working among the dead. but death is repulsive. it is ugly. we want to get away from it so we don't have to look at it.

so it is with the spiritually dead. their behavior is often ugly and embarrassing to us. we feel offended by the things they do and say. we're anxious to get them converted so that they can clean up their act. but the world is not a nice place to live in and often the people of the world are neither respectable nor nice to be around. nevertheless, it is precisely to these people that we are sent. 

Jesus said, 'it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. i have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Luke 5.31-2 later He communicated the same idea in his parable of the wedding banquet. according to this parable, when the upper social set began to make excuses, the king sent out his servants to stand on the street corners to gather in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. thus the wedding hall was filled with many social rejects. Luke 14.15-24

it is so easy to judge others, to measure others by our own criteria for acceptable behavior. but what realistic expectations should we have for people who are spiritually dead, who come to us maimed and blinded? what expectations should we have for the person who was abandoned when he was 11 years old? what about the man who has to overcome his resentment against his religious father who left him to clean up the financial and moral mess when he skipped town with his mistress?

198 repeatedly in the Old Testament, god says He punishes the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generations. anyone who has spent much time around people of the world understands the terrible truth of this sad legacy. there is a  law of cause and effect:  like father, like son (exodus 20.5). aberrant behavior is the norm for those we are sent to win. this decadence has been passed on from parent to child. thus, we should be neither shocked nor offended by what we encounter.
w are so given to judging others. it is so easy to carry judgment and criticism in our hearts against the nonchristian. we feel so virtuous when we condemn the husband who abandons his wife and emotionally cripples their children in the process. instead, we should weep. the dead are dead. they are under the spell of 'the ruler of the kingdom of the air' ephesians 2.2. that is the reality of the situation. we must be cognizant of the distance and the difference between the living and the dead if we are to have the tolerance and patience necessary to accompany someone in his pilgrimage out of the dominion of darkness into the light and life of the Kingdom of God's Son.

for the great majority of people, the road to Christ is long. although He is near, man is so very far. belief systems have to be turned around. many people have to do a total about-face. james engel summarized the belief system and the presuppositions that commonly prevail among what he calls modern man:
God, if He exists at all, is just an impersonal moral force.
man basically has the capacity within himself to improve morally and make the right choices.
happiness consists of unlimited material acquisition.
there really is no objective basis for right and wrong.
the supernatural is just a figment of someone's imagination.
if a person lives a 'good life', then eternal destiny is assured.
the Bible is nothing other than a book written by man.

the contrast between a system of belief such as this one and the christian position defines the distance that needs to be reckoned with as we take the gospel to this generation. this vast distance is not going to be closed by confrontation, debate and rebuttal.
we do not win people by proving to them that they are wrong.
rather it is the beauty and superiority of Christ that makes them realize there is a better way.
but such a realization takes time.
my own experience is that frequently the nonchristtian will spend a year or mare becoming acquainted with Christ through the Scriptures before spiritual birth occurs.
but such births after an adequate spiritual gestation period are always healthy.
the babe lives.
199  sustaining interest while planting and cultivating

whow do we sustain interest?
how do we keep a person coming back for more, week after week, when he's not even a christian?

we have already given several answers to this question.
it is the love and acceptance.
it is the absence of manmade norms and expectations.
it is our refraining from using the person for our own personal success.
it is the opportunity we offer him to take an honest look at the primary source.
it is the steady prompting of the Holy spirit through the Word of God.
these are the basic factors that keep people interested.
but there are other lesser, perhaps more technical, things  to keep in mind as well.
1.  watch the tempo of your Bible discussions.
frequently, someone will tell me, 'man, we went until midnight in our discussion last night. they didn't want to quit.
it may be true that they didn't want to quit. but the next day they will undoubtedly be sorry that they didn't, as they wearily drag themselves through the day. next week they'll think twice about whether they have the physical and emotional energy to go through another similar session. don't let a discussion drag on. quit while you're ahead, before people want you to.

observe this principle as you work though a chapter.
keep moving.
don't try to qring the last drop out of every question.
be the first, not the last, in the group to decide it is time to go on to the next paragraph.
in short, don't bore people
2. keep you content relevant.
when the people you are guiding through the scriptures comment on how profound you are, it is probably not a compliment. they are really saying they are having a hard time making sense of what you're talking about.
truth in its essence is simple

discussions become tedious when we belabor the theoretical or the doctrinal side of things.
they become alive when we succeed in correlating what the Bible says with everyday experience.

content must speak to the hearer.
it is not necessarily what catches your attention in a chapter that is important,
but what is relevant to the hearer.
there can be a large difference between your needs and interests and his.

3. take no-shows in stride.
don't take offense when the nonchristian cancels out at the last minute or simply doesn't show up.
it is an inevitable part of the dynamic of the process.
the nonchristian is ambivalent about the time he's spending studying the Bible.
he wants to continue and yet he doesn't!
as he begins to understand the implications of the christian message, this ambivalence frequently evolves into a real inner struggle.
this is progress.
200  one of my friends, as he gives his testimony describing his pilgrimage of several years toward Christ, tells of how he stood me up. he would be on his way over to where we met, looking for the slightest pretext for changing his plans. often he would simply decide to stop and have a beer with a friend rather than going on.
when this would happen, i'd let a couple of days go by. then i would drop in on him at the bak where he worked. we'd go have coffee together and spend a few minutes chatting. i would never ask him why he hadn't shown up. (I already had the answer to that.) and he would never offer any explanations. as we'd say goodbye, i'd ask, 'how's thursday night, after the evening news? so it went.

we should respond to no shows with acceptance. we get back on track by touching base - in person, if possible . touching base is important no matter how well things seem to be going. a quick visit or even a phone call confirms the friendship and prepares the way for the time when the struggles begin.

4. preserve the affinity in group situations.
recently, a lot of debate has been generated over what is being referred to as 'homogeneity'.  donald mcgavran  was the first to expound what he calls the homogeneous unit principle. essentially what he is saying is that people  don't like to gather with others who are different in any major way. therefore, a church will not grow if it is different in any major way. therefore, a church will not grow if it is heterogeneous. those who disagree claim that mc's  principle is based on pragmatism rather than on the Bible. the Bible, they point out, teaches that all are one in Christ, that there are no real walls of human differences between people. mc's defense claims that the other side suffers from idealism.

to talk bout the fellowship of christians is one thing. but to have any expectations along this line for the lost is quite another. we began this chapter by saying that to evangelize is to work among the dead. christian love can only come from people whom the Holy spirit has restored to life and made whole. according to the bible, it is more realistic for us to expect attitudes of resentment and conflict from the nonchristian.
enigmatically, although it is often this unique oneness among christians that captivates the nonchristian, he himself is incapable of behaving in the same way. he may be inspired by our comments about God being no respecter of persons and about the Body of Christ being one. he might agree that these ideas are true and right. but they will do nothing to alter his dislike for the new couple we are trying to integrate into the group. 

frequently, simply because of a lack of affinity, the nonchristian will drop out. he'll just disappear without causing a ripple. it's a very relevant fact that we will not successfully sustain interest among people arbitrarily grouped together without due consideration for natural affinity.

201 5. maintain a good group balance.
it should be obvious that an evangelistic Bible study should favor the nonchristian rather than the christian. but i've frequently seen 3 or 4 christian couples attempt to gang up on a nonchristian couple or two. this is almost always extremely intimidating for the nonchristians. they become self conscious about their ignorance of the Bible and fearful of asking their real questions. they are afraid that their questions will appear stupid, or that they will be rejected if they reveal their deeper disagreements with the christian position. not wanting to be disagreeable, they often simply choose not to verbally disagree. real communication becomes almost impossible in such a context.

a good study would be one of acceptance - low key and relaxed.
under these conditions, a lot of strange ideas will be expressed.
but that's good.
it's essential that freedom of expression exist,
that there be room for incomplete and erroneous conclusions.
we don't have to set everything straight at once.
but where the group is made up predominately of christians, someone will inevitably be unable to resist.
someone will turn to a chapter and verse to 'set the record straight'.
the nonchristian's interest will not be sustained for very long when the thinking process is consistently stifled in this way...
6. hymns and prayers are out...so are sermonettes.
it is sometimes difficult for people who have been raised in a church environment to perceive how they come across to the nonchristian. often they do things automatically without even stopping to question their propriety-
things that strike the non-religious person as very strange.

for example, when i open my Bible in private, i have formed the habit of stopping to pray first,
asking God to help me understand it.
when i'm finished, i usually find myself praying again, this time
asking God to help me make what i just learned a part of my life.
but i neither open nor close a study with a nonchristian with prayer.
i refrain from this for two reasons. first, the nonchristian is unable to participate in talking to someone whose existence to him is still in doubt. but more importantly, opening or closing a discussion with prayer is viewed as a religious form by the nonchristian and that is usually enough to formalize the discussion! it changes the environment.
you should pray before and after your discussions, but do it on your own, in your heart - to God, not as a subtle sermon to the nonchristian. if you feel like singing, do that the same way. to the non-religious, a hymn and a prayer and a sermon equal a church service. so we should be sure to discuss rather than lecture, lead rather than teach and we should do our

202 singing and praying in our hearts to God.
...three elements of personality are involved in making a decision to become a christian...emotion, intellect and will..
..the involvement of the will is fundamental. this is because it was our will that got us into trouble with God in the first place. adam's sin was an act of headship. conversion is laying down our arms and coming out with out hands up. it is submitting again to god's sovereign rule over one's person. as we saw in chapter 3, this is the meaning Jesus gave to the word 'believe'. to present conversion as anything less is to misrepresent the gospel.
whatever overt response a person makes to express a decision to become a christian (whether it is a prayer, a testimony or a request to be baptized), it must be a reflection of an inner transaction with the Holy Spirit. more often than not, as we evangelize people in the way we are describing it, this transition occurs when we're not around. we'll know when it has happened by the changes in the person's attitudes and life. sometimes the first signal is a sudden change in pronouns. rather than 'you christians', the person speaks of 'we christians'. or the first indication may be a voluntary testimony.

although we cannot bring about the inner transformation from death to life, we can do a lot to assist in the process.
as we move along through the Scriptures with a nonchristian, his attitude usually begins to change. in the beginning, his questions and responses may reflect unbelief, doubt or even belligerence. but there will come a time when the rejection is gone. the intent of his questions will change. this means he is proceeding on from the initial question, 'who is Jesus?' to the next question, 'what does He want of me?
when this shift in attitude occurs it is time to sharpen the focus on the essential message. we need to give the person a summary of the Gospel and a clear definition of what he needs to do by way of response. he needs to be made aware of the fact that there is a decision to be made.

frequently, after a few weeks, as we sit down to study, i will suggest that rather than going on to the next chapter we should do something different this time. i tell the person that i'd like to show him an illustration summarizing the central message of the Bible. i then proceed to show him

203  the Bridge Illustration based on John's Gospel (found on p 248 of this book)


     MAN------------------ 5. HEAR             4 *JESUS CHRIST*         BELIEVE-----------------GOD
1. john 3.17-21 - a man who does not believe                         2. John 5.24 - a man who believes:
      - DOES EVIL DEEDS                                                             - HAD LIFE
      - REJECTS THE LIGHT                                                         - IS EXEMPT FROM JUDGMENT
      - IS CONDEMNED                                                                 - HAS PASSED FROM DEATH TO
 3. john 14.6                                                                                      LIFE
     -religion: john 5.39                                                                                                     
     -self effort: john 1.13

-man is separated from God and is under judgment because of sin. john 3.17-21, 36 see also romans 3.23; 6.23; hebrews 9.27
-the many statements made by Jesus about eternal life indicate there is a solution to this separation. john 5.24
-man attempts to build his own bridges (1.13), but Jesus declares Himself to be the only Way (14.6) see also ephesians 2.8-9
- Jesus is the Way because of who He is: God (john 1.14); the Lamb (1.35)...and
because of what He did: He died (6.51; see also romans 5.8); He rose from the dead (john 11.25)
- Jesus calls on us to act on this message - to hear and believe (john 5.24)
synonyms: receive (1.12); be reborn (3.3); drink (4.13). see also revelation 3.20)

this illustration shows how Christ is the bridge over the chasm separating death from life. if we're studying the book of john, i use verses from that book as our basis. i cross reference the main points with passages in other parts of the bible in order to clarify what we're saying and to demonstrate the harmony of the Bible.
my purpose in using this illustration at this point is not to call on the person to make a decision. rather, it is to plant the idea of deciding in his mind.
so, when we are finished, instead of asking him, 'where would you place yourself on the diagram?  (he has already mentally done that)
or 'do you see any reason why you shouldn't make  the decision now (he probably is intellectually persuaded)
i say, 'this illustration summarizes the central message of the Bible.
fold this  up and keep it in your Bible and we'll refer back to it as we ggo along.
from that time on, we use this diagram to summarize our discussions.
at the end of each discussion, we take it out and talk about how the content of the chapter we just covered fits into the overall picture.

summarizing the gospel in this way has several significan effects:
-it facilitates an understanding of the Bible because it provides a basic framework to which the parts can be related.
- it seeds the inner thought that a decision needs to be made.
-it clarifies what a person must do by way of response.

as one person with whom i've studied put it, 'every day when i get up in the morning, i ask myself the question, 'is today the day i'm going to cross that bridge?' it is helpful for the person who is on his way to Christ to understand what we have said in this section about the place of the emotions, the intellect and the will in the decision-making process.

several years ago, a friend wrote to me from another country where he was just getting started as a missionary. in his letter he told me that he had been studying the Bible with 5 nonchristians for several months, but that he was about to give up on them. they had come to the point, he said, where they all understood and accepted the truth of the gospel. but none of them had submitted to Christ. since they openly admitted they were just not willing to make that decision, he was ready to give up on them and move on. he wanted to know what i thought.

in my reply i congratulated my friend on getting those people to the place where they understood the real issue so clearly. i said that in the final analysis the will is always the issue and that when a nonchristian can admit this fact we should celebrate rather than become discouraged. that's progress. my friend stuck with that group and eventually they became the foundational people for his ministry in that country.
204  it often helps a person when we say, 'just to clarify where we are, my impression is that you have just about satisfied your questions on the intellectual level. the real issue now is whether or not you're  going to let God have your life. would you say this is the case?

intellectual questions usually don't survive for long. even with someone coming out of agnosticism or atheism, the intellectual questions are frequently satisfied in a matter of a few weeks. but the will is a different story. it can hold out indefinitely.
God will not override a person's will. man can persist in saying NO right down to the end. i suspect a person can give god a final NO, and that God will accept that decision and leave him alone from then on. (?) we need to be sensitive to God's leading on this point.

the whole process we have been describing must be borne along with prayer.  we pray our way through every discussion. we look to god in prayer to do whatever is necessary in a person's life to bring him to Christ. God's responses to these prayers are observable. we take our cures from god on how long to persevere with someone, staying in there as long as god does, but no longe. our cure to desist is when an individual quits fighting and makes peace with his decision to not allow god into his life.
the problem with a premature decision is that it puts words into people's mouths. they think they've done something they in fact have not. it's hard work to act like a christian when you're  really not on. no one can keep it up indefinitely and eventually a person has to quit.

but procrastinating over a decision is equally dangerous. people who know better often die in their sins. sometimes people just need a gentle shove. it might go like this.
1 we've been examining the Bible for 6 months now. how's it going? where would you say you are in your progress toward Christ?
2. i'm understanding a lot more now.
1. what, in your opinion, needs to happen yet for you to become a christian?
2. i'm not sure. i guess i just need to decide to let Christ come into my life.
205  1. are you willing to do that?
2. yes, i think i am.
1. would you know how to go about it?
2. i think so.
1. how would you feel if we settled the issue together right now? or would you rather do it on your own?

Mother O'Leary's cow has had a great influence on evangelism in america. the cow kicked over a lantern, starting the great chicago fire in which many people perished. D.L. Moody was conducting evangelistic meetings in the city when the fire took place. moved by the tragedy, he announced that he would never again preach without giving an invitation. many ministers picked up on Moody's commitment and on the level of personal evangelism many of us now labor under an exaggerated sense of urgency. often we fear that if the person doesn't make a decision on the spot, he never will. we fear that when he goes his way, still undecided, he will probably be struck by a car - and then his blood will be on our hands.
but anxieties of this sort come from a false sense of responsibility. i am not the Lord of the harvest: God is. it is the Holy Spirit who draws people to Christ. we can be confident that He will preserve and complete His work in those who are on the way, responding to Christ.

the Gospel is urgent news, but that doesn't mean we should be in the kind of time panic that can be so destructive in its results! i have a friend who was led into a response at the age of 8 under the kind of pressure we are talking about. for the next 15 years he went through an incredible inner struggle. finally, at age 23 he was able to recognize that the necessary inner transaction had never occurred. so we need patience. we need to believe that god will bring about conversion in its proper time.

summary..
things to do - -accept the nonchristian as he si. be a genuine friend.
-maintain friendly contact bbetween sessions, but don't overdo it. one friendly contact between sessions is usually sufficient.
-keep it simple. focus on the 2 basic questions.
206-keep the group homogeneous if it is a group study
-be sensitive about when to introduce the idea of a need for an eventual decision.
-allow time for the 'decision' ida to ferment
-make the actual 'assist' after the Holy Spirit has done His work.

things to avoid
-avoid attempting to reform the nonchristian
-avoid letting sessions drag on. it is better to quit too soon, leaving the people hungry.
-avoid letting cancellations bother you. respond with acceptance.
-avoid worring that progress is slow. just keep the person in the Scriptures
-avoid being impatient for a decision. remember that it takes time to overcome a rebellious will. let the Holy Spirit do His work.

results to expect
-God will accomplish His purpose
-the conversion will be genuine
-follow up will be automatic as you continue

Chapter 23 - ENLARGING YOUR CIRCLES OF OPPORTUNITY (capitalizing on new relationships)

207  inherent in man is a craving for involvement in things of significance. there is nothing more significant or more adventurous than participating in the purposes of God -sharing in finishing His work. His work has to do with people.
this book is written on the assumption that healthy christians desire meaningful involvement with people in evangelism. it also assumes that such involvement is within our reach. jesus expressed feelings of personal fulfillment after talking to the samaritan woman. 'I have food to eat that you know nothing about... My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. john 4.32,34 Jesus had been fed will by His conversation.

as christians, we have a natural concern for enangelism. but most of us have some personal adjustments to make if we are to become meaningfully involved with nonchristians. i have described these adjustments relating to the work of evangelism in the preceding pages of this book. here they are in review:
-we should overcome our inertia by committing ourselves to action and changing our living patterns.
-we should gain an understanding of the people of our time and learn to relate to them accordingly.
-we should acquire new skills in communication.
-we should get our nonchristian friends involved in ongoing exposure to the Scriptures.

208  once we are moving in these areas, we don't want to lose our hard-won momentum. evangelism should become a continuous, integgral part of our lifestle. often our first crisis in this area comes as a result of our success. our nonchristian friends have come to know Christ.
what is the next step/
do we begin all over again making new acquaintances and building new relationships so that once again we can sit down with a nonchristian over an open bible?

a lifetime of rrepeating this leangthy and laborious process would be difficult to live with. in fact, if this kind of repetition is necessary , then we are certainly doing something wrong, failing to capitalize on the natural opportunities inherent in each situation. usually, when initial relationships have been established and PEOPLE BEGIN TO RESPOND TO CHRIST,
ONE RELATIONSHIP LEADS TO ANOTHER.
the succeeding concentric circles of opportunity can continue almost indefinitely.

we need to use our challenge to help the new christian integrate into the Body of  in such a way that he preserves his communication with his peers and family in the process.

the new christian meets the church...
i marvel at the apparent ease with which first century churches incorporated their new converts. the churches were very indigenous or 'grass-roots' .  these early churches were natural to the culture in wich they flourished. they met primarily in homes. once the initial beachhead was established through the apostolic effort, the churches grew because of the influence of the believers on those around them. structures, or forms, were relevant because they were created in response to immediate needs. it is interesting that the New Testament doesn't even address the question

209  of how to get convertts into a church. to be converted was to be in!

perhaps we need to make a 180 degree turn in our thinking on this matter, particularly in situations where the distances are really great between two cultures, or even between two subcultures. SHOULD WE CONTINUE TO THINK IN TERMS OF TAKING THE NEW CHRISTIAN TO CHURCH OR SHOULD WE THINK OF BRINGING THE CHURCH TO HIM?
THE CHURCH is not a physical structure: it IS PEOPLE. it consists of christians relating in such a way that they help one another live the christian life. a church building is not required to meet the spiritual needs of a body of new christians.
if we think 'people' when we think 'church'[, then we can have the necessary flexibility to incorporrate those we win, without dislocating them at all. as more of their kind come to Christ and as they are supported and ministered to by people sent out by the church, their needs begin to be met. whether this arrangement is provisory or becomes permanent, it offers two immediate advantages. first, the new christian has plenty of time to mature spiritually in surroundings that he has already accepted. with this maturity, he will gain a tolerance for further adaptation. second, in leaving him where he is, we are not cutting him off from his natural network of relationships.

so i'm suggesting that we not be in a hurry to tie new christians into our congregational structures, especially those converts coming out of a highly secularized context. i am also saying there will be situations where the distances will be so great that we should simply accept the fact that new wineskins will be needed.
expectations on christian conduct. insisting on conformity in gray areas of conduct, we might quickly terminate the new christian's communication within his old network of relationships. thus, we must differentiate between behavior that is nonnegotiable (what is right and what is wrong) and behvior that has no hard and fast ethical guidelines.
the Bible instructs us on several categories of behavior. certain things are always right. whatever the situation, if you do these things your behavior will be correct. galatians 5.22-3 gives us a sample list; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. there are no laws against any of these characteristics. so the first category of behavior consists of those qualities the bible specifically identifies as right behavior.

then this same passage specifies certain behavior as always wrong. no matter what the situation, it's wrong. sexual immorality, impurity, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, envy, drunkenness, and so on, are out. galatians 5.19-21 they have no place in the life of any christian at any time.
210  although certain matters of conduct are clear cut, there is an in-between category of 'disputable matters'. romans 14.1 these are areas the  does not specifically address - matters such as what day to worship or what foods to eat. what constitutes proper behavior in this case is determined by several variable factors. sometimes it might be wrong to do a particular thing. but at other times that same action might be right. the bible leaves it up to the individual believer to decide WHAT is proper for him and also WHEN and WHERE.
this rather open arrangement is considered too ambiguous and risky for many church bodies to contemplate. conformity of behavior is easier to live with. nonconformity, we reason, tends to engender judgments and conflicts. thus, we find it safer to define a position on the more bothersome, doubtful issues and then we ask everyone to fall in line. the Bible instructs us NOT to handle doubtful issues this way, but we do it anyway. romans 14.1-4,22; colossians 2.16,20-3

according to romans 14, one of the signs of a healthy fellowship is a loving attitude toward diversity of convictions on those matters of personal behavior that are relative and not absolute. the mature know the Kingdom of God does not consist of eating and drinking. consequently, they accept the various behavioral choices on doubtful issues without judging. they know that, in the end, all accounts will be settled individually before God Himself. so, they make room for the scrupulous and accept the uninhibited as well. their own behavior is ruled by the laws of love and moderation. romans 13.10; I corinthians 9.24-7
in a group where these principles prrevail, there iwll be room for new christians to be accepted as they grow into their own convictions. this makes for greater maturity in the long run.  hebrews 5.14

how we handle this matter of doubtful things will heavily influence the nature and extent of our outreach. frequently, new christians are cut off from their nonchristian peers when they conform to the extra-biblical standards that their newly adopted christian community imposes on them. because of such rules, new christians suddenly discover that their old friends are off limits. when this happens, we are back to where we started, looking for new threads that will lead us into new relationships, etc.

co-laboring with our spiritual children. we are able to have an ongoing, fruitful ministry among people in the mainstream only to the degree that we are able to extend our witness into the network of relationships of the people we have already reached. we must not inadvertently and unnecessarily cut off communication within this network.
211  while it is vitally important to help the new christian coming from the world to integrate into a body, this must not be done in a way that severs his relationships. it is obvious that coming to Christ means a break with the past, a new beginning. but this is a repudiation of the WORKS of the past, not the PEOPLE  of the past.
as our opportunities expand, with one relationship leading to another, we need to co-labor with those we are ministering to. we need their help and they need ours.

nonchristians can be great evangelists. this is an overstatement, but it makes the point. frequently, people who are discovering the Bible for the first time and are on their way toward Christ show a fresh, uninhibited enthusiasm over their new discoveries.

one new christian with whom i'm currently involved brought at leas a dozen people around before he himself believed. he often brought his friends with him to our studies. then, with his typical lack of inhibition, he would inject articulate questions and doubts about God and about this world He has created. this was distressing only to the person trying to lead the discussion. his guests, rather than being driven to doubt by his performances, were made to feel at home. unintentionally, he was expressing their questions as well.
people don't need to know much before they can begin to influence others. philip brought nathanael to Jesus with three words: 'Come and see. john 1.46 the samaritan woman did the same with her neighbors: 'come, see a man who told me everythign i ever did. could this be the Christ? john 4.29

we shouldn't overlook the potential for outreach the nonchristian can offer. we should encourage him in this by affirming his efforts and by being careful to respect the needs and feelings of his friends when he brings them around.
new christians can be very bad evangelists. for some reason, once a person crosses the line of belief, he frequently goes through a period when he loses this ability to draw others in. things get awkward. the new christian can be very overbearing and dogmatic among his friends and especially with his family. he tends to say too much, press too hard and he can't understand why everyone in the world can't see something that has become so obvious to him. he tends to forget that it took him many years to see it himself.
much permanent damage can be done in the first few weeks of a person's christian life. he can burn off his communication with his peers. then, smarting from the ensuing rejection, he can conclude that

212  evangelism is something to be carefully avoided in the future.

thus, NEW CHRISTIANS NEED COACHING.  they need to be made aware of the things mentioned here. they need to be encouraged to share their faith, but they also need help in what and how much to say.  they, too, need to learn that evangelism is more than  the verbal witness.  if they have been brought to Christ through the process of AFFIRMATION that we have been describing, it will be easier for them to understand that the same kind of process is necessary among their peers.

extend your friendship. when a person coming to Christ realizes that you will extend your love and acceptance to his friends without seizing the first opportunity to assault them with the gospel, then he will want to bring them around. but until he is sure it is safe, he won't

we should be prepared to keep social occasions strictly social and not to think in terms of using them as bait for a session in the Bible. i had to blunder on this one a number of times before one nonchristian finally confronted me, charging me with being deceitful. we get much further with people when we are honest and up front with our intentions. a social occasion should be a social occasion. when we intend to open the bible with people, our invitation should communicate this intention.
we should not feel the evening was wasted when the dinner conversation didn't lead into a verbal witness of some kind. if we are light, the non-verbal witness will be communicated. mini-decisions will be made, and once there is some foundation of confidence, the relationship will support the weight of the verbal witness.  this building of confidence will take far less time among our friends'  friends, because we will in a sense be hitchhiking on longstanding relationships.

a word of caution is needed at this point. we are talking about extending the outreach of the gospel throughout the spheres of influence of those we reach. we need to be careful of the form this takes. the temptation is to usurp the opportunities as our own, to make the process a simple extension of our own evangelism. in fact, the new christian will often initiate this himself, bringing his friends for us to evangelize. but TO DO THIS EVANGELISM OURSELVES WOULD BE TO MISS THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY  inherent in the situation, that OF MULTIPLYING OUR MINISTRY BY TRAINING THE NEW CHRISTIAN IN EVANGELISM.  we need to make sure that he is always involved in the process as a co-laborer, assuming more and more direct responsibility as he matures. as the concentric circles of opportunity expand, the number of evangelists multiplies accordingly.
provide a bridge into the gospel. evangelism in ephesus took a fascinating form. paul began in the synagogue. when the conflict with the
213  jews became too heavy, he moved to a neutral location, taking his disciples with him. he conducted daily discussions in the school of Tyrannus for two years. acts 19.8-10 the result was that 'all the jews and greeks who lived in the province of asia heard the world of the Lord. what were those discussions like? who were they conducted? what did they talk about? we'll never know. we only know that they were dynamic. other wise the whole province of asia wouldn't have bothered to listen.
it is useful to observe that these daily discussions provided a forum where people could come and listen, interact, go away and think - and then come back for more. certainly the discussions became known by word of mouth from those who had come to faith or were on their way. the ongoing exposure to the gospel had a cumulative effect in the region. 

only an unusually gifted teacher could attempt to do something as far-reaching as paul's teaching in ephesus. but we can achieve a similar effect, at whatever level the abilities of our little band of kindred spirits permits. the school of tyrannus was essentially a neutral place,  (in contrast to the synagogue) where interested people could receive an ongoing exposure to the message.

there are ways in which we can provide a similar opportunity, even on a one-on-one basis. for example, we can maintain an open-door attitude toward the friends of the people with whom we are currently involved in the Scriptures. so what if someone new drops in at chapter 5? a quick review that brings him up to date will benefit everyone.
another way to create an environment where young christians can help bridge the gap between their friends and the gospel is to conduct a series of three or four open DISCUSSIONS ON SOME DEEPLY FELT NEED (see chapter 17).  if it is beyond your abilities to do this among yourselves, invite someone in to teach. it would be better, however, for you or someone in your group to go to a person who can give you the help you need to prepare to do it yourself. this would be an opportunity for you to learn and develop.
pick an area or topic of interest. study it; read up on it. take your time, and when your thoughts are in order and in communicable form then proceed. invite a number of nonchristians equivalent to the present number in your group and maintain that ratio.

begin with a 20 to 30 minute presentation designed to give a foundation of biblical thought on the subject and to stimulate discussion. DISCUSSION IS STIMULATED BY CREATING TENSION - positive tension, of course. good questions create this kind of tension. have a few guide questions prepared to keep things moving and then be ready with a closing summary. when you're done, break for coffee and an informal time together. here are some possible topics:
-God and history: what does the Bible say about current events? about the future?
-what does the Bible say about marriage? about the family/ about child rearing?
-what is success? how is it achieved and maintained?
-Biblical principles of financial management
-interpersonal relationships.

the purpose of open discussions like these is ot to bring people to the point of decision but to bring them to see that a relationship with God is fundamental to living and understanding life. such discussions should motivate people to respond to our invitation to go on to examine the Bible further with us. one of the positive effects of these discussions will be that we have provided our new co-laborers with the assistance they need to draw their friends into a meaningful exposure to christians and to the christian message.