Category Archives: Evangelism

What ABOUT Jesus Christ?

Posted by Dan C. on

If we say ‘evangelism’ is “…to present Christ Jesus to sinful people in order that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, they may come to put their trust in God through Him”, what about Jesus Christ are we to share? After all, there is much to share, is there not?

I’m glad you asked – it’s a great question! Given everything we are told in the Bible about Jesus, from Old Testament prophecy to New Testament fulfillment, from Jesus’ birth to his ascension, from the stories of his life, from his parables and teachings, from miracles he performed, what’s the most important fact about Jesus we need to share with others? In terms of evangelism, is there something more important than everything else we know about Jesus that we need to proclaim? I believe there is, and we are given a clue even before Jesus was born!

There’s a short passage in the 1st Chapter in Matthew in which we are told that Jesus’ earthly father Joseph was pondering the fact that Mary, his betrothed, was pregnant with a child not his and the cultural/social implications thereof:

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matt 1:18-21)

Our ‘evangelistic’ hint is this: She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Emphasis mine). Those few words, spoken by an ‘angel of the lord’ to a troubled Joseph, defined Jesus’ mission before he was born. So given that salvation from sin was Jesus’ mission for coming to Earth; shouldn’t the issue of ‘sin’ be central to our evangelism?

I hope that’s somewhat of a rhetorical question to you. It should be. If you are not yet convinced, let me tell you what the Apostle Paul said was of utmost importance in evangelism – how Paul defined the gospel.

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” 1 Cor 15:1-4 (Emphasis mine)

So What?

By now you might be asking that question. Maybe you are familiar with methods for sharing Christ that seem to be more about what Jesus offers in terms of abundant living, special purposes, or wonderful plans for your life. Perhaps you have never even sin talked about much from the pulpit in the church you attend. Well, regardless of what you might not have heard in your own Christian circle, the fact remains that Christ came to die for our sins. While there are great and wonderful promises for the child of God, they are all secondary to dealing with the issues of sin, repentance, and belief in Christ as our substitute on Calvary.

The purpose of this post is NOT to tell you to beat anyone over the head with a 25 pound Schofield reference Bible and scream “Repent or perish!” While “repent or perish” is an accurate statement, the purpose of this post is to remind us that in our ‘evangelistic’ encounters we need to take the ‘discussion’ to the issue of our sin. How that happens is up for grabs and subject to the leading of the Holy Spirit as we share Christ!

We just need to remember that we need to take the conversation to the “bad news” of sin that the “good news” of the gospel addresses.

Christian Military Fellowship

Posted by Dan C. on

Christian Military Fellowship is a unique ministry IN the military rather than just TO the military. I’ve been connected to CMF for a little over 30 years. They connect military believers worldwide, have a powerful prayer network, and give away Christian growth resources, including the discipleship material that followed me wherever I went and that I now use when God provides the opportunity to help young soldiers grow in their faith. If you have ever been in the military, or know anyone currently serving, would you pass along a good link?  The most unique thing about CMF is the lack of paid field staff, like larger ministries. The field staff is made up of men and women in uniform sharing the gospel and making disciples. That’s one of the reasons I connected to CMF – to become a government paid ‘missionary’ in uniform. I would be able to take the gospel to places a Chaplain might never be able to set foot.

via Christian Military Fellowship.

Does Calvinism Discourage Evangelism?

Posted by Dan C. on

Posted by Nathan Busenitz

Seven years ago, a group of fifteen Southern Baptist evangelists met together to bemoan the growth of Calvinism within SBC circles.

When asked about his concerns, Jerry Drace (the evangelist who initiated the meeting) explained that some Baptist pastors are so Calvinistic “that they almost laugh at evangelism. It’s almost to the extent that they believe they don’t have to do it. So [Calvinism] gives them an excuse not to do evangelism.”

Drace’s comments raise an important question. Does an affirmation of God’s sovereign election in salvation (commonly called “Calvinism”) discourage people from faithfulness in evangelism?Calvin and Company

An answer to that question could be approached from several different angles.

One could, for example, consider evangelistic efforts among Baptists — comparing those who embrace the doctrine of election with those who do not. An SBC study “found that Calvinistic recent graduates report that they conduct personal evangelism at a slightly higher rate than their non-Calvinistic peers.”

A better place to go, of course, would be the Word of God. There are many passages to which we could turn (from John 6 to Acts 13 to Ephesians 1); but I would start in Romans 9–10. Pardon the anachronism, but it is no accident that one of the most “Calvinistic” chapters in the Bible (Romans 9) is partnered with the one of the most “evangelistic” (Romans 10). Clearly, the apostle Paul saw no disconnect between the reality of God’s sovereignty in salvation and his own evangelistic zeal.

We could also look to church history. As Mitch Cervinka explains:

One needs only examine Protestant history to see that Calvinists have been on the forefront of evangelism and missions. George Whitefield was outspoken in affirming all five points of Calvinism, yet he was one of the most zealous and effective evangelists of the Great Awakening. Wherever he traveled, both in England and America, people would turn out by the thousands to hear him preach in the open fields. The modern missionary movement began in 1792 when the Calvinistic Baptist, William Carey, left England to minister the gospel in India. With the help of William Ward and Joshua Marshman, he founded 26 churches and 126 schools, and translated the Bible into 44 languages including Sanskrit. In 1812, Adoniram Judson, another Calvinistic Baptist, sailed to Burma, becoming the first American to depart for the overseas mission field. . . . Other Calvinistic evangelists and missionaries of note include Jonathan Edwards, Asahel Nettleton and Charles H. Spurgeon. More than this, the Protestant Reformation was perhaps the greatest evangelistic movement of modern history. The Lord brought it about through the evangelistic zeal and unfailing courage of men who believed that God is fully sovereign in salvation—men such as Martin Luther,William Tyndale, John Calvin and John Knox, as well as lesser known men such as William Farel, George Wishart, Martin Bucer, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley and countless others.

One of my favorite accounts from church history in this regard is the testimony of George Müller.  When he first encountered the doctrines of grace (such as mankind’s total depravity and God’s sovereign election), Müller tried to reject them. He would later describe his initial distaste in his autobiography, “Before this period I had been much opposed to the doctrines of election, particular redemption, and final persevering grace; so much so that . . . I called election a devilish doctrine.”

But as he continued to study God’s Word, Müller reached an unexpected conclusion. He wrote:

I went to the Word, reading the New Testament from the beginning, with a particular reference to these truths. To my great astonishment I found that the passages which speak decidedly for election and persevering grace, were about four times as many as those which speak apparently against these truths; and even those few, shortly after, when I had examined and understood them, served to confirm me in the above doctrines.

Müller initially feared that embracing the doctrine of election would quench his passion for evangelism. But he soon found it had the opposite effect. Consequently, he noted:

In the course of time . . . it pleased God then to show to me the doctrines of grace in a way in which I had not seen them before. At first I hated them, “If this were true I could do nothing at all in the conversion of sinners, as all would depend upon God and the working of His Spirit.” But when it pleased God to reveal these truths to me, and my heart was brought to such a state that I could say, “I am not only content simply to be a hammer, an axe, or a saw, in God’s hands; but I shall count it an honor to be taken up and used by Him in any way; and if sinners are converted through my instrumentality, from my inmost soul I will give Him all the glory;” the Lord gave me to see fruit; the Lord gave me to see fruit in abundance; sinners were converted by scores; and ever since God has used me in one way or other in His service.

That perspective fueled Müller’s evangelistic zeal — from the 10,000 orphans he helped to care for in England to the over 200,000 miles he traveled as an itinerant evangelist, taking the gospel to dozens of foreign nations. Müller’s example is one of many powerful answers, from history, to those who would allege that an affirmation of God’s sovereignty in salvation kills evangelism.

Whether we look to Scripture or church history, we quickly learn that a belief in God’s sovereign election — properly understood — is no deterrent to a passionate witness. In reality, it has the opposite effect.

A right understanding actually motivates the missionary spirit. As Charles Spurgeon explained to his students, “We must have the heathen converted; God has myriads of His elect among them, we must go and search for them somehow or other.”

That is the kind of passion for evangelism that ought to characterize all who call themselves “Calvinists.” If it doesn’t, it calls into question the authenticity of the label.

Online Source: The Cripplegate

Alistair Begg on The Beatles

Posted by Dan C. on

Below is an article from Christianity Today from 2003 that I found really interesting. It’s actually part of a longer interview with radio host Dick Staub. You can listen to the entire interview at Sermon Audio. Here’s the CT article:

Alistair Begg on The Beatles

from Christianity today

The author and pastor talks about the Fab Four’s cry for Help and why no one answered it.

April 1, 2003

Alistair Begg on The Beatles

The author and pastor talks about the Fab Four’s cry for Help and why no one answered it.

April 1, 2003

In the last several years, writers and academics have begun to seriously analyze what pop culture icons say through their worldviews. Books have explored the philosophy of The Matrix, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Seinfeld and the gospel according to Tony Soprano and The Simpsons.

Alistair Begg, pastor of Ohio’s Parkside Church and the author of Made For His Pleasure (Moody), has been a longtime fan of The Beatles. He doesn’t suggest the band had a solid theology or an admirable worldview. Instead, he feels the band is important to look at now because it asked a lot of pertinent question in its music—and too many of those questions went unanswered.

Why is it important to understand what The Beatles were saying during their era?

They were on the forefront of a generation’s thinking. At the same time, they were able to articulate things and were given a voice. Without fully understanding it themselves, originally, they found themselves the mouthpiece of a generation. They were actually interpreting some of the angst, the hopes, and the fears of teenagers with mothers and fathers who didn’t understand.

Did The Beatles simply reflect culture or did they shape it?

For good or for ill, they were shaping culture. That’s true if you take the development of the music alone. Everything that they did pushed the frontiers out. This wasn’t only true in terms of the way in which they were recording material or the way in which they were writing melody lines, but it was actually in the lyrical content as well. Think about what Elvis Presley was singing about, or about what Chuck Berry was doing. It was all about love and different things like that. The Beatles got into a whole new business the further they went.

The Beatles first said money was everything (in the song “Money“), then they said that love could give you anything you want on “From Me to You“, and then they record “Can’t Buy Me Love“. What do you see in this progression?

An American journalist asked Paul in 1966 if “Can’t Buy Me Love” was actually about prostitution. There is this morbid fascination with the idea that these guys were coming from the bottom level of everything. It is a shame. It carried over into fundamentalist/evangelical response to their music at that time.

I’m not suggesting that The Beatles had a wonderful theology, or that their worldview was perfect. It clearly wasn’t. It left them high and dry on just about every front, eventually. But they weren’t simply writing cute little tunes. They were beginning to take seriously the platform that they’d been given. That’s why so many people found them offensive; it was because of the things that they were prepared to tackle.

What do you see when looking closely at what The Beatles were saying or looking for in their songs?

If you take Lennon’s “In My Life,” you have the tender side of John Lennon coming out, a side that many people missed completely.

When they went in and got Lennon’s belongings after his untimely death, one of the closest family friends found a huge notebook, which contained virtually all of Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for everything he’d done, including this song. It was clear that what had happened to Lennon is that as the fame thing had come, a sense of nostalgia crept into his life. He started to remember the places in the past.

It was always sad to me that people couldn’t see that he was crying out for something. I just always felt that in Lennon you had this guy who every so often would open the door to himself ever so slightly. Every time he opened up, it never seemed to be a Christian response to say, “Hey, we’ve got an angle on that. We’d love to talk to you about that.” It was always, “Hey, get out of here, you long-haired nuisance. You’re destroying the youth of Great Britain and corrupting the life of America.” We did this in the ’60s and, frankly, we’re doing it again now.

Speaking of the religious community’s reaction to Lennon, there was a huge fervor after his comment that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus. But in an interview after that event, he said, “I wasn’t saying The Beatles are better than Jesus or God or Christianity, I was using the name Beatles … as an example. But I could have said TV or cinema or anything else that’s popular. Or motor cars are bigger than Jesus.”

It’s a shame that it served the agenda of certain people to misunderstand the quote. What Lennon was saying is what people might justifiably say today about all kinds of idols and icons in relationship to young people in particular. He was in some ways bemoaning the fact. He was honest enough to say what has happened here is a phenomenon that is way beyond anything that we could ever have conceived. The response, of course, was not particularly attractive—such as when the band hit Dallas and all those youth pastors came out to welcome them with bonfires.

While there were things that needed to be addressed in pop culture—and there always will be—I think we missed an opportunity. Later on, we see them involved with a maharishi yogi. You see Harrison’s interest in mysticism. While we can’t lay the charge at the feet of the Christians, nevertheless it is a sad thing that there was nobody there who had gained a platform to them at a time when they were willing to listen. The interviewer asked about the song “Help.” He said, “I wrote “Help” in ’65, and people hailed it as another advance in rock & roll. It was the cry of my heart and nobody came to answer.”

This is just a picture of what we’re dealing with every day in all of our lives. Lennon, the drummer in Smashing Pumpkins, and Kurt Cobain are only big, dramatic examples of the interaction that all of us have with kids. I want to encourage Christians to get serious about being real about Jesus Christ. Listen to music so that you can talk to people about it rather than sloganeering and banging the drum for the same old stuff.

Again, the entire interview can be listened to at Sermon Audio.

Confessing and Believing

Posted by Dan C. on

Romans 10:9-10 & 13 are three of the most often used passages to encourage nonbelievers to confess Christ as Savior and Lord that we evangelicals use in our witnessing.

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” – Rom 10:9-10, 13

These passages are found at the end of a witnessing method known as the Roman Road, offering the ultimate relief from the problem of our sin, that the preceding stops along the Road made abundantly clear (Rom 3:23, Rom 6:23, Rom 5:8).

Some of us might even ponder the order of ‘believing and confessing’, in a ‘chicken and egg’ manner. That might be because verse 9 speaks of ‘confessing then believing’, but verse 10 speaks of ’believing then confessing’.

I think the answer to that is found in verse 10, which begins with the preposition ‘for’ indicating that what follows further explains the preceding phrase. Therefore I suggest to you that ‘believing in one’s heart’ ought to precede ‘confessing with one’s mouth’. Also, note that when one someone believes, he/she is also justified. If being ‘justified’ equates to being saved, the confessing is a result of having believed. On a more down to earth note, don’t we tend to see it to believe it and believe it before broadcasting it on social media? Just a thought.

Having said all that, perhaps want is most important here is the ‘character’ of the ‘believing’ – ‘heart’ belief. It’s one thing to assent to something mentally, but something quite different to believe in your heart that something is true. In the case of salvation, it is one thing to merely assent to a historical fact about Jesus – that he was crucified on a Roman cross and that perhaps the reason was because of human sin. It is another thing to realize at the depths of my being that I should have been the one hanging on a tree that day because of MY sin – that Jesus died in MY place. And by MY sin, I don’t just mean the sinful things that do, but the condition I was in at birth – dead in trespasses and sin and by nature an object of God’s wrath (Eph 2).

The Apostle Paul gives us an example of what God does in the matter of ‘heart’ belief:

“On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” Acts 16:13-14

Several women were listening to Paul preach, but we are told quite clearly that God opened Lydia’s heart to ‘hear’ the words of Paul. Lydia believed with her heart Paul’s words and was saved.

If what I have said above is true, it leaves us with a question:

Why do we so often ask others if they have made a ‘confession’ of faith but rarely ask them if they ‘believed in their hearts’?

Something to think about. . .

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” – Rom 10:9-10

The good news is NOT Jesus?

Posted by Dan C. on

Well, the Apostle Paul disagrees, with this preacher, on at least two levels. First of all there’s the little matter of the the Gospel message itself, the Gospel Paul was not ashamed of (Rom 1:16); the Gospel he clearly defined to the believers in Corinth (1 Cor 15:1-4). Whether or not unbelievers don’t want to hear “about no blood on no cross”, it’s the message they must hear and believe if they aren’t going to spend eternity in hell.

Secondly, Paul has something to say about his ‘best life now’

In a recent sermon, a popular Health, Wealth & Prosperity (HWP) preacher asked and answered his own question:

Q: “Do you know why the people on your job really ain’t Christians right now?”

A: “Because you are preaching to them Jesus Christ.”  . . . “That’s not what you’re supposed to preach.”.

In the same sermon, we also find other little tidbits:

“People ain’t worried about no blood on no cross.” . .“You gotta talk about how to solve people’s problems.”. . .“The good news is not Jesus. The good news is the Kingdom.”

Being a faithful Health, Wealth & Prosperity (HWP) type, by “good news of the Kingdom’ he meant having dominion over all of our ‘life’ circumstances and being successful and prosperous in all things, since God created man to have ‘dominion’ (which He did).  However, what this preacher’s heretical message seems to forget is that there was something called The Fall, with its effect in bringing sin into what had been a creation God looked upon and pronounced “good” & “Very good”.

There’s nothing new here, except perhaps the blatant lie that preaching the crucified Jesus is somehow wrong – that “The good news is not Jesus”. I’ve not heard any of the Word Faith Heretics being so bold as to declare the lie behind their warped theology so openly. What this preacher did get right is that people don’t want to hear “about no blood on no cross”. They want to know how to have their “best lives now” (to quote another popular heretic). They what their itching ears tickled (2 Tim 4:3).

Well, the Apostle Paul disagrees with this preacher on at least two levels. First of all there’s the little matter of the the Gospel message itself, the Gospel Paul was not ashamed of  (Rom 1:16); the Gospel he clearly defined to the believers in Corinth:

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you ,old fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” 1 Cor 15:1-4

Not only did Paul define the gospel (the good news) as having everything to do with ‘blood and a cross’, the blood and the cross was the major theme of his ministry:

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men[c] but in the power of God.” – 1 Cor 2:1-5

Whether or not unbelievers don’t want to hear “about no blood on no cross”, it’s the message they must hear and believe if they aren’t going to spend eternity in hell.

Secondly, Paul has something to say about what his ‘best life now’ was all about:

“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.  Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;  in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst” –  2 Cor 11:24-27

Jesus called those who suffer for His name’s sake blessed, and even promised that his followers would be persecuted:

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Matthew 5:11

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.”  – John 15:18

To be fair, our subject preacher did not omit the preaching of the cross and the new birth altogether, he merely maintained that talk of being born again should follow the promises of ‘Kingdom’ living (HWP and dominion). However, that’s nothing more than a spiritual con game, if not THE great con pervading much of today’s evangelicalism – hook ‘em with promises of their ‘best lives now’ and leave talk about Jesus’ death for our ‘sin’ (blood and a cross) until later, if at all.  It’s a ‘bait and switch’ that produces many false converts and lines the pockets of  many a televangelist.

It also denies the sovereignty of God in evangelism. The duty of the preacher (and all of us) is to merely be faithful in the preaching the same gospel that Paul and the Apostles proclaimed (Christ died for our sins) and leave the saving to God, who opens hearts to hear and brings lost souls to the Blood and the Cross.

__________________________

If you’ve read this and don’t believe that a preacher would actually say what the above evangelist is quoted as saying, you can hear it for yourself here.

Ice Cream Cones and Evangelism

Posted by Dan C. on

Sounds a little goofy, does it? And since it does, you can’t wait for the explanation! So I’ll explain.

We (the Cartwright family) were stationed in Berlin, Germany from 1984 – 1987. It so happens that one of the most famous streets in the world is in the center of the city – the Kurfürstendamm. The street takes its name from the former Kurfürsten (prince-electors) of Brandenburg. This very broad, long boulevard can be considered the Champs-Élysées of Berlin — full of shops, houses, hotels and restaurants.

On one side of the Ku’Damm, there was a small Mövenpick ice cream stand, covered by a bright awning that stretched over the sidewalk and extended all the way to the ground on the street side, making a small tunnel. If you sat on the other side of the street you could watch people enter on one side of the tunnel and exit at the other end. What seemed surprising at first was watching nearly every single person entering emerge from the other end eating an ice cream cone! If however you crossed the street the delicious warm scent of waffle cones being made would fill the air and assault your senses, and it was immediately clear why so many who disappeared under the awning reappeared with delicious ice cream cones! The smell was irresistible!

What does that have to do with evangelism? I’d like to share that with you also.

It seems to me that the picture I described of the Mövenpick ice cream stand describes much if not most of today’s approach to Christian evangelism. We seem to think that if you present something so irresistible and tempting to the non-believers who enter the church doors, they will exit as believers, or at least most of them will, if not during the first visit, at some point later on as they keep coming back for another delicious ‘ice cream cone’. But is that what evangelism should look like –our little ice cream stand?

There is a passage of scripture that gives me pause and makes me think about that question:

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” – 2 Corinthians 2:14-16

Those three verses tell me that evangelism is not like the ice cream stand that emits an irresistible aroma to everyone who gets close. While we would all agree that we  believers living out our faith and spreading the message of the gospel carry the aroma of Christ, our passage tells us that the aroma of Christ is only welcomed by those who are ‘being saved’, or those whose hearts have been already been opened to hear our message. To the rest, those who are perishing, the gospel is offensive, smelling of death.

The message of the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing, the Apostle Paul Paul informs us (See 1 Cor 1:18). Unless God has initiated a “Lydia” event (He opened her heart to hear the gospel [see Acts 16]), the gospel ‘stinks’  to those exposed to it, and rather than enter the awning over the ice scream stand, they will cross the street as if there was an open sewer ahead instead of fresh delicious waffle cones being made.

So what does that mean in terms of evangelism? The majority view in today’s evangelical climate seems to be engineering the ‘smell of freshly made waffle cones’ to lure the lost into the church. Offer Starbucks, theater seats with cup holders, music that sounds like their favorite band, light shows and smoke now and again. Some have even brought the circus onto the ‘stage’. Is that how Christ built the early church, and if not, how was did he build his church?

For the answer, you only need to read the book of Acts, not just the story of Lydia in Chapter 16. There was the preaching of a simple, pure gospel message, preceded by the divine opening of human hearts.  2,000 years later nothing has really changed except for the ‘toys’ we have to play with. Therefore, our evangelism, at its core, should be as simple and pure as that of Paul and the Apostles.

As we go about our normal day to day lives we need to be praying that God open hearts to hear and receive the message, and we must be willing to share the simple message that we have a terrible problem with sin, and Christ died for our sin. To those with God opened hearts, the aroma of Christ will be the delight of their senses, and they will end up at the Cross!

Think about it.

‘Son of God’: Jesus film earnest but bland, reviews say

Posted by Dan C. on

By Oliver Gettell, LA Times

11:22 AM PST, February 28, 2014

Adapted for the big screen from the History Channel miniseries “The Bible,” the new film “Son of God” is essentially a feature-length recut of the second half of the series, based on the New Testament.

The reedited nature of the movie, which tells the story of Jesus from his birth through his preaching, crucifixion and resurrection, might explain why many film critics are saying “Son of God” feels more like a greatest-hits compilation than a cohesive work.

In a review for The Times, Martin Tsai writes, “to its credit, ‘Son of God’ proves more than a mere watered-down ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ The epic proportions of the miniseries hold up well on the big screen, save for the digitally composed establishing shots of Jerusalem.”

On the other hand, it also has the feel of a “midseason clip show.” Tsai adds, “If ‘The Bible’ was CliffsNotes for the Scriptures, ‘Son of God’ is the cheat sheet. The two-hour film condenses about four hours of what already was hasty television, and it all winds up a little dramatically static.”

The New York Times’ Nicolas Rapold says, “‘Son of God’ runs through the scriptural greatest hits of the Passion with the reliability of a Sunday reader.” He continues, “Jesus looks like a tanned model in robes in the person of the Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado. His scenes pivot on teachable moments buttressed by reaction shots to his coterie, undermining the mysteries of Jesus with the blandness of the filmmaking.”

Rapold concludes, “‘Son of God’ may have hit the mark if part of the goal was to create a portrait flat enough to allow audience members to project their own feelings onto the screen.”

Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle finds the film a bit chintzy, writing, “Jesus of Nazareth’s accent changes frequently,” that “Jerusalem looks as if it was built in a few hours out of balsa wood,” and that there’s “more hair product being used in this movie than in an entire season of ‘Dancing With the Stars.'”

However, “the film does thoroughly succeed in one important regard: offering a coherent, viewer-friendly account of the life of Jesus Christ. The movie flies by despite its 138-minute running time, a holy CliffsNotes that packs in all the greatest hits. Never again will a Sunday school student get lower than a C-minus on this material.”

The Newark Star-Ledger’s Stephen Whitty writes that “‘Son of God,’ unfortunately, is ultimately just a bit of canny recycling,” and “the cuts and compromises show.” What’s more, he says, “there’s little fresh or daring here. As controversial as ‘Passion’ or ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ were, at least they presented very personal visions of this ancient story; whether you felt they were enlightening or blasphemous, they took risks. They dared all. But when it comes to ‘Son of God’ — well, the film is willing. But its spirit is weak.”

And Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post says, “‘Son of God’ is nothing if not sincere, its earnest retelling of Jesus’s life story resembling a gentle, pop-up book version of the New Testament, its text reenacted for maximum reassurance and intellectual ease.”

She ends with an advisory: “To the filmgoers thronging to theaters this weekend: Don’t expect to see a great film, or even a very good one. Whether you discover a meaningful channel with which to continue your walk with the film’s protagonist, however, is strictly between you and your god.”

“Occupy Until I Come” – Jesus

Posted by Dan C. on

“As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him (Jesus) privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ And Jesus answered them, ‘See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.”

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:3-14)

One cannot read the above passage without thinking about one or more recent newspaper articles and/or news broadcasts. False prophets and teachers in the church, wars and rumors of wars, nations at each other’s throats, natural disasters all over the world, increasing hatred against all things Christian, love growing cold – it’s all happening right before our eyes. I don’t need to get into the details.

Not only are these things happening, there are also a countless number of prognosticators who will tell us not only exactly when Jesus is coming back, they tell us what we should be doing in the midst of it all. We should be hoarding everything from foodstuff to guns and ammo according to the ‘survivalists’, mounting opposition campaigns or boycotts against all of the ungodly factions out there, or even taking back the country! We Christians can even find scripture passages to support our efforts, although not necessarily in their natural context in the Bible.

While I’m not taking a stand for or against any of the above, I am asking if the Bible tells us what we are to be doing in light of ‘these end days’. I think we are told how to respond – not only in the end days, but every day, until Jesus comes back as the judge of the Earth.

“And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.” (Luke 19:13 KJV)

We know the rest of the story. The servants who invested the money given to them were commended, while the one who buried it for safekeeping it was chastised.

We are to ‘occupy’, (‘do business’ in more modern translations) until Jesus comes back. What business?, you ask. Jesus left no doubt their either:

“ And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations” (Matt 24:14)

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

No matter what our main occupation or situation in life might be, we are to be about the business of the gospel, proclaiming it and making disciples. We are to be about ‘investing’ the gospel in our own lives and in the lives of others. We should be continuously growing in our own knowledge of God and His Son, sitting under sound Biblical teaching, and at the same time pointing the lost around us to the Cross of Christ and helping other believers grow in their faith.

“Occupy Until I Come” – Jesus

Writing Checks to Mel Gibson – Tim challies

Posted by Dan C. on
February 18, 2014

In late 2003 and early 2004, we were told that Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was going to change the world. We saw breathless slogans like, “perhaps the best outreach opportunity in 2,000 years.” Rick Warren, whose book The Purpose Driven Life had made him a household name, predicted “a spiritual tsunami” would hit when the film released. When he saw this tsunami coming, he planned a two-week preaching series leading up to the movie’s release, booked 47 theatre screens so members of his church could attend with their lost friends, invited a long list of celebrities and billionaires to a premier showing, and prepared a three-week small group curriculum for follow-up. He claimed that his church rode this tsunami to incredible results: “Over 600 unchurched community leaders attended our VIP showing; 892 friends of members were saved during the two-week sermon series. Over 600 new small groups were formed, and our average attendance increased by 3,000.”

It is hard to overestimate the buzz, the excitement, and the anticipation prior to The Passion. Do you remember it? I do.

Back in 2004, I was a member of a Southern Baptist church that tried to ride the Passion wave by mimicking just about everything Rick Warren did. The pastors raised tens of thousands of dollars from the congregation, then bought movie passes, booked theaters, distributed tickets, formed small groups, bought Warren’s follow-up curriculum, and waited to transform the city. Giving away the tickets was the easy part—people gladly accepted free movie passes to the film everyone was talking about. All the tickets went, but as far as I know, not a single person—not even one—came to any of the follow-up studies. No one was saved. Nothing happened. All the time, energy and resources gained nothing.

In the film’s aftermath George Barna got to work and found that the results we saw were far more typical than what Warren reported. “Among the most startling outcomes is the apparent absence of a direct evangelistic impact by the movie. Less than one-tenth of one percent of those who saw the film stated that they made a profession of faith or accepted Jesus Christ as their savior in reaction to the film’s content.” Either The Passion was not actually a great opportunity for evangelism, or most churches botched it.

Ten years later it is indisputable that all the talk of The Passion of the Christ being a powerful tool for evangelism was far more hype than reality. The marketing slogans earned Mel Gibson hundreds of millions of dollars, and brought lots of money to marketers and merchandisers. But the claim that it was the best outreach opportunity since Pentecost is downright embarrassing. For all the good the movie did, we may as well have just written checks to Mel Gibson and skipped the movie. 

Yet here we go again. We are just a couple of weeks away from the next The Passion of the Christ: Mark Burnett’s Son of God. Based on the 2013 miniseries The Bible, it is being marketed much like The Passion before it. B&H has just announced a new small-group Bible study from Rick Warren titled Son of God: The Life of Jesus in You. The press release quotes Warren as saying, Son of God is “the best movie I’ve seen on the life of Jesus in years.” The release also says, “The film has made headlines in the build-up to its Feb. 28 nationwide release as churches and organizations across the country have been renting out cinema multiplexes to show the film on every screen the night before its official release.”

 As far as I can tell, and measuring two weeks prior to release, there is far less enthusiasm for Son of God than there was for The Passion of the Christ. I expect the reason is largely attributable to the old phrase, “once bitten, twice shy.” There’s a feeling of deja vu about this film. Still, I see marketers applying pressure and I see some churches buying in.

I want to urge caution, and I can draw these cautions directly from lessons we learned—or should have learned—from The Passion of the Christ.

The first caution is that The Passion caused us to look away from Scripture. This is ironic, of course, since The Passion was based on Scripture (plus a bit of imagination and a dash of Roman Catholic tradition). The fact is, though, that God saw fit to give us the Bible written, not displayed. He chose to give us a book, not a film. Those who pushed churches to embrace The Passion as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity made all kinds of promises, and many of those promises were based on the media. They claimed that by putting the old message into a new media it would come alive to a whole new generation and would do what preaching would not or could not. Many churches looked away from Scripture, even if only for a few weeks, and put their hope in a film.

The second caution is that The Passion took us off-mission. There is nothing more central to the church than the preaching of God’s Word. There is nothing that cuts deeper or builds stronger than the Bible faithfully taught. There is nothing we should expect God to use more powerfully than the preaching of his Word. Every revival in days past—every true revival, at least—has been a revival sparked by and carried on through preaching. We should have no expectation that God will accomplish through a film what he has only promised to accomplish through preaching. Too many churches veered off-mission when faced with the opportunity of The Passion of the Christ.

I have not seen Son of God. It may be a powerful film that is faithful to Scripture. I hope that is the case. It is entirely possible that God may choose to use Son of God to call people to faith. He may use it to generate interest in himself. He has used stranger means than this to work his will. Rick Warren’s follow-up Bible study may be excellent and may drive people from the screen to the Book. Lots of good may come. But still, both of these cautions apply to Son of God just as they did to The Passion. Don’t look away from Scripture and don’t get off-mission. 

As you consider this new film, remember that we have been here before. Remember that there are a lot of people hoping to make a lot of money from this film. Remember that God promises to bless the preaching of his Word, not the display of that Word on the silver screen. Don’t expect a movie to do the Word’s work.