Are you a sincere seeker who has questions about Christianity, or a Christian with doubts about your faith? Post them here to receive a thoughtful response.
August wrote:Have you looked at some study guides that help people know how to witness? For some people it comes naturally, but for most it is something that has to be learned and practiced to get comfortable with. I can recommend the "Evangelism Explosion" book if you are interested in reading how to witness.
My questions about tongues was to Tallman, as I disagree with him and find his input very much fails to address the specifics of your question.
After reading your last post I wonder if you read the entire context of my reply.
Ok, I've got another question, are you two saying I have to put myself in embressing or awkward situations in order to be a true believer? Are you saying I have to do this as a ritual to be saved??? You two are acting like I"ve committed blasphomey or something. Why do I have to witness or serve God in a way that is awkward or in a way that does more harm than good?
You do understand that there is a difference between being saved and serving?
Derrick, if you think I'm questioning your salvation then I've either done a poor job communicating or you are misinterpreting something. I am NOT questioning your salvation. I am challenging some of your conclusions and perspectives.
I am talking about simply being available to God. God is not going to have you do something outside of His will. Whether that will be awkward or not I can not say. But yes, it very well could be. The whole issue of walking in faith means that it might require you to step into unfamiliar ground.
I disagree with only a few things Ray Comfort does. His ministry has reached thousands who would otherwise be completely ignored. Whether it's your "style" or not, i wouldn't be so quick to condemn. Jesus open air preached and said some very harsh things. Paul open air preached, and was nearly stoned to death.
I'm just too nervous and unprepared.
1 Peter 3:15
Prepare yourself. Sounds like you have the conviction to witness. And it sounds to me (I could be wrong) that you are asking, "Can't I just do something else? Isn't there a way around this?" In terms of your salvation, it doesn't make you more saved if you share Christ. And it doesn't make you unsaved if you don't. The question is, do you know the will of the Lord in this, and if so, will you follow it?
-“The Bible treated allegorically becomes putty in the hands of the exegete.” John Walvoord
"I'm not saying scientists don't overstate their results. They do. And it's understandable, too...If you spend years working toward a certain goal and make no progress, of course you are going to spin your results in a positive light." Ivellious
Let's see I may have read it too fast. I'm very glad that this issue does not put my salvation at stake. That was one of my main worries about witnessing and one of my main reasons for this thread. I've heard many sermons from non intellectual pastors or youth leaders who may not directly say it, but regardless give you the listener the idea that if you don't specifically start desiring to street witness or this idea can even apply to going overseas to Africa, or singing in the choir or deciding to become a pastor you will not make it to heaven when you die, because if you had the "right faith" you would automatically or even spontaneously have these specific desires to do these specific things. That is the thing that is troubling me. I certainly do have a desire to get the gospel out to the lost. If Christians were a hospital rescue team, I'm on the team and I want to save lives, I'm just not good at flying the helicopter but I am good at driving a ambulance or doing CPR. In this case I'm not good at being directly in people's faces and being very out going and social with people with the gospel, but I'm very willing to either pray for people, donate time and money to various Christian, missionary, and church functions. And who knows maybe later on in life I will become less shy and nervous around people that I will be able to talk to people about Christ but as of now I feel powerless in that area. But I know other people and maybe yourself Jlay, excel at that and I'm grateful that you and others do because after all we need people who will be bold and outgoing and who are able to fearlessly talk directly to strangers and even very hostile people about the gospel. But back to my specific desire to reach the lost, right now I want to target specifically people and places where the gospel hasn't been taken to yet. I think a lot of the tribal people or people in eastern nations versus western nations are more open and receptive to the gospel. I feel like people in western nations (especially the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK) are so unreachable right now. Because one, not only people in western nations are so intellectual and are in such deep love with mainstream (aka secular atheistic) science they are also very liberal in their social, political, and lifestyle views that they are not only convinced intellectually (and to the point that they will not ever consider evidence that argues against their view) they also have a deep emotional hatred toward Christianity, the God of the Bible, The Bible itself, and the moral principles that Christianity teaches. And when I mean they won't consider evidence that argues against their view, they deny it, maybe even without trying to refute it, they act like they don't want to be confused with the facts and they already have their mind made up. Now I'm not saying that people like them can't later convert to Christianity, it's just that not only those situations are rare, but usually right before they convert, they have to go through horrible circumstances like a death of their loved ones, losing their jobs, catching a life threatening illness and so on. Basically in order to get people like them to convert, God has to use circumstances and major events and not people preaching on the street in order to get these people to wake up and out of their fantasy world that they created. Now that also doesn't mean that people like you Jlay can't reach them, I don't know you and some others may have some good methods or debate tactics and techniques that would work, that's something else I'm not good at, I'm not good at debating especially with people who are far left and atheistic in their thinking. But again, there are those who are and I don't mind one bit helping them out in any other way I can, I'm just not good at doing the finished work or finished product of debating and street witnessing so to speak. Basically what I'm trying to say is I'm of the view that there are many ways for people to serve the church, serve God, and bring the lost to Christ. And it's best for believers to see which ways they are best at or talented in. In fact I think Paul talks about this in some of his letters to the early church. So basically that is gist of what I was getting at.
