I just read a book review on Amazon, and it had some very insightful things, so I copied and pasted it! Here it is.
Bottom line: Biblical Evangelism is MESSAGE DELIVERY - Packaged in Genuine Love & Concern for the Whole Person Lost in Sin's Darkness. Deliverance. Search & Rescue. Proclaiming unpleasantries. Telling the whole truth. Confronting controversy. Risking offending the one we really care about, like compassionate intervention with an addict to stop her/him from ongoing harm to self & others. Call it CAREFRONTATION. Boldness, availability, genuine love, faithful obedience, courage, Biblical training, Spirit-filling are all we need to share Jesus in life and lips. Lips without life is hit-and-run hypocrisy. Life sans lips is sweet sentiment. Jesus requires BOTH life and lips of effective witnessers for Him. Picture true evangelism like being a cancer-survivor telling people who need to be diagnosed that they too have the deadly disease. They need immediate medical help. Urgent care. Befriending the person and being nice and all, while withholding the dire truth, is no love at all but callous disregard for God, His Message and the Cure of the Cross, Jesus' shed Blood as chemotherapy and miracle treatment of life.
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So, should we impose our faith on those who do not wish to hear it? Or does our perpetual peace eventually cause them to wonder what we have and they don't? I think that it is important above all else to lead by example because the media has conditioned the general populus to believe that we're quacks. It's hard to convince someone that they are going down a path of destruction when your perceived in such light. Many a Christian do not even practice what they preach, so how much value in words can a heathen find?
~h
Yes, we actually should. "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," Mark 16:15. I think of it this way: If I really believe what the bible says, then a lot of people are headed for hell right now. If someone was blindly heading toward a 1,000 foot cliff, wouldn't you warn them? That's what we as Christians should do - warn people of the coming judgement of God. As for the "perpetual peace," yes, we should live by example, but, when is the last time someone actually came up to you and asked you, "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice the peace you have in your life. Could you please tell me how to get that?" Now, maybe it has happened to you, but it's never happened to me. Never. If it has, that's great, but I believe the life we live should be in partnership with the words we speak.
Let me add something... I don't think we "impose" our faith on someone. We share. And I think we can do that lovingly and without belligerence. I have before. If they don't accept, then we shake the dust off our sandals and move on.
I don't mind sharing, but where I live, faith is used as a method to enrich pastors financially. And to clerify what I meant: It is not enough just to share the faith. People MUST live in example of our faith. You emphasis sharing, but what good is it if those sharing don't practice what they preach? I believe is some cases, Christians do impose their religion on other ppl, because just as strongly as we believe that J.C. is the only way to salvation, a Muslim believes that Muhammid is the way to salvation. Or rather, how effective is sharing on deaf ears? I think that's where living as an example of Christ becomes vital because then others see the beauty of our faith and how much it has impacted our lives; enables us to do great things that others can't imagine because they have no faith. I've seen many a Christian who sin purposefully, but use repentance as an excuse to get away with it, which leads some of my non-Christian friends to a) deny Christ or b)believe that they can just live their lives the way they want and then repent on Sunday.
~H
P.S. Ppl don't come and say "You look rather peaceful today, can you tell me how you do it?". They notice that I don't get shaken up by the storms of life, or they come to me for council with their problems and that's when I share the word of God. There's nothing wrong with sharing- it's how one shares that I question
Very well said. I agree it needs to be a balance... no, not a balance... a parallel between the two (sharing and living), because one without the other is utterly detrimental to the main point we try to get across. You said, "... which leads some of my non-Christian friends to a) deny Christ or b)believe that they can just live their lives the way they want and then repent on Sunday..." OH THAT IS SO TRUE, AND I HATE IT!!! Why can't we just live one way or the other and be done with it!! Rev 3:16, "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." Hypocrisy is rampant among the Christian community, and it's unfortunate. Anyway, I still hold to my view of both sharing the faith and living by example. If Jesus or the disciples didn't use their mouths, we wouldn't be talking about this right now, because the message never would've reached us. They weren't killed for what they DID so much as what they SAID. Their words pierced the hearts of the ones listening, and they killed them for it.
But if we live our lives a Christians, we are called to testify, so there shouldn't be any question that sharing is vital. So in other words, if you don't share, you are by default a "lukewarm" Christian :)
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