John Wesley, preached holiness and was a great evangelist. Stacks of people got saved through his ministry. The Salvos come under his tradition... Wesley is a model for us to follow, he loved the poor, lived a holy life and rpeached the gospel! Just what we salvos are to do... I want to focus on his evangelism today, take a look at these quotes and see if you stack up to his style of evangelism...
“If the gospel is preached well sinners should be angry or convicted of sin righteousness and judgement to come. If they are not then I don't think they are to be an evangelist." Wow, do your converts even hear you speak about sin?
“It is the ordinary method of the Spirit of God to convict sinners by the Law. It is this which, being set home in the conscience, generally breaketh the rocks in pieces. It is more especially this part of the word of God which is quick and powerful, full of life and energy and sharper than any two-edged sword." What? You mean he preached law?
“Before I can preach love, mercy and grace, I must preach sin, Law and judgment." Wow! He really did!
“Preach 90 percent Law and 10 percent grace.” Ok, this has got to be a joke right? Wesley, known for his holiness doctrine, full of love, preached law more than grace?!? Why would he do that?
Romans 7:7b says, "I would not have known what sin was except through the law." We need to know how we have sinned before we can repent of it and be saved!
Check out www.wayofthemaster.com to learn how to use the law in a fun, non judgmental way and lead people to repentance!
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5 comments:
Preach Law - hmm. Seems you need to discover the purpose of the Law/Torah.God gave Israel the Torah/Law as the way of life for the people with whom he had already entered into covenant, and whom he had now recued from slavery. The Law was itself the covenant charter, setting Israel apart from all the other nations. All the obedience that the Law then required falls under the rubric of 'responce to God's saving grace', even when this is not expicitly mentioned. We are not called to preach the Law but the Gospel of God's redemptive action in Jesus Christ. Romans 1:3-5 provide a summary of what the gospel is and 1:16-17 is a claim about the effect of the gospel: when it is preached, God's power goes to work and people are saved. Paladin
Thanks Paladin, I think you may be misunderstanding me...
In preaching the law we are not asking people to live according to the law to be saved. I agree, God gave the law once they were saved. But that is not what I am talking about.
Paul says in Romans 7:7-9 "Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died."
and in Galatians 3:24 he says, "So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith."
If the command Jesus gave us was to repent and believe to be saved we need to know what we are repenting from, and that is the purpose of the law in evangelism, to reveal our sinfulness.
Then, once people understand their sin and impending judgment then when we preach the good news it will make sense.
James, no I haven't misunderstood what you have said, you have not understood what Paul is saying in Romans and Galatians in general and in particular the verses you take out of context. Nowhere does paul say you are save by keeping the law but you do keep the law when you are saved and so become part of God's covenant community. Galatians context says the law was Israels tutor not ours - the context of the text you take out of context is part of the issue between Peter and Paul. Paul is telling Peter to get his act together. Romans 7 is also a Jewish context not a Gentile one. Proof texting generally fail to win any points in trying to prove a point. Unless you can argue exegetically from the whole context you can get it wrong. Paladin
James,
You might like to go and read N T Wright's commentary on Romand in the New Interpreters Bible Commentary. And then have a chat to Major Ennis on the subject. Valma
I do believe Paladin is right and he hasn’t misunderstood what you have said. I certainly agree with Paladin’s assertion that we are to preach the gospel not the law, for similar reasons. We are called to preach the gospel not the law, this is because ‘the gospel is God’s power for salvation’: the preaching of the gospel, in the power of the Holy Spirit, is the means by which, as an act of pure grace, God induces faith in a person. It is a mystery that is true. Furthermore ‘nobody can say “Jesus is Lord” – the basic Christian confession of faith) except by the Holy Spirit’. (1 Cor.12:3). When the word of the ‘the gospel’ is proclaimed, the Holy Spirit goes to work in ways that the preacher cannot predict or control and which often takes us all by surprise (1 Thes.1:5. 2:13). Yes, ‘faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of the Messiah’ – in other words, the announcement of the gospel of God concerning his Son (Rom.1:3f. 10:17). This is what Paul means in Gal3:2 & 5 with ‘akoe’ meaning the act of hearing and leads to the message which elicited faith. What Paul refers to as God’s ‘call’ (Rom.8:29 and following) is the moment when, out of pure grace, the word of the gospel, used by the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit, transforms hearts and minds so that, a person come to believe that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. Faith is itself the sign of grace. Whic suggests that Wesley got it wrong. WJE
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