I have Systematic Theology today, Greek tomorrow, and Biblical Hermeneutics Wednesday. As a result I’m going to need to take a break from posting until Wednesday evening. After I’m free I’ll post my reaction to The Golden Compass and post the next installment in the Unoffensive Gospel of Jesus series on understanding Humans properly through Rebellion.
Until then, enjoy a post I wrote this summer called, 10 Ways To Deconstruct Your Faith, a personal favorite of mine.
be His,
-jeremy
Best of luck on your finals! I look forward to your thoughts on Golden Compass. (And I love the idea of highlighting “best posts” when you’re out. I may have to steal that concept…)
Of your list, I like #10 the best. I grew up in a church that was big on counting “souls saved”. Later, I became part of a faith community that recognizes that God, in the Spirit of Christ, does the saving. Our job is to do the telling. Good post.
Mark and Pete…
It seems like #10 is the favorite among everyone who reads my list 🙂 I especially resonate with than one, too, because I actually worked for the man who developed one of those well known gospel presentation counters (EE…ever heard of it?) and began to have serious ethical problems working for his organization while I was shifting in my perspective on the point of “evangelism” (which I think is the wrong word anyway…)
anyway, thanks for the well wished, too. One exam down, 2 to go!
-jeremy
Hmm. What word would you use instead of “evangelism”?
good question Mark 🙂 Obviously the word evangelism stems from the Greek euangelion for “good news”, which is noun not a verb. It’s been turned into a verb, but the word was used by Jesus of the Kingdom of Heaven…the verb used as a command by Jesus to His motheytace’s (disciples) is motheusate, meaning to cause one to be a pupil or disciple.
So I say that not to impress you with my Greek 🙂 but as prologomena to my word for “evangelism”: discipleship. An extrapolated definition of motheusate is to influence someone in such a way that they pattern their life and lifestyle after another. In our case, our goal should be to influence people to follow Jesus as Messiah, Redeemer, and Restorer. I liken evangelism to colonialism and discipleship as sustainable development. Hey I just thought of that! Maybe I should make it a post 🙂
What do you think, Mark?