Below is a quote from J. Gresham Machen when challenging the liberal protestants around the 1920s. It seems that the Evangelical Movement that once took the same position as Machen and championed the cause to make sure that the Gospel was at the center of the preaching and especially for evangelism. However, it seems as if the Evangelicals of today need to hear Machen saying this to us all right now.
"Evangelism does not consist in the rehearsal of what has happened in the evangelist's own soul. Christian evangelism does not consist in a man's going about the world and saying "Look at me, what a wonderful experience I have, how happy I am, what wonderful Christian virtues I exhibit. You can all be as good and as happy as I am if you just make a complete surrender of your wills and obedience to what I say." That is what many religious workers seem to think that evangelism is. But they're wrong. Men are not saved by the exhibition of your glorious Christian virtues. They're not saved by the contagion of your experiences. We cannot be the instruments of God in saving them if we preach only ourselves. Nay, we must preach to them the Lord Jesus Christ, for it is only through the gospel that sets him forth that men can be saved."
-J. Gresham Machen Chris
www.Reform-Shire.blogspot.com
Coram Deo!!!
"Evangelism does not consist in the rehearsal of what has happened in the evangelist's own soul. Christian evangelism does not consist in a man's going about the world and saying "Look at me, what a wonderful experience I have, how happy I am, what wonderful Christian virtues I exhibit. You can all be as good and as happy as I am if you just make a complete surrender of your wills and obedience to what I say." That is what many religious workers seem to think that evangelism is. But they're wrong. Men are not saved by the exhibition of your glorious Christian virtues. They're not saved by the contagion of your experiences. We cannot be the instruments of God in saving them if we preach only ourselves. Nay, we must preach to them the Lord Jesus Christ, for it is only through the gospel that sets him forth that men can be saved."
-J. Gresham Machen
www.Reform-Shire.blogspot.com
Coram Deo!!!
1 comment:
A few links relevant to Machen and his book, “Christianity and Liberalism”:
http://agrammatos.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/machen-and-paul-a-fictional-dialogue/
http://www.calvinism.us/machen2.htm
http://www.outsidethecamp.org/review101.htm
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