This 'getting to know you' exercise on Jean's blog is about a thousand percent better than most of the get-to-know-you activities I have been part of, or have run.
Very timely too, given that groups in a lot of local churches and campuses are just getting under way for the year, 'round these parts anyway.
4 comments:
[offtopic]Cracker post on Challies' blog re Keller[/offtopic]
Oh, thanks Adam! For those who are curious about what Adam is talking about, you can find the relevant blog item on Tim Challies' blog, here.
Dear Gordon:
Since Adam brought the subject up!...Your question about the gospel outline in that article is understandable. You are assuming that outline is meant to stand alone as the full evangelistic presentation, but I said in the paper it isn't. Notice that in the article I say that this outline is only the introduction. Its a sandwich--first, you do a very brief presentation of the gospel that gets interest (it doesn't have to be that one, necessarily.) Then secondly, you really go at the 'defeater beliefs'--all the parts of the gospel people today hate, including (it's in the paper) God's anger and wrath. Thirdly, after you go through that and they are at least partially with you, then you go through a fuller gospel presentation.
As I said, I see why you would put the first part of the evangelistic presentation up against something like 2 Ways to Live and find it wanting, but that's a mistake. In the book The Reason for God I actually put that particular narrative in the last chapter, after defending the idea of God's wrath at length earlier.
I thought all this was clear in the paper. It was originally a handout for a training seminar. So it wasn't originally written to posted on a website. I'll look again. It may be easy to misread it. Sorry.
Tim Keller
For those intterested, I have a few thoughts about Paul, cultural contextualization and Acts 17 here.
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