This week, I’d like to highlight one of my current textbooks. I’m in a personal evangelism class and I’m getting to re-read this short book.
I am incredibly thankful for Pastor Greg for his clear writing and his ability to help readers understand what is and what is not the gospel.
He highlights several ways in which people, including Christians, may describe the gospel in a way that is actually not the gospel. (For more details, you have to read it!)
Another portion I found incredibly helpful was on the differentiation between works being a means of faith and salvation and them being the fruit of salvation.
The former being answered, in part, like this: “To rely on your own Christian fruit to secure God’s favor is ultimately to shift your faith from Jesus to yourself. And that is no salvation at all.” The latter being answered, in part, like this: “…when people are given new spiritual life, they begin to do the kinds of things that Jesus did. They begin to live like Jesus lived and bear good fruit.”
Too often I’ve heard Christians give answers to a lost, broken, and hurting world that are like the week-old leftovers from a grand feast. The gospel is far better than life-enhancement, yet many will seek to “sell Jesus” to others as an addition to help their life instead of seeing Him as the Lord of all His creation. The problem in most Christian lives is not an over-abundance of gospel focused worship, it is a famished church starved from the gospel, only partially sustained with half-truths.
This book will help you better articulate the gospel as the Bible presents it, help you internally understand and live it out, and will keep you from the pitfalls of missing the primary purposes of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Do you know the gospel?
If so, how does it affect your life?
Called to Words 