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If you listen to the emergent conversation long enough, you will hear a recurring theme: Christians are wrong to confront unbelievers head on with the Word of God. We should instead lay aside our desire to preach or share the truths from the Word and spend more time developing relationships and friendships with the unchurched (a politically correct name for unsaved). They often use Jesus as an example, saying He did not confront people but always accepted them for who they were. One example is in Dan Kimball's 2007 book, They Like Jesus but Not the Church. In his chapter titled "The Church Arrogantly Claims All Other Religions are Wrong," Kimball refers to the story where Jesus is sitting near a well by Himself (the disciples have gone to the nearby town), and he talks to a Samaritan woman. Kimball alters the story by saying:He [Jesus] stopped and asked questions of the Samaritan woman (John 4) and didn't just jump in and say, "Samaritans are all wrong."But Kimball is wrong. Jesus did the exact opposite! He didn't ask her any questions, and he confronted her straight on--something Kimball says (throughout his book) is a terrible thing to do to an unbeliever. Listen to Jesus' words to the woman:
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. (John 4:21-26)Kimball largely bases his premise on the reasoning that Christians should not do or say anything that might offend unbelievers, even if that anything is truth and Scripture. The fact is, Jesus did confront people with the truth, as did His disciples (as well as the Old Testament prophets). And why did He? He told the woman at the well the reason:
Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. (John 4:10)There is no question about it, the Word of God is offensive to the unbeliever just as I Corinthians 1:18 states:
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.And again in II Corinthians 2:15-16, when Paul explains the attitude he encountered when witnessing to unbelievers:
For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.If Paul had been adjusting (contextualizing) the Word of God to fit the culture and context of the lives of those he spoke to, he would not have said "the aroma of death leading to death." He took the spiritual state of these people very seriously, and he had full confidence that God's Word, unaltered and unchanged, could reach into the heart and soul of any person who would receive Christ by faith. Whether a person is young, mentally challenged, or of a different culture or ethnic group, the Gospel is God's Gospel, and He made it so that all who receive it by faith will understand His love and forgiveness and have eternal life. (This has been an excerpt from Faith Undone, pp. 45-47.)
by Roger Oakland
As in the days of Noah...
