From:  (Nigel B. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: What Jesus said He requires of us, and what He offered us.
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 1998 23:45:30 GMT

On Tue, 07 Jul 1998 02:47:05 GMT,  (Christian
Graus) wrote:

>... I listed Jesus as offering
>
>1/ eternal life
>2/ the only way to God
>3/ to meet our physical needs
>4/ tongues, healing, protection & provision
>5/ The Holy Spirit and power
>6/ I threw in persecution as a discussion point.  ;0)))
>

You certainly listed Jesus as offering those things, but you did not
make it sound very attractive. Self interest (saving ME from eternal
damnation/nothingness/hell/suffering) seems to me to be pretty far
distant from what Jesus was on about. 

There is an  old model of evangelism which goes something like this:

1. Convince the person that there is a God who created them
2. Convince the person that they deserve God's punishment because of
their sin.
3. Convince them that Jesus has paid the price of their sin on the
cross.
4. Convice them that one of the following (depending on theological
orientation/ denominational affiliation) will ensure (and /or assure)
forgiveness and eternal life.

a) Baptism (by submersion, of course) and speaking in tongues

b) Acceptance of the authority of the Church and participation

    in the sacraments

c) Accepting Jesus as your personal saviour. 

(Before you start wasting bandwidth, Chris, I know that you think only
'a' is valid, but I am trying to point out that this evangelical model
applies in a wide range of churches and traditions.)

The trouble is, although I acknowledge that this model works for some
churches, and strikes a chord with some people, for many others it is
quite meaningless, and even harmful. It also does not stand up to
critical academic scrutiny because it is based on assumptions about
the Bible, humanity, and the world which are not compatible with
broader knowledge. We can reject all other sources of learning,
including detailed study of the Bible, and stick to our own views,
..or we can constructively engage with the world and try and use the
resources of knowledge and experience to help us in our task of
evangelism.

I find that a model of evangelism based more closely upon the ministry
of Jesus can be just as effective, and may be more
idealogically/academically defensibl;e in the modern world.

This can be summarised as follows:
1. Be publicly accountable for who and what you are as a
Christian/evangelist/minister.(Luke 4:15-22, Matthew 5:14-16)
2. Be sure in what you believe, but be always willing to be questioned
and challenged. Luke 18:18-23)
3. Oppose hypocrisy in yourself and others (Matthew 25:23-35), but do
not hesitate to affirm the goodness of even your most virulent
opponents. (Matthew 23:2-3)
4. Make God's love for humanity the main reason for evertything you
say and do. (Matthew 22:37-39)
5. Always prefer to welcome rather than exclude (Matthew 25:31-46), to
pardon rather than to condemn (John 8:3-11), to heal rather than to
wound (Matthew 15:22-28).
6. Do what you can to make the community of faith (the Church, or at
least the part of it in which you find yourself) a community in which
the outcast and the sinner can find a home (Mark 2:16-17). 
7. Use the scriptures, the other traditional resources of the Church
and the skills and experiences of the community of faith to help one
another to make sense of the world of today, and how best to live as
God's people in it. (Luke 24)

If we do these things, then we have BOTH a better life in this world,
and the assurance of eternal life in God's nearer presence in the
next.

Let me put it this way - because I try to live by the principles set
out above, I find that my life is better than it would otherwise be,
both for me and for those around me (so far as I can tell). If I die
tonight, and find that you are right - because I have not spoken in
tongues Jesus will disown me and I will have no part in his kingdom,
or I find that the Muslims are right - there is one God and Mohammed
is his prophet, or I find that the secular humanists are right - there
is no God, or whatever, my Christianity will still have been a
blessing to me - and (I hope) others. 

cheers

N+

Nigel B. Mitchell