Now I know there are many who, looking at the state of the church today, feel that the one thing for us to do is immediately to consider what methods we can employ in order to win outsiders. That is a perfectly right and good thing to think about. But they start with that. They say, "Here we are, and there are people outside who are indifferent to the church," and immediately they begin to consider means and methods of interesting and attracting outsiders. And some of them seem to be prepared to go to almost any lengths and to borrow any measures conceivable from the world itself in order to do something to get hold of these people. Now while I am in total agreement with evangelism and would be among the first to say that the primary task of the Christian church is evangelism, I do, nevertheless, suggest that when we start immediately to think of the methods, of what we can do, to attract those who are outside, we are stating at the wrong point.
(Lloyd-Jones, David Martyn. Setting Our Affections upon Glory: Nine Sermons on the Gospel and the Church. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013. Print. 68)
No comments:
Post a Comment