To evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe.
Topics: Evangelism Source: The Biblical Basis of Evangelism, p. 69.
Faith is a reasoning trust, a trust which reckons thoughtfully and confidently upon the trustworthiness of God.
Christian giving is to be marked by self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness, not by self-congratulation.
Topics: Giving Source: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p. 131.
So there is such a thing as perfect hatred, just as there is such a thing as righteous anger. But it is a hatred for God's enemies, not our own enemies. It is entirely free of all spite, rancor and vindictiveness, and is fired only by love for God's honor and glory.
Topics: Hatred, Anger Source: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p. 117.
Universalism, fashionable as it is today, is incompatible with the teaching of Christ and His apostles, and is a deadly enemy of evangelism. The true universalism of the Bible is the call to universal evangelism in obedience to Christ's universal commission. It is the conviction that not all men will be saved in the end, but that all men must hear the gospel of salvation before the end.
What Jesus emphasized in His teaching (in Matthew 5:33-37) was that honest men do not need to resort to oaths; it was not that they should refuse to take an oath if required by some external authority to do so.
Topics: Honesty Source: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p. 102.
The incentive to peacemaking is love, but it degenerates into appeasement whenever justice is ignored. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are both costly exercises. All authentic Christian peacemaking exhibits the love and justice - and so the pain - of the cross.
Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service. If we do not use the mind that God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality and cut ourselves off from many of the riches of God's grace.
The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve.
The very first thing which needs to be said about Christian ministers of all kinds is that they are "under" people as their servants rather than "over" them (as their leaders, let alone their lords). Jesus made this absolutely plain. he chief characteristic of Christian leaders, he insisted, is humility not authority, and gentleness not power.
To evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe.