Hell's Best Kept Secret Method method of evangelism and the Bible

I am not opposed to using the Ten Commandments to show people that they are sinners, and I have done a bit of that. I do not agree with those who seem to think this particular methodology is __the__ Gospel. I look at the way the Gospel was preached in Acts, I don't see the elaborate focus on convicting audiences of sin, not emphasized the same way Ray Comfort does. In Acts 2, Peter does charge his audience with crucifying the prince of life. I don't see the heavy emphasis on making the audience feel guilty about sin in Paul's evangelistic messages either. Paul does teach in his epistles that by the law comes the knowledge of sin. He lays out the case for all being sinners in Romans.

I notice one of the ways of the Master in scripture was to heal and do miracles, then people believed.

I am not opposed to Ray Comfort, or using the ten commandments in evangelism. I don't think doing so is heretical But I have encountered people who think this is __the__ way to do things.

Back in the 1990's, I came across Ray Comfort's website on the relatively new world wide web. I corresponded with him a bit. He had a book "Hell's Best Kept Secret."

Nowaydays, he has quite a media ministry showing his street witnessing, and he works with former teen TV star Kirk Cameron. I appreciate their desire to share their faith on the street, and I am not opposed necessarily to how they do things.

There are some areas where I probably would not agree. I believe an evangelistic encounter where the individual is ready should ideally end with water baptism and the doctrine around it should be explained a bit. I have also heard Ray Comfort quote a verse about entering into the kingdom of heaven and conclude it has something to do with 'going to heaven.' The Biblical focus is on the resurrection. The Bible talks about a new earth, and the emphasis on 'going to heaven' when you die is loosely inferred from scripture and relies heavily on tradition.

I am not opposed to using the Ten Commandments to show people that they are sinners, and I have done a bit of that. I do not agree with those who seem to think this particular methodology is __the__ Gospel. I look at the way the Gospel was preached in Acts, I don't see the elaborate focus on convicting audiences of sin, not emphasized the same way Ray Comfort does. In Acts 2, Peter does charge his audience with crucifying the prince of life. I don't see the heavy emphasis on making the audience feel guilty about sin in Paul's evangelistic messages either. Paul does teach in his epistles that by the law comes the knowledge of sin. He lays out the case for all being sinners in Romans.

I am not against going into detail on any aspect of the Gospel, and it may be very appropriate for many listeners. But the idea that you have to really focus on convincing the audience of just how sinful they are, or use the 10-commandment method to present the Gospel is not something I agree with.

Also, the idea that Jesus' encounter with the rich young ruler was about exposing his pride in his heart and his trusting in his own righteousness, while it certainly aligns with certain streams of Protestant thought, doesn't seem to be an obvious interpretation of the passage that a first century reader would have held to. Using a template to argue for using the law to expose sin as a template for the 'way of the Master' seems a bit like exegesis.

I notice one of the ways of the Master in scripture was to heal and do miracles, then people believed. The Master also told a woman by a well in Samaria about her marital past. There are a lot of 'way of the Master' things that don't fall into this ten-commandment method.

I am not opposed to Ray Comfort, or using the ten commandments in evangelism. I don't think doing so is heretical But I have encountered people who think this is __the__ way to do things.

I do appreciate his pointing out some of the problems that evolved into evangelicalism where it came to the point where people equated repeating a prayer with 'getting saved', no matter whether there is repentance or faith or not. Another problem I haven't seen him emphasize which I think is bigger, is having people repeating prayers without preaching the Gospel first-- no explanation of Who God is, Who Jesus is, What Christ means, what sin is, no mention of Christ dying for their sins.... and if all that is mentioned, no mention of the resurrection. Then....repeat this prayer and you are saved.... and no water baptism. It doesn't seem to fit what I read in Acts or the epistles.

Also, the Biblical root of confession got stripped from the prayer. Originally, the 'repeat this prayer' thing in Billy Graham after-meeting evangelistic sessions was a means of getting people to confess that they were sinners, and their faith that Jesus is God's Son, the Christ, and that He died for our sins and God raised him from the dead. (I am not sure which points of the kergyma were emphasized.) But so often, the prayer is stripped of the Biblical doctrinal points of confession. The audience is told something like,

"Religion is bad. You need a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. If you believed what you have heard today, repeat this prayer.....(prayer without much kergyma content in it)....if you believed that, you are saved.

I'm not comfortable with evangelism by dragging people thru the mud before giving them them good news of belief in Jesus as God for receiving eternal life.

It is not "dragging people through the mud" to show them what is written in Romans 3. That is the Word of God, and every person who needs salvation needs to see how God views him or her.

ROMANS 3: THE TRUE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF ALL MANNKIND
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

So after reading this portion of Scripture it is perfectly legitimate to ask "Do you accept God's verdict -- that you are guilty before God?" Then it is time to present the Gospel.

Seems like Jesus actually ate dinner with sinners. Think He was sitting there eating and telling them how such horrible people they are for breaking God’s laws? Doesn’t seem like that’s the case. Jesus built a relationship with people and they respected Him immensely because they loved Him and He told them God loves them too.

When Jesus was with the woman at the well, He told her the man she had was not her husband.

I'm convinced everyone reads this wrong, through the world's eyes. I can't imagine that, after being told what people think Jesus said to her, she ran through the streets all giddy about "Yay! Jesus knows I'm a sinner and told me all about them!" haaaa. That's just crazy.

It would be more accurate to Jesus' character to explain it as her going through the town telling everyone, "I've met Somebody, finally, who knows intimately and completely understands my suffering!" How comforting is that to have just that alone, in itself. But to have the LORD God be that One? Yes, that would cause anybody to run through the streets so joyfully after having realized that.

Have you ever experienced something that demonstrates the reality of God in this natural world? Maybe it was a specific answered prayer? I remember I had a specific seven-part answered prayer, most of which was answered in a very detailed way, very specifically. Have you ever seen someone supernaturally healed of an ailment?

Have you ever experienced a prophecy or some other gifts that enables someone to have supernatural knowledge? There is something amazing, even awe-inspiring about seeing the work of God in real life. We know God is true and powerful, but one in this situation may be overwhelmed with the reality of God, and the fact that He paid attention to the one who benefitted from his work. This woman met a stranger, a Jew, someone who was not from her city. She was amazed that He was a prophet. And she believed that He was the Messiah. His knowing about her marriage experience and shameful then-current relationship status might normally have been unpleasant. But his knowledge of it was supernatural, and she was apparently more concerned about meeting the Prophet and Messiah than about her pride.

She knew what a husband is, she had five of them. And Jesus knew what she knew, that this one she had was not 'her husband.' Now, if it were true that she was 'living in sin,' as it is generally assumed, then she would've figured that Jesus probably 'knew' of this simply by hearing it from the local gossip. However, this is a peculiar case since Jesus 'knew' something no one could've possibly known, that's what was amazing about it after all, i.e., that her current husband was a just a hino, and not one in the truest spirit. Jesus can see that sort of thing, where no one else can tell if anything is wrong, unless He shows them.

We don't know exactly what He said. We do a have a few details. He told Zacchaeus that he'd be eating with Zacchaeus. They had a conversation. We don't know what was said, but Zacchaeus was willing to give back money he had cheated from people and to give half his goods to the poor. When a sinful woman was at Jesus' feet, His host thought ill of Him, thinking if He were a prophet, He would know what kind of woman this is.

I've heard or read they used to leave the door open for dinners like this, and those who weren't invited to eat could sit in the house and overhear the conversation and the guest religious teacher's teaching.

Notice that Jesus pointed out the host's flaws as a host, not greeting Him with a kiss or washing His feet.

When Jesus was with the woman at the well, He told her the man she had was not her husband. Jesus ate with sinners and said God had not called the righteous, but sinner's to repentance. So He might have been telling people what their sins were at some of these dinners, instead of just saying "God loves you."

Other than maybe John 3:!6, do you know of any words of Jesus along the lines of 'God loves you' directed toward sinners?

'The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. Now if Jesus had been talking to other Samaritans, she might have heard about that from the local gossip.

In the conversation, she said she perceived that Jesus was a Prophet. She then tried to start a debate about the proper location of worship, and Jesus admitted to her that He was the Messiah. She ran to town to tell others there. She was shocked that Jesus knew about her and realized that it was because he was a Prophet. So she could recognize that something supernatural was at work.

I would imagine her own living situation could have been a source of shame. Some people care more about their pride than God being at work, but I don't think she did.

I am thinking about several years ago, there was a woman my wife knew who kept seeing spirits in her home-- weird creepy stuff going on. She invited my wife, who was a part of a little prayer team. They went over there to pray. One of them got a word of knowledge and went over to her koi fish pond and said she put an amulet in there. (This was in Asia.) He said she needed to dig it up and dispose of it. I had seen the pond, this beautiful stone pond, huge, like a shallow swimming pool. Koi fish can be worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars. They are large decorative fish.

Anyway, when he said that.... she had indeed put a magic thing or whatever there to bring good luck. Some people in her country would do such things at the behest of a kind if witchdoctor. But she just got upset about it-- the idea that he would want her to dig up that thing out from under the water and the rocks in that pool. She was more upset at this than she was in awe of something supernatural going on.

The woman at the well seemed to care more about an encounter with God than the inconvenience of having her lifestyle pointed out.

It seems better to point out everyone else' shame than to acknowledge God's desire to go out of His way to minister His love to such a ... individual that He loved.
Why would Jesus have answered that, "...You have spoken truthfully," unless there was an evident question as to the truthfulness of her statement, "I have no husband." He declared, "For you have had five husbands, and the one (rel. husband) whom you now have (hold, possess)...is not..."

Back in the 1990's, I came across Ray Comfort's website on the relatively new world wide web. I corresponded with him a bit. He had a book "Hell's Best Kept Secret."

Nowaydays, he has quite a media ministry showing his street witnessing, and he works with former teen TV star Kirk Cameron. I appreciate their desire to share their faith on the street, and I am not opposed necessarily to how they do things.

There are some areas where I probably would not agree. I believe an evangelistic encounter where the individual is ready should ideally end with water baptism and the doctrine around it should be explained a bit. I have also heard Ray Comfort quote a verse about entering into the kingdom of heaven and conclude it has something to do with 'going to heaven.' The Biblical focus is on the resurrection. The Bible talks about a new earth, and the emphasis on 'going to heaven' when you die is loosely inferred from scripture and relies heavily on tradition.

I am not opposed to using the Ten Commandments to show people that they are sinners, and I have done a bit of that. I do not agree with those who seem to think this particular methodology is __the__ Gospel. I look at the way the Gospel was preached in Acts, I don't see the elaborate focus on convicting audiences of sin, not emphasized the same way Ray Comfort does. In Acts 2, Peter does charge his audience with crucifying the prince of life. I don't see the heavy emphasis on making the audience feel guilty about sin in Paul's evangelistic messages either. Paul does teach in his epistles that by the law comes the knowledge of sin. He lays out the case for all being sinners in Romans.

I am not against going into detail on any aspect of the Gospel, and it may be very appropriate for many listeners. But the idea that you have to really focus on convincing the audience of just how sinful they are, or use the 10-commandment method to present the Gospel is not something I agree with.

Also, the idea that Jesus' encounter with the rich young ruler was about exposing his pride in his heart and his trusting in his own righteousness, while it certainly aligns with certain streams of Protestant thought, doesn't seem to be an obvious interpretation of the passage that a first century reader would have held to. Using a template to argue for using the law to expose sin as a template for the 'way of the Master' seems a bit like exegesis.

I notice one of the ways of the Master in scripture was to heal and do miracles, then people believed. The Master also told a woman by a well in Samaria about her marital past. There are a lot of 'way of the Master' things that don't fall into this ten-commandment method.

I am not opposed to Ray Comfort, or using the ten commandments in evangelism. I don't think doing so is heretical But I have encountered people who think this is __the__ way to do things.

I do appreciate his pointing out some of the problems that evolved into evangelicalism where it came to the point where people equated repeating a prayer with 'getting saved', no matter whether there is repentance or faith or not. Another problem I haven't seen him emphasize which I think is bigger, is having people repeating prayers without preaching the Gospel first-- no explanation of Who God is, Who Jesus is, What Christ means, what sin is, no mention of Christ dying for their sins.... and if all that is mentioned, no mention of the resurrection. Then....repeat this prayer and you are saved.... and no water baptism. It doesn't seem to fit what I read in Acts or the epistles.

Also, the Biblical root of confession got stripped from the prayer. Originally, the 'repeat this prayer' thing in Billy Graham after-meeting evangelistic sessions was a means of getting people to confess that they were sinners, and their faith that Jesus is God's Son, the Christ, and that He died for our sins and God raised him from the dead. (I am not sure which points of the kergyma were emphasized.) But so often, the prayer is stripped of the Biblical doctrinal points of confession. The audience is told something like,

"Religion is bad. You need a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. If you believed what you have heard today, repeat this prayer.....(prayer without much kergyma content in it)....if you believed that, you are saved.

It is not "dragging people through the mud" to show them what is written in Romans 3. That is the Word of God, and every person who needs salvation needs to see how God views him or her.

ROMANS 3: THE TRUE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF ALL MANNKIND
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

So after reading this portion of Scripture it is perfectly legitimate to ask "Do you accept God's verdict -- that you are guilty before God?" Then it is time to present the Gospel.

Yes. Pride gets in the way of understanding God an awful too much. It seems better to point out everyone else' shame than to acknowledge God's desire to go out of His way to minister His love to such a ... individual that He loved.
Why would Jesus have answered that, "...You have spoken truthfully," unless there was an evident question as to the truthfulness of her statement, "I have no husband." He declared, "For you have had five husbands, and the one (rel. husband) whom you now have (hold, possess)...is not..."

I understand if you don't see it that way so readily. It's a symptom of an indoctrination reinforced by using shame and guilt for rejecting.