Featured Preaching the Gospel to the Humble, the Law to the Proud???

Yes, yes, no.

 

This is my question also, @evangelist6589 .

 

So, if I understand you correctly (please let me know if I have not) you are saying that the biblical evangelist would preach the Law to the proud and preach the grace of Christ (the gospel of salvation) to the humble?

 

I was wondering that as well. What bothered me in his response was that in the past he spoke of giving the law to the proud and grace to the humble, and preaching the Law to the proud and the gospel to the humble. But I also realize that the way we say things can be misunderstood (like when I thought he was prevented from preaching by his piano playing elder ).

While we do address sin as a part of the gospel message, I think it is important to also accept Scripture that those who are lost have some knowledge of right and wrong as well as their fallen state. My concern is twofold. First,that people don't believe they are to preach the Law to people. Second, that the passage in James is being hijacked for another purpose than is presented by its context in Scripture.

 

Yes, @evangelist6589 is right here. Ray Comfort does not preach a gospel except that salvation is through Christ. The issue that I have is that he severely misapplies and misinterprets Scripture. I think he would have benefited from being mentored by a few good pastors and theologians because he is a gifted evangelist.

 

I have already shared, but yes, I have several. The one I've shared here is James 4:6 and his application to evangelism. In a general sense, I suppose it could be applied to just about anything but James was addressing the conflicts among brethern.

Another is the account of Paul at the Areopagus (Acts 17) which Ray Comfort interprets as Paul convicting the lost under the Ten Commands for their idolatry.

Comfort misinterprets and misplaces the use of the Law quite often. For example : "Wesley, Spurgeon, Whitefield, Moody, Luther, and others used a principle that is almost entirely neglected by modern evangelical methods. They warned that if the Law wasn't used to prepare the way for the gospel, those who made decisions for Christ would almost certainly be false in their profession and would fall away." (http://www.freewonderfulbook.com/pdf/freewonderfulbook.pdf).

Nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to use the Law to prepare the way for the gospel, and there is no basis to declare those who don't are making false converts. Scripture testifies that all men have enough to be guilty and to know their guilt (I suspect this is why we have so many false religions rather than a majority of atheists).

In a discussion we had a while back over this topic, it was brought out that Comfort also sees the Law as the power behind regeneration: "Think of God's Laws as an extension cord that is plugged into the power of Heaven. The gospel is a light bulb. Without the Law, the gospel is powerless". (WDJD, pg 20).

If you are comfortable with these things, then I do not hold it against you at all. At least WOTM folks witness to others.

 

Very true.

The Law was added very much later, in fact, and the only people under the Law were those within that covenant (Deut. 5).

But the Law does reflect God's moral law (it reflects God's nature), so I can understand people using the Ten Commandments when those are already accepted. The problem with TWOTM is that it misunderstands the Law itself.

Things like murder, adultery, theft, idolatry….all of the moral law….were not wrong because of the Ten Commandments but because they are contrary to God’s nature as revealed in the world. Even before these Ten Commandments were given to Israel the moral infractions were sins against God. As these things are wrong it is no wonder they are included in God’s covenant with Israel because God is immutable. So we can use the Law to explain, but when we use it to place people under the Law we have started working against the gospel of Christ.

To illustrate, God’s moral law is not only revealed in the Law but it is also reflected to some degree in the commandments of pagan religions. You of course have the Quran, but that’s no surprise. There are also the Ten Yamas and Ten Niyamas of Hinduism. Zoroastrians believe in sin and the expiation of sin, and a judgment day when evil is destroyed and the just will inherit eternal life with the unjust suffering an eternal punishment. Mankind has a knowledge of sin and we can speak of this in evangelism (in fact, we need to explain sin). But what men need is the gospel of Christ.

When we restrict the moral authority of God to his covenant given to a specific generation of Israel for a specific time and purpose (or reduce that even more to the Ten Commandments) then we reduce God’s law to compare with the rules of any other religion and have to sell the religion in order to convict of sin. In America it isn’t too bad yet because we can still find people who believe, to some degree, that the Ten Commandments should govern our behavior.

The Way of the Master is an interesting and can be an effective tool for evangelism. But insofar as doctrine, it is a false teaching which can easily become a stumbling block placed in the paths of others.