On the Use of Scripture in Evangelism

AIV has had two very different evangelism trainings these last two weeks. Allen Wakabayashi presented a newer, more "cutting-edge", holistic approach to evangelism, while David Givens gave a more traditional, practical presentation on evangelism. Allen Wakabayashi talked about the role of the kingdom and the relation between Jesus' death and resurrection with broader issues such as suffering and social injustice, in addition to simply personal sin. David Givens concentrated on the more traditional Roman Road, Four Spiritual Laws, Bridge Diagram-esque kind of evangelism. Both emphasized relational evangelism. Both emphasized asking questions. Both emphasized gentleness and respect. Both were based on Scripture and Biblical, but there was a significant difference in the different gospel presentations that were offered, and this is what I want to concentrate on.

Allen Wakabayashi's gospel presentation has no explicit, required Bible verses. In many gospel presentations, there are "required" verses that the presenter needs to memorize, such as the previously mentioned Roman Road to salvation, which David Givens especially emphasized. One of the ladies that was at the Wakabayashi training actually pointed out the fact that in his entire mock presentation, Allen Wakabayashi never got actually quoted from Scripture. Wakabayashi replied:

"I find that in society today, people don't consider the Bible as authoritative as they did in the past, when most of the older gospel presentations were developed."

Wakabayashi basically said that no longer would believe something just "because the Bible told me so", that Scripture isn't considered truth, as it was to a greater extent in the past. I know that it seems weird to suggest that a gospel presentation doesn't need to quote Scripture, and I don't say these things to bash Wakabayashi's gospel presentation or suggest that he is a heretic, because he himself said that Scripture is important (who wouldn't?), but it raised a few questions in my own head.

Is Scripture necessary in a Gospel presentation?

The answer to this question may seem immediately obvious, but I think it's still important. The question isn't whether or not Scripture is necessary for Christian life, but whether or not it is necessary for an explanation of the Christian worldview. Now, everything said will (hopefully) be Biblical and based on Scripture, but the question is whether or not quoting Scripture is necessary. The next question may help us find the answer.

Does a Scripture quotation hold the same authority if you don't make it explicit that it is a Bible quotation?

So the question here is of the hearer's knowledge that a statement is a direct quotation from the Bible. We can all think of multiple situations where the weight of what you're saying could be increased if you quote a Bible verse, but most of these are when you are dealing with Christians. What about people that have no regard for the Word of God? Does quoting some truth as a Bible verse give you any advantage? In some cases, won't it be counterproductive by turning people off to the ideas presented?

What about paraphrasing Scripture? Do I really need to quote Romans 3:23? Can't I just give the explanation immediately instead of making a non-Christian do the difficult task of interpretation of Scripture (as David Givens suggested)? If I can explain the Gospel by paraphrasing Scripture, do I still need to quote it?

After thinking about it for a little bit, I think it all comes down to this:

Does the authority of Scripture come from its perceived truthiness, or is the authority intrinsic?

To me, the authority of Scripture is intrinsic. God's Word is God's Word, whether it's spoken or read. The authority of Scripture doesn't come from a perception that it is truth, but that it simply is the truth, and much of this truth has been revealed to all. Even if a person's mind doesn't accept the Bible as truth, at some level, every person's heart does (Romans 1:20).

Hebrews 4:12 - "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

I don't claim to know the answer for all the questions I have just raised, but I think it's better to be safe and just quote Scriptures when necessary. After all, it's God's Word, not ours.

Fun Pictures from the Weekend:

Cory and I were doing equipment up north at Willowtree. Since we normally drive onto the grass to make carrying all the heavy equipment less painful, I tried it again, not realizing how muddy it was. My car got stuck in the mud, with my right tires being totally underground. After a little bit of struggling, we managed to get the car out of our self-created ditch. Yay.

  

Carillon

I got a chance to go to up the Lurie bell tower on North Campus today! Qi, one of my classmates, invited me up there today to listen to watch him play, so I went up there to watch. (Sorry I don't have any pictures. I didn't want to look like a n00b compared to the people who were used to it. If I get another chance to go up there, I definitely will, though.).

The view from the top of the bell tower was awesome! Watching them play the carillon was amazing. It's like a ginormous piano that you use your fists to play, and with pedals like the organ. Watching them play was really interesting, especially as the instructor gave some critique afterwards. [Qi just sent me this link. Listen!]

I'm not a musically gifted or knowledgeable person, and I'm not going to pretend to be, but the carillon teacher said something today that really rang a bell in my head (see what I did there?).

Music is meant to be interpreted, not just played as is.

The carillon teacher talked about how after Beethoven, there was some sort of switch in mentality about music, and that the music composed was then viewed as the gold standard, and you weren't supposed to deviate from it. However, the music before that (the teacher mentioned Bach's music) was more obviously written to be interpreted. The instructor basically implied (I think) that when playing the music, it's important to  capture the original spirit of the song. It's really too bad I don't actually know the musical terms for it. Qi played a cool song, and one of the critiques that the instructor had for him was to play it more "playfully", as it was originally intended. This is one of those things that seems hard to read from just notes on a page, but thinking about the composer's original intent sheds more light on the music. o

Similarly, the history of the Bible (and all things historical) are meant to be interpreted.

Last week in GIG, Pastor Bob talked about how the books of history in the Bible were written with the intent of being interpreted, and that there was an original spirit and intent behind the writing of the history books of Scripture. It's foolish to assume that historical writings were written without some agenda, hidden or not, in mind. All history is interpreted. However, we now think of history as science, totally neutral. [I'm not advocating loose Biblical interpretation. You know I wouldn't.]

I just found it interesting that this shift from interpretive to "scientific" exists in music, as it does in reading history and Scripture.

I don't really know music, so I hope I wasn't just speaking gibberish. It was just cool to see a link between what I learned recently with music.


[This post sucked. Sorry. It's late.]

Kobe's Work Ethic

I don't know how Kobe does it.

The Lakers lost a close one to the Heat last night, and Kobe decided to stay after to work on his shot and his game. He practiced for 80 minutes (article here). It was his third workout of the day.

I just got back from the CCRB after shooting around for around an hour. As expected, I started off pretty cold, but I soon started hitting all the shots I wanted to. My free throws were basically all going in. I actually made 4 corner three's in a row. I was hitting my jump shots. I felt pretty good, and thought to myself "I don't need to practice any more. I'm already pretty good."

And then I thought about Kobe. This guy is a 6-time NBA champion, a USA gold medalist, and has been the best player in the game for the last few years. And he practices harder than I ever would. He stayed after, and said "I just wanted to work on some things; I just wanted to work on my game." Kobe isn't content with where he is. Granted, it was after a loss, but still. Then there's this short Asian kid who shoots around for a little bit and think he's all boss and the top of the world, while Kobe is still trying to improve his game. Incredible. Kobe's drive is what makes him so great.

Desmond Howard tweeted: "This is Y I have so much admiration for Kobe as a professional athlete. http://yfrog.com/h3hdvyjj. His professional focus is unmatched" (here) and "Kobe put himself through a 1.5hr workout after every1 left the arena. http://twitpic.com/48cen3. He's not THAT GUY by accident. #DEDICATION" (here) So. True.

Where does this drive come from?! I don't know how Kobe does it...

[This all, of course, can be applied to more spiritual things , but I won't do so in this post]



Also, here's why I love the Lakers (written a while ago).


Why I Love the Lakers 

I need to lose weight

I need to lose weight. It's not for self-image or self-esteem, because I'm already awesome as I am. It's not (totally) for girls, because fat guys get married too. It's not for health reasons, because I think I'm pretty healthy. It's not to please my parents, because, as Iris would say, I have authority issues.

I need to lose weight, and it is because I'm going to Taiwan over the summer, and if I'm fat, my grandma will point it out 273985252 times a day, every day. The nagging will be endless. The reminders of my fatness will be endless. She will not hesitate to embarrass me in front of other people, just because Asian people don't care. My grandma, bless her heart, doesn't have an "off" switch when it comes to this nagging. The last time I went to Taiwan, the nagging was about basketball, and how I shouldn't play it because of some people in the newspaper that got hit in the eye with the ball and went blind. She had the newspaper clippings to prove it. It was also about computer use, and how computer screens are evil, and that for every 20 minutes I was at a computer, I needed to get up for 10 minutes. Not bad advice, but when it's shoved down your throat a gatrillionjillionmillion times, it no longer sounds reasonable and you go insane. I really don't want this to happen again. [Thank you, Mom, for reminding me the horrors of my grandmother's nagging.]

I need to lose weight, and it's for the sake of sanity-preservation.

In other news, kittens are cute:

2011 Spring Break

Saturday - 26 February 2011

Got picked up from the airport at around noon and went to eat at the Korean tofu place next to H-Mart, and then just shopped around at H-Mart for a couple of hours eating all of their samples. We met Thomas and Wendy there!!

Sunday - 27 February 2011

Went to church and then went to Chipotle for buy 1 get 1 free with Thomas and Wendy! Didn't really do anything that night besides eat my mom's cooking.

Monday - 28 February 2011

Didn't do anything. Just stayed home. And played Starcraft.

Tuesday - 1 March 2011

Went to Jersey Gardens outlets and bought myself a new pair of Dr.Scholl's dress shoes (my last ones, I bought for $11 at Payless). Check out my sexy new look:

Bringing Sexy Back

Also, check out this sign outside of the mall:

Uhh....what?

Wednesday - 2 March 2011

Iris and I went up to Rutgers at night and had dinner with Eric, Thomas, and Tim at Friendly's. It was a poor decision. The food stunk. I got the Grilled Cheese Burger Melt or whatever it was called, and it basically was a burger with grilled cheese sandwiches as the bun. It was gross. It made me feel gross. I remembered Friendly's as an establishment with great food and awesome ice cream, but the food really disappointed all of us. We went to CCF afterwards, where a great message about assurance of salvation was given. Here are the sermon notes.

It was nice talking over with Iris how the Rutgers CCF is like AIV and how it's different. For example, all the newcomers get a welcome bag (which is really cool), but the fellowship also feels a lot more cliquey compared to AIV. We also got a little bit of perspective, because we were the newcomers and went through the loneliness of being new, even though we had Thomas and Eric with us basically the entire time. We really are blessed to be in AIV, as we often forget really how great of a community it is.

Friendly's Grilled Cheese Burger Melt

Thursday - 3 March 2011

Eric came over for lunch and we got Shanghai Bun and watched some Sportscenter and Top Chef. Didn't really do anything else that night besides have awesome hot pot for dinner and then watched the Heat collapse against Orlando. Mommy, Daddy, and I then watched the second part of an awesome 2-part Castle episode. Is it just me, or does this guy (from that episode of Castle) look a lot like Chael Sonnen? They sound alike too...

Friday - 4 March 2011

Went to Joywok. The speaker was a missionary to Romania that just got back from a trip to South Africa. The main challenge he presented was whether or not our church was a place where the weak and the vulnerable are welcome in our church, or if our church is like the "den of robbers", where the blind and the lame were forced to the outskirts instead of the temple being the house of prayer for everyone.

Saturday - 5 March 2011

Kenny is coming to visit me!! Met with Bijan at Starbucks and went to West Lake for dimsum! Iris is hanging out with Maggie and Ben and Jason and Andrea (the staff for Pitt), and I'm probably going to go watch the Duke-UNC game with Shawn and Bwuu later. Watching the Michigan-Michigan State game...on my computer...because it's not showing here in NJ =(

Update: UNC beat Duke, much to the delight of Shawn and Brian. I had a really interesting conversation with Kenny about suburbia. He says that architects and city planners or w/e think that suburbia is wasteful in the everything is superfluous. The roads are unnecessarily big, the houses are unnecessarily big, things are far apart from each other which forces driving and fuel consumption, etc. But to me, suburbia is home. It's awesome. It's comfortable. Its beautiful. Suburbia may be wasteful, but I love it.

Sunday - 6 March 2011

Jason and Andrea, the Intervarsity staff workers at University of Pittsburgh, came to our church! Jason gave a talk about why people leave the church, and he gave a very "IV"-type exposition, connecting Scripture to life. He spoke as a young man to young people, using lingo and illustrations that adults wouldn't understand (like a Halo example, which I doubt any adult understood). I got a chance to talk to Andrea about the problem of seniors of college fellowships dropping out of church after college, when they enter the real world, and she gave me a bunch of good tips about what can be done. Jason and Andrea are mad cool. It's really too bad their from that school down south. I must point out, however, that Jason was wearing Michigan colors when he spoke - he wore a yellow shirt and a blue tie. God works in mysterious ways. [Btw, the sermon notes are here.]

Also, I got to see Darren and Margaret, and a bunch of kiddies back home. MC3FTW.

Only in New Jersey...

On where faith comes from:

Romans 10:17 - "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."

Home - A Poem

Home
Where it smells like home.
Where it's okay to walk around in boxers.
Where you can throw clothes and the floor and it magically disappears.
Where the dishes magically wash themselves.
Where you meet friends grocery shopping (YAY THOMAS).
Where the bottled water is Poland Springs.
Where we use real drums for worship!
Where I get to wake Iris up as she sleeps into the afternoon.
Where all the people you see at the gym are guidos.
Where there's soooo much food I can't help but get fat.

I love home.

Yes, I just basically created a list and called it a poem. The main reason is simply that "home" rhymes with "poem". Win.

[I will be adding to this list as I think of more stuff.]