ATTENTION: Please SCROLL DOWN this page to find the article titled on this post in LARGE BRIGHT BLUE CAPITAL LETTERS. Thank you.)
[DEAR FRIEND, I just read this in an email this morning (7/24) at a conservative news website: "Coke will not contribute to Planned Parenthood and will not match employee contributions to the organ harvesters either." I don't have confirmation of this but it reminds me that as I was praying (as I do each morning) for the over 3,000 women every day who have scheduled appointments to abort their unborn child, God encouraged me that possibly through this latest PP scandal many women are giving second thoughts to abortion. Hopefully the scandal (like the revelation of partial birth abortions 12 years ago) will serve to educate more people that abortion is not about discarding unwanted tissue but of destroying live human beings. Hopefully, it will be the cause of fewer and fewer choosing abortion as a choice! Let's be praying that is already happening! - Stan]
PRAYER MATTERS:"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world." - Karl Barth; "Prayer is inviting God into a seemingly impossible situation and asking Him to accomplish His perfect and loving will." - Stan
World-Wide Prayer Requests:
"'We Can't Forget' Pastor Saeed's 1,000 Days in Prison" - By Abigail Robertson, June 24, 2015, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2015/June/We-Cant-Forget-Pastor-Saeeds-1000-Days-in-Prison/
"Pastor Saeed Abedini has been imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith for 1,000 days, June 23... 'We cannot move forward with an Iranian nuclear deal while Pastor Saeed sits in prison as well as three other Americans,' he said. Mahoney also called upon Christians around the world to come together in prayer.
'Pray for Saeed and his family, pray for safety for our brothers and sisters around the world, and also pray for our elected officials and President Obama that they would not be silent, ' Mahoney urged. 'We believe that as Christians pray around the world, we can see Pastor Saeed's release.' "
"DON'T LEAVE AMERICAN PASTOR SAEED BEHIND " - (5/2) - The Obama administration has stated that they would veto any Congressional action to tie the proposed nuclear deal with Pastor Saeed's release! (4/1/) - A nuclear deal with Iran could come at any time, any hour, any day. But will American Pastor Saeed be freed? His health is worsening. He continues to suffer grave threats in an Iranian prison where torture and executions are commonplace. President Obama assured Pastor Saeed’s wife that freedom for this wrongfully imprisoned U.S. citizen would be a “top priority.” Now is a critical time to continue to pressure the Obama Administration to not leave Pastor Saeed behind and urge Iran to show goodwill. Pastor Saeed is imprisoned merely because he is a Christian. He deserves to be home with his family. We continue fighting for his freedom – working in Congress, with the State Department, and with leaders across the globe. We must not forget Pastor Saeed. Sign the Petition: "Don’t Leave American Pastor Saeed Behind".; http://aclj.org/persecuted-church/dont-leave-am
Urgent Petition: Defend Christians - Defeat ISIS. - Go to http://aclj.org/jihad/say-no-to-a-third-term-of-president-obamas-failed-foreign-policy?view=donFrmB&utm_expid=7567081-8.vdNbXkfzQUyJhpww3WXtYQ.1&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign= "..An estimated 76 percent of the world's population live in countries where religious freedom is restricted...
Feb. 25 - "US Missionary Held for $300K Ransom in Nigeria" - CBNNews.com, February 25, 2015;http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2015/February/US-Missionary-Held-for-Ransom-in-Nigeria----/ "Phyllis Sortor, an American missionary in Nigeria, has been abducted from the Hope Academy compound in Emiworo, Kogi State. Nigerian police say her captors are asking for $300,000 in ransom. The Free Methodist Church, Sortor's sponsoring denomination, reports that the U.S. State Department and FBI are working with Nigerian authorities to find and rescue her. Kidnappings for ransom are common in Nigeria and most victims are returned unharmed. It's also possible that the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram is involved, although it operates mainly in the northeastern corner of Nigeria and Sotor was kidnapped in the central part of the country..."
Continue to Pray for EGYPT - Continue to pray for the tense situation in Egypt and especially for the Christian believers who are being targeted with violence by Muslim Brotherhood members.
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"THE LOST ART OF CHRISTIAN PERSUASION - OS GUINNESS’S 'FOOL’S TALK' " - By: John Stonestreet| Breakpoint.org: July 20, 2015;
http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/12/27826?spMailingID=11920303&spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=581407388&spReportId=NTgxNDA3Mzg4S0 [NOTE: This is a great follow-up to the article I posted LAST SUNDAY (7/19, #1251) that asked if "evangelism [is] on the wane?")
How do we communicate the Gospel in an increasingly anti-Gospel world? One of the leading Christian thinkers of our day has some ideas.
One of the great things about working for the Colson Center is that each summer we work with outstanding college interns. And our interns aren’t here doing filing and fetching coffee. When they show up, we put their developing skills to productive work: writing for our blog at BreakPoint.org, helping us with social media, and other ways that further our mission.
And one of our interns, Leah Hickman, who attends Hillsdale College, beat me to the punch on something I’ve been wanting to do on BreakPoint, and that’s review Os Guinness’s new book: “Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion.”
In her review at BreakPoint.org, Leah hits on something I think that all of us feel or think with a growing frequency these days. And that’s frustration: Frustration about our inability to communicate the truth and the beauty of the Gospel in this increasingly anti-Christian culture.
“I hardly know how to approach apologetics and evangelism anymore,” Leah writes. “No one seems to really care about truth . . . and how can you explain the truth of God’s Word with people who think that everything” is a matter of opinion? Leah identifies a fear that many of us have: “[H]ow do you tell someone that their beliefs are wrong and that they need Jesus without offending them or scaring them off? And what if I’m an ineffective debater and can’t win the arguments? They’ll never come to Christ that way. It will only drive them away.”
Well, happily for Leah, and for us, Os Guinness has written “Fool’s Talk” specifically to address these issues and to help us recapture what he calls the art of Christian persuasion. Guinness makes it clear from the start his book is not about technique; it’s not a step-by-step guide on “apologetics for dummies.” As he asserts, there is no “surefire, foolproof approach to sharing the faith.”
Instead, Guinness offers us an approach that’s based on and flows from a thoroughly Christian worldview. He writes, “True to the biblical understanding of creation, Christian persuasion must always take account of the human capacity for reason and the primacy of the human heart.” Because of the fall, “Christian persuasion must always take account of the anatomy of an unbelieving mind in its denial of God.”
And because of the incarnation, “Christian persuasion always has to be primarily person-to-person and face-to-face, and not argument to argument . . . media to media or methodology to methodology. “And true to the Holy Spirit, Christian persuasion must always know and show that the decisive power is not ours but God’s.”
Guinness also wants us to understand that the Scriptures themselves use a variety of means to communicate truth—and so should we. “The Bible has a high place,” he writes, “for rational arguments as well as for stories, drama, parables, and poetry. The Bible contains the book of Romans as well as the psalms of David and the parables of Jesus.”
Throughout the book, Guinness illustrates how the great persuaders reached their audience: From Jesus, to Socrates, to Augustine, and of course Lewis and Chesterton. But he is also unafraid to use great atheist persuaders as examples, like Nietzsche and even Norman Mailer.
Now, this is not a book you’ll be able to absorb in one sitting. It’s a book that demands prayerful attention. But it’s also a book that can ease frustrations about communicating the Gospel. That’s because, as Guinness reminds us, in the end, Christian persuasion is “not for salesmen, propagandists . . . spin doctors . . . and the like.” The art of Christian persuasion “is for those who desire to share the way of Jesus because of their love for Jesus, and who know that love is also a key part of any human being’s search for knowledge and truth.”
[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]
RESOURCES
Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion - Os Guinness | IVP Books | July 2015;http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9780830836994
"People, Not Playdough: A Fresh Perspective on Apologetics from Os Guinness" - Leah Hickman | BreakPoint Blog | July 6, 2015;http://www.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/entry/12/27751
The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus - Dallas Willard | HarperOne | February 2015; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9780062114082
[DEAR FRIEND, I just read this in an email this morning (7/24) at a conservative news website: "Coke will not contribute to Planned Parenthood and will not match employee contributions to the organ harvesters either." I don't have confirmation of this but it reminds me that as I was praying (as I do each morning) for the over 3,000 women every day who have scheduled appointments to abort their unborn child, God encouraged me that possibly through this latest PP scandal many women are giving second thoughts to abortion. Hopefully the scandal (like the revelation of partial birth abortions 12 years ago) will serve to educate more people that abortion is not about discarding unwanted tissue but of destroying live human beings. Hopefully, it will be the cause of fewer and fewer choosing abortion as a choice! Let's be praying that is already happening! - Stan]
PRAYER MATTERS:"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world." - Karl Barth; "Prayer is inviting God into a seemingly impossible situation and asking Him to accomplish His perfect and loving will." - Stan
PRAY FOR AMERICA: THANK GOD for His many blessings on America throughout it's history. May we then ask that AMERICA once again be a blessing TO GOD, by once again submitting to HIS will in our affairs - both personal and national - that He may truly "heal our land." (2 Chron. 7:14) Short of that, we should not be saying "God Bless America"but instead "God be merciful towards America!" (Feb. 24th - Rev. Franklin Graham delivered this insight to his Facebook friends yesterday, "I do know that the president defends Islam and chastises Christians, rebukes our allies and befriends our enemies, and fully supports gay marriages and abortion but denies the religious freedoms of those who don't agree. Our nation is ridiculed abroad and morally crumbling within. We are in trouble. We have turned our back on God.")
PRAY FOR OUR LEADERS: Let's be praying that the Congress and the the President will find a way to pass legislation and enact policies that will benefit America today and future generations and NOT do any lasting harm.
S.C. Decision on Homosexual Marriage– NOTE: I cannot stress enough how we all need to be praying that the Church – ie, the individual believer and the institution itself - will respond appropriately and effectively. Despite what the mainstream media is reporting, the debate is NOT over! (42 years after the SC legalized abortion, that debate is also FAR from over!) The Court ruled wrongly BUT they do NOT speak the FINAL word; God’s Word (and GOD) does – and always will. Isaiah 40:8; Phil. 4:5-6.
S.C. Decision on Homosexual Marriage– NOTE: I cannot stress enough how we all need to be praying that the Church – ie, the individual believer and the institution itself - will respond appropriately and effectively. Despite what the mainstream media is reporting, the debate is NOT over! (42 years after the SC legalized abortion, that debate is also FAR from over!) The Court ruled wrongly BUT they do NOT speak the FINAL word; God’s Word (and GOD) does – and always will. Isaiah 40:8; Phil. 4:5-6.
"'We Can't Forget' Pastor Saeed's 1,000 Days in Prison" - By Abigail Robertson, June 24, 2015, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2015/June/We-Cant-Forget-Pastor-Saeeds-1000-Days-in-Prison/
"Pastor Saeed Abedini has been imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith for 1,000 days, June 23... 'We cannot move forward with an Iranian nuclear deal while Pastor Saeed sits in prison as well as three other Americans,' he said. Mahoney also called upon Christians around the world to come together in prayer.
'Pray for Saeed and his family, pray for safety for our brothers and sisters around the world, and also pray for our elected officials and President Obama that they would not be silent, ' Mahoney urged. 'We believe that as Christians pray around the world, we can see Pastor Saeed's release.' "
"DON'T LEAVE AMERICAN PASTOR SAEED BEHIND " - (5/2) - The Obama administration has stated that they would veto any Congressional action to tie the proposed nuclear deal with Pastor Saeed's release! (4/1/) - A nuclear deal with Iran could come at any time, any hour, any day. But will American Pastor Saeed be freed? His health is worsening. He continues to suffer grave threats in an Iranian prison where torture and executions are commonplace. President Obama assured Pastor Saeed’s wife that freedom for this wrongfully imprisoned U.S. citizen would be a “top priority.” Now is a critical time to continue to pressure the Obama Administration to not leave Pastor Saeed behind and urge Iran to show goodwill. Pastor Saeed is imprisoned merely because he is a Christian. He deserves to be home with his family. We continue fighting for his freedom – working in Congress, with the State Department, and with leaders across the globe. We must not forget Pastor Saeed. Sign the Petition: "Don’t Leave American Pastor Saeed Behind".; http://aclj.org/persecuted-church/dont-leave-am
4/18/2015"Recant or Else: Saeed Faces New Psychological Torture" - By George Thomas, April 18, 2015; http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2015/April/Iranian-Prison-Guards-Torment-American-Pastor/ "Naghmeh [his wife] says recent prisoner executions have also taken their toll on her husband. Despite the hardships, she writes that he continues to remain strong in the faith.'He wants you all to know that the Lord continues to move in that prison and lives are being transformed!' his wife wrote on Facebook. 'That they had a great Easter in prison,' she continued. 'Saeed desperately 'missed being with our family on Easter, but new Easter traditions were created in prison!' 'Over the years this journey has truly become more difficult and painful for Saeed and for the kids and I,' she wrote. 'Our family appreciates your continued prayers.'We need to continue to pray for Pastor Saeed - that his health will improve and that he will be re-united with his wife and two young children who live in the United States.
Urgent Petition: Defend Christians - Defeat ISIS. - Go to http://aclj.org/jihad/say-no-to-a-third-term-of-president-obamas-failed-foreign-policy?view=donFrmB&utm_expid=7567081-8.vdNbXkfzQUyJhpww3WXtYQ.1&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign= "..An estimated 76 percent of the world's population live in countries where religious freedom is restricted...
4/17/2015 "US Missionary Injured in Apparent Terrorist Shooting" - By Abigail Robertson, April 17, 2015; http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2015/April/Christian-Missionary-Wounded-in-Apparent-Terrorist-Shooting/ "A Christian missionary is fighting for her life after being shot in the head in Karachi, Pakistan, in an apparent terrorist attack. Fifity-five-year-old Debra Lobo was hit twice when four men fired shots from motorbikes as she was leaving work...The gunmen, who escaped, left a leaflet in her car with her name on it saying they had targeted her because she was American." Let's keep Debra in our prayers.
Save Christian Mom Asia Bibi from Execution - A Christian mom has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for her faith. Asia Bibi was falsely accused of “blasphemy” – speaking against the prophet Muhammad. Now this wife and mother of five will hang for her Christian faith.She would be the first woman executed under Pakistan’s Shariah blasphemy law.This is the ultimate human rights violation. We’re mobilizing our international affiliate – the European Centre for Law and Justice – and its partner in Pakistan to stop this atrocity. Add your name to our letter to the government of Pakistan demanding Asia Bibi’s freedom.Go to http://aclj.org/persecuted-church/save-christian-mom-asia-bibi-from-execution; please add your signature to mine and over 35,000 others AND pray for Asia Bibi.
PRAY FOR THE CRISIS HAPPENING NOW IN IRAQ (see post #907) Pray that allied forces will be able to drive the group ISIS back (see post #964)
/PRAYER ALERT- UKRAINE: As the Lord leads, please pray:
*For God to suppress President Putin’s ambitions to "restore" the Soviet empire.
*For the people of Ukrainen [esp. for the church 'to be THE church'] as they wait to see if the Russian troops will advance.
*That President Obama would use wisdom in crafting our foreign policy, and wisdom for his advisers.
Continue to Pray for EGYPT - Continue to pray for the tense situation in Egypt and especially for the Christian believers who are being targeted with violence by Muslim Brotherhood members.
"THE LOST ART OF CHRISTIAN PERSUASION - OS GUINNESS’S 'FOOL’S TALK' " - By: John Stonestreet| Breakpoint.org: July 20, 2015;
http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/12/27826?spMailingID=11920303&spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=581407388&spReportId=NTgxNDA3Mzg4S0 [NOTE: This is a great follow-up to the article I posted LAST SUNDAY (7/19, #1251) that asked if "evangelism [is] on the wane?")
How do we communicate the Gospel in an increasingly anti-Gospel world? One of the leading Christian thinkers of our day has some ideas.
One of the great things about working for the Colson Center is that each summer we work with outstanding college interns. And our interns aren’t here doing filing and fetching coffee. When they show up, we put their developing skills to productive work: writing for our blog at BreakPoint.org, helping us with social media, and other ways that further our mission.
And one of our interns, Leah Hickman, who attends Hillsdale College, beat me to the punch on something I’ve been wanting to do on BreakPoint, and that’s review Os Guinness’s new book: “Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion.”
In her review at BreakPoint.org, Leah hits on something I think that all of us feel or think with a growing frequency these days. And that’s frustration: Frustration about our inability to communicate the truth and the beauty of the Gospel in this increasingly anti-Christian culture.
“I hardly know how to approach apologetics and evangelism anymore,” Leah writes. “No one seems to really care about truth . . . and how can you explain the truth of God’s Word with people who think that everything” is a matter of opinion? Leah identifies a fear that many of us have: “[H]ow do you tell someone that their beliefs are wrong and that they need Jesus without offending them or scaring them off? And what if I’m an ineffective debater and can’t win the arguments? They’ll never come to Christ that way. It will only drive them away.”
Well, happily for Leah, and for us, Os Guinness has written “Fool’s Talk” specifically to address these issues and to help us recapture what he calls the art of Christian persuasion. Guinness makes it clear from the start his book is not about technique; it’s not a step-by-step guide on “apologetics for dummies.” As he asserts, there is no “surefire, foolproof approach to sharing the faith.”
Instead, Guinness offers us an approach that’s based on and flows from a thoroughly Christian worldview. He writes, “True to the biblical understanding of creation, Christian persuasion must always take account of the human capacity for reason and the primacy of the human heart.” Because of the fall, “Christian persuasion must always take account of the anatomy of an unbelieving mind in its denial of God.”
And because of the incarnation, “Christian persuasion always has to be primarily person-to-person and face-to-face, and not argument to argument . . . media to media or methodology to methodology. “And true to the Holy Spirit, Christian persuasion must always know and show that the decisive power is not ours but God’s.”
Guinness also wants us to understand that the Scriptures themselves use a variety of means to communicate truth—and so should we. “The Bible has a high place,” he writes, “for rational arguments as well as for stories, drama, parables, and poetry. The Bible contains the book of Romans as well as the psalms of David and the parables of Jesus.”
Throughout the book, Guinness illustrates how the great persuaders reached their audience: From Jesus, to Socrates, to Augustine, and of course Lewis and Chesterton. But he is also unafraid to use great atheist persuaders as examples, like Nietzsche and even Norman Mailer.
Now, this is not a book you’ll be able to absorb in one sitting. It’s a book that demands prayerful attention. But it’s also a book that can ease frustrations about communicating the Gospel. That’s because, as Guinness reminds us, in the end, Christian persuasion is “not for salesmen, propagandists . . . spin doctors . . . and the like.” The art of Christian persuasion “is for those who desire to share the way of Jesus because of their love for Jesus, and who know that love is also a key part of any human being’s search for knowledge and truth.”
[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]
RESOURCES
Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion - Os Guinness | IVP Books | July 2015;http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9780830836994
"People, Not Playdough: A Fresh Perspective on Apologetics from Os Guinness" - Leah Hickman | BreakPoint Blog | July 6, 2015;http://www.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/entry/12/27751
The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus - Dallas Willard | HarperOne | February 2015; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9780062114082
Thanks for the recommendation! Another book I've read recently that was very helpful is called Tactics, by a guy named Koukl (sp?) He talks about the need to ask engaging questions in order to gain an audience, understand where the other person is coming from, and then to lead them into questioning their own position. I don't agree with everything he says, but it's definitely worth a read.
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