Bearfruit

Tonight I taught my small group class… this was part one of a two part lesson entitled, “Practical Tools for Sharing the Gospel.” Among the controversial parts were, “Memorizing Scripture” where I challenged anyone in the class to quote a chapter of scripture… (Becky quoted Psalm 23 flawlessly from memory, two others implied they could quote a chapter as well) What makes this controversial is few people like it when they’re told that they’re not doing something that they should be doing, and I wholeheartedly believe that scripture memorization is a commandment from God. The second controversial part was that I challenged the notion that “Asking Jesus into your heart” was scriptural (I don’t believe it is). I feel that the bible clearly states that a person needs to “believe (pisteuo)” in Jesus to be saved. (cf. Acts 16:30-31, John 3:16, John 3:36, John 5:24, John 11:25-26)

I continued the class by sharing a list of memory verses and the first two of five points that can be used to explain the gospel to an unbeliever. The five points have been adapted from the Evangelisim Explosion curriculum. My favorite part of the EE curric is that it explains things in a very precise order designed to answer common objections before they’re raised. It also offers some clear and easy to remember illustrations for explaining important biblical concepts. For example, the seriousness of sin is explained that if you sinned only three times per day, over the course of a lifetime that would be over 70,000 times. What would happen if you walked into a courtroom with 70,000 offenses? The judge would take it very seriously.”