Christian Witnessing, part 3
Mutter, mutter, stupid computer doing what I tell it to do instead of what I mentally commanded it to do. Part 1. Part 2. Probity Rules comes back, and leaves a comment on Part 2. He has a blog named Yellow. Tagline: You. Eternity. Life. Love. Obedience. Wisdom. Mostly scripture, comments on scripture, and a link to an article on Civ II. [Which is a great game, by the way.] 3 months of posts in 2003, one post this march. An interesting post on control here. Is there an explicitly Christian gaming subgroup, similar to Christian rock? Anyway. His thoughts on his second comment:

Since we both believe that God inspired the Bible, I assume we can also both agree that in its very basic essence, it is Truth. As such, I wanted to share truth in a manner where the truth could be seen without the reader immediately becoming distracted and defensive because it is quoted from the Bible. It appears that once again I am in the wrong: this is clearly a type of deception. You have also clearly mentioned that you want scripture with references to the passages. I am aggravated that I am doing such a poor job in witnessing for faith in God, so as you have better ideas, feel free to let me know.

I am clearly no expert on Christian witnessing. I can only talk about things I know and experience. As such, when I was reading his previous comments what I felt was that the person commenting wasn't trying to understand what I was saying, just noticing a few keywords [axiom, gay marriage] and going from there. Which is about how I feel about Jack Chick publications. I believe such an approach might convince a few people to accept Jesus, but will turn off many more people. Especially in the Western world, in which most adults have at least an idea of what Christianity is about. If you're concerned that directly and clearly quoting the Bible might turn someone off [and it could, I agree], make the argument in your own words. Basically, either make the argument using the authority of the Bible to make your claim, or use the logic behind the Truth. Directly quoting Paul, in a way that only partially made sense, without using the authority of the Bible did neither. I have yet to directly experience useful witnessing, even though I've been around several people who were trying. For example, one woman at work made her religion known fairly often, and it affected her actions at times [when presenting a patient's history would normally require her to say a four letter word, she would look at me and I'd say it]. She asked me once if I was saved. It wasn't bad, at that point we were at least acquaintances and it fit in the conversation. But it wasn't great, since we really didn't use the same axioms, to go back to the first point. And I suspect Probity Rules and I don't use the same axioms, either. At least to some extent. So, should you argue from my point of view, or try to change my point of view to yours? I don't know the answer. I do suspect that changing my point of view will require something [trust? openness?] on my part, although you can always pray for a miracle.
- posted by owlish @ 3/25/2005 09:47:00 AM