MacArthur Nothing But the Truth

Upholding the Gospel in a Doubting Age
1. Auflage 1999
ISBN: 978-1-4335-1694-8
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten

'Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.' -1 Peter 3:15 Scripture is clear about the fact that we must be prepared to communicate the truth of the Gospel when given the opportunity-and do it with the right attitude. But even when your tone is gentle and respectful, what, specifically, should you say when asked or confronted about your faith? And what is your overall responsibility to unbelievers as a disciple of Christ? Pastor John MacArthur responds to these very questions and more-with solid, biblical answers focused in four particular areas:     * your attitude     * your preparedness     * the content of your answers     * your priority in witnessing Combining a biblical study of evangelism, a rational defense of Christian beliefs, and a practical approach to evangelism, this book offers a well-rounded perspective that can help you gently and confidently give an answer for the hope you have in Christ.

John MacArthur (1939-2025) is the late pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where he served since 1969. He is known around the world for his verse-by-verse expository preaching and his pulpit ministry via his radio program, Grace to You. He wrote or edited nearly four hundred books and study guides. MacArthur also served as chancellor emeritus of the Master's Seminary and Master's University.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Macarthur, John

Leseproben

People’s conduct, whether they are Christians or non-Christians, affects the lives of others with whom they live. Sometimes the influence is positive; at other times it is quite negative. The following two stories from Greek mythology aptly illustrate this basic principle. An invisible goddess once came to earth and left behind tangible blessings wherever she went. Charred trees she passed sprouted new leaves; flowers filled barren pathways after she walked through; stagnant pools became fresh and parched meadows green after she passed by.

Another account describes what happened when a princess was sent as a gift to a king. In appearance she was as beautiful as a goddess, and her breath smelled like fine perfume. But since infancy she had fed on nothing but poison, which permeated her being and contaminated the air around her. If she breathed on a swarm of bees, they would perish; if she picked a flower, it would wilt and die; if any bird flew too close, it would fall dead at her feet.

Obviously you and I should want our words, actions, and very presence automatically to produce positive results. In no way should believers ever want to have the kind of negative influence that accompanied the princess in the Greek myth. Even though we live, work, study, and play in this world, we are not supposed to reflect its values and attitudes (John 17:15-16, 18; 1 John 2:15). Because of who we are, we must influence the world toward salvation and God’s standards of righteousness, not toward more selfishness, amorality, and materialism. We are to be in the world but not of the world.

Once we develop a biblical attitude toward our responsibilities in a spiritually hostile, morally decaying world, that attitude will inevitably help shape our approach toward evangelism. Jesus’ own words in the Sermon on the Mount express for us in picturesque language the influence we will have on the world:

THE ESSENCE OF THE BELIEVER

Most of us realize that the contemporary world, with its increasingly corrupt culture and its darker and darker outlook, needs spiritual salt and light. Preacher and commentator G. Campbell Morgan reminded believers of an earlier generation: “Jesus, looking out over the multitudes of His day, saw the corruption, the disintegration of life at every point, its breakup, its spoilation; and, because of His love of the multitudes, He knew the thing that they needed most was salt in order that the corruption should be arrested. He saw them also wrapped in gloom, sitting in darkness, groping amid mists and fogs. He knew that they needed, above everything else . . . light” ( [New York: Revell, 1929], 46). If the people of Jesus’ time desperately needed salt and light, isn’t it obvious that people in our day need the moral preservative and spiritual illumination that Christians, by God’s help, can bring?

In Matthew 5:13-14 the Greek pronouns translated “you” are in both verses emphatic plural. The emphatic form means that believers are the only persons in a culture who can truly be salt and light to it. Unless God’s people are salt and light, the work of retarding moral corruption and dispelling spiritual darkness will not get done.

The plural indicates that Christ wants His entire Body, the church, to be influencing the world. Isolated grains of salt and individual beams of light have little effect. But when many grains of salt and many beams of light are joined together and dispersed throughout the world, positive and significant change is on a much wider scale.

I saw the necessity of concerted teamwork portrayed well years ago by a magazine article and its accompanying series of pictures. The article explained how a four-year-old boy had wandered from his Kansas farmhouse and into an adjacent wheat field when no one was paying attention. The first picture showed how vast the field was. The second one highlighted the boy’s distressed mother sitting inside their house. His parents had searched for him all day, but he was too short to be seen in the midst of the shafts of wheat. A third photo depicted the dozens of friends and neighbors who had formed a human chain the following morning to continue the search through the wheat field. The final picture in the series showed the distraught father holding the lifeless boy who had not been found until after he had died of exposure. The caption under the fourth picture stated, “Oh God, if only we had joined hands sooner.”

Many people are spiritually lost due to the sinful preoccupations of this world, and they can’t find their way to the Father’s house unless believers sweep through the world, searching collectively to rescue them.

When Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. . . . You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:13-14), He was simply stating a fact. The elements of salt and light symbolize what believers . The only issue open to question is whether or not Christ’s own will act faithfully as salt and light in a dying world.

Jesus is “the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:9). And He later told the disciples, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:5). However, now that Christ has left the earth, it is the responsibility of believers to shine forth His reflected light: “You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light” (Eph. 5:8; cf. Col. 1:13).

By definition, an influence is different from whatever it seeks to affect, which means that if we live as salt and light, we will be different from the world upon which we are called to have an impact. We cannot be the salt that retards moral corruption and spiritual decline if we are not holy. We cannot be the light that brings truth to dark places if we fail to honor the truth of God.

In a variety of ways Jesus’ first-century listeners would have understood His expression “salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13) to refer to a valuable commodity. Roman soldiers were paid in salt, from which practice the saying “not worth his salt” originated. In many ancient societies, sharing salt at a meal symbolized a mutual responsibility of friendship and concern. Because of its preservative nature, the mineral was often used in Bible times symbolically to authenticate a covenant, similar to the contemporary practice of notarizing contracts (cf. Lev. 2:13; 2 Chron. 13:5). Therefore Christ’s audience would have understood, though incompletely, that believers were to have a crucial function in the world because salt represented a valuable commodity.

What specific trait of salt did Jesus most intend to associate with spiritual character? Commentators through the centuries have made a number of suggestions. Some have said He was connecting its white color with personal purity (Christians should be pure). Some have said He was associating salt’s taste with the sort of divine flavor believers should add to the world (they should add an attractiveness to the Gospel). Others have said Jesus was referring to the sting salt gives to a wound (believers should be faithful to the Word, even when doing so offends the unbeliever). Still others have said Jesus was primarily pointing to the thirst salt creates (Christians’ lives ought to produce a thirst for God in the lives of unbelievers). All of the preceding observations have some validity, but they still fall short of the Lord’s main emphasis.

The primary comparison Christ was making between salt and the Christian’s life is that just as salt is a preservative, the believer is a preserving influence in the world. Christ’s followers, as part of their primary responsibility to live godly lives and proclaim the Gospel, can be used to save sinners and thus by their growing influence will actually help slow the moral and spiritual decay brought on by the world’s culture.

We must remember that the opportunity for Christians to be preservatives is relatively brief. When God’s people are raptured out of the world, the wicked power of Satan’s kingdom will be unleashed in an unprecedented manner (2 Thess. 2:7-12). After that, it will take just seven years for the world to slide to the brink of hell (see Dan. 9:27; Rev. 6—19).

In the meantime, those who know Jesus Christ can greatly influence the world for good. His agents of salt have done so at specific times in the past. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes:...