The gospel in the Old Testament

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Posted By Larry Moyer On June 29, 2011

EvanTell’s Bad News Good News approach ^[1] to presenting the gospel that is presented in our May I Ask You a Question booklet has been very helpful to many.  Believers have found it to be very effective when presenting the gospel to the lost.

I’ve been asked, “Suppose you are talking to a Jewish person who only accepts the Old Testament.  How could you present Bad News Good News from the Old Testament?”  These would be the main points and the verses I would use:

 ^[2]Bad News #1 – We are all sinners
(Ecclesiastes 7:20) For there is not a just man on earth, who does good And does not sin.

Bad News #2 – The penalty of sin is death
(Ezekiel 18:4) Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul that sins shall die.

Good News #1 – Christ (the Messiah) died for you
(Isaiah 53:6) All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Good News #2 – You can be saved through faith
(Genesis 15:6) And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

The good news of Jesus Christ is the same, but you can easily use verses from the Old Testament to walk through a gospel presentation such as the Bad News Good News approach. One can see that the entirety of Scripture points to Jesus; He truly is central to the message within the Bible.

The method can change (and yes, even the Scripture verses referred to), but the message is the same:”Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead.”

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URL to article: http://www.evangelism.net/sharing-the-gospel-from-the-old-testament.htm

URLs in this post:

[1] EvanTell’s Bad News Good News approach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUe9ZgADBNQ&feature=channel_video_title

[2] Image: http://www.evangelism.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Bible_gold_sm.jpg

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Service Corps - Alaska video update

Great to see the Team USA Service Corps Team serving in Wrangell Alaska. May God bless your work and may you end with testimonies of changed lives and people coming to know Christ.

Here is part of their blog...

Alaskan Adventures

Jun. 22nd | No showers, no beds, no worries.   We have lots and lots of coffee and craisins, and even more Jesus!  We arrived in Wrangell and immediately began working.  We talked with the Corps Officers about VBS that would convene the next morning and began planning out the day’s activities.  What we thought was part of the USA, really is another country. Alaska is like Portland, OR on steroids.  It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  Whenever we venture off to get a taste of glory in nature, someone always says “why does this look so fake?” Seriously, the beauty is surreal.  I will never get used to seeing the 7 foot wingspan of a bald eagle fly twenty feet over my head. It gets dark here around 11pm and the sun is all the way up by 4am. We are all so tired by the end of the day that we really aren’t bothered by it. VBS was awesome.  There were about 20 kids that attended the VBS.  The last day of VBS we took the kids to the park in 50 degree weather where they all played water games in shorts and swim suits while the rest of us cheered them on in our doubled hoodies and pants.  Then we all went back to the corps and camped out with s’mores and tents in the chapel.  20 kids came to VBS and 20 kids rededicated or for the first time gave their lives to Christ.  It’s only been a little over a week and hearts are changing… Especially mine! After many VBS days, moose stew, and White king Salmon, we left Wrangell Sunday and arrived at Ketchikan in the evening.  We caught the Ferry from Ketchikan to Klawock and the Salvation Army Community greeted us with a Salvo potluck and lots of love.  One of the Elders named Jeff gave us a tour of the island and brought us out to a cemetery and to look at a handmade canoe that we are going to go on later this week.  It’s only been one day in Klawock and I love it.  People have opened up with us and shared their personal lives with us.  I can’t wait to see what God is going to do with us and the Klawock community. 

Signing off…

Jenn

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Keep up to date on service corps items at...
http://saynetwork.com/servicecorps/category/media/usa-media/
http://saynetwork.com/servicecorps/category/team-blogs/usa/

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General Linda Bond's first pastoral letter.

 June 2011

Pastoral Letter

Dear Salvationists:

As this is my first pastoral letter since I took office as General in April, I want to share a personal word with you and also emphasise what we hold in common.

My upbringing in the New Aberdeen Corps in Nova Scotia, Canada provided me with a clear understanding of the gospel of Jesus. As a child, I was not only aware that I could accept him as my Saviour but was trained to serve him. That service ultimately led me to say yes to the Lord's clear call to be an officer. A variety of appointments over these past 42 years have proven that the Lord opens doors of opportunity and gives great fulfilment and blessing. As Lord and Saviour, he never disappoints. Obeying him, trusting him and living for him are my greatest joys.

No doubt you also have had a personal encounter with the Lord that has changed the course of your life. Every experience is different but what we share in common is that we serve him together in The Salvation Army.

We are blessed with a wonderful heritage and the future is as bright as the promises of God. Yet the present connects both, does it not? We build on the past and chart a course for the future by our faithfulness to his mission in the present. Surely we all desire to be part of a Spirit-filled Army of the 21st century! Much depends on our own response to the Spirit but we can never imagine what God has in store for the Army he raised up. We need to seek him, keep in step with his Spirit and make his mission our priority.

Very soon you will be hearing from your territorial/command leaders about a way in which we can meet together in prayer. Commencing 1 September, we will begin to hold a weekly 30-minute international prayer meeting on Thursdays. Territories and commands have been asked to choose a half hour between 5 and 8 o'clock in the morning and will be urging Salvationists to pray for the Army and our mission priorities. Because we serve in so many different time zones, there is the possibility that for all or most of every Thursday, the Army will be at prayer. I hope you too will be joining us, in groups or individually. There will be information coming soon on the General's website. I will be joining with staff at International Headquarters at 7.30am, London time.

I close this letter with one of my favourite verses of Scripture; Psalm 143:8: 'Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you'. The psalmist whispered this prayer in the midst of adverse circumstances. However, it can be prayed every day, in the best of times and the worst of times. And it will be a prayer that God will always answer. May you delight in his love, be secure in it and share it.

God bless you richly,
Linda Bond
General

http://www1.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_ihq_general.nsf/vw-dynamic-arrays/B94A7FA92DD47627802578B00035B7F0?openDocument&charset=utf-8

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My own little world.

Greetings in Jesus Name,

I'm not posting as much during our Salvation Army Camping season, please keep the camp season in your prayers that every child would come to know Christ in a real, powerful, and personal way. Also pray that everyone who serves here, myself included, will look more like Jesus when the season is over.

Here is a good video, but also remember my last post and ones prior, that "social holiness, social justice, mercy ministry" or whatever you call it, is only "half-tistice and not holisitic" if we meet needs and never share the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Make sure that while you serve you share Jesus!
Enjoy the video.



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How to Do Justice and Not Undermine Evangelism

A repost from SermonCentral and then my thought at the end...

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Home » All Resources » Articles on Evangelism: How To » Don Carson,

 

How to Do Justice and Not Undermine Evangelism  Don Carson

 How do Christians work for justice in the world and not undermine the centrality of evangelism? Don Carson responds.

 

How do Christians work for justice in the world and not undermine the centrality of evangelism? Don Carson responds. 

1. By doing evangelism. I know numerous groups that claim to be engaging in “holistic” ministry because they are helping the poor in Chicago or because they are digging wells in the Sahel, even though few, if any, of the workers have taken the time to explain to anyone who Jesus is and what he has done to reconcile us to God. Their ministry isn’t holistic; it’s halfistic or quarteristic.

2. By being careful not to malign believers of an earlier generation. The popular buzz is that evangelicals before this generation focused all their energies on proclamation and little or nothing on deeds of mercy. Doubtless one can find sad examples of such reductionism, but the sweeping condescension toward our evangelical forbears is neither true nor kind. To take but one example: The mission SIM has emphasized evangelism, church planting, and building indigenous churches for a century—yet without talking volubly of holistic ministry, it built, and still operates, many of the best hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa.

3. By learning, with careful study of Scripture, just what the gospel is, becoming passionately excited about this gospel, and then distinguishing between the gospel and its entailments. The gospel is the good news of what God has done, especially in Christ Jesus, especially in his cross and resurrection; it is not what we do. Because it is news, it is to be proclaimed. But because it is powerful, it not only reconciles us to God, but also transforms us, and that necessarily shapes our behavior, priorities, values, relationships with people, and much more. These are not optional extras for the extremely sanctified, but entailments of the gospel. To preach moral duty without the underlying power of the gospel is moralism that is both pathetic and powerless; to preach a watered-down gospel as that which tips us into the kingdom, to be followed by discipleship and deeds of mercy, is an anemic shadow of the robust gospel of the Bible; to preach the gospel and social justice as equivalent demands is to misunderstand how the Bible hangs together.

4. By truly loving people in Jesus’ name—our neighbors as ourselves, doing good to all people, especially those of the household of faith. That necessarily includes the alleviation of suffering, both temporal and eternal. Christians interested in alleviating only eternal suffering implicitly deny the place of love here and now; Christians who by their failure to proclaim the Christ of the gospel of the kingdom while they treat AIDS victims in their suffering here and now show themselves not really to believe all that the Bible says about fleeing the wrath to come. In the end, it is a practical atheism and a failure in love.

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I couldn't help but think how often we in the west are doing halfistic or quarteristic ministry as opposed to holistic ministry because we have failed to share the gospel in Jesus Name while do the work in His Name. My prayer is that every Salvation Army, and follower of Jesus, will live with heart to God and hand to man, and also be bold in proclaiming Salvation found only through Jesus Christ.

 

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Follow the black cat Revolution

Check out the site & video - pretty cool!
http://www.followtheblackcat.com/index.htm



Here is the link to the descriptions behind the metaphor and imagery.
http://www.followtheblackcat.com/documents/TBCR%20-%20The%20Metaphor,%20Meaning%20and%20Message.pdf


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11 things repentance is not - video by Mark Driscoll

Have you biblically repented of your sin, killed it, and do you now live holy for Him?



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