John Piper, a noted evangelical pastor-scholar, Calvinist, and charismatic to boot presents the gospel to hearers in six minutes. He says it can be given in one sentence:
But if a person doesn't share that background, what then?
For example, what would Buddhist adherents make of this presentation? I'm sure they would find it hard to understand much less believe. Of course, the Lord can save people with little knowledge of him but (as Don Carson said in my last post) God usually uses [human] means rather than special miracles to present the gospel.
I am no expert on Buddhism* and all its variant forms. But from what I've read, Buddhism is primarily concerned with suffering and how we can live with suffering. It locates suffering at the centre of the world.
Further it gives a reason why we suffer: we suffer because we crave things/people and/or attach ourselves to such things/people in the world. Such strong passions and desires for things lead inexorably to suffering. And suffering is understood to be 'bad'.
Because we are all crave and desire things in some way, shape or form we need then to rid ourselves of desire/attachment if we want to reduce our suffering. And we can do that through a process laid down by the so-called Noble Eight-Fold Path. Part of the process though is to become 'awakened' to the true nature of life.
As we survey this outline which begins with suffering, then desire, then the extinguishment of desire through an awakening process or sudden experience (Zen Buddhism), we should be able to see a number of contact-points for the gospel of Christ to address.
In my next post, I will grapple with Buddhism using the Pauline model found here in terms of contact-points for the Christian gospel.
*I've chosen Buddhism deliberately because of the immigration of mainland Chinese, Thais, Cambodian, Vietnamese and other Asian people to Southern Australia (where I live).
The Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over all his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy.My concern with this excellent kernel and his subsequent elaboration is that I wonder how his particular approach would be received by those outside the Faith with little knowledge of Christianity? In other words, it assumes much that we Christians just take for granted because we have been raised in the Faith and/or taught the Faith by the faithful teachers in our churches.
But if a person doesn't share that background, what then?
For example, what would Buddhist adherents make of this presentation? I'm sure they would find it hard to understand much less believe. Of course, the Lord can save people with little knowledge of him but (as Don Carson said in my last post) God usually uses [human] means rather than special miracles to present the gospel.
I am no expert on Buddhism* and all its variant forms. But from what I've read, Buddhism is primarily concerned with suffering and how we can live with suffering. It locates suffering at the centre of the world.
Further it gives a reason why we suffer: we suffer because we crave things/people and/or attach ourselves to such things/people in the world. Such strong passions and desires for things lead inexorably to suffering. And suffering is understood to be 'bad'.
Because we are all crave and desire things in some way, shape or form we need then to rid ourselves of desire/attachment if we want to reduce our suffering. And we can do that through a process laid down by the so-called Noble Eight-Fold Path. Part of the process though is to become 'awakened' to the true nature of life.
As we survey this outline which begins with suffering, then desire, then the extinguishment of desire through an awakening process or sudden experience (Zen Buddhism), we should be able to see a number of contact-points for the gospel of Christ to address.
In my next post, I will grapple with Buddhism using the Pauline model found here in terms of contact-points for the Christian gospel.
*I've chosen Buddhism deliberately because of the immigration of mainland Chinese, Thais, Cambodian, Vietnamese and other Asian people to Southern Australia (where I live).
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