What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (34)

A Minneapolis pastor named Jonathan Parnell is offering tips on being a friend of sinners. He believes it’s a good thing to be. John MacArthur riffed on the “friend of sinners” idea in a 1980 sermon. He liked it too. A church in Milwaukee identifies with the concept so much that it has taken the name. “Friend of Sinners Church” offers a free breakfast followed by a worship service each Sunday.

So was Jesus a friend of sinners? Should we be? Well, yes and no.

Too Hot to Handle: A Dinner with Zacchaeus

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Last week in this space we were discussing a recent report sponsored by Wycliffe College’s Institute of Evangelism entitled Finding Faith in Canada Today, which surveyed Canadian Christians to find out how they got saved. One of the more significant takeaways from the report was the conclusion that, statistically speaking, the vast majority of new converts do not come to the Lord at evangelical rallies, traditional outreach programs, through websites or online church. A full 40% of new believers came to Christ because of the testimony of Christian friends, far more than any other reason given for converting. The report concluded that friendship is the single most effective environment for evangelism.

Tom: How about that? So tell me, IC, why don’t Christians make more unbelieving friends?

Too Hot to Handle: Friendship and Testimony

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Earlier this season, TV host Ellen Degeneres took some serious flack for sitting side by side with former U.S. President George Bush at an NFL game in Dallas, especially because she and Bush appeared to be having a good time with one another. Twitter promptly erupted into the usual outrage-fest, with commenters calling Bush a “war criminal” and so on, obliging Degeneres to defend herself:

“I’m friends with George Bush. In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have. We’re all different and I think we’ve forgotten that that’s okay that we’re all different.”

Tom: No shortage of Christians expressed approval of Degeneres’ comments.

Anonymous Asks (218)

“Should married Christians have close friends of the opposite sex?”

Everything that can possibly go wrong between a man and a woman starts in the heart. As the Lord Jesus put it, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, adultery, sexual immorality ...” The heart is where all the bad stuff starts, even if that bad stuff never gets acted out or even discussed in the real world.

An infected heart is a potentially devastating problem for the married Christian couple that has to deal with the fallout from it.

The Ironic Ending

Not all friendships get off on the right foot.

One of my best buddies in high school was a skinny longhair with similar tastes in pop music. But Terry and I met under less than ideal circumstances. Another student had a serious grudge against me and was determined to make my early high school life as miserable as possible; however, he wasn’t quite sure he had it in him to handle a six foot 200 pounder on his own. So, one day after school, he and his hulking sidekick chased me into the nearby woods. On the way, they drafted Terry to help out.

Too Hot to Handle: Friendship and Testimony

The most recent version of this post is available here.

How Not to Crash and Burn (50)

Today’s verses are vaguely linked by the unexpected: unanticipated changes in circumstances; sudden, radical changes in behavior; the moment when the thing on which you have glutted yourself loses its appeal; and the moment when you find you have become so hungry anything at all looks like food.

Hey, these things happen. We don’t always see them coming, but they happen.

Anonymous Asks (24)

“How do you separate from bad friends without hurting them or making them think you’re stuck up?”

That is indeed a tall order. And I suppose the answer depends very much on how bad your friends are, and in what way.

There are two different situations we ought to consider: bad friends who are professing Christians and bad friends who are not.

Anonymous Asks (23)

“How can I be a witness to my friends and still be accepted?”

It is important to realize there are really two questions here, not one. Question one is “How can I be a witness to my friends?” Good question, and it recognizes that Jesus Christ gave a job to his followers when he ascended into heaven. He said to them, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses … to the end of the earth.” If you have believed in and confessed the Lord Jesus, you have accepted the same ongoing task they did. That’s fantastic.

Question two boils down to “How can I maintain my present relationships as they are while witnessing to something that transforms lives, upends worldviews and tells people hard truths about themselves they may not want to hear?

That may be possible. And it may not.

The Commentariat Speaks (14)

Wherein Jill destroys my most recent post by condensing it to a tiny fraction of its length and adding all the stuff I should probably have written in the first place:

“I think we do have needs for human connections that our spouses can’t be expected to satisfy. That is the joy of same sex friendships. A husband may be willing to reassure you once that your haircut wasn’t a disaster; your woman friend is willing to talk about it until you feel okay.”

Sometimes Avoidance IS Purity

Aimee Byrd has a new book out entitled Why Can’t We Be Friends? The subtitle, Avoidance Is Not Purity, pithily advances her thesis: that because evangelicals view ourselves as “time bombs on the brink of having an affair — or of being accused of having one,” we miss out on the joys of friendship between the sexes, fail to give expression to our “siblingship” in Christ, and are a less-than-optimal testimony to the world.

For a thesis, maybe it’s not the worst idea ever. But it’s right up there.