JFJ Forums

I went to a Becky Pipert out of the salt shaker talk at ocean grove.  She talked about and actual conferency you could go to, but I just heard her for one hour.

She asked why people don't witness.  She put our answers in categories adn pointed out that it wasn't about God or the message being the problem.  

She lumped all our reasons into a category she called communication difficulties.

She went on to say we live in a theraputic age and Paul would be confused why we are afraid people will yell at us or get angry when he got stoned and stuff like that.

Well, that brings up a good point.  I disagree with Becky for this reason.  If satan wants you to backslide he doesn't want you to get a broken arm, because proverbs actually says your spirit benefits from getting beaten up physicall, strange isn't it.

So you see, when you get attacked by spiritual swine, it is being attacked by words and their anger.

So, this is something I have noticed and I hope JFJ does too.  If you throw a new believer out into witnessing and their emotional gas tank is totally drained it could make them back slide or even worse, apostasize.

A broken arm is better than a broken heart cause everyone can see it and sympatizes.   But if it is an emotional wound people either ignore it or if they find out they will mock you as being a baby.

Becky briefily touched on the question of how do we end witnessing.  David Brickners last news letter was kind of on that subject as is was about dealing with angry people when you are witnessing.

It is really about the same thing I am talking about here, how do you guard your emotional gas tank.

A companion post to this could be how do you deal with people who are in a rage?

Shalom Chad,  Satan cannot harm us, unless God allows him to harm us, as He did with Job, but, I believe, Satan has learned how to convince mortals to hurt other mortals, in the name of their 'religion.'  That is partly why we are at war with radical Islam's terrorist groups.

Now for the meat.  You are absolutely correct.  Trying to witness, without learned skills, is worse than working with mean hungry pigs.  That space (gas tank) where the bad is removed, must be filled and fed by the spirit, trained by believers, and fine tuned by a guide, to assure no backsliding.

Hate to say it, but:  Jehovah Wittiness', and Mormons, are the best trained faith sales persons treading the streets.  Too bad that only 98% of what they teach is 'Truth.'  The missing 2% is the part that makes them a cult.  They both deny Deity to Yaushuah/Jesus.  I do admire their training, ans skills at making falsehood sound true.  Oh, I do respect my adversary's abilities.  I have to to beat them at their own game.

Good subject to discuss.  Hope others feel the same.

To you, and all others, Shalom in Messiah.  Arley  (Oh, I do love having a spell-check program in my Internet Explorer.  Thanks Sammy, it is working great. Now I will have to find another excuse for my stupid remarks.. Thanks anyway//as//)

Chad, I just have to add something in addition to what I just said.

A person should not refrain from witnessing before they have a PHD in Bible knowledge, however, or they will get to a point where they fear they will be out-debated.  I did that, for the longest time.

They must be taught to stay within their knowledge envelope, and refuse, man I mean REFUSE to come out of that envelope.  Some people, do not think emotional witnessing is worthy of the faith.  To them I say: go suck an egg!  All believers can talk about their love of God, and no being, not even Satan can fault their 'personal' love expression.  As a matter of fact, Satan will run away from the person expressing pure love.  

Example:  I cannot seem able to remember Book, chapter, or verse numbers.  I seem to understand well, the emotion and logic, but cannot do the Jack Van Impy thing, like many Witnesses are capable.  That said, I think the Jehovah Witnesses have 'black-balled' me from their world, since not one of the ones I was debating will even give me a nod, and the young neighbor boy, whom I helped a lot, fixing his bike, and sharing some of my world travel memories, will speak with me.  I have won the battle, but lost the war for their souls, and that bothers me, especially for my 13 year old neighbor (who now has passed the 'age of accountability').   Enough said.

Share your love for Messiah/God, but do not go beyond your Biblical expertise, not for anyone.

Shalom to one and all in Messiah.  Arley

I totally agree with Arley.   People don't care what we know until they know that we care.  It has to start with friendship just as it did with our Messiah.  He didn't go around pounding theology into peoples' faces, but rather spoke in parables that were terms they (mostly Gentiles) could understand.   Like Arley, we have had many encounters with Jehovahs Witnesses.  I can appreciate their boldness in approaching one's front door; however, that tactic is pretty much a turn off to an unbeliever with no background of God whatsoever.

We were told by one that they could not pray for us or our then deathly ill child because we were not "of their faith and didn't worship the same God."  Well, I believe that part to be true because my God and my Messiah would heal my child no matter what as long as I believed in faith. (Which is exactly what He did, by the way. :-)  

I myself am a bit turned off to "church" anymore.  Why??  Because about the time you don't "think" LIKE they do, you get ostracized.  Maybe not the case in all churches and I am not speaking for all churches.  But that should not be the case at all.   Let's face it, Paul probably wasn't liked very well by many.  His background history (being a thief and murderer) was not exactly "appealing" but God didn't always choose the "best of the best."  Many times he went for the "underdog."  

When witnessing, God has to be the one to prepare.  But He is the one to prepare the hearts of BOTH; the witnessee and the witness.     Love them first.  The rest will follow.
Blessings!

and



Well, just a couple of things that come to my mind:

1) [PhD/new believer] We should be prepared by traveling with a (more experienced/older in the Lord) brother before going witnessing, on our own (door to door, sidewalk, etc) or in the lead. Jesus did this. And the Apostles did this too: preparing/teaching/training the disciple. (But if the Holy Spirit moves you to speak, don't quench the Spirit.)

2) [gas tank] We should always be bathed in the Word, filled with the Spirit. Sins confessed, clean, and ready to be used by God.

3) Dr. Walter Martin used to say that "the cults will do more for a lie than we do for the truth" [paraphrase]...and encouraged everyone to be ready to give an answer to the ministry that comes TO OUR DOORS. (Nothing happens "by chance", right?")

4) I try to stick to one topic: "Who do you say Jesus is?" Cultists will jump from one topic to another; but I try to keep them on point. "We can get into that (baptism, priesthood, authority, etc) next, but for now let's stick with this..." Scripture upon scripture.

5) Don't lose YOUR temper. It's all God's work. Plant, hoe, water, or harvest...you/I/we don't know what your/my/our function is in that person's life.

Shalom Genesis3.  Thanks for the come-back, but I think you may have entered a type-o.  I colored the section, above, and correct me if I am wrong, but I think you may have meant "...(mostly Gentiles) could not understand.  Even the Apostles had trouble with the parables, but especially the Gentiles, and the 'un-called.'

In Messiah, Shalom to one and all.  Arley

Maybe you could look at it this way-

Some people who naturally want to preach to everyone could benefit greatly from memorizing and meditateing, understanding and applying Philipians 1:29.

Other people who never witness could benefit from going to a evangelism conference.

SOme of the chatter here is going in the direction of what Becky Pipert said.

As answer to what somebody said abouat not having enough knowledge.

Unsaved people want you to be real.  If you don't know it is oK.