Do Not Argue
by
Renae Farrington (Soldier – Geraldton Corps, Western
Australia)
The maxim “You can’t argue
someone into heaven” has (somewhat ironically) been argued
about for many years in church and theological circles.
Despite a lack of formal theological training, my life and
ministry experience has led me to believe very firmly that it
is true – you definitely can’t argue someone into heaven, and
in fact, I’ve even seen Christians who have attempted to argue
someone into heaven wind up argued out of it themselves.
“Now
faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
things not seen.”[1]
If salvation comes by faith, which is the evidence of things
not seen, how does that answer to someone who refuses to
believe in the truth of the gospel without having all of their
arguments conclusively answered with measurable scientific
proof? And how will such a person ever come to accept a
humanly unfathomable doctrine such as the trinity?
Samuel Logan Brengle wrote in his book
Helps to Holiness,
“Cold logic will not make a man love Jesus, and it is only he
that loveth that is ‘born of God.’”[2]
The Dawkins-Hitchens era of the Armchair Atheist thinks he is
speaking from a position of cold logic, but his arguments are
almost always laced with arrogance and a sense of superiority
over the religious man he is arguing. He is well-informed and
prepared with an answer to every point of logic the amateur
apologist attempts to present. He can argue with you until you
are backed into a corner, where the devil will use every
opportunity to get you to answer his arrogance and vitriol
with defensiveness and anger – destroying two souls with one
stone of argument.
The most powerful weapon
available to the Evangelist is the one that no one can argue
with – his or her testimony. People can choose not to accept
your testimony, but they can’t really argue with it. Your
testimony is your witness of the divine Grace at work in your
life – not merely the story of how you came to be saved, but
the work of the Holy Spirit in your life each and every day.
If I testify that, although I am diagnosed with medical
Generalised Anxiety Disorder, because I am sanctified and
filled with the Holy Spirit I have become more than a
conqueror of the worry in my life – what argument can be made
against it? It can be suggested that my relief could be
attributed to other causes, but it can not be argued that it
did not happen if I have borne witness to it. It’s also nearly
impossible to be backed into a corner where you are
manifesting negative emotional responses
if you are verbally proclaiming the work of the Holy Spirit in
your life.
An
argument of logic, even if it finds some unlikely success will
only appeal to the head – and salvation is not achieved
through a turning of the head. “For it is, by grace you have
been saved, through faith…”
[3] A
testimony of grace will touch the place in the human heart
that longs for grace, while also protecting the heart and mind
of the Evangelist by keeping the Holy Spirit at the forefront
of the conversation.
[2]
Helps to Holiness, Samuel Logan Brengle 1896.
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