Ray Compfort, in his book God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life, warns against presenting Christianity as a solution to all of life’s problems. The reason is that becoming a Christian does not solve all our problems. Rather it can amplify our problems; just consider all the martyrs of our faith. Also, Comfort notes that in several surveys just a very small percentage of people who make a confession of faith at a religious service remain Christians and he attributes this to a gospel that fails to address the difficulties people face. [1]
So Comfort proposes that the law should be the backbone of our evangelism [2] because the law gives us knowledge of sin [3] and that is the root of the problem of all of humanity. However, this reminds me of the fire and brimstone preachers who try to scare people into heaven. That does not work any better than “God has a wonderful plan for your life”.
Hidden in his book Comfort proposes a better alternative. He suggests that our evangelism should present the law to the proud and grace to the humble. [4] Is that not the way Christ approached the people he met? Is that not what the Bible teaches (James 4:6, I Peter 5:5)?
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[1] Ray Comfort. God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life. Bellflower, CA: Living Waters Publication, 2010 pp. 21-32.
[2] Ibid., p.47.
[3] Ibid., p. 90.
[4] Ibid., p. 84.
