Preaching the Gospel

Here is a paper I wrote for the church leadership training program I am going through. We had to answer the question:

On page 39 of Announcing the Kingdom, Glasser makes the point, “When Jesus inaugurates the Kingdom of God, these two mandates [cultural and redemptive] will fuse into one fundamental task. The New Testament does not separate evangelism from social responsibility.” In your essay, take a stand for or against Glasser’s statement. Use Scripture to support your position.

I would appreciate any comments people have on my paper, especially when dealing with if you agree or disagree and why.

Velvet Elvis

by Rob Bell

Most have probably already read this paper I wrote on the the book, however, I wanted to put it up here so that it can be refrenced once again. If anyone has comments, critisims, or anything else please leave a comment. As an added introduction I figured I might quote G.K. Chesterton:

Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get on; he believes in himself." And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written "Hanwell." I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Supermen. The men who really believe in themselves are all in the lunatic asylums." He said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. "Yes, there are," I retorted, "and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. That elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room, he believed in himself. If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has 'Hanwell' written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus." And to all this my friend the publisher made this very deep and effective reply, "Well, if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe?"