Pastoral and Personal Evangelism 29 that men will feel exactly that way. Tell him you appreciate his frankness, and meanwhile pull your Testament from your pocket or take it from the table, and turn to the passage in First Corinthians, one, eighteen; or better still, hand him an other copy of the Bible open to the place, and read from your own copy: “For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” Then, before he is angered or troubled about that word “perish,” ask him to notice in the same connection the twenty-first verse, just below: “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.’’ These passages will at least arrest his attention, and uncon sciously interest him somewhat in reading the Bible himself. I well remember a somewhat like experience to this sug gested, which happened in my parish calling years ago. I was talking in the office of a man who was a confessed unbeliever, when he made some such criticism of a former sermon he had heard. I followed the course outlined, and after reading the verses, he remarked upon their application, and told me he would “look into the Pauline writings.” He became later a fairly regular attendant in church, and sometimes came to our Bible class. From such a chapter as that, I would take a man into the second chapter, which attracts one from the very first sen tence, “I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I-was deter mined not to know anything among you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Then read the fifth verse: “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” Then the ninth verse, with its wonderful vision: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” This verse will prove a vista to many to scenes beyond.
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