God's Standard of Goodness

Tonight at small group we spent time listening to some of "The Way of the Master" programming. "The Way of the Master" is a program designed to teach people how to evangelize the lost with one on one conversation. It is not designed as a relational approach to evangelism and is what most people consider street witnessing, they just happen to be doing it over the radio, or at a large event.

It bothers me. I won't go into complete detail. I listened to about 20 minutes of it and have a page full of notes on why it bothers me. I'll just talk about one.

The 10 Commandments. "The Way of the Master" uses the 10 Commandments to show a person that they are not "good" enough to enter heaven. They boasted to one person: "to find out if you are good enough, lets use God's standard of goodness, the 10 Commandments." I was immediately offended. The 10 Commandments are not God's standard of goodness. The 10 Commandments are God's standard of what it takes to be human. Don't steal, or lie, or kill, or covet, or worship false things, or take my name in vein.... Not doing these things doesn't make me "good" it makes me "normal." They treat this like these are somehow God's rules only. I don't consider anyone I know that has murdered someone normal.

People who are habitually breaking the 10 Commandments are not normal. People who are habitually not breaking them, likely your upstanding citizen. These are basic principles of living, not a standard of goodness. What is unfortunate, is that "The Way of the Master" program uses other parts of scripture (which aren't the 10 commandments and have a far different purpose than the 10 commandments) to "prove" to people that they aren't "good enough."

Jesus does say that lusting is as bad as adultery, and that hatred is as bad as killing, but NOWHERE does it say that these are God's 10 commandments. These are "God's standard of goodness" but are not His commandments. There is a distinction. The 10 Commandments were given to provide the bare minimal rules to existing in a community together (the Israelites were just starting to do this now that they weren't slaves). The reason Jesus added to them is precisely because the Religious leaders of the day were using them as a standard of goodness. They do not suffice for that standard.

Don't tell someone to answer a list of questions about the 10 Commandments and then ask them questions that have nothing to do with the 10 Commandments. There are better logical, spiritual, and academic ways to show people how they fall short.

This is only one of many things I don't like about this particular style of evangelising. Maybe someday I'll get into others.