Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Pseudo-evangelism

It was this form of pseudo-evangelism, so unlike the New Testament evangelism, that made [Thomas] Huxley say—“I object to Christians: they know too much about God.” … God is the only Being who can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot not, Job could not, but God can. If we are misunderstood we “get about” the man as soon as we can. St. Augustine prayed, “O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.” God never vindicates Himself, He deliberately stands aside and lets all sorts of slanders heap on Him, yet He is not in any hurry.

From Baffled To Fight Better

I’m learning more and more that when people ask why God behaves in such-and-such a way that the best answer may be, “I don’t know why, but I still trust Him.” I trust Him even when I don’t have all of the answers, because I know He has all of the answers.

To try to answer for God—or, as is probably more likely, to try to defend my theology—is rightly called pseudo-evangelism. O Lord, deliver me from pseudo-evangelism!