Confessing Evangelical

In my discussion with FDN in the comments to my earlier post, "Are there any women here?", I mentioned in passing that I'd try to dig out a quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones which expresses very well my own hesitancy about treating the Gospel as a matter for earnest discussion, rather than for proclamation. In his sermon on Acts 24:24-27 entitled, "Righteousness, Temperance and Judgement to Come", MLJ comments as follows on what St Paul didn't do when summoned before Felix:

Felix and Drusilla send for Paul, and here he is standing before them. What happens? Well, may I indicate to you that they did not have a discussion. That's the great thing today, isn't it? The religious department of the British Broadcasting Corporation does not preach on Sunday nights; they have a discussion. Ah, they say, the modern man doesn't listen to preaching, but he's always ready to have a discussion; he's got an interest in those things and he has a point of view, so let's have a friendly chat, let's hear what he has to say and try and answer his criticisms and, of course, go as far as you can to meet him. We have been told now for years that if only we did this instead of preaching dogmatically, the people would be won to the Christian church. But the statistics are telling us that they are going further and further away from the church.

The Christian gospel is not to be discussed. The gospel starts with this principle, "that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him". Not only that, he cannot understand them. I believe there is a discussion taking place probably at this minute on one of the programmes of the BBC. A Christian minister and a man are having a discussion about the deity of Christ. Can you imagine the Apostle Paul doing that? Now you see this woman Drusilla, as a Jewess, was interested in Christianity; and Felix - having been a number of years in that part of the world, as Paul reminds him - he, too, had heard all about these things. They were both interested. There, you would have thought, were the ideal circumstances for a round table conference.

But there is no discussion here. The Apostle Paul never allowed anyone to sit in a spirit of detachment and objectivity, considering Christianity with folded arms. No! That sort of thing doesn't lead to people trembling. Christianity is not a matter for discussion...