Let's focus on worship with the unsaved
Why do we invite unsaved people to worship with the saved?
In case you didn't know it, unsaved people cannot really worship God until they know Him.
Perhaps we should invite them to Jesus before inviting them into the family of God.
Here I go falling off the deep end again.
posted by Bob Carder @ 9:58 AM
14 comments
14 Comments:
unsaved worship? oh! you mean blasphemey! why would we want to talk about that?blasphemey conversations tend to get messy. oh wait, ... you like messy, oh well
As you can see no one wants to talk about this.
i'm talking. in your post "let's focus on inviting..." i have shown that inviting to Church is one and the same as inviting to Jesus.
Now here...an unbeliever cannot truly worship God until they are saved and have the Holy Spirit. That a duh. Maybe that's why no one is commenting here. We all know that the unsaved cannot worship.
Now why would I want to expose an unbeliever to a worship? Hmmm. Let's show them how awesome worshiping God can be! This will undoubtedly spark their interest and curiosity. They will want to know more about the mystery of worship. This in turn gets them asking about Jesus.
Inviting to Church is not a detriment to the Body or a blasphemy against what God commands. It is just another of the many ways that God works through to bring more lost souls unto himself.
Now I hope that can settle it. Inviting them to Jesus works. But so does inviting them to Church. know why? Be cause they are the same thing. They have the same result. Heaven rejoices either way. Amen?
invinting them to worship to see how awesome it is...
hmmm... i thought that spiritual things couldnt be understood without the Spirit, so our worship would seem like nonsense to them, which would make that point totally invalid. unless we have made worship so appealing in the fleshly realm, with all our speaker systems and projection screens and moving/flashing lights and smoke machines, that they think its cool in the flesh,but then we've reduced worship to a concert.
AND... to invite the unsaved to worship is to invite them to worship someone they do NOT know on any real level. So, if they manage to find something to worship in the music, it is NOT GOD and they have called something of man God in their minds and hearts. So, long story short, to invite unbelievers to 'worship' is to invite them to commit blasphemey
I am trying hard to keep the sarcasm low..
However, I find your premise interesting. Bob and Zach, you clearly say it is absolutely wrong for unbelievers to enter worship with believers because they will not understand words spoken in their own language?
I wonder if Paul ever spoke about on this topic? Oh yeah. He did. Funny how in all the "reasoned" argument Bob you never bothered to turn to the Scripture for guidance.
1 Cor 14:21 In the Law it is written, “By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to Me,” says the Lord. 22 So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophecy is for a sign, not to unbelievers but to those who believe. 23 Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.
Gee... Paul seems to agree with Phil here; unbelievers in the assembly can be convicted of their sin by hearing the prophetic word of God. Huh?
Why was Paul not condemning the Corinthians for allowing unbelievers to enter the public worship of the church?
Clearly Bob & Zach, Paul did not have your spiritual insight to understand the deeper things of faith that they should never be allowed to enter into the gathered church.
So Bob, who stands at the door and decides whose faith in real? Do only water baptized believers get to come in? Do you have septette gatherings for those baptized in the Spirit and those Christians who have not moved on to the deeper faith? I am curious how you work that out.
What do you think about Paul? Why was he so wrong about this issue?
what part of our present worship services are prophetic? maybe i have a different or flawed definition of what prophetic is, but that scripture says that "if all prophesy, and..." the unsaved/ungifted man enters, he is convicted. Maybe ive just been to really bad churches, but when an unbeliever enters your church, does EVERYONE stop what theyre doing and prophesy to the man/woman? does anyone stop whats going on? Note that paul DOESNT say that they continue singing psalms praises and spiritual hymns. They PROPHESY. am i making any sense?
No.
You said unbelievers should not in any circumstance to into the worship of the church. Paul clearly talks about circumstances when unbelievers come into the worship of the church.
I don't care how you define prophecy, what I want to know is why was Paul wrong and why are you right?
just to clarify...Phil agrees with Paul, not Paul with Phil.
good points JR. :)
did we say they shouldnt come in? i only thought we were saying we shouldnt use worship as an attractional ministry. i dont recall ever saying that once every beleiver is in attendance we should lock and bar the doors. But why would i invite someone to participate in something that it is quite impossible for them to participate in?
i do hope i am adressing your point. i hate it when arguements are based on people misinterpreting and answering the wrong questions. give me a hand here if im missing you.
I agree with the last comment. I wouldn't exclude people but, when it comes to witnessing, the emphasis should be on sending out. Frankly I think a lot of "invitational evangelism" is just a copy out born of shyness and reluctance to be made uncomfortable by meeting people where they are at. There is a place for invtation but it should not be out first and only resort.
Zach, you wrote, "did we say they shouldnt come in?"
Yes, you did Zach, You have been quite clear you think it is wrong to INVITE anyone who is not a believer to worship with the church, Bob said, "invite people to Jesus NOT church" because he rejects the NT truth that the church is the incarnational presence of Jesus Christ. You do say it is wrong when you write "AND... to invite the unsaved to worship is to invite them to worship someone they do NOT know on any real level."
You make it clear that it is wrong to have non-Christians come to a church meeting, because, in your opinion, they wont "understand" My contention is that they can understand by the power of the Holy Spirit. You clearly don't believe the Holy Spirit works through the church to persuade the lost. We simply disagree on this point.
What is the root of your rejection of the church as the instrument of God on earth?
First, your only "biblical" support comes from a passage you take out of context. The passage you reference is from 1 Cor 2 and it says;
"12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. "
Now where does this passage say non-Christians should be excluded or not invited to the gathering of the Body? Nowhere. That is your conclusion based on taking a passage out of context. It is prooftexting. You have made your conclusion and then went hunting for a passage to support your ideology.
So let's actually look at a passage, in context, that deals with this issue. Paul talking to the Church in Corinth which I referenced above (1 Cor 14). Why did Paul talk about unbelievers coming into the fellowship of the church? According to your system of reasoning, he should have been telling the Corinthians not to invite the unsaved. But he didn't Instead, he gave them instructions on how to conduct the service so that when the unsaved came in they would hear the Gospel and be persuaded to obey.
I pray you have the discernment from the Spirit to put aside your reactive-reasoning and understand the value the church has in God's eyes.
If this passage is a descriptive passage then we must include the instructions in verse 34. Most won't take this passage that way today.
JR do you prohibit women from speaking church?
As I read the passage quoted it appears the person entered and repented. Isn't verse 25 a picture of a salvation experience?
How do you interpret 2Corinthians 6:14. Does it apply to the worship gathering of the church?
I instruct those I disciple not to invite unbelievers to worship until they possess the spirit. Then they can participate the way Paul instructs them in this passage. Understand that we may have a different circumstance than you guys. Our location changes often and it is kind of hard for those who are not connected to find our gatherings. If someone shows up - and they have - they are invited to stay. We always have enough food to go around. This is rare though.
JR I was asking some questions. I said, we do not purposely invite unsaved people to worship with the Body of the already reached.
I said until they know Him. If they show up we love em and do all the things you guys do.
Really we break there legs until they accept Jesus! They can't leave without finding Jesus. That's how it is.
JR did you take your vitamins today?
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