Depth and Breadth

“The Four Spiritual Laws” may be the most widely recognized “Plan of Salvation.” As written by Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, this “plan” has been used by multitudes of believers to convert their friends, families, and co-workers. (If you’d like to read these four “laws” click here).

The question posed here is this: Are the four spiritual laws still applicable?

Yes. And no.

Yes: If you read the four spiritual laws, they are, in my opinion, quite biblically sound, and present in fairly short fashion what Christians typically believe must happen in order for a person to be born again.

No: Using the four laws as a witnessing tool has outrun its usefulness. What exactly does that mean?

Modern Christianity seems focused on numbers. Fill the pews (fill the offering plates), fill the Sunday school attendance sheets, fill the church. This is what the church is here to do, right? Of course…but not really. What’s breadth without depth? It’s a shallow lake of enormous proportions.

On the Campus Crusade website (which is an organization that has done much to spread the Gospel), their follow-up page after having read the Four Spiritual Laws describes what a new Christian must do. They use an acrostic, which can be seen here. At the very end of the page they suggest “Fellowship in a Good Church.” One might make the argument that no good church really exists (even Jesus said “Why do you call me good?”), but that’s another article.

Postmodern Christianity (at least this is what we hope) focuses on the depth rather than the numbers. Instead of spitting out the Four Spiritual Laws to every person we know in hopes that somewhere the seed might germinate, we spend our time and sometimes our lives in an attempt to be living witnesses.

It’s not such a postmodern thing, this thing we now call “lifestyle evangelism.” People have done it throughout the ages, regardless of the term we've applied to that age. It’s more pre-modern. It’s what Jesus did.

It’s a mindset that shared silence can be more meaningful than the sound of one person talking.

It’s a belief that God can fill in the gaps you can’t intellectually cover.

It’s a faith that trusts in a God hardly comprehensible.

Lifestyle evangelism takes a lot more work than memorizing the Four Spiritual Laws and repeating them to someone. Don’t get me wrong, the Four Spiritual Laws offer a good foundation, but too often this foundation is laid open to the elements because very few Christians are willing to help build the walls that the house so desperately needs.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic