Saturday, March 29, 2008

Why start at the beginning? By Ken Ham

Why start at the beginning?

Mission organizations like New Tribes Mission, for instance, found a problem when presenting the gospel to many pagan cultures.

At first, they thought they were reaching these people by telling them about Jesus and the message of the Cross. But after some time, they started to realize that these people did not understand the message at all. Commitments they thought they had did not turn out to be real.

Why Won?t They Listen?

To deal with this, New Tribes developed an approach called Chronological Teaching. It was obvious that these pagan cultures had no Christian basis. They had no knowledge of the foundations of the gospel in Genesis. How could they understand what Christ did on the Cross if they didn't know about the Fall—and sin—in the Garden?

Once they started from the beginning of Genesis and taught through the Old Testament—and then presented the message of Christ—what a change they saw! Many were truly converted now that they really understood the message.

This same approach needs to be used in our own society. The reason many don't understand the gospel today is because they've been indoctrinated in evolution and humanism. They need to start at the beginning, too.