The bossman

[Warren]

We're talking over lunch. He goes into some really dark stuff, homeschooling, then about faith, and he says "What'd God ever do for you?" "God didn't do that for you, you did." "You've met God?" "What'd he say?" He's an old sailor, so he'll just say what he believes, unlike most people I talk to who are lukewarm about everything.

He doesn't see the hand of God in anything and maybe never will. Anyway, I replied along the lines of, "Yes, I've met God." "God told me what He had to say in his Word, in his book" and "He told me [about my sin] you're going to hell." Of course he had some opinions about that, but I don't really care what he thinks, as long as what I've said is agreeable with Christ.


My main question is: should I say I've met God? And should I immediately go into the gospel after talking about sin?

 

[timfost]

Perhaps it would be slightly more accurate to say that you know God (Jn. 10:14). And yes, gospel after guilt.

 

[Jack K]

My main question is: should I say I've met God?

Maybe not. That can be interpreted a lot of different ways. Consider ways to explain that you've had a personal encounter with a personal God that will sound less hokey.

And should I immediately go into the gospel after talking about sin?

Maybe. Sometimes. It depends on the conversation. Your question presupposes that conversations about faith ought to have a "presentation" behind them—that there are points you need to make and a preferred order in which to present them. In fact, such presentations usually feel stilted and tend to turn a conversation into a lecture, which no one likes very much.

I would suggest you focus more on "converstation skills" than on "presentation skills." Improve your listening. Ask him questions. Answer his questions in ways that don't neatly tie up your position but rather invite him to ask more sometime. Don't worry too much about giving him all the right answers; focus more on leaving him with a few provocative questions.

 

[RamistThomist]

"God didn't do that for you, you did."

I would ask him, "How do you know?" Implicit in that claim is a total knowledge about reality that he has access to. I would then ask him why religious experience isn't a credible source of knowledge, when many epistemologians say it is. He would laugh at the claim, but he would have to provide a defeater for it (which is harder to do).