Seeker Sensitive Presuppositions Part 3

Presupposition Three: The Unconverted are to be Evangelized in the Church

The third presupposition on which this movement seems to base its practice is that the church is the place to evangelize sinners. In reality, God has given no commandment for sinners to come to church. Instead, he commands the church to go to sinners. The church is an assembly of God’s called out people. There is only one instance in the New Testament Scriptures of an unconverted person being in the assembly of God’s people, and in that case it is spoken of as a happenstance, ". . .and what if one should come in who is unlearned or an unbeliever. . ." ( 1 Cor. 14:23)?

Evangelism is to occur in the world outside after the people of God have been instructed and built up through the solid exposition of the Scripture.I am not suggesting it is wrong for the unconverted to attend the meetings of the church. What I am asserting is that if an unconverted person should attend a meeting of God’s people, he or she should do so to observe how Christians worship their God, not to be entertained and made to feel comfortable in their rebellion against God.
Our message to the unconverted is not that it is O. K. to have fun in church. For those who are devoted to Christ, God’s worship and the edification of the saints will be a joyous experience, but God does not intend sinners to feel comfortable in the assembly of his people. In the passage cited above concerning the unbeliever who stumbles into the assembly, Paul suggests what would happen if every believer in attendance should proclaim God’s truth. He writes,But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so; falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you (1 Cor. 14:24-25).

The proponents of this movement seem to believe conversion occurs because sinners feel so comfortable with the people of God they will eventually join us. Never in history have the unconverted felt comfortable with true Christians. Jesus himself prophesied that the attitude of the world toward believers would be one of antipathy and loathing.

Jesus said,If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also (John 15: 18-20).

Additionally, James informs us that friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world, makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4). Yet, the design of the seeker-friendly movement is to make the church so much like the world that the world will make friends with it.