Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World by John F. MacArthur ISBN: 1-58134-288-8 Publisher: Good News Pub Pub. Date: April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.72 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Preach the Whole Gospel and Nothing But the Gospel
Comment: At last, a really hard-hitting book that confronts the apostasy of the so-called community church movement, AKA the user-friendly church movement, the market-driven church movement, and the church growth movement! In the spirit of John the Baptist, John MacArthur, Jr., has become the voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Like the modernists a century ago, churches in the user-friendly movement have decided that doctrine is divisive and that peace is more important than sound teaching." "We evangelicals desperately need to recover our determination to be biblical, our refusal to comply with the world, our willingness to defend what we believe, and our courage to defy false teaching."
MacArthur quotes frequently from the fervent writings of Charles H. Spurgeon, a renowned Baptist preacher, whose controversial "Down-Grade" articles mortified the liberal, evangelical leaders of 19th-century England. Like Spurgeon, who warned that the Church had drifted away from the purity of the Gospel in his day, MacArthur now sounds the same alarm for the 21st century.
Today too many churches have become market-conscious, pragmatic, entertainment-oriented, and worldly through shallow preaching and contemporary methodology that are designed to boost church attendance. Their sideshow gimmicks include upbeat music, plays and skits, clowns and puppets, food courts, theatre-like "worship centers," and psychological self-help programs. "Sermons" -- pleasing, attractive messages peppered with amusing anecdotes that address people's "felt needs" -- specifically avoid such "offensive" Gospel topics as sin, hell, the wrath of God, and divorce. Instead, modern evangelicals proclaim, "God loves you and wants to make you happy." But MacArthur charges that their undefined theology and seeker-sensitive philosophy also do not permit them to take a firm biblical stance on such politically charged, moral issues as abortion, feminism, and homosexuality, because if they defy the spirit of the age, they forfeit their marketing appeal. "Perhaps the most serious indictment of contemporary market-conscious preaching is the absence of Christ. His name or some fact about Him may be thrown in at the end, but our Lord is rarely central in the trendy preaching of today," because "the gospel itself is disagreeable, unattractive, repulsive, and alarming to the world."
The chapter "The Sovereignty of God in Salvation" is especially significant. According to Scripture, God, as the Absolute Sovereign, orders, controls, and rules over everything. This includes the biblical doctrine of "divine election," which applies to those whom God has already called to be saved before the foundation of the world. That is, salvation is entirely God's work, not man's. It is God Who makes the selection, God Who calls people to repentance, and God Who gives them the faith necessary to live the Christian life. Thus, believers deserve no credit for any aspect of their salvation, for it is the gift of God. Pragmatists find it difficult to accept the fact that popular church trends and fads are superfluous, for they alone cannot ever induce anyone to be saved. MacArthur makes the point that, "Faith in God's absolute sovereignty would deliver the church from the down-grade of pragmatism and worldliness. It would drive us back to biblical preaching. If preachers only had confidence in God's power and God's Word, they would not feel it necessary to trim and adjust and tone down the message...They would not view evangelism as a marketing problem, but they would see it for what it is -- the proclamation of divine revelation as the only means by which God calls the elect to Himself."
I greatly appreciate the book's frank, no-nonsense approach backed with copious Scripture references. As the title asserts, churches whose philosophy and policies serve to please men instead of God truly are "Ashamed of the Gospel."
Rating: 5
Summary: Direct, Poignant "Broom" to Sweep the Churches Clean!
Comment: "Ashamed of the Gospel" by John F. MacArthur is a good, solid nonfiction work aimed at refuting arguments of nonbelievers and for believers to be cautious about their church programs becoming more like the world. MacArthur is a prodigy of Charles Spurgeon, a 19th Century preacher who had strong evangelic convictions of which MacArthur says we are short of today.
The book is easy to read for anyone with at least a high-school education, and provides provocative arguments and defenses of the Holy Bible. MacArthur's position in 10-chapter, 251 page text is that as time progresses, the church becomes more like the world. He does this by first defining "pragmatisim" and saying, much to my agreement, that it is "inherently flawed." The church becoming like the world is the opposite of what should be happening, the author indicates, as the goal of every Christian is simply to stick to the Bible and not allow the church program to proceed as if it were entertainment. I can sense the author's disdain of the church services he describes that resemble current hit television events--"wrestling" matches, short services so as not to interfere with the start time of major sporting events, and church itineraries that are "market driven."
This work is excellent for both personal and group study, as its no-nonsense approach to getting back on track towards fundamental, evangelical worship and Bible study is tantamount to an unshakable Christian relationship with God and people. I'm sure that different readers would have different interpretations, but the underlying themes of Bible-founded principles remains constant and unshakable. "Ashamed of the Gospel" is well-researched and thoroughly founded in the Bible, giving ample and well-organized references and quotations. MacArthur's work is a wonderful and necessary compliment to a believer living in a modern world whose faith is endangered daily by the pleasures and "programs" of this world. It's nice to see that other Christians--whether or not they have written a book--that prove to the world that we're not "ignorant and uneducated." This book will, in conjunction with the Holy Bible, help to keep you on track towards the ultimate goals of what the book points out and is understood: to get to the real heaven that begins within you without losing your rewards, and never let an unbeliever outsmart you--as it is our common goal to lead them to salvation. This marvelous book is highly recommended for both believers and non-believers, although for the non-believer guidance is essential to aid in understanding. Buy it today!
Rating: 5
Summary: A Very Important Book
Comment: It was just over one hundred years ago that the great preacher Charles Spurgeon began the long battle that would ultimately cost him his life. He saw in the church of that era a trend away from the preaching of the gospel and towards entertainment. The church began to focus on pleasing people rather than preaching the gospel in all its offense and power. The battle Spurgeon waged became known as The Downgrade Controversy.
Now, a full century later, John MacArthur is sounding the alarm to warn discerning believers that the crisis the church faced in the late 19th century has come to the modern-day church. The church is, once again, on the downgrade. While Spurgeon fought against the influence of liberalism in the church, today we need to fight against the influx of pragmatism. Believing that those who ignore history are dooming themselves to repeat it, he has written Ashamed of the Gospel to show that the alarms Spurgeon sounded are equally relevant in the 21st century church. To prove this point he precedes each chapter with a relevant quote from Spurgeon.
MacArthur believes that the root cause of the downgrade of our day is a deep-rooted shame for the gospel. The church has grown ashamed of the purity and simplicity of the gospel. In place of traditional "old-time religion" the church has begun to substitute a "show-time religion" that focuses on entertainment more than the preaching of the Word. Pleasing the goats has taken precedent over feeding the sheep - glitter over the gospel. Doctrinal purity has been replaced by pragmatism, what God commands by what works.
The themes of the book are easy to discern from an overview of the chapter titles. Some of the chapter titles are: Christianity on the Down-Grade, The User-Friendly Church, Gimme That Showtime Religion, All Things To All Men, The Foolishness of God, and I Will Build My Church.
Equally fascinating as the book are the appendices. The first is a history of the Downgrade Controversy, the second an examination of Charles Finney's contribution to pragmatism in the church, the third an essay by the puritan preacher Thomas Boston entitled Carnal vs Spiritual wisdom and the fourth an update on Evangelicals and Catholics Together. The final appendix is especially interesting as it allows MacArthur a forum to explain how ECT came together and why he stood strong against it.
A courageous book that has likely earned MacArthur far more enemies than friends, I highly recommend this book to all believers, both clergy and laity, but especially those who are discontent with much of the modern church-growth movement. If you have read books like The Purpose Driven Church you owe it to yourself to balance that book with this one. You will not regret it.
 |
Title: Hard To Believe : The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus by John MacArthur ISBN: 0785263454 Publisher: Thomas Nelson Pub. Date: 13 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.99 |
 |
Title: Gospel According to Jesus, The by John F. MacArthur ISBN: 0310394910 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 18 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
 |
Title: Dining With the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts With Modernity (Hourglass Books) by Os Guinness ISBN: 0801038553 Publisher: Baker Book House Pub. Date: July, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: Charismatic Chaos by John F., Jr. MacArthur ISBN: 0310575729 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 22 July, 1993 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
 |
Title: Willow Creek Seeker Services: Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church by G. A. Pritchard, Gregory A. Prichard ISBN: 0801052742 Publisher: Baker Book House Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
