Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles.
Francis SchaefferRead
The command is to love him, not just to think about him, or do things for him. We are not to stop with a proper legal relationship - for example, to think of a man as legally lost, which he is, in the sight of a holy God - without thinking of him as a person. Saying this, we can suddenly see that much evangelism is not only sub-Christian, but subhuman - legalistic and impersonal.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Love requires personal engagement rather than mere legal obligation or impersonal actions.
In this quote, Francis Schaeffer emphasizes the importance of truly loving others as individuals rather than simply adhering to legal duties or superficial interactions. He warns against a mindset that approaches relationships in a detached, bureaucratic manner, suggesting that genuine love and evangelism should be rooted in a heartfelt connection to others as persons, not mere legal entities.
Themes
LoveRelationshipEvangelismPersonalConnection
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon about the importance of personal engagement in faith, one might use this quote to emphasize how love requires depth beyond legalistic views.
More from Francis Schaeffer
All quotes βIn two areas above all others the Christian demonstration of love and communication stands clear: in the area of the Christian couple and their children; and in the personal relationships of Christians in the church. If there is no demonstration in these two places, on the personal level, the world can conclude that orthodox Christian doctrine is nothing but dead, cold words.
Francis SchaefferRead
Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person as a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism.
Francis SchaefferRead
There are two main reasons why we may not be bringing forth the fruit we should. It may be because of ignorance, because we may never have been taught the meaning of the work of Christ for our present lives.
Francis SchaefferRead
We should not view men with a cynical eye, seeing them only as meaningless products of chance, but, on the other hand, we should not go to the opposite extreme of seeing them romantically. To do either is to fail to understand who men really are--creatures made in the image of God but fallen.
Francis SchaefferRead
You must not lose confidence in God because you lost confidence in your pastor. If our confidence in God had to depend upon our confidence in any human person, we would be on shifting sand.
Francis SchaefferRead
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