What do you think they were before they were believers?
They were heathens and Christ approached them for the expressed purpose of turning them to himself, not to yoke himself to them as they remained heathens. That is essentially what Ashcroft's church teaches.
How did he approach them initially? As a friend?
He simply walked up to them and said "Follow Me," giving us hardly a basis at all to claim he was unequally yoked to them. Indeed, the mere fact they were followers proves beyond any doubt at all that He was the authority in the relationship, and that His followers followed His purposes.
Is the good news not friendly?
You are claiming Ashcroft's church teaches that believers should have no friendships with non-believers. You are just wrong, daytrader76. Using your own position, as implied by the question above, you are claiming that Ashcroft's church teaches that believers must not present the gospel to non-believers, since the gospel is friendly and they are told not to be friends to non-believers. This is just outright slander and you ought to repent of it IF you are indeed a believer.
imo our argument is over terminology. What is a "deep relationship?" You seem very open-minded, or those people would not be your friends in the first place
It is not a simple matter of semantics. Before you assault this church (which I do not support, by the way), you ought to accurately present its view. You have committed a grave error against this group by making them out to be a people who teach that believers should not befriend non-believers. It is just wrong for you to do this. It is quite wrong also, for you, an alleged believer, to rely upon the clearly hostile heathen words of the non-believer to promulgate this slander!
The point of the assemblies of god's position is to encourage its members not to entangle themselves with non-believers such that the non-believers' essential motivations are able to control or thwart those of believers. If anything, it should be the believer's motivation that has the control, since that motivation is the eternal salvation of the heathen's soul.
Heathens will not understand the Scriptures and will certainly not understand the motivations behind them. So we ought to expect that they will falsely ridicule the faith of a man like John Ashcroft in their newspapers and journals. But you ought not do this. If you are a believer, you ought not act like the heathen. If you must assault the man's church, then get it right. Elsewise, attack Ashcroft's positions or his behavior and then support your attack. Avoid slandering the guy. That is what heathens do. |
