7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situationsure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
19 Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. 24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17 It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”
9 How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. 10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. 11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. 12 Praise be to you, O LORD; teach me your decrees. 13 With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. 14 I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. 15 I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. 16 I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.
165 Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.
“We need a generation of Christians who have troubled spirits and the willingness to engage a conflicted culture with the proclamation of truth despite the range of responses they will see.” Mark L. Bailey
“Apologetics can be thought of as having two components. On the one hand it concerns the countering of objections to the Christian faith, and on the other it concerns setting out the attractiveness of the gospel. It thus has a negative and a positive aspect. Negatively it means being able to handle objections to Christianity which one encounters in the media, the shopping mall, and elsewhere. It means being able to give effective responses to hard questions people ask about Christianity. Sometimes those objections are spurious; sometime they are real problems, which discourage those individuals from coming to a living faith in Christ. Trained Christians can make a difference here, by helping them see that the problem is not as serious as they may have thought. Positively, apologetics is setting out the full wonder of the gospel of salvation. It is like unpacking a series of wonderful gifts, and marveling at their beauty. Helping people understand the full glory of what the gospel offers often means taking the trouble to explain central Christian ideas to people who may recognize the words but not the reality they represent. Words such as ‘grace’ and ‘redemption’ come easily from Christian workers’ lips, but believers need to explain what they mean and what they offer to an increasingly unchurched culture.” Alister McGrath, British Theologian
“Carrying God's gracious offer involves human beings whom God has brought to Himself and then uses as His heralds. They share God's message of salvation because He will save everyone who calls on His name.” Bible Knowledge Commentary
“Never before has any civilization openly made available to its populace such a smorgasbord of realities. Never before has a communications system like the contemporary mass media made information about religion – all religions – available to so many people. Never before has a society allowed its people to become consumers of belief, and allowed belief – all beliefs – to become merchandise.” Journalist Walter Truett Anderson
“The loss of God’s centrality in the life of today’s church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.” The Cambridge Declaration
“In an age bereft of courageous leadership, declining biblical literacy, and rising cultural accommodation, a faithful voice from the gospel center is needed- a voice that prophetically speaks the ancient text to our contemporary context.” The National Gospel Coalition
“We live in a conflicted culture. But we should not turn tail and run. And we should not bury our head in the sand. Christianity is a confrontational faith. It challenges human nature, it challenges sin, and it challenges what one believes about the future. As a result, our culture hates Christianity. In the face of hatred and scorn, we need to do what Paul did: wisely and winsomely proclaim the truth.” Mark L. Bailey
“He (Paul) must confront men with the truth about God – Creator, Provider, Lord of history, Judge of all – and His command to repent. He must confront them with the truth about man, and his moral bankruptcy in the sight of God. And above all he must confront them with Jesus Christ in His resurrection power, His authority to execute judgment, and His redeeming love by which He delivers men and women from their estrangement and rebellion, and creates them anew in the knowledge of their creator.” F. F. Bruce
“Let us note how far from satisfactory is the state of those who are content with sound doctrinal opinions, and orthodox correct views of the Gospel, while in their daily life they give way to ill-temper, ill-nature, malice, envy, quarrelling, squabbling, bickering, surliness, passion, snappish language, and crossness of word and manner. Such persons, whether they know it or not, are daily proclaiming that they are not Christ’s disciples. It is nonsense to talk about justification, and regeneration, and election, and conversion, and the uselessness of works, unless people can see in us practical Christian love.” John Charles Ryle
“Participate with God and proclaim the Gospel, not because you have a low-grade sense of guilt that you ought to act, but do them because you have a high-grade sense of grace that makes you want to act. Do them because you know that you were once impoverished in your sin, a slave to Satan, orphaned from God, and alone in this world. Yet God reached down his mercy-filled hand into your sin-soaked heart and through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son on a blood-stained cross, He lifted you up to new life by His alluring love. You now have nothing to fear and nothing to lose because you are robed in the riches of Christ and safe in the security of Christ.” David Platt
“Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it! Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; Redeemed through His infinite mercy, His child and forever I am. Redeemed, and so happy in Jesus, No language my rapture can tell; I know that the light of His presence With me doth continually dwell. I think of my blessed Redeemer, I think of Him all the day long: I sing, for I cannot be silent; His love is the theme of my song. I know I shall see in His beauty The King in whose law I delight; Who lovingly guardeth my footsteps, And giveth me songs in the night. I know there’s a crown that is waiting In yonder bright mansion for me, And soon, with the spirits made perfect, At home with the Lord I shall be.” Frances J. Crosby
“So let us not stay silent with this gospel. Let’s not allow fear in our culture to muzzle our faith in Christ. And let’s not enable indecision to rule our lives. Let’s not permit delay to characterize our days. We don’t have to ask what the will of God is; He has made it clear. He wants His people to provide for the poor, to value the unborn, to care for orphans and widows, to rescue people from slavery, to defend marriage, to war against sexual immorality in all its forms in every area of our lives, to love our neighbors as ourselves regardless of their ethnicity, to practice faith regardless of the risk, and to proclaim the gospel to all nations. Of these things we are sure.” David Platt
“So let me encourage you to make the most of every opportunity to share this Good News... Our Christian testimony, as Peter reminded his readers, is that, ‘we have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of the dead’. Who else has the answer to the frailty of life, the reality of death and the certainty of judgment than Jesus, who by His death destroyed him who holds the power of death and frees those whose lives are enslaved by the fear of death?” Alistair Begg