The Gospel and Personal Evangelism

I recently finished reading The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever. Although it was pretty basic, I would definitely recommend it. Here are a few memorable quotes:

"Isn't it amazing that we have trouble sharing such wonderful news? Who would mind telling a friend that they held a winning lottery ticket? What doctor wouldn't want to tell their patient that the tests came back negative?" (16)

"Your conclusion that you are not gifted for a particular task does not absolve you of responsibility to obey" (25)

"The Bible presents God not simply as our creator but as our jealous lover. He wants us --- every part of us. For us to think that we can disregard him sometimes, to set aside his ways when it suits us, is to show that we haven't understood the nature of the relationship at all. So, you see, we can't claim to be believers and yet knowingly, repeatedly, happily break God's law." (34)

"One of the main reasons that the local church is to be a community of love is so that others will know the God of love" (51)

"The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70, and there is nothing about a great Christian temple in the New Testament - a place of granduet and majesty to which we can point our non-Christian friends and say, "Look! Aren't you impressed? Doesn't this show how wonderful and mysterious and beautiful and true and good God is?" What happened to the temple in the New Testament era? There is nothing like it, because the temple has become us. We Christians have together beccome the temple of the Holy Spirit. When you read the New Testament, you find that it's not our church buildings but us, Christians. We Christians have together become the temple of the Holy Spirit. So the community we live in will be given hope by those of us who live distinctive Christian lives, not by your church or mine, not by how similar we are to those around us (a common mistake Christians can make), but by how attractively different we are. That's why we are to live the distinctive lives that we do - because we are God's picture, God's billboard, in our city." (67)