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There are various beliefs regarding the gospel message in today’s culture.
There is a belief that in order to fulfill the gospel and live eternally with Christ, one
must complete acts of goodness, while another belief states one will live eternally if
they repent their sins and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, as salvation comes
from God alone, not through good acts (Weider, The Gospel Message). A clear belief,
no matter the way to spend eternity with Christ, is that the gospel message requires
action (Mackie, 2018) On the complete opposite side, it is estimated at least 7000
different people groups have little to no knowledge of the gospel message (Platt,
2021).
While there may be many different emotional reasons that one rejects Christ as
Lord and Savior, two key reasons are ones pride and mans innate quality of
selfishness. Man does not want to let go of their pride to fully accept the love that
Jesus has to offer or to accept the sacrifice He made on the cross. Just as much as man
does not want to relinquish their pride, they do not wish to love and help others in an
unselfish way (Bob, 2012).
Moral values revolve around human behavior and the distinction in good or
bad ones. The main moral reason that people reject Christ is because while many
Americans know of the Bible and believe it to be sacred, a survey of 1000 Americans
revealed that about 53% have read little and know little to none of the Bible, and
therefore are not actively living by the moral standards of Christ or the gospel
message, just as their testimony does not (Smietana, 2017).
There are two major intellectual reasons that some reject Christ as Savior, one
being that their understanding of science or philosophy does not agree with
Christianity or their perception of it. The idea of evil and sinfulness makes the
Christian view of God hard to grasp, or their overall worldview is fundamentally
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different than the Biblical worldview and the gospel message, so they simply reject it
(Allee, 2015). Another important reason is because as questions are asked about the
Bible, they are given answers to other questions or their original questions remain
unanswered (Bouma, 2018).
Though there seem to be quite a few reasons why nonbelievers reject Christ,
there are a few common apologetic methods through which one can persuasively
answer some of the objections others have such as presuppositional and classical
apologetics. A believer could present the historical evidences for the existence of
Christ and the trustworthiness of the Scripture to show that God and His word are
truth, known as the classical approach (Apologetics Index, 2023). The
presuppositional method emphasizes the importance of Scripture and that the Word of
God, rather than particular and local cultural influences, should be the real framework
through which one views reality (ZA Blog, 2018). These methods, along with others,
offer a believer the opportunity to speak the truth of the gospel message and the Bible
alike and guide a nonbeliever to Christ.
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References
Allee, J. (2015, January 7). There Are Only Three Reasons People Reject Christianity.
Thinking Christianly. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from
http://jacoballee.blogspot.com/2015/01/there-are-only-three-reasons-
people.html
Bob. (2012, June 1). 2 Reasons People Reject Christ. RPM Ministries. Retrieved
April 3, 2023, from https://rpmministries.org/2012/06/2-reasons-people-reject-
christ/
Bouma, J. (2018, March 30). 10 Reasons Why People Reject the Gospel. Zondervan
Academic. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from
https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/reasons-why-people-reject-gospel
Cowan, S. (Ed.). (2023). Five Apologetics Methods. Apologetics Index. Retrieved
April 3, 2023, from https://www.apologeticsindex.org/374-five-apologetics-
methods
Mackie, T. (2018). What are the Gospels? BibleProject. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from
https://bibleproject.com/blog/what-are-the-gospels/#:~:text=Thus%20the
%20purpose%20of%20the,a%20response%20from%20the%20reader.%22
Platt, D. (2021, May 5). Great Commission Statistics that Should Concern Us.
Radical. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://radical.net/article/great-
commission-statistics-that-should-concern-us/
Smietana, B. (2017, April 25). Lifeway Research: Americans Are Fond of the Bible,
Don’t Actually Read It. Lifeway Research. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from
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https://research.lifeway.com/2017/04/25/lifeway-research-americans-are-fond-
of-the-bible-dont-actually-read-it/
ZA Blog. (2018, July 31). What Is Presuppositional Apologetics? Retrieved April 3,
2023, from https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/presuppositional-apologetics.
