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St. Francis of Assisi “Preach the gospel. And if necessary, use words.” It can be very easy to take this quote extremes. Many take this statement and use it as their main mode of preaching the gospel. Say what you will about Rich Warren, I think he’s right when he said in the purpose driven chuch that if this is how you proclaim Jesus you are being arrogent to think that are so holy someone looking at you will decide to be a christian. Rather if we are to get the most application for our lives from this, we must bear in mind the context to in which it was said. the middle ages were a time when though everyone claimed to be chistian they did not live like a chistian. In every town in Italy where St. Francis was from every one had to go to church. So every knew a bout Jesus, and said they believed in him to get to heaven, (amoung other). So if you wanted to turn apathetic people into pious christians, the only way to do this was to do something out of the norm, follow the bible. Today most people are expected to live a good life, so this form of evangelism won’t work on the general public any more. It can I think however work with some groups of people, freinds and family who are lost, perhaps we can make them envious of what christ has done in our lives, like what Paul was saying in Romans. But first we must preach the good news with words.