Bonhoeffer's Caution

Every attempt to impose the gospel by force, to run after people and proselytize them, to use our own resources to arrange the salvation of other people, is both futile and dangerous. It is futile, because the swine do not recognize the pearls that are cast before them, and dangerous, because it profanes the word of forgiveness, by causing those we fain wouldserve to sin against that which is holy. Worse still, we shall only meet with the blind rage of hardened and darkened hearts, and taht will be useless and harmful. Our easy trafficking with the word of cheap grace simply bores the world to disgust, so that in the end it turns against those who try to force on it what it does not want. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p 186, The Disciple and the Unbelievers

This was worth some pondering time.