"Prepackaged approaches to the gospel, though helpful to get us started being comfortable in sharing our faith, should not become our only means of sharing. The Bible is full of rich metaphors for the faith. We should appreciate the variety of such terms as we share the gospel. As long as we call a person to embrace the grace of God in faith and not to trust in his or her own deeds for salvation, we are preaching the gospel. We can speak of repenting when considering where we start from at conversion. We can speak of turning to describe the change of direction that comes from embracing God. We can speak of faith in Christ to highlight the object of our hope. We can speak of receiving him to emphasize the personal appropriation of faith that is more than mental assent. We can speak of coming to him to describe the act from Jesus' perspective. We can talk of confessing him as an expression of how faith verbalizes its presence. All these terms highlight the saving act of faith where people embrace Jesus with a trust that he will forgive them by his grace and bring them into a relationship with him."
- Darrell Bock
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