The Disciple’s Burning Heart

Though this book had its origin in the classroom, its purpose is not academic. The study of theology, rightly pursued, becomes a spiritual exercise that leads into the heart of God, out of which flows his Gospel to a lost world he ever seeks to save. To feel the passion of God speaking makes one burn with the desire to tell the Good News to others. I recall the German pastor Pregizer of Haiterbach once seeking to arouse his lethargic congregation by suddenly shouting in a Maundy Thursday sermon: “Fire! Fire! Fire!” “Where?” the startled congregation asked. Whereupon the pastor exclaimed, “In disciples’ hearts!” It is my hope that tracing in these pages the story of the Gospel through the sequence of theology will ignite an evangelical fire in disciples’ hearts.

― Robert E. Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism