Is Evangelism A Gift That Few Have?

Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ…”

The question I’m concerned with from this passage is: Does this verse mean that evangelism is a gift that only some people have?  My answer?  NO.  But hold on; this is a good question because the verse seems to teach that evangelism should only be done by those who have the gift of evangelism, just as preaching and teaching should be done by those gifted in preaching and teaching, etc..  Let me say two things to help you see why I thinkn the idea of evangelism being a gift few have is false and dangerous.

a) Is evangelism a gift?  Yes.  God indeed has granted certain people the joy, love, desire, knowledge, and courage needed to evangelize.  But, most of those who think evangelism is a gift see evangelism as someone else’s command, and not as their own.  It’s not their gift, so they don’t have to do it.  We are all commanded to share the gospel (Matt. 28, Acts 1, etc.), to shurk our duties to someone else is cowardly and sinful.  So, if that is true, then what does Paul mean when he speaks of evangelists here?

b) Good question, and this is the heart of the issue.  Notice how Paul says God gave evangelists…to the Church?  Hmmm…  Think about that, evangelists are for the lost, right?  Wrong.  Most people think Paul meant that God gave the Church evangelists so that those evangelists would bring new people into the Church by going out to talk to people about Jesus.  This is wrong.  I think a proper understanding of God giving evangelists to the Church means that the evangelists teach and equip (v12) the Church to go out and evangelize.  This understanding fits with the truth that all people are commanded to go and share, not just some.

So, is evangelism a gift that few have?  No.  It is a gift, and only some have that gift, but those that do are to teach the rest of us how to evangelize, in order to help us fulfill the great commission that we’re all called to.

Letter From An Atheist

Read if you find yourself lacking evangelistic desire:

“You are really convinced that you’ve got all the answers. You’ve really got yourself tricked into believing that you’re 100% right. Well, let me tell you just one thing. Do you consider yourself to be compassionate of other humans? If you’re right, as you say you are, and you believe that, then how can you sleep at night? When you speak with me, you are speaking with someone who you believe is walking directly into eternal damnation, into an endless onslaught of horrendous pain which your ‘loving’ god created, yet you stand by and do nothing. If you believed one bit that thousands every day were falling into an eternal and unchangeable fate, you should be running the streets mad with rage at their blindness. That’s equivalent to standing on a street corner and watching every person that passes you walk blindly directly into the path of a bus and die, yet you stand idly by and do nothing. You’re just twiddling your thumbs, happy in the knowledge that one day that ‘walk’ signal will shine your way across the road. Think about it. Imagine the horrors Hell must have in store if the Bible is true. You’re just going to allow that to happen and not care about saving anyone but yourself? If you’re right then you’re an uncaring, unemotional and purely selfish (expletive) that has no right to talk about subjects such as love and caring.”

“You Must Earn the Right to Share the Gospel” – WHAT?

It is almost a fact that most Christians now believe that the right to share the gospel must be earned.  Therefore most Christians think of evangelism as starting friendships where the aim is to cultivate trust to the point where a conversation about the gospel would be natural and comfortbale.  Is this a Biblical way to think about evangelism?  NO.

This belief comes from J.I. Packer’s book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (1961). This book is a foundational document on evangelism, divine sovereignty, and human responsibility.  Besides this one belief it produces, the book is great.  On page 90 Packer says the following:

The right to talk intimately with another person about the Lord Jesus Christ has to be earned, and you earn it by convincing him that you are his friend, and that you really care about him…we must be justified in choosing to talk to them about Christ and in speaking to them about their own spiritual needs…

I know that many who may read this will instantly think that I’m the one who is wrong to say Packer is wrong here, but hear me out.  This line of thinking that we must ‘earn’ the right to share the gospel, and be ‘justified’ in bringing up the gospel with people makes one error.  It makes the error of being more cultural then Biblical.  Do you see Jesus or any of the apostles earning the right to share the gospel in the Bible?  Did Philip earn the right to intrude on the Egyptian eunuchs reading time to ask him “What are you reading?” (Acts 8) Did Stephen earn the right to share with the people before they stoned him? (Acts 7) Did Paul earn the right to preach to those cities?

The answer to this question, from the Bible, is always no.  Everyone who shared the gospel was more concerned with getting the message of Jesus out than the person’s feelings about being offended by the gospel.  If the Jesus or the apostles were concerned with ‘earning’ the right to share the gospel before they shared, I think the growth of the Church would have been drastically different!  This is where I think Packer, and the many who agree with him on this issue, have uncritically accepted a cultural rule over the Bible.

I am not saying that friendships are not a great way to share the gospel, they are and should be used and sought after diligently!  I am not saying that we ought to just go out banging people in the head with our Bibles, screaming at them to repent.  I am not saying that evangelism should be done without love, it ought to!  I am saying that I think Packer is wrong to say that sharing the gospel with someone has to be earned.  It does not.  Would it be loving to let a blind man keep walking toward to edge of a cliff?  No, it wouldn’t.  No one in their right mind would ever think upon seeing this, “I cannot go up and tell him he’s going in the wrong direction, I don’t want to intrude on his choices, and besides, we don’t even know each other, how could I tell him to change the path he has chosen to walk on?”  That is absurd to the highest degree, and just like that, today too many Christians view evangelism in the same manner.  “We cannot just go up to people and say their wrong, and that they should repent and turn to Jesus, that would be foolish and offensive!”

We must see that Jesus never earned the right to share Himself with others, and the apostles never earned the right to share the gospel.  Christians must take up the gospel, as it is, and share it with those around them, in love.  We know their end is hell if they do not repent, and that should move us to share with them and plead with them, IN LOVE, to turn to Jesus while there is still time.  May we never withhold sharing the gospel because we think we have not earned the right to do so!  No messenger of a king bearing the king’s message ever waited to earn his right to share the word from his king.  He shared it, because that was his duty!  So too, all Christians are ambassadors for Christ, and it is our joy to share the gospel with as many as we can.  If Christ has given us approval to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations, we need not earn another’s approval to share the gospel, the message of our king.

This is one place where J.I. Packer has uncritically accepted part of his own culture as Biblical.  Have you done the same?

Does God Ordain Condemnation from His Word?

Isaiah 55:10-11 says, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

This verse is stunning is it not?  Everytime we speak God’s Word it will never return to Him void, but will always accomplish His purpose!  When you think about this, it does not say what God’s purposes are does it?  We can say that all people will have one of two responses to God’s Word upon hearing it.  How can we say that?  2 Cor 2:15-16 says, “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.” Therefore one response is salvation and the other response is condemnation.  All people will respond in one of the two ways.  My question therefore becomes: Does God ordain (purpose) condemnation through His Word?  Or to put it another way: When God’s Word goes out of my mouth, will God act so a person hears His Word as the aroma of death; so that my sharing the gospel to them would actually be the means God uses to condemn them?  The answer is simple, but hard to swallow.

Yes, God does do this.

To whom?  All those who are not elect.  But, we ought to make it clear that we do not know who the elect are and who they are not, so we preach to everyone, hoping for salvation and praying that God’s Word would be the aroma of life to them.  Far be it from us to pray and hope that God’s Word would be the aroma of death to someone upon leaving our mouths!

Francis of Assisi said What?

I’m sure that most of you have heard the famous quote from Francis of Assisi at least once before, “Preach the gospel always, if necessary use words.”

If you think this is true, or if you believe that Francis actually said this, I have some bad news.  It is not true or Biblical, nor did Francis of Assisi ever say it.  I think the Biblical way to use this quote is as follows, “Preach the gospel always, if necessary use deeds.” For proof of this and more info on this Francis of Assisi go to Mark Galli’s recent article, Speak the Gospel: Use Deeds when Necessary.

Luther and Paul on Using the Law

In a previous post, I told you that it is biblical to use the law in evangelism and preaching to drive the sinner toward an awareness of their sin.  I asked the question at the end: how do you do this?  Before I answer this question I want to give two examples and show how they did it.

Martin Luther: “I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived” (Romans 7:9).  So it is with the work-righteous and the proud unbelievers.  Because they do not know the Law of God, which is directed against them, it is impossible for them to know their sin.  Therefore also they are not amenable to instruction.  If they would know the Law, they would know their sin; and sin to which they are now dead would become alive in them.” Luther used the law for a specific purpose: so that sin, which is dead in the sinner, would become alive!  When sin is alive in a person, or when a person is awakened to their own sin, they feel the pressing weight of it and long for a Savior from this sin.  This is precisely what Galatians 3:24 says, “Therefore, the Law has become our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

Paul: In describing how Paul used the law, we have already seen Romans 3:19-20 in the previous post.  Now we will turn to Romans 7:7-12.  This is the passage that Luther uses in his description of how the law works in a sinner.  They key verses to latch onto in Romans 7:7-12 (for our purposes here) are v7-9.  In it Paul gives his own testimony about his experience with the law of God.  ”What shall we say then?  Is the Law sin?  May it never be!  On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”  But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the law sin is dead.  I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.”

Notice these things in this passage:  a) God’s Law is synonymous with the commandments of God (Exodus 20).  b) Apart from the law, sin lies dead, or unaware to the sinner.  c) Paul was, in a sense, alive before God’s Law came to him.  d) When the commandments came, sin seemed to abound (See Romans 5:20) within himself, and Paul died.  Seeing these things in the passage makes Galatians 3:24 stand out once again, “Therefore, the Law has become our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

How did Luther and Paul use the Law?  They preached the Law of God, the commandments of God, to show people their sin.  Once sin is seen, and sin becomes alive within sinners heart, they for the first time feel as if they had died, and thus run to Jesus!  Galatians 3:24 comes to life!

What does this look like in real life?  How do I share God’s law with someone today so they run to Jesus in faith?  Before we answer that, we must look at a few more things.  Stay tuned……

The Gospel is Foolishness Unless….

1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “…the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.” Why is this so?  Let me share an illustration to help you understand this.

Imagine if I said to you, “I’ve got some good news for you: someone has just paid a $25,000 speeding fine on your behalf.”  You would probably react by saying something like this: “What are you talking about, that’s not good news, it doesn’t even make sense!  I don’t have a $25,000 speeding fine.”  My good news to you would not be good news at all, it would seem like foolishness.  But more than that, it would be offensive because I am saying that you have broken the law when you don’t think you have.  However if I put this way, it may make more sense: “While you were out today, the law clocked you going 55 mph through an area set aside for a blind children’s convention.  There were ten clear warning signs stating that 15 mph was the speed limit, but you went through at 55 mph.  What you did was extremely dangerous; there’s a $25,000 fine.  The law was about to take its course, when someone you don’t even know stepped in and paid the fine for you.  You are very fortunate.

Can you see that telling you precisely what you’ve done wrong makes the good news make sense?  If I don’t clearly bring understanding that you’ve violated the law, the good news will seem foolish and offensive.  But once you understand that you have broken the law, then the good news will actually become good news indeed!  In the same way, if I approach a non-Christian and say, “Jesus died for your sins on the cross” it will seem like foolishness because it won’t make any sense.  And it will be offensive because I am saying that they are a sinner when the non-Christian does not think he is, because in his mind, there are a lot of people far worse than him.  So what do we do?  We take the time to share with the non-Christian what he has actually done, how he has broken God’s law and therefore deserving of wrath and punishment from God.

You may say, is that Biblical?  YES!  Look at Romans 3:19-20.  ”Now we know that whatsoever things the law says, it says to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.  Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified in His sight: for by the law comes knowledge of sin.” Notice two things from this passage.  First, when God’s law (the Ten Commandments) goes out, it stops people’s mouths.  What does that mean?  When they read or listen to the law, they will stop justifying themselves by saying that they are good people because they will see their sin and therefore know that they are guilty of breaking it.  Second, notice that it is the law of God that brings the knowledge of sin to people.  When people know their sin, they will know their need for a savior.

Charles Spurgeon said of this, “I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the law.  The law is the needle, and you cannot draw the silken thread of the gospel through man’s heart unless you first send the needle of the law to make way for it.”

How do we do this?  Stay tuned…

(This comes from The School of Biblical Evangelism)

I Want Cannons!

I have a desire that is becoming stronger right now.  This desire is reflected in Jim Elliot’s journal on September 19, 1948 “Father, make of me a ‘crisis man’.  Bring those I contact to decision.  Let me not be a milepost on a singleroad.  Make of me a fork, so that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.” I long to be a fork in the road for everyone I encounter.  Because of this, the desire to do evangelism is becoming overwhelming in me.  I not only desire this, but I also desire to teach those of you how to share your faith, who have no idea how to do it.  Bill Bright says in his book The Coming Revival that only 2% of Christians share their faith.  Why is this so?  Fear?  Worry?  Sinful disobedience?  All of the above are be honest answers, but I think that the number one reason Christians do not share their faith is due to the fact that so many of us do not know how to.

If I were to send you into modern warfare with all the most powerful weapons, would you feel confident about winning the war?  You would, but only if you knew how to use those weapons.  If I did not teach you how to use your powerful weapons, you would have no confidence at all in fighting and you would feel utterly lost and at a terrible disadvantage.  But if I taught you slowly and took you step by step through the ins and outs of everything you need to know about these powerful weapons, you would feel ready to go and confident about fighting with them.  It is the same way with sharing our faith.  We are at war (Eph. 6:12, Rom. 8:12-13), and we must fight.  We must not only fight, but we also must study how to fight correctly, using the weapons God has given us.  If you were taught how to use God’s weapons rightly, you’ll be confident on the battle field; and you may even go out to battle more often.

Because of this growing desire in me, you’ll soon be seeing posts by me about how to do just that, share our faith with the cannons God has provided us to use!  I want to show you these cannons and teach you how to use them as you ought to.

One Day I’ll be Right

What would you do if you knew the day you were going to die?  Or more, what would you do if you knew that today was your last day to live?  Some of you may do things that you always wanted to do like jumping out of a plane or eating at the best, most expensive restaurant in town.  Others of you may go places that you have always wanted to go, the Grand Canyon , Yankee Stadium, or that special place that only you know about.  Some of you may even realize that anything you do on this last day, will not have very many consequences, so you may do illegal things that you have always wanted to do.

But when it comes down to it, the things that will most come into our mind and heart on the last day of our lives will be those things that matter the most to us.  What matters most to me is the Gospel.  So when I think of what I may do on the last day of my life, I would run around with an unmatched intensity sharing the gospel with as many as I possibly can.  Knowing that I would do this now, convicts me deeply.  Why?  Because if I would do that on the last day of my life, why would I not do it now?  Then this awakening thought comes into my mind: I should live as if today were the last day of my life because one day, I’ll be right.

The Facts of Matthew 9:37-38

Matthew 9:37-38 says, “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’”

Here are the facts:

1) The harvest is plentiful: There is a multitude of people on this planet that do not know Jesus, millions and millions of them.  The harvest is full, this we cannot doubt.

2) The workers are few: Despite the plentiful-ness of the harvest, there are few workers trying to bring the harvest in.  This is strange because this is a huge reason why we are still here on earth, yet so few take up the role they were made for.  It is as if a soldier was sitting down in the middle of a battlefield, trying to make himself comfortable.  How absurd is that?

3) Ask the Lord: How often do we receive such a clear command of what to pray for from the mouth of Jesus?  (The list of them is not long) One response can come from this: obedience or disobedience, where are you?

4) Jesus is Lord of the harvest: Jesus owns the fields that we play in!  But should we be playing or laboring?  There are those in the fields who do not know the owner of the field!  How grievous a sin is it to be in the Lord’s field (creation) while disobeying His command to labor in it!

5) Ask what?  That laborers would be sent out: Jesus tells us to pray this, so do it.  Pray that God would make you willing and eager to labor.  He will, from our asking, call us to get to work.

“I am God”?

This is great, check it  out:

What Drove Paul’s Evangelistic and Missional Fire?

It is easy to see that Paul was driven by something great.  This is obvious because he endured and persevered through more suffering than most people in the Bible.  What was it exactly that drove him?  Simple: the love of Jesus.  Remember that Paul was there giving approval to the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1-3).  Paul was a persecutor of the Church, until Jesus chased him down.  Paul knew that God should not love him, because of all the things he had done.  He knew it was completely illogical that God should love a man as he.  But God did, and Paul never forgot it.  This is what drove Paul to be so evangelistic and missional!  This is why Paul chased men for God.

Let me ask you Christian; perhaps the reason why you are not sharing your faith is because you have lost the Mt. Everest-ness of God’s love.  Remember because of your sin, God should not love you.  It is illogical for God to love you, but He does.  Remember that it was God that chased you down, and smothered His love on you through His Son Jesus.  Have you forgotten that?  Remember it today, and let it deep into your soul, so that you chase men for God, as you were chased!

5 Things That Aren’t Evangelism

Tyler Kenney, on the Desiring God blog just posted this from Mark Dever’s recent message at the Desiring God Pastor’s conference.  Mark’s message was called “The Pastor and Evangelism.”

Here is a summary of what Mark proclaimed:

5 Things We Can Mistake for Evangelism:

1) Imposition – We mistakenly take evangelism to be manipulation. But that’s what the world says. In truth, we’re not trying to impose our beliefs on anybody. Biblically, we can’t impose our beliefs on anybody. Force and coercion cannot finally bring about the change that God demands. You can’t expand Christianity by the sword. Evangelism is not some sort of intellectual imposition.

To believe that something is true and to share that with others is not coercion. We don’t impose when we evangelize. We freely offer it to all and do not, cannot, force it on anybody.

2) Personal Testimony – A personal testimony is a wonderful thing. The Bible is full of examples of it, and we should testify to the wonderful experience of receiving God’s mercy.

But consider John 9 and the man born blind. He gives his testimony but doesn’t even know who Jesus is. His words glorify God, but they don’t present the gospel. This is not evangelism.

Unless you’re explicit about Jesus Christ and the cross then it is not the gospel.

3) Social Action / Public Involvement – Mercy ministries display God’s kindness, and they are good and appropriate for the Christian to do. But such actions are not evangelism. They may commend the gospel to others, but only if someone has told them the gospel. They need to have the gospel added to them. Helping others or doing our jobs well, whatever they are, in and of themselves are not evangelism.

4) Apologetics – Apologetics are valuable, but they have their own set of dangers. You can get bogged down in talking about purely intellectual or peripheral matters and never get to the gospel.

It’s fine for us to talk with unbelieving friends about questions that they have, but our attempts to try and answer them without setting the gospel as the foundation does no good. Jesus must set the agenda for evangelism.

5) The Results of Evangelism – 2 Corinthians 2:15

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

Note that the same ministry has two different effects. It’s like the parable of the soil: same seed, different results.

We cannot finally judge the correctness of what we do by the immediate response that we get. The need for numbers puts an unnecessary stress on pastors and misunderstands the way that God saves.

We must practice our ministries realizing that some of us will be like Adoniram Judson or William Carey, who had no converts until after seven years of faithful gospel ministry. It’s a fact that most people don’t believe the gospel the first time they hear it.

Don’t let the gospel that you preach be molded by what it is that gets an immediate response. Preach the gospel, trying to persuade–pleading for your hearers to believe–but knowing that you cannot convert a person. And then let God do with it what he will. He alone can call the dead to life. The gospel is powerful, and God is committed to using us to spread this good news.

The Unity of Theology and Evangelism

“Evangelism and theology for the most part go separate ways, and the result is great loss for both. When theology is not held on course by the demands of evangelistic communication, it grows abstract and speculative, wayward in method, theoretical in interest and irresponsible in stance. When evangelism is not fertilized, fed and controlled by theology, it becomes a stylized performance seeking its effect through manipulative skills rather than the power of vision and the force of truth. Both theology and evangelism are then, in one important sense, unreal, false to their own God-given nature; for all true theology has an evangelistic thrust, and all true evangelism is theology in action.”  (J.I. Packer)

Evangelism: The Gathering of the Elect

Calvinists are often opposed for being to severe in their doctrines of God’s sovereignty in the world.  One of the critiques is that Calvinistic doctrine does not lead anyone to any kind of evangelistic zeal, or burden to see men come to Christ.  This is far from the truth.  One cannot have any hope in sharing the gospel with any pagan, if they are not a Calvinist.  Here is why:

In Acts chapter 18, Paul is discouraged in Corinth because a group of Jews did not believe his preaching that Jesus was the Messiah sent to save them.  Paul says in 18:6, “Your blood be on your own heads!  I am clean.  From now on I will go to the Gentiles.“  Afterwards Paul went to Titius Justus’ house and then to Crispus’s house, preaching the same Christ, and was amazed that all the households believed; along with many other Corinthians.  Paul seemed to still be discouraged though, as if the smell of what had happened earlier with the Jews was still heavy on him.  God encourages Paul in 18:9-10, “And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, ‘Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.“  It seems like a usual encouragement from the Lord here.  He makes sure to tell Paul that He is with him always and even promises safety, which Paul did not often have. 

But what makes this encouragement so astounding is what God ends with, “for I have many people in this city.“  What does that mean?  Not very many people in Corinth had come to faith in Christ yet.  So how could God say that He had many people in this city?  It is because there are elect people within the Corinth that God has chosen from before the world began to believe, that have not heard the gospel yet.  God encourages Paul to keep on preaching, because of those people.  This is simply the outworking of Romans 10:14-17 in which it is clearly said that no one comes to faith apart from hearing the gospel.  God was encouraging Paul to be the vessel of salvation for these people that God had chosen from before the foundation of the world, that are now reisidng in Corinth.  Paul was obviously so strengthened by this word from God that he later encourages Timothy to labor and “endure all things for the sake of the elect, so that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” (2 Tim. 2:10)  Paul labored and endured all things for the sake of the elect in Corinth, why?  Because the sovereignty of God in choosing people gave Paul hope that God’s Word, the gospel, would never return void, but always accomplish the purpose for which it is sent. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

What does this have to do with evangelism?  How does the sovereignty of God empower us to bring the gospel to the people we live among?  Because we to, along with Paul, have this same encouragement from God.  No matter where we live, we can truthfully cling to the fact that God has chosen people long ago in our towns, and has ordained that the gospel be preached to them so they can believe.  We are invited to be the means that God uses to carry out His eternal purposes! 

If I did not believe in God’s sovereignty in salvation, I would be so utterly discouraged every time I share the gospel, because if they do not believe, it is my fault!  I did not make it clear enough, or try as hard as I should have!  But knowing that God has chosen people that will come to faith upon hearing the gospel gives me hope in sharing my faith!  It is as if God were taking us fishing and promising a huge catch!

One other thing though, because we do not know who these elect ones are that God has chosen within our cities, we share with everyone.  When people come to faith, we can know for sure, that it is because they have been chosen from long ago.  I know of no doctrine that leads to a greater evangelistic zeal than a promise of a great catch from a sovereign God!  Take heart, and be encouraged to share the gospel with all people, for God has many people in your city, and upon hearing the gospel, they will come to faith!