The First Type of Evangelism, part II

In my first post in this series, I discussed the Shema Yisrael and its connection to what Jesus Christ calls the first and greatest commandment. In this post, I want to backtrack a little bit and talk about evangelism in general. Before we go further, it might be useful to define what an evangelist is. The word “evangelist” is a transliteration of the Greek word evangelizesthai¹ which means to “bring good news,” from eu- “good” + angellein “announce,” which is from angelos “messenger.” So an evangelist is one who brings good news, and since the word gospel means the “good news”, within Christendom an evangelist is one who brings or proclaims the Gospel.

Which bring us to a second question, namely, what is the Gospel? This requires some explanation. Over the last hundred years or so, there has been a concerted effort on the part of well intentioned individuals to make the message of salvation extremely simple. And it is simple, but without meaning to be paradoxical, the message of salvation is also complex. Here is my definition of the Gospel:

The Gospel is the message of the Bible. It is the commandments that God has given us. It is the news that we are born into sin because of the sin of one man, and that by the sacrifice of one man, the price of sin was paid. The Gospel is in many ways, the story that God is telling. It is the story of Jesus Christ.

And let me be clear here, I am not saying that someone has to know the entire Bible to be saved, but what I am saying is that we don’t know what it will take for any individual person to come to Christ, to experience salvific faith. Look at Abraham: he obeys God and leaves Ur in chapter 12 of Genesis, goes down into Egypt and comes out wealthy, and then he separates from Lot in chapter 13. In chapter 14, he saves Lot and the people of Sodom from Chedorlaomer, refuses the reward of the king of Sodom, and communes with Melchizedek. But he doesn’t get saved until chapter 15, verse 6: And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.And that’s part of our problem. Modern evangelistic techniques teach us to attempt to harvest on every encounter. Never mind that Paul says that some plant and some water. Never mind that if you ask a farmer, he’ll tell you that you spend more time planting and weeding and watering than you do harvesting. We’re taught to close the sale.

Don’t worry if they don’t know enough, don’t worry if this will result in a false conversion, just grab whatever it is that’s growing by the green part, yank it out of the ground, and put it in the ‘Saved’ sack. This sort of thinking terrifies me.

So, what am I driving at? What is my point? Primarily, it’s that we need to be thinking Christians, who safeguard rather than limit the richness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we need to disciple those that we lead to Christ, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you (Matthew 28:20). And this goes back to part one in this series, because if you are already teaching your wife and your children on a daily basis, you will be ready to deal with the questions that a new convert has. What do you think? If you’ve taken the time to read this far, please take the time to leave a comment as well. Your feedback is useful, and Lord willing, will be responded to.

¹ Etymology information taken from the Online Etymology Dictionary