In last week’s discussion, the glaring dismissal of responsibility on the part of most Christians to evangelize was made incredibly apparent to me. It is my contention that Christians in the West have largely become lazy in their efforts to spread the gospel. We often feel that we don’t have the time to do this, so why bother? We feel that we are not qualified to explain grace to our friends. Maybe, just maybe, we are a little bit ashamed of the gospel.
The thing is, we have no right to be ashamed of the gospel if we affirm that the gospel is the hope of the nations. There is no room for us to shy away from sharing the hope we have if we realize that we too were once separated from God and without hope. We need to shed the notion that anyone is beyond the grace of God and thus, we need to be willing to share the gospel with everyone. After all, if we will not do this, how can we say that we have loved our neighbor as ourselves? If the greatest thing we can do for another is tell them the good news, withholding that good news is the most hateful thing we are capable of.
But who’s job is it to do this? Is it up to the pastor to tell others about this hope? Are we being sincere in our love for another if we do nothing more than invite them to church and save them a seat? It is good to invite others to see what a corporate body of believers looks like. It is good for them to witness the love within that body, so that they may long to be a part of this, but the person with the closest knowledge of that person should certainly be willing to tell them what one must do to join the invisible church, lest their participation in the visible church be in vain. Consider the response that happened shortly after Stephen was martyred for proclaiming the truth:
Acts 8:1-4
…And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.
Earlier, Jesus had told the apostles to remain in Jerusalem until the promise of the Holy Spirit was realized. After that, they would be His witnesses to Jerusalem and throughout all of the earth. Thus, you could say that the events that transpired were completely within the sovereignty of God, including the suffering of Stephen. In fact, I believe that this martyr’s fate was ordained by God as a witness of the power of the gospel, though God is completely innocent of any sin.
This scene is surely a benchmark in the history of the church. Some would say that it is the time when the church truly became the church. I don’t know if I would take it quite that far, but it does show a model of how persecution has always been a sign of a vibrant body of believers. Jesus had taught the apostles, who had passed that teaching to those under them. Those who were taught, though they couldn’t have been taught a long time, were deemed ready to go out and make disciples of all nations, and God prompted the invasion of believers into all the world by the death of Stephen and the persecution of Saul. You will note, however, that though Jesus told the apostles that they must remain in Jerusalem, and then go out into all the world, it wasn’t the apostles who fled Jerusalem. They stayed behind and the others, taking the message delivered through the apostles, spread the gospel wherever they went.
It wasn’t the “professional” theologians who caused the advancement of the gospel. It was the laity. It was people like you and me. We are charged to do no less as we live our lives. We too, are called to be witnesses of the gospel to a dying world that some may be saved. We must be prepared to answer questions with truth and love. We must not be content to give answers that point only to how going to church makes us feel. There are fields out there just ripe for the harvest, and we are the workers that others are praying to God for.
And what is it we are to do? Let’s step back to the last scene in the Bible where Jesus is on this earth before the ascension to see what He said:
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
OK, it was Jesus who said that we would be his witnesses. In my 21st century mind, that means that we need to speak in truth what happened. That is true, but it does not capture the nuance of what it means to witness. Let’s take a quick look at the original text and see where the word “witness” comes from, shall we?
The word comes from the Greek word, spelled in English as martus, which is pronounced mar’-toos. According to Strong’s, this word means:
Of uncertain affinity; a witness (literally [judicially] or figuratively [generally]); by analogy a “martyr”: – martyr, record, witness.
The two options are that we are called to be a witness such as in a courtroom setting, which does match the definition we usually think of, and also in a figurative sense, which is where the term of the martyr originates. Being a martyr does not always mean that one is killed for the gospel. It does mean, however, that one is always dying for the gospel. We do not always die in a physical sense, but we are called to die to self, to sin and to this world daily. This is how we are to witness. To combine the two definitions, we are to speak the truth about the hope that we have and we are to die to our fleshly desires, thus making the invisible church more visible.
When you combine what you profess with how you live, the world will take notice. Jesus said that the world would hate us just as it hated Him. If we live our lives in an attempt to please man, we become unfaithful to God and the world will take notice of this as well. By disobeying the last commandment given by Christ, we undercut our every effort to serve others in His name.
How do we go about this? Let’s delve just a bit into 2 Timothy 1:3-14 to see an example of this. God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore, it is our duty to spread this same message of hope without fear of man. Rather, we are to share in the martus, the suffering, the witness of the gospel and we are to do this not by our own power, but by the power of God. This is because it is not man’s gospel, but God’s.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
If this gospel is spread by the power of God, it does not matter if you have no seminary teaching or pastoral experience. As long as the Holy Spirit indwells you as a deposit of the hope you have, you are called to spread this same gospel wherever you go as a witness to an unbelieving world. The church is to equip those in their pews for this task. We are charged with the task of taking Christians and making them into front-line troops in the battle against unbelief, their unbelief and the unbelief of others. We are trained as we are exposed to the truth of the scriptures. We are trained as the Holy Spirit provides repentance and faith to us. We are trained as we gradually relax our grip on the things of this world so that we can grasp for something better. And as we are in training we are sent out into the world where we do battle in a way that no army has ever fought.
We battle with prayer, with truth, and with the example given of those who die to themselves daily. This is why the church is for believers. This is why it is up to the individual believers to provide a witness to the world before we invite anyone to sit with us in church. We are the ones called to witness to the world. Let us not fight this battle with cowardice.
Tags: Acts, Church growth
I agree, Doug, that much evangelistic effort should be conducted through the people in our churches. I believe that if a person is serious about the Great Commission, he will have a personal burden in working towards fulfilling it–ordained minister or not.
I also think that it is important for pastors to keep the kind of evangelistic philosophy you articulate in mind as they build people’s lives not only with the Spiritual truths that feed their souls, but also with the Spiritual equipping that inspires and prepares them to take the Gospel to others.
Good thoughtful post.
Thanks! I didn’t really get into much of how a pastor should orchestrate such training, but I have a suspicion that it begins with prayer and continues with expository preaching.
We’re cool, right?
Great post on giving it back to the laity. I recently read, “Behind every story of salvation, you’ll find people on their knees.” Prayer, I think, is where it all begins. Praying to know the heart of God. Praying compassionately, persistently, and specifically for the lost. Praying for the messenger and that that messenger will have opportunities and BOLDNESS. And most definitely pray for the destruction of strongholds (2Cor. 10:3-5). I hope that your readers take your thoughts to heart and get on their knees for the lost however, close or far they may be.
It’s all good, Doug. Keep up the good work around here.
Great article! We should all be sharing our faith more. I’ve recently strated an evangelism blog called “Courage to Share’, full of tips, resources, and thoughts to encourage Christians to share the gospel biblically and effectively. http://couragetoshare.blogspot.com
[...] I posted last week that it is fundamentally the role of the congregation to serve as the evangelistic arm of the church. There are many though, who seek further responsibilities. Some of us want to be the point of contact for missionaries, we want to set the Sunday School agenda, we want to oversee others in various outward ways, we want to do all that we can to serve God, and that is a good motivation for the people of the church to have. We should desire more opportunities to serve in the name of the Lord! But what is more important? Should we all desire to minister to God or should we desire all the more to be ministered to by God? [...]
I think that if the laity doesn’t share their faith, church growth won’t occur. If we depend on pastors to be heroes and get it all done, it won’t happen.
I am going to check out the “Courage to SHare” site listed above. That sounds like it may help po=rovide what is needed in the New Testament church.
Evangelism happens (where it happens, I mean) because people have something exploding out of their hearts, and it continues and succeeds because there is good soil for seeds. I believe the primary purpose of church meetings and Bible studies is to provide a place for new Christians to get oriented and learn, and to help establish leadership in order to handle the influx.
The church I grew up in had Bible classes in order to argue better against other denominations. I think that is a perversion, a bizarre form for Christianity to take. All of these things are a vehicle for church growth.
I’ve been to churches that seem exciting, but IMO, the only true excitement occurs when people meet and talk about the sharing they did during the week. They build each other up, work on techniques, get excited about what’s to come. That is true excitement. Having various special events is nice, but not what the mission is about.