What is evangelism? The dictionary says it is "the preaching or promulgation of the gospel." I can go with that. The word is actually based on the same word from Scripture -- euangélion -- translated "gospel". "Good news". Yeah, yeah, we got that. We all know that the "gospel" means "the good news". Is that all there is? No, indeed not.
When Jesus (you know, the Christ of Christianity) preached the gospel, here was His version: "The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:10). Now clearly Jesus didn't have the benefit of Campus Crusades' "Four Spiritual Laws or Evangelism Explosion's well-thought-out approach. We might even call it crass ... if it weren't for the fact that it was the Master's version. His version of evangelism, therefore, was a two-part command: repent and believe.
Jesus expanded His version at the end of His earthly ministry.
All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt 28:18-20).Now that is more of a program than "repent and believe". There is the "go" and the "make disciples". There is baptizing and teaching. And it isn't small in any of these measures. It includes "all nations" and "all that I commanded you" and "to the end of the age". Really big. Amazingly missing, however, is "make converts", perhaps the most popular (and apparently mistaken) version of "evangelism" today.
Okay, so what do we have? Biblically we have a problem to address. (Thus the need for "repent".) Without the bad news there is no good news, and biblically the news without Christ is really bad. Leave out the problem of sin and you're not evangelizing. There is the answer to the bad news -- Christ. That answer includes His existence, His life, His death, His resurrection. It includes faith ("believe") and submission. And we have the next step -- "make disciples". This is biblical evangelism.
None of this is an imposition of beliefs any more than it is an imposition of beliefs to tell someone "There's a bus coming that will run you down if you don't move." A personal testimony and logical defense might just assist in this process of telling the bad news, explaining the good news, and proceeding with discipleship, but they don't make up the entire reality of evangelism. Preaching the Gospel is evangelism. And we were not commanded to make converts; we were commanded to make disciples. Anything less is not evangelism. And if we are not willing to preach the Gospel, we are clearly unaware of how bad the bad news is or how good the good news is. Perhaps we need to hear the Gospel ourselves.
2 comments:
Can you make disciples without making converts first? I have been struggling with this question, and what it looks like for a church to disciple well. I think you would agree that many of our churches are decent at making converts, very few are good at making disciples, and the vast majority are not particularly good at either.
I would agree ... on just about everything you said.
Making disciples requires making converts, but even if you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, if all you did was break a few eggs, you wouldn't have an omelette. If the command is "make disciples", making converts is not the satisfaction of that command; it's the beginning.
And, yes, some churches are hard at work making converts and a very, very few churches practice biblical church discipline, but I know of none that are doing either making disciples or practicing biblical church discipline well.
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