’m on vacation this week. Among other relaxing things, I’m catching up on my movie watching. Today’s movie is one of my favorites—The Matrix.
Ever since I first watched The Matrix, I have wanted to build an evangelism course around the storyline. It’s probably too late now—I’ve let too much time transpire. The movie is no longer in the public consciousness as it was shortly after it was released. But every time I watch this movie, I am again struck with the gospel narrative parallels.
One such parallel just came up as I’m watching. And I thought I should post it:
“I can only show you the door, Neo. You must walk through it.” —Morpheus
“I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” —Jesus (as quoted in John 10:9)
A blast from the past! I loved this Audio Adrenaline song when it came out many years ago. We were the youth leaders in our church at the time and this song motivated our kids to have a strong witness in their schools. I ran across this video on Youtube and thought I should share it.
acob Arminius died 400 years ago today. His theology has impacted Evangelical culture and teaching in a way I believe has been greatly detrimental to discipleship, orthodoxy, and evangelism. An understanding of his life and teachings is a good way to get a handle on the importance of holding to proper biblical theology. Failure to conform to biblical theology may cause devastating repercussions for many years to come.
ersonal evangelism seems to be a dying activity among conservative evangelicals. I have seen fewer and fewer attempts at personal evangelism and know of only a couple of churches that still teach their people to carry the gospel to their neighbors. Why is this? I have been wondering about this for a few years now.
This morning I was reading The Soul Winner by C.H. Spurgeon and I came across the following passage, which I think speaks directly to this issue of why personal evangelism has fallen out of our repertoire of church activities:
I hope we all sympathize in the bighearted spirit of Dr. Chalmers, who, when it was said that such–and–such an effort would not be beneficial to the special interests of the Free Church of Scotland, although it might promote the general religion of the land, said, “What is the Free Church compared with the Christian good of the people of Scotland?” Indeed, what are all the churches put together, as mere organizations, if they stand in conflict with the moral and spiritual advantage of the nation or if they impede the kingdom of Christ?
It is because God blesses men through the churches that we desire to see them prosper, and not merely for the sake of the churches themselves. There is such a thing as selfishness in our eagerness for the aggrandizement of our own party. From this evil spirit may grace deliver us! The increase of the kingdom is more to be desired than the growth of a clan. We would do a great deal to make a infantile Baptist brother into a mature Baptist simply because we value our Lord’s ordinances.
We would labor earnestly to raise a believer in salvation by free will into a believer in salvation by grace, for we long to see all religious teaching built upon the solid rock of truth and not upon the sand of imagination. At the same time, our grand object is not the revision of opinions, but the regeneration of natures. We should bring men to Christ, not to our own peculiar views of Christianity.
When I was a child, my father’s church taught evangelistic outreach. They used the Evangelism Explosion method of teaching personal evangelism and it worked quite well. It got many church members involved in personal evangelism and God was pleased to draw many individuals to himself through this outreach. Some of those folks ended up attending our church (Evangel Baptist Church of Woodbridge, Virginia). Others found Christian fellowship in other churches in the area. This was not of particular concern to the evangelistic efforts being made. The point was always to share the gospel with those in the community and to call them to repentance and to faith in Christ. The evangelistic outreach was never intended to grow the size of Evangel Baptist Church.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Our first care must be that the sheep are gathered to the great Shepherd. There will be time enough afterward to secure them for our various folds. To make proselytes is a suitable labor for Pharisees. To lead men to God is the honorable aim of all laborers of Christ.
But I noticed a shift in the intention of personal evangelism training in later years in churches I attended after becoming an adult and starting a family. The intent seemed, more often than not, to be focused on bringing more members into the specific local church in order to increase the size of the church. No longer was the focus placed on seeking individuals to worship God in spirit and in truth.
I wonder if this shift in focus is contributing to personal evangelism’s apparent dying out. Our God is a jealous God; he will not share his glory with another—not even with a local church. Our personal evangelism should be By His grace and for His glory.
few days ago I posted a video of the song “Go the Distance” as performed by Return 2 Zero [Stop and Smell the Roses]. I was focusing on the exquisite harmonies of this outstanding a capella vocal group. But my friend, Lydia, a much deeper thinker than I, paid attention to the words and has posted a fantastic analysis of the words to that song.
Just this morning it struck me that her analysis of the words to “Go the Distance” could form a very solid foundation for personal evangelism. What a great way to communicate the gospel message.
I have also considered the original Matrix movie to be a great tool for personal evangelism. I wanted to develop a guide showing the parallels between the Matrix story and the gospel message, but I never got around to it and the Matrix is not a current cultural phenomenon anymore.
y father co-authored a book on evangelism. The book project was put on hold a while back, but I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy of the first few chapters. What really jumps out at the contemporary reader from this manual is the solid theology needed for a true evangelistic outreach.
Postmodern man vilifies those he disagrees with. In the arena of evangelism, this has mainly been done by those who reject God’s total sovereignty over his creation. The line goes that Calvinists don’t believe in evangelism because they think God is going to handle everything and man doesn’t have a choice. Not only is this wrong, but it is a complete misrepresentation of Calvinistic belief.
We Calvinists believe that man has a choice—he has always had a choice. The problem is that man will choose the wrong thing every time. Only when God has removed man’s “heart of stone” and replaced it with a “heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19) will man seek fellowship with God through repentance of his sins and trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. (Notice I didn’t say the potential saving work—Jesus’ death on the cross did not create a potential for salvation; it completely paid the penalty for the sins of those who would believe.)
I am very proud of my father and of his strong stand on the truth of God’s Word. My father is the most evangelistic man I know and he is a 5-point Calvinist. In fact, by John Piper’s definition, my father is a 7-point Calvinist. The straw man is exposed and has been burned up by the pragmatic proof. If we believe that God is in complete control of his creation, not only will we share the gospel to all, but we can rest in the assurance that he will draw to him those for whom Christ has shed his blood.
Our part: evangelize the world.
God’s part: save the elect.
We don’t need to do God’s part, nor can we. But we must do ours.
John MacArthur has written some of my favorite books. He is able to clearly explain theological concepts that can be somewhat difficult to understand. And he is able to make those concepts so understandable that quite often I find myself wondering why they weren't completely obvious to me in the first place.
Another of my favorites is Kirk Cameron, co-founder of the evangelistic group Way of the Master and lead actor in the movie Fireproof, which was just released on DVD this past Tuesday.
In the following video clips, Kirk Cameron interviews John MacArthur about his book Hard to Believe, one of my favorite John MacArthur books. MacArthur's clear presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is simply fantastic.
This is a different sort of video than you might expect on Christmas Day. This video is from a Christian evangelistic television show that is broadcast in countries with a large number of Muslims. The intent of the show is to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to these people who are living in the dark.
In this video clip a Muslim woman calls in from the UK to say that she has been convinced of the truth of the gospel but is afraid to convert to Christianity because under sharia law her husband could divorce her and take her children away because of her conversion.
This is the reason that Jesus Christ came on the day that we celebrate today. Jesus came to walk among us, to tell us the good news that we may be assured that we will spend eternity in heaven—not by persecuting those who oppose us and not by doing acts of humiliation or by punishing our own bodies or by any other personal works, but by proclaiming the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal Son of God, that he died to pay the penalty for our sins, and by repenting of those sins and throwing ourselves on his mercy.
Thank you, God, for sending Jesus to save his people from their sins.
Merry Christmas. Peace on earth to men of good will.
A few years ago the Christian music group Truth sang a song titled "Living Life Upside Down." The words were quite good, dealing with some of the issues in our contemporary culture that seems to no longer know right from wrong. In particular, this song addressed the issues of marital fidelity/divorce and abortion.
Here are the words of that song:
John has a new way of looking at life
He's tired of his job, of his kids, and his wife
He says the secret to his success was in leaving and finding himself
Now he's someone to somebody else
You say we've risen to a new age of truth
You're calling it a spiritually godly pursuit
But I say...
CHORUS
What if we've fallen to the bottom of a well
Thinking we've risen to the top of a mountain
What if we're knocking at the gates of hell
Thinking we're heaven-bound
What if we spent our lives thinking of ourselves
When we should have been thinking of each other
What if we reach up and touch the ground
To find we're living life upside-down
We've got a new plan for saving the earth
While unborn children are denied the right to birth
One baby's blessed, another cursed
Have we made this world better or worse
Now that the life of a tree comes first?
You say we've risen to a new age of light
You're telling me what used to be wrong is now right
But I say...
REPEAT CHORUS
Good words, but I wonder if part of our upside down world is the fact that we Christians are looking at the world and forgetting that Satan rules this world—not us. Is it so surprising that sin is rampant in the world of unbelievers? Is it a strange thing when people who don't recognize God undervalue the lives of others, and even their own lives?
Romans 1:28–32
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
This morning as I read the Bible I came across and interesting passage in Acts 17. Paul and Silas were in Thessalonica as they journeyed around sharing the gospel message with those who had not yet heard. Paul went into the local synagogue and for three weeks straight, he presented the scriptures to the Jews in the synagogue. He showed them that the long-awaited Messiah was Jesus Christ. Quite a few of the local Jews from the synagogue were persuaded and believed.
Within three weeks Paul had the local religious people in such an uproar that they incited a crowd to violence. The story from scripture continues here:
Acts 17:5-7But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”
I found the crowd's accusation against Paul and Silas to be quite interesting. "These men who have turned the world upside down...."
I think this passage is showing us that we are not to look at the craziness of a debased world as being upside down—it is, in fact, the way we should expect the world to be. It is instead our job as Christians to turn the world upside down by pointing the way to Jesus Christ.
Evangelism is not always easy, but it is always necessary.
A good friend of ours visited today. She was bearing gifts: some wonderful flowers for my wife to plant in our flower garden and a fantastic dessert salad made with cottage cheese, blueberries, and other delightful tasting things. The dessert was in a bag along with a piece of paper published by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I thought the thoughts on the paper were so good, I wanted to share them with you:
Billy Graham
Who knows what God might do if His people began to pray fervently for spiritual revival? Perhaps one reason Satan has gained such a hold on so many lives is because we don't pray enough.
Transforming Our Nation, One Prayer at a Time
Pray for our nation's youth, including young people you know personally, that God will raise up a generation of young men and women to stand boldly for Jesus Christ.
Pray for our nation's leaders, including government and business leaders in your own city and state, that God will direct their decisions and through them influence the nation.
Habakkuk 3:2
Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.
Pray for our nation's pastors, including your own pastor, that God would give them a shepherd's heart and empower them with zeal and boldness to declare the truth of God's Word.
My sister and I have had a minor disagreement about how we should present the gospel to the lost. She is fully immersed in the "seeker sensitive" movement. She talks about meeting the "felt needs" of the people. She recommends books that discuss how to evangelize without using words such as "sin" or "repentance." I have argued for the straight presentation of the biblical gospel in the same manner that the apostles proclaimed Christ—shining a spotlight on sin and calling the sinners to repentance.
But our motivations are the same—we both want to see people won for Christ. The question is: What is God's motivation for evangelistic/missionary outreach?
John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
God is seeking people "to worship him." This is his goal and should be ours as well. It should not be to "reach people at their felt needs," because their "felt needs" are not their true need—the need for the washing of Christ's blood to restore them to fellowship with God. But it should also not be to grow the church, to fulfill my obligation as a Christian, or to mark another notch on my evangelistic belt, which quite often are my personal motivations for evangelistic outreach. After all, it should not be about meeting my needs anymore than it should be about reaching the lost at their felt needs.
In Let the Nations Be Glad, John Piper writes:
If the pursuit of God's glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man's good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the church, man will not be served and God will not be honored.
Ouch! ... He's right. And his statement stings both my sister and me. Missions is not about man (not about the felt needs of the nonbeliever or about my own percieved needs); missions is about gathering people to worship the Sovereign Lord of the universe.
find it so easy to look at the people in the Bible—the Israelites, the early church, etc.—and think I'm so much better than them. I wouldn't start worshiping a golden calf while Moses is on the mountain, I wouldn't complain about manna when there was nothing else to eat, I wouldn't turn from the true gospel so quickly as the Galatians did.
But am I really so much better than they? I don't think so.
Galatians 1:6-10
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Each of us needs to consider what we are being told by spiritual leaders, church leaders, and friends. We need to place what those people are telling us against the standard of scripture and determine if what we are being told is true. We need to be like the Bereans, who searched the scriptures to see if what they were being told was true.
The gospel plus or minus anything is "a gospel contrary to the one you received." A gospel that springs from a hero other than Christ is "a gospel contrary to the one you recived."
The gospel (the "good news") is that Christ, the only begotten son of God, took on human flesh, died on the cross and rose again three days later so all those who believe in him will be saved from the penalty of their sins. Any gospel that is less than that (say a gospel that does not call for repentance or "faith alone") or any gospel that requires more than that (say a gospel that requires another man to sanctify you or requires you to follow extra-biblical codes of conduct) is "a gospel contrary to the one you received."
And according to Paul, those who spread gospel-minus or gospel-plus are to be accursed. That is the same as saying, "let that person go to hell." This is a serious thing!
May God grant us all the grace to recognize a gospel that is not the gospel delivered to the saints. And may God grant us all the grace to reject that gospel and to join Paul in the condemnation of those who spread that false gospel.
Successful marriage is always a triangle: a man, a woman, and God. Cecil Myers
Abigail and Joe's wedding brought many surprises. Throughout the ceremony I had my camera prepared to capture the next expected phase of the wedding and most often that expectation did not happen. I quickly began to see a pattern whenever these unexpected turns showed up. Each time something departed from the traditional marriage, the focus of those in attendance was being redirected toward Jesus Christ.
Pastor Mike presents the gospel
The first of these unexpected moments came when the peliminary music came to a stop. I expected the groom and groomsmen to appear from one of the side doors. What happened was that our pastor, Mike O'Brien, walked to the platform, explained that Joe and Abigail wanted a clear presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ to be made to those in attendance. Pastor Mike gave an outstanding message dealing with the biblical nature of marriage (established by God for one woman to be married to one man), the responsibilities of the bride and groom (the bride's responsibility to submit and the groom's responsibility to love as Christ loves the Church), and the need for everyone to come to Christ who died to save from their sins all who would turn to him for salvation.
Our salvation day eclipses your marriage day, for union to Christ will bring you greater joy than the happiest of marriage bonds. If you have ever received the honors of the State, gained distinction in learning, attained a position in society, or arrived at a larger wealth, all these are but dim, cloudy, foggy days compared with this “morning without clouds” (2 Sam. 23:4). On that day, your sun rose, never to go down again. The die was cast. Your destiny for glory was openly declared. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Power In the Blood
The message was clear and simple, as the gospel is. Pastor Mike did not back off of things that fly in the face of our politically correct culture. And he appealed to all who did not have a personal relationship with Christ to seek out one of the pastors in attendance (there were many) and to remedy the situation that day. He said that Joe and Abigail would consider it a great privilege to know that someone had come to Christ as a result of their wedding.
Eric Graves prays for the couple's life together
Later in the ceremony, the preacher (Joe's father), asked Eric Graves, Abigail's brother-in-law, to come up to the altar to pray for the couple's life together and to ask God for his blessing on this marriage. The prayer was motivating and moving. This prayer focused our attention on the fact that God is the foundation of marriage and reminded us that "unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain" (Psalms 127:1). This departure from tradition speaks volumes about the strength that this marriage will have.
Singing "In Christ Alone"
Another wonderful departure from tradition came at the moment that I expected the preacher to declare Joe and Abigail "man and wife." I raised my camera eyepiece to my eye to prepare for the upcoming kiss. But instead of the pronouncement and the traditional kiss, the preacher told us that Joe and Abigail had requested that at this moment all of us in attendance sing the Keith Getty hymn, "In Christ Alone." Here are the words to this wonderful hymn:
In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.
There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.
No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.
Matthew 11:2-5 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?" And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.
So many times I have read Matthew 11:2-5. But until recently I had not noticed that this passage deals directly with what has come to be called the "social gospel"—the idea of taking food to the needy, helping orphans, providing shelter, and meeting other needs, but doing so without particular concern for meeting spiritual needs.
This past Wednesday night Ranger Horton spoke at our church's mid-week service. He pointed out something I had never noticed before in this passage. Jesus directly addresses how he met the needs of specific people:
To:
He gave:
The blind
The sense of sight
The lame
The ability to walk
The lepers
Health
The deaf
The sense of hearing
The dead
Life
The poor
The gospel
Did you notice what Jesus gave to the poor? He gave them the gospel. Yes, he fed people—in fact, he fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes. But those he fed were with him because they wanted what he had to give more than they wanted to care for their own physical needs, so Jesus took care of their physical needs for them. It seems from this passage that Jesus' main concern for the poor was that they hear the message of good news that the Christ had come to redeem mankind through his death on the cross and eventual resurrection from the dead.
Christianity compels us to care for the needs of others and we should certainly feed the poor, clothe the naked, and comfort the hurting. But we must never do it without sharing the gospel. We are not here to save the world—that's God's job. We are here to tell the world that the Almighty God reached to sinful man with his love by sending his Son to die on a cross to pay the penalty for the sins of everyone who believes.
What a wonderful message! What a wonderful way to meet the needs of the people around us.
Having been raised by a pastor who was deeply dedicated to evangelistic outreach, I have tremendous respect for those who have sacrificed to take the gospel message to those who have not yet heard that Christ died to save sinners. I remember the stories of great missionary heroes that my parents told us during family devotions, at dinnertime, and at bedtime. In fact, quite often our bedtime stories revolved around some of these great stories.
One of my favorite stories was the story of Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Ed McCully—the missionaries who were determined to take the gospel message to the Auca Indians (now known as the "Waodani") of Ecuador. This native Ecuadorian tribe was history's most violent people group prior to hearing and responding to the good news of Jesus Christ. But it took the death of these men and the continued love shown by their surviving families to get the gospel message to these people in such great need.
The story is amazing. The movie, End of the Spear, and the documentary, Beyond the Gates of Splendor, about this missionary team are intense and convicting. Both are available on DVD. I hope this will encourage you to purchase both of these DVDs. You won't regret it.
The videos below were produced by Steven Curtis Chapman using footage from the documentary. Some of this footage is actual footage taken by the missionaries themselves in 1955.
In these videos it mentions that the Aucas were on the verge of extinction, but doesn't tie in the fact that the driving force behind these misionaries' intense desire to reach this people group was the fact that in John's vision of the heavenly kingdom he saw this: "After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb" (Revelation 7:9). These missionaries were concerned about the apparent danger of this people group becoming extinct without having heard the gospel message. So they realized they had to take the message immediately. What an amazing group of dedicated Christians.
In my personal devotions, I have been reading John Piper's Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. This outstanding book will edify and convict you if you are a Christian, and if you are not a Christian it will present to you what Christianity is truly about from the perspective of Jesus and his disciples, not from the American media or from well-meaning, but wrong-acting Christians.
Here's an excerpt that convicted me:
The Death of Christ and the Camps of Death
It is a tragedy that the story of Christ's death has produced anti-Semitism against Jews and crusading violence against Muslims. We Christians are ashamed of many of our ancestors who did not act in the spirit of Christ. No doubt there are traces of this plague in our own souls. But true Christianity—which is radically different from Western culture, and may not be found in many Christian churches—renounces the advance of religion by means of violence. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus said. "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting" (John 18:36). The way of the cross is the way of suffering. Christians are called to die, not kill, in order to show the world how they are loved by Christ.
True Christian love humbly and boldly commends Christ, no matter what it costs, to all peoples as the only saving way to God. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). But let it be crystal-clear: To humiliate or scorn or despise or persecute with prideful putdowns or pogroms or crusades or concentration camps is not Christian. These were and are, very simply and horribly, disobedience to Jesus Christ. Unlike many of his so-called followers after him, he prayed from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
John Piper wants you to hear the good news about Jesus Christ, so this book is available free of charge online at his Desiring God website. I encourage you to purchase the book from your local Christian bookstore to help support this ministry so they can continue to offer free books to those in need of Christ (that would be every person on the planet).
My sister and I have had a minor disagreement about how we should present the gospel to the lost. She is fully immersed in the "seeker sensitive" movement. She talks about meeting the "felt needs" of the people. She recommends books that discuss how to evangelize without using words such as "sin" or "repentance." I have argued for the straight presentation of the biblical gospel in the same manner that the apostles proclaimed Christ—shining a spotlight on sin and calling the sinners to repentance.
But our motivations are the same—we both want to see people won for Christ. The question is: What is God's motivation for evangelistic/missionary outreach?
John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
God is seeking people "to worship him." This is his goal and should be ours as well. It should not be to "reach people at their felt needs," because their "felt needs" are not their true need—the need for the washing of Christ's blood to restore them to fellowship with God. But it should also not be to grow the church, to fulfill my obligation as a Christian, or to mark another notch on my evangelistic belt, which quite often are my personal motivations for evangelistic outreach. After all, it should not be about meeting my needs anymore than it should be about reaching the lost at their felt needs.
In Let the Nations Be Glad, John Piper writes:
If the pursuit of God's glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man's good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the church, man will not be served and God will not be honored.
Ouch! ... He's right. And his statement stings both my sister and me. Missions is not about man (not about the felt needs of the nonbeliever or about my own percieved needs); missions is about gathering people to worship the Sovereign Lord of the universe.
I grew up in a pastor's home. I don't know if my concept of the role of "Evangelist" was developed by my father's teaching or if I picked it up through osmosis along the way, but I have always thought that a titled role of "Evangelist" was an inappropriate thing. I always thought We are all supposed to be evangelists" and If a man feels called to be an Evangelist, he probably is truly being called to be a pastor. But I'm not so sure that my conception was correct.
What does the Bible say?
Our concepts must always derive from scripture—not from philosophy, sophistry, or emotion. And this morning, through the reading of God's Word, He showed me that my concept of the role of Evangelist was incorrect.
2 Corinthians 8:18
With him we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel.
Apparently the role of Evangelist was just fine with the apostle Paul. This man he speaks of is traveling as an Evangelist because he is known for his preaching of the gospel.
But I also notice that Paul does not mention him by name. I think this is important. In today's Western Evangelicalism, we have many "heroes." But an evangelist should not seek to make a name for himself in his proclamation of the gospel. The whole point of proclaiming the gospel is to make Christ known—not ourselves.
This story is a little silly, but there are people who really believe that images of Christ or Mary on a wall, a piece of toast, or in a shadow are messages from God. So the advertising campaign that produced the image to the left is probably not a real good idea. In fact, the news article mentions the fact that there is a "worldwide trend for finding holy images in everyday objects from the face of Jesus in a frying pan, to Christ on a fish finger, the Virgin Mary on a toasted cheese sandwich and even Mother Teresa in a cinnamon bun."
The article mentions some objections to the add campaign, although they are not the exact objections most Christians would probably have. But the story does bring up a topic we should consider when preparing our evangelistic efforts.
Finding images of Christ or the saints in everyday objects in my opinion is no more than an advanced form of Where's Waldo? but we should probably all be prepared to present the gospel to those who think they've been given a message in the froth on their beer glass. These people desperately need to know the truth of Jesus Christ and what he has done for sinners. Strange shapes in beer foam aren't going to save their souls.
The people of the United States are remembering the events of 9/11 today. I remember the horror of September 11, 2001, very well. I remember the fear we felt, even in the Christian community. Many people began to ask questions about God and his work in the world.
In the course of my regular daily devotions, today's scripture reading included the following:
The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. —John 16:2-3
Jesus was not speaking of Islamic terrorists in this passage, but it seems oddly fitting in today's world. And I believe this passage gives us the appropriate response that we should take against these terrorists who seek to take our lives. As Christians, our response must be to bring the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who minds are clouded with hatred of Christianity and the West. Jesus said that these people will put Christians to death "because they have not known the Father, nor me." So introducing them to the Father and to Jesus seems to be the best defense against their hatred of us and their desire to kill us.
At the end of the same chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus concluded with these words:
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. —John 16:33
We don't need to fear the Islamic terrorists. We know that there will be tribulations in this world, but Jesus has overcome the world ... and he has offered salvation to all.
My sister and I have had a minor disagreement about how we should present the gospel to the lost. She is fully immersed in the "seeker sensitive" movement. She talks about meeting the "felt needs" of the people. She recommends books that discuss how to evangelize without using words such as "sin" or "repentance." I have argued for the straight presentation of the biblical gospel in the same manner that the apostles proclaimed Christ—shining a spotlight on sin and calling the sinners to repentance.
