Biblical Evangelism

Evangelism today worries me. Well, I should say that it worries me and
it bothers me. It worries me on one hand because of its emphasis on
getting a person to make a decision. I am bothered on the other hand
because modern day evangelism has deviated from what the Scripture teaches.

I have participated in many evangelism conferences where the emphasis was on
getting the person to make a decision. On one evangelistic outreach I
participated in, one person in our group did just that. He was trying to get
a woman to confess Christ and to her credit she said, “I am not
ready.” However, that did not stop him. He then asked her to pray with us and she conceded. But the prayer turned
out to be different than what I expected. He asked the woman to repeat
the prayer after him. Guess what? Yup, you guessed it. He had her
recite the “sinner’s prayer” as if bam boom, she would become saved
because she prayed it. Only thing I can say is that I was completely
flabbergasted. I could not believe what I had just witnessed.

The way evangelism is conducted today is not like the examples we see in the Scriptures. The way most evangelicals do evangelism today is lacking due to the fact that sin is not called sin anymore. People want
to put a band-aid on it. The Bible states that sin equals death: for
the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). We must help them to see that they are sinners in need of repenting. Is this not the
reason why Christ came: to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)? How else or why else
would you present the Gospel? Sin is the problem, Christ
is the solution.

We have such a great example of evangelism from Jesus in the Gospels when He is approached by the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:13-22; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-23). The rich young ruler approaches Christ and calls Him “Good Teacher” while also asking how may someone “inherit eternal life.” Jesus takes the opportunity to point out that there is no one good but God and mentioned the keeping of the commandments in order to inherit eternal life.

Jesus was pointing out to the rich young ruler that he was a sinner in need of saving. However the rich young ruler missed two aspects of Jesus’ answer. One, the rich young ruler should have confessed and realized that the One who is standing before him is the great I AM. Second, the rich young ruler denied that he was a sinner by confessing that he kept the commandments from his youth. No man born of a woman (with the exception of Christ) is able to keep the law.

Since the rich young ruler believed that he was oh so righteous, Jesus decided to put the icing on the cake. Jesus said, “sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me” (Luke 18:22). Hold on. Didn’t Jesus miss an opportunity to push him for a decision? Wasn’t Jesus supposed to say “pray this prayer” or “walk this aisle?” No, the rich young ruler failed to realize that he was in rebellion against God. He wanted to put a band-aid on his problem instead of repenting and following Christ. This is biblical evangelism

One other aspect concerning biblical evangelism is that one must understand the activity of the Spirit. Sinners are dead men walking. They don’t know that they are dead and they cannot resurrect themselves. Unless the Spirit resurrects them, they will stay dead. The Spirit blows where He wills and no one can manipulate His moving (John 3:8). Soli Deo Gloria!

Tags: Christianity, Evangelism, Gospel, Lordship, Salvation