It’s awkward to think about, evangelism is supposed to be one of our focuses as Christians if we are to truly honour the Matthew 28 command to “Go and make disciples…”. But truly we seem to have dropped the ball when it comes to evangelism. At some point between the days of the New Testament Church and the church of today we have surrendered that primary mission goal and indeed one of our primary callings as Christians, we have wandered away from true evangelism in the interest of pursuing another big Christian word...Apologetics.
I don’t know why, maybe we haven’t yet made the transition to the Post-Christian Modern Era that the rest of our culture seems to have embraced. Maybe we’ve just gotten mad defensive as the world becomes less visibly Christian. Maybe we have a generation of people passionate and on fire for Christian morality. Maybe it’s something else.
Regardless, we seem to have lost our focus.
We are commanded in the oft quoted Romans 10:9 to “Believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and confess with your mouth that God raised him from the dead”. That in one sentence summarises our calling as Christians.
If we call ourselves Christian then we are accepting God’s twofold commands of mission and love.
We accept that by virtue of our faith we are called to proclaim Christ, who died in our place and in doing so accepted the punishment for our sin upon himself and who was three days later resurrected in victory over Satan, sin and death for the salvation of all. We are commanded to be witnesses of this in "Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the Earth" (Acts 1:8).
That’s mission.
Love is both broader and more specific, it is both the message we proclaim and how we proclaim it. Christ himself tells us that there are two commandments that are most important "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"(Luke 10:27). If we are Christians we are called to love, we cannot mission well if we do not love those to whom we are sharing and we mission by showing our love for each other and those around us.
Where then did this huge focus on apologetics some from?
Apologetics is defined as “the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of information”. Which sounds like an awesome and important thing for Christians to do. But what happens when we measure our apologetics against our calling to love and mission?
Does it matter if the whole world understands the ins and outs of every minor point of our beliefs vis-a-vis morality, doctrine, law and politics? Is our calling to witness to the world the glory of Christ and the salvation He brings or are we called to witness Christian morality?
So often the Bible is dismissed as merely a set of rules, with God as the fun police. Which is a fair assumption if you aren’t a Christian and all you hear is Christians constantly talking about all the ways you are a sinner and how unless you repent you’re going to hell. If all that is proclaimed in “evangelism” is our apologetics we end up creating a quasi Christian religion where morality is the centre and God is nothing more than a sideline.
See it doesn’t really matter if the person sitting next to me knows what I think about abortion, euthanasia, same sex marriage, the state of affairs in the Middle East or the environment. These things are extremely important, but not the most important. What matters most to the person sitting next to me on an eternal scale is whether or not they know Christ. How can they be expected to know Christ if i as a Christian am more interested in educating them on my worldview than introducing them to Him?
We like slogans and one liners in Australia. My church has a great one, “Introducing Jesus, Changing lives”
Someone in my church got it! They realised that our job as Christians, our primary care, call and responsibility is to introduce people to Jesus. Yes it’s inevitable that they will have questions that you can answer, but the focus needs to stay on showing them Christ. That's it. Not to have intense moral debates about the wearing of Burqas, not to proclaim condemnation of homosexuality, but to introduce people to Jesus.
Sure, we can talk about our stance on the hot topics, but that stance, in fact our whole worldview is supposed to be shaped by our faith in Christ—who He is, what He said and what He did.
If we want to see “a world that knows Jesus” to steal from another slogan, we need to be introducing people to Him. And guess what? If we want to see a world that reflects Christian values. If we want to see a legal system that legislates in accordance with Christian morality. If we want a culture where Christian morals are upheld and exemplified...We need to get off our butts, get out there and get evangelising. We need to get on fire for loving people and introducing them to Christ and let our lives be living epistles to the glory of God. In doing so we become vessels by which the Holy spirit can do the heart surgery that fundamentally changes how people see the world.
We need to STOP fighting a culture war of morals and ethics
We need to STOP trying to convert people to our values and doctrines.
These do not save us. God isn't going to let us into heaven based on our results in some heavenly admissions test. In fact these things can count against us if in our zeal to fight for a Christian world we become stumbling blocks or barriers to others.
We need to START bringing the focus back to Jesus, to His life, His death, His resurrection and the free gift of salvation that He so readily offers. We need to be getting alongside our culture and engaging in it. We need to not flee from counter-christian cultures, lifestyles and worldviews and start engaging with them. not so that we may become like them but so that they may have people who can show them Christ. We are called to be a city on a hill blazing with light, a lamp on a lampstand lighting a room. How can we do that if we concentrate our light in some areas but not others? How can we light up the whole world when we are so focused on only small sections of it?
It should hardly be surprising that Christ himself is a prime example of this. In John 4 he comes across a Samaritan woman at a well, he strikes up conversation with her and almost immediately offers her "living water" which brings eternal life. He offers her salvation then and there. Soon after this we find out that she has had 5 husbands and is carnally engaged with a 6th man who is not her husband.
But take note, don't miss this, Jesus offers this woman salvation before even getting to her sinfulness. And even when he does he only does so to demonstrate to this woman who He is. Jesus does not pile hot coals of condemnation on her head, he does not lecture her on monogamy and the sanctity of marriage even though we know he was keen on these things. Jesus' priority at the well is to offer the woman salvation from her sin. Not to condemn her for it.
See the thing is, living like a Christian, following the rules and morals, knowing dense theology and doctrine, these are all good things. But on their own they show nothing about our heart. If we do not know Jesus, if we haven't met him and accepted him as Lord and Saviour, they are worthless. These good things cannot save us nor can they cleanse us of our sin.
Please, let us abandon this fruitless focus on "big topics" and "Christian living" and "morality" in our public evangelism and turn back to focusing on introducing people to Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of the world.
Leave the morality for the pulpit and the bible studies and the youth groups, all of which the Holy Spirit use to transform us into the likeness of Christ. Let us get on with our mission: to proclaim Christ's victory to the ends of the earth.
