More on Evangelism

Ahhh, it's been so long.



So a few days ago I was at my Bible study group. We're going through John, and began John 8. At some point we got to talking about evangelism, and it ended up taking the rest of the evening.



As we discussed these matters, it grew more and more apparent that evangelism means different things to different people. To some it would essentially mean living, with our actions being from a Christian worldview and that being out there for the world to see. For others, more emphasis is placed on proclaiming, actually declaring things verbally, such as Christ's death, resurrection, sin, etc. I've heard frequently the term 'lifestyle evangelism', mostly to describe the way in which we let our actions speak for us. The whole 'preach the gospel, if necessary use words' type thing. This seems to be the most common, well, mode of evangelism, for lack of a better term. I wonder, though, if this is the best way to do it.

I acknowledged this type of evangelism for a long while, unquestioningly, and it seemed to me to be the only, or at least best, way to evangelize. People were always stressing 'not cramming it down people's throats', 'not driving people away', all that stuff. It seemed as though we were almost discouraged from using many words if any at all, because unlike Christian actions words could potentially drive people away. As I matured in my faith and understanding of Scripture, I began to question this line of thinking, especially after reading the gospels. Then I came across the passage that was, for me, the sort of turning point in how I saw evangelism.

"...and (Jesus) said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47)."

When I saw the words 'repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations', it immediately dumped all over my 'no words necessary' approach to evangelism. Christ told His disciples to proclaim. What's more, he told them to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins! None of this health and wealth better you crap. Repentance and forgiveness.

The thing is, it's not easy to proclaim things, especially not things that will guarantee to offend some people. I frequently prefer to stay in my lifestyle evangelism mode, because it's safer than actually proclaiming anything. Not saying that lifestyle evangelism is bad; if we're regenerate then our lifestyles should reflect Christ as a general rule. However, I thing that often times this can be a cop-out and an excuse, to let ourselves stay in the comfort of not having to actually say anything. Something to think about...