December 27, 2009
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What is evangelism?
If you asked me the question 1 year ago or so, I would have answered without thinking, “Sharing the good news of the Gospel verbally to anyone who would listen.” However, today I think I would pause and give it some good thought before blurting out an response.
Evangelism in its most simple form is in fact sharing the good news, because that is what the word “evangelism” means. However, the complexity comes apparent when we examine the phrase “sharing” the good news. I will pose a question, answer it and then give an explanation.
Is having a non-christian over for dinner with the intention of speaking the gospel with the person considered evangelism? Do I need to actually speak the gospel in order for it to be evangelism? Does evangelism always need to have the gospel word included?
Pause for a moment and think before reading on.
I would say that having a friend over for dinner is evangelism if in fact my intention is to share the gospel word. I also believe that it is still evangelism even if I don’t speak of the gospel on that particular night. I would also say that the gospel word does not need to be present in order for evangelism to take place.
If you have been exposed to any American evangelism such as Way of the Master, Evangelism explosion or anything similar to it you are ready to protest. I have been involved heavily with this style of evangelism in the past, so I understand the paradigm quite well.I have read many Ray Comfort books and listened to enough Way of the Master radio to fill a hard drive with Podcasts.
Evangelism is not ONLY sharing the gospel word verbally! It surely is part of evangelism, but it is not the only component. The book “Total Church” explains this in detail complete with a sweet diagram.
Evangelism is a 3 cord rope consisting of sharing the gospel word, building relationships and inviting people into community. One of the three need to be present, but not in any certain order or time for it to be evangelism. All 3 three things God uses to convert people. True as it may be, the gospel word is the crowning jewel of evangelism and normally is the definition of evangelism. However, all 3 components are crucial in evangelism and to remove any from the equation hamstrings the task at hand.It is true that God can save people with whatever means he wishes, but this does not mean he always works in the same ways. God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick and can save people with the most imperfect efforts. The phrase “Well God uses it” is completely ridiculous considering the fact that God uses all things including a Jackass in the OT. This would mean that almost any form of evangelism would be acceptable according to that vague standard. I believe there are good forms of evangelism and bad ones. The only difference between one working and the other not is whether or not God chooses to save the individual. (Different conversation)
Having said all of that, evangelism is any effort in which we do something as simple as eating dinner with a non-christian with the intention that they hear about and know the God of the Bible. This is why Jesus spent a considerable amount of time going to parties, hanging out with people and getting to know them. All of the things he did were in fact part of evangelism. Evangelism is not simply speaking the gospel word, but living out the gospel, sharing life with people and inviting them into our gospel communities (assuming of course we have them). Evangelism is any effort done with the hope that people will know and love God. Only God can make people Christians, but the Bible lays out a pretty simply plan for this to happen. God saves people through community, one only needs to look at the OT for an example. There are very few instances in the NT of “personal evangelism” that we can point to. Instead, I am insisting in a different form of evangelism which I believe to be more effective and Biblical. I have tried both, and I can tell you for sure which one I prefer. In my next post, I will explain this in more detail.
July 28, 2009
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Headcoverings in a nut shell
I have many friends who really are Godly women and struggle with 1 Cor 11, which speaks about women wearing head coverings. I have also had the great displeasure of being in church’s which teach that men must cut their hair so that it is no longer than their ears, and that men cannot wear a hat in church. This is a difficult passage, but it can be worked out with a few simple principals in hermeneutics (The art and science of Biblical Interpretation).
Two Big Rules:
- We cannot understand the verse differently than the original audience.
- We know more than the original audience. While we can use that knowledge to know how that info helps us form our theology, we can’t use that to expand what the verse would have said to the original audience. This is especially true in the Old Testament (OT), the Gospel, and the Acts.
The simple phrase “The text never meant, what it never meant before” is quite helpful.
There are 5 steps using the Inductive Method as a means of gaining a grammatically and historically accurate interpretation of the Word of God:
- Observe the Text
- Determine what separates us from the original audience
- Interpret the Text – What is the principle?
- Ask- Does the NT change my understanding?
- Application
Lets take a look at 1 cor 11:5 and use the 5 rules.
1 cor 11:5 But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head, for it is one and the same thing as having a shaved head.
- The text clearly says that a woman who prays with her head uncovered disgraces her head (her husband).
- However, we are separated from the original audience. In that culture, women who did not cover their heads were saying explicitly that they are not married.
- The principal is that women should be in submission to their husbands, because the husband is the head as Christ is the head of the Church.
- No.
- Women should never act in a way outwardly that shows they do not respect their husband or that they are not in submission to him.
So if you are a woman in the church and you are struggling with this, I hope it has added some clarity. You do not need to cover your head, but you do need to be in submission to your husband just as Christ is in submission to the Father.
July 26, 2009
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The exposition and application connection
There are 3 streams a Bible teacher can choose to swim in concerning theology. Two of those streams lead to danger, error and in the worst cases even heresy. It is very easy to recognize error and run from it so fast and hard that we accidentally fall into a ditch on the other side of that path. The answer to error is to run from it, but never to go too far. Its very easy to run from error right into another error.
This same kind of thinking carries over into preaching as well. Some pastors are very concerned with the idea of exposition and explaining the text in the original language that they forget about applying the text. The focus on Sunday is much more like a seminary than it is a sermon. Every Sunday you come back because it is very clear that you are dumb, and that the Pastor knows more than you. You pay your seminary tuition every Sunday and drop it into the offering plate. There is never any application or reason for you to remember what you had just learned. The result is a bunch of overfed Christians who do not live with they learn and never apply the Bible they study. This also results in prideful Christians who know all about the Bible and theology but live in hypocrisy.
The opposite side of the exposition only Pastor is the application only Pastor. This is the kind of preaching that leaves you wondering “What text did he just preach on?”, because the text was so heavy in application and stories that you never heard the text fully explained. You know the principal “love people, be nice” but you have no idea where that principal is taught in the Bible. This results in Biblically ignorant people who know the principals, but don’t know where to find them or how to apply the Bible when they arent in church on Sunday. It also results in a theologically shallow church that is easily shaken by false teaching.
The answer is not to ditch either exposition or application but to tie them together. A sermon is incomplete if only the text is explained but never applied. The same is true with a sermon where the text is never explained or unpacked but only applied in self help style principals. Richard Baxter the Puritan once said “What a tragedy it is to hear a
minister expand doctrines and yet let them die in his people’s hands for the lack of a relevant and living application.”
