The Heart of Evangelism

Copyright © 2001 by Jerram Barrs

Published by Crossway Books

A ministry of Good News Publishers

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Josh Dennis

First printing 2001

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version® .

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barrs, Jerram.

     The heart of evangelism / Jerram Barrs.

          p.   cm.

     ISBN 1-58134-715-4 (trade pbk.: alk. paper)

     1. Evangelistic work—Biblical teaching. 2. Bible. N.T.—Criticism,

interpretation, etc. I. Title.

BS2545.E82 B37     2001

269'.2—dc21                                        2001002975

CH               13     12      11     10     09     08      07     06     05

15    14    13    12    11    10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

To my wife, Vicki,

whom I adore and who has been my companion,

friend, lover, wife, mother to our sons,

partner in the Gospel, and my joint heir

of the grace of life for more than thirty years.

And to the Lord,

King of earth and heaven,

who is not ashamed to call me friend.

I dedicate this book to you two,

the seal upon my heart and the sealer of my heart,

that it might be pleasing to you, not because of my worth,

nor because of the worth of this book,

but because you love me.

CONTENTS

Introduction

SECTION ONE

MISSION TO THE WORLD

1 Sent to All Nations

2 The Power of the Spirit

3 Horizons for Our Mission

4 How Clear Was Jesus?

5 Whom Shall I Send? And Who Will Go for Me?

6 What About Me?

7 Where Do We Begin?

8 For What Are We to Pray?

9 After Prayer, What Comes Next?

10 Living Faithfully in the Workplace

11 A Life of Love

12 An Open Home

13 The New Community

SECTION TWO

THE KINDNESS AND PERSEVERANCE OF GOD

14 Is God Reluctant?

15 A Reluctant Evangelist

16 The Importance of Our History

17 God’s Infinite Variety of Means I

18 God’s Infinite Variety of Means II

19 A Personal Testimony

SECTION THREE

BARRIERS IN THE WAY OF COMMUNICATING THE GOSPEL

20 Barriers Within Ourselves

21 Barriers Between the Church and the World I

22 Barriers Between the Church and the World II

23 Barriers Between the World and the Church

24 What Is My Neighbor Thinking About Me?

25 The Pharisee Within

26 Memorized Summaries of the Gospel

SECTION FOUR

MAKING THE GOSPEL KNOWN

27 All Things to All People

28 Showing Respect—Principle I

29 Jesus Shows the Way

30 Building Bridges for the Gospel—Principle II

31 Understanding What Others Believe—Principle III

32 Revealing the Heart’s Secrets I

33 Revealing the Heart’s Secrets II

34 Speaking the Right Language—Principle IV

35 Reasoned Persuasion—Principle V

36 Answering the Objections to Reasoned Persuasion

37 Clarifying the Good News—Principle VI

38 Challenging the Heart and Mind—Principle VII

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

This book is the fruit of more than thirty years of reflection on what the New Testament teaches us about evangelism; and it is the fruit of more than thirty years of desiring to practice in some poor way what I have learned from that study. One of the concerns that has spurred me on has been my observation that many Christians are afraid of sermons and seminars on the topic of evangelism. They are afraid because so often they have been made to feel guilty and inadequate about their involvement in making the Gospel known. All too frequently this has not been a Spirit-induced sense of guilt and inadequacy that has led consequently to a deeper trust in God, to a growing gratitude for His love, or to transformation in the patterns of one’s life. Rather this has been a humanly induced sense of guilt and inadequacy that has been paralyzing and that has driven an even deeper wedge between Christians and unbelievers. I long to see believers set free from this feeling of frustration and failure. In place of this I pray that the Lord will help believers realize that evangelism should be an encouraging and even exciting subject to think about and to put into practice.

What I have sought to do in this book is to examine once again what Jesus and His apostles teach us about evangelism, and also to look at the way they practiced evangelism so that we might learn both from their instruction and from their example. The hope inspiring all my teaching and writing on this subject is that we might recover the New Testament pattern of evangelism.

The first section of the book is a study of two of the occasions on which Jesus gave the Great Commission to His disciples. We also look at the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church to empower her for her task of witness to Christ. We will reflect on the different horizons for mission that Christ gave His apostles and consider how we might apply those horizons to our own context today. We will turn from this to see how the command of Jesus to go out into the unbelieving world with the truth about Him is a command for the whole church all through its history, a command for each particular congregation, and a command for every individual believer. The latter part of Section One asks what this commission will mean for our prayers and for our daily lives at home, in the workplace, and out in the wider society.

Section Two turns from our responsibility to reach out with the truth to think instead about the work of God as He draws people to faith in Christ. God is the Great Evangelist! He is the One who saves, and He is the One who calls us to serve Him in His work of bringing men, women, and children to faith in His Son. We often forget this aspect of evangelism, mistakenly thinking that it is all up to us. Such a feeling can breed inadequacy, hopelessness, and even despair about the task of evangelism—that is, if we are honest about our weaknesses, failings, and poor efforts. Or it can breed arrogance if we foolishly believe that we are good evangelists!

In contrast to ourselves, we will see how patient and gracious God is. He labors, often for many years, to woo people and to win them to begin to love Jesus. In these chapters we will consider some of the infinite variety of means that God uses to touch people and to kindle the flame of faith in their hearts. In reflecting on these means we will study a number of biblical stories and some contemporary ones that teach us about the saving work of God in the lives of individuals.

In Section Three we will examine some of the barriers that stand in the way of Christians being faithful to the calling to make the Gospel known. We will look first at the barriers within ourselves—fear, anxiety, guilt, and overcommitment, and especially at the problem of the internal Pharisee we all carry inside us. Second, we will look at barriers between the church and the world:

Bullet The loss of conviction about the truth of the Gospel.

Bullet The unhappy consequences of the sacred/secular division.

Bullet The failure to use language that is understood by non Christians.

Bullet The wall we erect between us (the Christians) and them (the unbelievers).

We will study this last problem in some detail, for I am convinced that it is often the primary reason why so many of us and so many of our churches are uninterested and ineffective in evangelism. An us versus them mentality can produce fear of the world, a condemning, even hateful attitude toward sinners, a desire to retreat into the safe haven of our Christian institutions, and an insistence on personal separation from sinners. If we do not know non-Christians in any personal depth, it is evident that the only evangelism that can take place is technique-based raids from behind the wall of the church into the enemy-occupied territory of the world.

This is certainly not the kind of evangelism we read about in the New Testament. Consider the life and ministry of Jesus! But it is frequently what has replaced the pattern of evangelism that we find in the pages of the Gospels and the book of Acts. If I have a passion, it is that we Christians will learn to see the glory and honor (Psalm 8:5) of the unbelieving men and women around us and will delight in getting to know them and building friendships with them. As a seminary professor this is my prayer and longing for each of my students—that as they go out into ministry, they will be excited about committing themselves to a lifelong intention to be persons who, like Jesus, are welcomed gladly by the sinners around them.

From this barrier of us versus them we will turn to sketch briefly the barriers between the world and the church. Or to put it another way, to identify some of the characteristics of our postmodern culture that make communicating the Gospel a particular challenge today.

In Section Four, the final section of the book, we will look in detail at seven principles of communication that characterize the evangelistic ministry of the apostle Paul. These are respect, building bridges, understanding those to whom we go, using the right language, reasoned persuasion, clarifying the truth, and challenging the heart and mind.

These seven principles are drawn from a careful study of the messages given by Paul in three different settings, set down for us by Luke in the book of Acts. One of these messages is presented to Jews and God-fearing Gentiles in a synagogue, one to uneducated pagans in Lystra, and one to educated pagans gathered on Mars Hill in Athens. We will see how these principles govern Paul’s practice of evangelism, and we will then apply them to our own differing situations today. Our study of the pattern of Paul is supplemented by reflection on several examples of evangelism in the ministry of Jesus.

Each of these principles arises from Paul’s commitment to be all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some (1 Corinthians 9:22). Paul respected those he met—Jews and Gentiles, men and women, God-fearers and pagans, slaves and those who were free—for he saw that behind all their problems, all their unbelief, and all their sin they were persons made in the image of God. Paul built bridges, for he knew he would always find traces of the image of God that he could affirm in people’s lives, as well as elements of God’s truth that he could commend in the thinking of those he met. Paul could do this, for he believed that all people are constrained by God’s revelation of Himself in their own inner being and in the world in which they are set. Paul committed himself to understanding those to whom he desired to proclaim the Gospel, for he knew that only by understanding them could he, like Jesus, be able to communicate the truth to them in ways that would touch their hearts and minds. Paul worked hard at using the language of his hearers, rather than always using the language of his own biblical heritage, because he was eager for those listening to grasp the meaning of his message in words familiar to them.

Paul sought to persuade them of the truth of the Christian faith because he knew that it was true and that the whole world was full of testimony to that truth. He was eager to clarify the particular aspects of the truth that those he met needed to hear. Paul desired them to come to a right understanding of the nature of God, of themselves, of the world in which they lived, and of the saving work of God to deliver them from the coming judgment. Paul labored hard to challenge his hearers at those very points where their hearts were captive to the worship of idols and other gods and at those places where their minds were subject to false thinking about the human condition. Paul knew that everyone he met needed to turn from these things to the living God and to His Son Jesus, that they might be saved. In the same way, we have to challenge our contemporaries at the very points where they are bound by idolatry and by the faulty thinking of our culture.

It is my prayer that this book will be used by the Lord to kindle in you a desire to learn from this reflection on New Testament evangelism. I pray that you will be eager to shape your life according to the pattern of Paul, that God might be pleased to save some through you.

SECTION ONE

MISSION TO

THE WORLD

1

SENT TO ALL NATIONS

In the four Gospels and in the first chapter of Acts we have the privilege of listening in to Jesus’ conversations with various people. We are in effect eavesdropping on God! The last three of these conversations that are recorded for us in the New Testament have to do with Jesus’ task for His disciples after His return to reign at the Father’s side. Christians often refer to this task assigned by Jesus to His disciples as the Great Commission. It was given in the days before our Savior’s ascension into heaven, several weeks after the Resurrection.

Despite ongoing doubts among His disciples, being hard-hearted and slow to believe, just as you and I are, most of them were now thoroughly persuaded that Jesus was indeed risen from the dead, and so their faith that He was the Christ, the true Son of God, was firmly established. Now they were ready to get their marching orders, ready to hear from His lips what work it was that He wanted them to do. He gave this Great Commission on several occasions and in various forms so they would have no uncertainty about their calling.

We will look first at the account we find at the end of Matthew’s Gospel (28:18-20). Jesus appeared to His disciples on a mountain in Galilee. They were back on home ground since so many of them came from the region around Lake Galilee. He gave them a command, and along with His command He added some words of encouragement.

All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.

GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES!

He commanded them to go and make disciples of all nations. We are so familiar with these words that we don’t stop to think how challenging they must have been to those who heard them from Jesus’ lips. This little group of eleven ordinary people were to go to all the nations of the earth and turn their hearers into disciples of Jesus like themselves! They were having a hard time believing in Him even though they had been with Him for three years and had lived through all the extraordinary events of His ministry and, in particular, of these past few weeks with His death and resurrection. Yet this little group who were so slow to believe were to convert the nations of the earth!

Most of them had probably not traveled beyond their own little patch of the world, the small kingdoms and provinces along either bank of the Jordan River and across Israel to the Mediterranean Sea. They would have heard from travelers about other parts of the vast Roman Empire that stretched right across north Africa, way up into northern and western Europe, up into Asia Minor (present-day Turkey and Armenia), and over eastward to the borders of Persia (present-day Iran). But they would have no personal knowledge of these faraway places or of the unknown countries and nations beyond these that they perhaps had heard described.

Yet these ignorant, unschooled men—these eleven—were to go and teach the nations to obey everything Jesus had taught them, and to baptize many in these nations into their newfound faith as they became followers of Jesus. Think of the challenge this commission still is to us today, and we take it for granted that we are part of a worldwide church numbering untold millions of followers of Jesus. Then try and imagine how the apostles must have felt!

THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST

But Jesus also gave them some comforting words (they needed them!).He told them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. He rules the unseen world of the spirits. He triumphs over the demons. He defeats the false gods of the nations and breaks their power so that His disciples are able to go out into the world with confidence. They will know, as they proclaim the Gospel, that Jesus has the name that is above every name in the heavens, above every power of darkness, above every spiritual force of wickedness. These men already knew that in the Roman Empire and beyond, people worshiped many different gods. They were being sent out into a pagan world where most of the people they would try to reach would be under the influence of spirits and false gods. They had experienced firsthand the power of the hosts of Satan as those enemies tested them and sought the death of Jesus. But Jesus assured them that just as He had conquered Satan by His death on the cross and made that adversary’s plans of no effect, so he would rule the heavenly powers for them as they went into the pagan world.

RULER OF THE NATIONS

Jesus also encouraged them by saying that all power has been granted to Him over this earth. Jesus would rule the nations for their sake as they traveled to them. He would open doors around the world to places that seemed inaccessible. He is the Lord above every lord, the King above every king. Even Caesar, the emperor of an area so vast it was unimaginable to them, would be subject to Jesus. This was the first of His comforting words to the disciples as He gave them their impossible calling.

It is the same for us. All the powers of the nations, all the unseen powers of darkness, are in subjugation to Christ. There is indeed only one superpower today, and it is not the United States or its President. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. He rules the nations for the sake of His church, for the sake of the Gospel going out to those nations.

THE PRESENCE OF JESUS

Jesus had some additional encouraging words for them. The first were about power. The second were personal. Jesus promised that He Himself would be with them. Wherever they would go, however hard the road, however challenging the situation, however unwelcoming the people, whatever their feeling of weakness, He would be beside them providing comfort, encouragement, and strength, just as He had been for the past three years of their lives. They would never again be alone. This is His promise to us too, to accompany us always along whatever path into the world He calls us to travel.

2

THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

Our second example of the Great Commission Jesus gave His disciples is found in Acts 1 and was spoken to them immediately before the Ascension. He had previously urged them to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came to baptize them with His presence. The Spirit was the gift that His Father had promised Him for His disciples. On the night before He died, and on many earlier occasions, Jesus had spoken about this gift of the Spirit that they would receive. Now, He said, that gift would soon be coming, a gift they would receive on the Day of Pentecost, but that we today receive when we first come to faith in Jesus Christ (see Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13; Ephesians 1:13-14).

The disciples were still waiting for this gift when they saw Jesus for the last time. They asked Him one final question: Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6). They were not thinking about the task Jesus had set before them on several occasions. They did not at this moment want to remember His words to them that they must preach the Gospel to all the nations before the end would come.

They wanted to know when the kingdom would come, and they wanted it to come now. They wanted to hear about His plans to drive the Romans out of the Promised Land and begin His victorious reign as Messiah. They recalled clearly enough that He would rule the nations, and they wanted Him to start right away and set them on thrones ruling beside Him. He had power over all things; He could surely exercise it for Himself, for them, and for His people Israel! But Jesus replied to them in a very different way than they expected.

UNAVAILABLE KNOWLEDGE

They would not be told when the kingdom will come, when Israel will be restored, when the Second Coming in glory will be. This knowledge was not available to the apostles, nor is it available to us! They undoubtedly were speculating among themselves about just when Jesus Christ would use His power to reign over the nations. Christians love to speculate about the end of the age and make predictions and plans for it, just as many have been doing in our time in the transition from the second to the third millennium A.D. Jesus has said that it is not ours to know; indeed He said that it is not His to know either (Matthew 24:36). Not even Jesus, the Son of God, knows when He will come! We may pray for His coming. We should long for it. But we cannot know when it will be.

AVAILABLE POWER

If you want power, Jesus said to them in effect, you will have it. When the Spirit is given to you, power will be yours. But it will not be power to restore Israel and to destroy the enemies of the kingdom. It will not even be the knowledge of when these things will take place. It will be power to witness about Me and the truth of the message I have given you to spread around the world. The church has power today. You and I have power today. But this power is very different than the power we may desire. We want power to see the kingdom coming, power for the healing of our loved ones, power for getting our way personally, or power for having a Christian nation once again, power for America in the world.

We all have our own agendas for Jesus, just as the apostles had one for Him. He, however, has an agenda for us. His agenda is power for us to be living, speaking testimonies for Him to an unbelieving world, power to love our enemies, power to bless those who curse us, power to forgive as He forgives us, power to love one another. This is the coming of the kingdom that He has in mind for us now. The other kind of power will come later; but this is the power He exercised in His death on the cross, and it is the power He gives us. There is no other power for the church or for the Christian now.

The disciples would be given this power of the Spirit to witness to the world. What did this mean for them, and what does it mean for us?On an earlier occasion Jesus had promised that the Spirit would be a witness to Him.

When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me; but you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

—JOHN 15:26-27

As the apostles went out into the world, they could have the confidence that whenever they talked about Christ, the Spirit would be witnessing to Christ along with their testimony. The same is true for us. We are never alone when we seek to communicate the truth about Jesus.

Later on that evening, during those final hours before His betrayal, Jesus told His disciples more about the work that the Spirit would do. His task would be to work in the hearts of men and women, convicting them of guilt and of righteousness and of judgment (John 16:8ff.). We sometimes think it