PRINCIPLE 14 |
Evangelism is a process. It may take a long time to gain a hearing, to clear away misconceptions, and to answer questions. Only rarely will the process be completed in the first encounter with an individual.
Suppose we are witnessing to a person who holds the common beliefs of our culture. As explained in chapter 9, hours or perhaps years of preevangelism and explanation could be required, depending on the specific background of the individual. The same is true when we are witnessing to people who belong to cults or religions which explicitly deny parts of the gospel message. This means that there are very few people to whom we could walk up and say "Christ died for our sins" and expect it to make sense. The hours of preevangelism and explanation will require much listening and patience. Thus, evangelism should not be thought of merely as a quick process of making statements. Rather, it should be thought of as a long, patient process of discussion and education.
Rapport and warmth must be cultivated so that the individual trusts our statements and feels comfortable discussing such personal and far-reaching matters with us. In other words, meaningful evangelism takes place among friends much more easily than it does among mere acquaintances. The make-a-pronouncement-to-a-stranger approach to evangelism is the exception to the rule. Have-a-personal-discussion-with-a-friend is the rule.
This rule leads to two other suggestions. First, we should concentrate much of our witnessing among those with whom we are already friends. Second, when we have an opportunity to witness to a stranger, we ought to make every effort to become his friend so that our message will not be hindered because of a lack of the context of friendship.
We must remember that others "read" us as people besides hearing what we say. And if they don't like what they read they may close their minds to our message as well. Our message always comes to them as part of a total package, which includes our manners, integrity, habits, even our appearance and smell, and much more. Even though our message is 100 percent truth, our package may be only 40 percent friendly.
Our friendship must be natural and consistent. It dare not be the cheap, "hello buddy" friendliness of some sales clerks who have memorized friendly sounding phrases and pasted on a smile. Such instant friendliness creates suspicion rather than trust. And if the person on the receiving end suspects us he will suspect our message too. Paul described just the opposite of this when he told of his own warm relationship with the Thessalonians.
We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. (1 Thessalonians 2:8)
"Compel them to come in." "We persuade men." These Bible quotations and others are sometimes used to justify coercive evangelism. But these statements must be examined in their contexts and compared with other biblical teachings so that they will not be misinterpreted and misapplied in evangelism.
Did Paul persuade people into the kingdom? In Acts 18:13 we find this description of Paul's evangelism: "This man ... is persuading the people." But consider the context. This statement was spoken by Jews who were attacking Paul. They did not understand that Christ had fulfilled the Jewish law by living a sinless life, and then had died for their sins. They thought Paul's message about Jesus was a denial of the validity of the law rather than a proper follow-up to the law. In short, they took Paul's message as anti Jewish. They saw Paul as an enemy of the Jews and his evangelism as a threat to the Jewish religion. So they dragged Paul before the Roman authority, Gallio, and tried to make a case against him.
So the statement found in Acts 18:13 was made by those who hated Paul. They misunderstood what Paul was doing and saying, and they were trying to get him into trouble with Rome. Certainly any comment from people in such circumstances should not be considered a reliable statement about Paul's evangelism. (Of course, the passage is inspired and is therefore a completely accurate record of what went on in court and what the Jews said. But that does not mean that what the Jews said was accurate.) This passage, then, does not answer our question about Paul's evangelistic methods. We have to look elsewhere.
Paul himself said,
We try to persuade men. (2 Corinthians 5:11)
But Paul also said,
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. (1 Corinthians 2:4)
The same Greek word for persuasion is used in both of the above passages. In one place Paul speaks of his evangelism as persuasive, and in another place he speaks of it as non persuasive, an apparent contradiction. To resolve it, we need to ask the question: In what sense was Paul's evangelism persuasive, and in what sense was it non persuasive? Some of the passages that we have already looked at help us answer this question. According to 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, we have our part to do and God has his part. According to Colossians 4:3-4, Paul saw his part as explaining the gospel, making it clear. According to John 16:8, God applies the "pressure" by convicting the sinner of sin, righteousness, and judgment after those concepts have been clearly presented to him by the evangelist. Paul's message was clear and therefore became persuasive as the Holy Spirit used it to convict the sinner. After all,
The gospel ... is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16)
But Paul's manner of presenting the gospel was gentle.
We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. (1 Thessalonians 2:7)
One more passage will be examined here. Luke 14:23, in the New American Standard Version, contains the command, "compel them to come in." If we examine the context, we will see that this command should not be applied to evangelism. Jesus was talking to a group of Pharisees and experts in the law at the house of one of the Pharisees (see verses 1, 3). This fact in itself is enough to let us know that the statement "compel them to come in" is not meant to tell us how to do evangelism. After all, why would Jesus be telling the Pharisees and experts in the law how to do evangelism? Rather, he is evangelizing them. The Pharisees were blindly convinced of their own righteousness, and part of Jesus' task in evangelizing them was to open their eyes to the fact that they were sinners. This is why he exposed their lack of compassion (verses 2-6), their pride (verses 7-11), and their selfish desire for personal gain (verses 12-14).
But one of the guests did not get the point and said, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God" (verse 15). No doubt, when he said this, he thought of himself as being among those who would be at that feast. In reply, Jesus told the story of the man who prepared a great banquet, but the guest list for his banquet ended up being different from the original guest list. Certainly this story should have made the guest wonder if he really would be at that banquet. It is in the context of this story that Jesus said "Compel them to come in." When he said this he was not telling believers how they should evangelize the lost. Nor was he using high pressure evangelism on these Pharisees. Instead, he was gently helping them see their lost spiritual condition. So, rather than supporting coercive evangelism, this passage illustrates Jesus' gentle, educational method of evangelism.
Nowhere in Scripture are we told to twist the sinner's arm. Instead, we are to present gently the truths of the gospel and let the Master Psychologist, the loving Holy Spirit, apply the pressure.