From The Briefing:
This is the fourth post in a series about gospel speech. Read parts 1, 2, and 3.
“I’m not really a ‘speaking’ Christian.”
Maybe you think that you’re not the kind of person to speak the gospel to others because you’re not really the kind of Christian who talks about the gospel. You prefer to keep it in your heart.
But salvation isn’t just a matter of the heart. It’s also, fundamentally, a matter of the mouth:
But what does it say? ”The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:8-10)
In a previous post, we looked at human speech from the perspective of Romans 1-3. Every time human speech is mentioned in Romans 1-3, it’s a disaster. In fact, the biggest disaster happens when people try to preach God’s law: preaching the law creates hypocritical preachers and blaspheming hearers. It’s not that God’s law is bad. God’s law is very good, because it reveals God’s will and tells people what they should do to please God. But God’s law isn’t supposed to be preached. Instead, God’s law is supposed to shut our mouths and condemn us. Ultimately, then, God’s law is designed to testify to the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. Romans 1-3 renders humans speechless.
All the way up to the end of Romans chapter 9, humans remain almost entirely speechless.1 The most significant thing humans do in Romans 1-9 is not to talk, but to ‘believe’ in the message about Jesus Christ. But then something remarkable happens. In chapter 10, people start talking again! Romans 10 mentions testimony (v. 2), preaching (vv. 8, 14, 15), confession (vv. 9, 10), ‘calling upon’ God (vv. 12, 13, 14), and ‘evangelism’ (vv. 15, 16). There is a ‘message’ (vv. 8, 17, 18), spoken by believers and preachers; God’s gospel-revelation becomes a ‘report’ (vv. 16, 17) which is ‘heard’ (vv. 14, 18). Paul also thinks that the ‘mouth’ is very important; he puts it parallel with the ‘heart’ as an instrument of salvation (Rom 10:8, 9, 10; Rom 10:18). Clearly, speech is very important in Romans 10. Why?
Paul wants to make a contrast in Romans 10, and he wants to spell out this contrast in the starkest possible terms. This contrast is between two ways of salvation (Rom 10:3-13). The first way of salvation involves the law. According to this first way, people become righteous by ‘doing’ and ‘working’; i.e. keeping the law. The second way of salvation, by contrast, involves a message; a verbal proclamation, which is opposite to with the law (even though the law testifies to it). Since this second way of salvation involves a verbal message, people are righteous by ’believing’ and ‘speaking’ the message, not by ‘doing’ the law. According to Paul, it’s this second way of salvation that is the true and right way. That’s why speech is so important.
The gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t a law that helps us to be righteous before God by doing good works. The gospel is a message; a specific message about a specific person. It’s a message that Jesus is Lord, that God has raised him from the dead. It’s a message that God’s righteousness comes through this specific person, Jesus the risen Lord. If the gospel of Jesus Christ were a law, the appropriate response to it would be to act, to work, to do good things. But since the gospel of Jesus Christ is a message, we should respond to it first and foremost as a message: by having it in our heart and on our lips.
Gospel-speech, therefore, is not an optional extra for Christians. Salvation comes through a spoken message about a specific person. In God’s grace, we are saved through having this message in our hearts and in our mouths. In fact, in a very real sense, we become Christian by speaking the gospel. We hear the message that Jesus is Lord, and all it entails. And we accept that this message is true. We acknowledge it before God himself; we admit through prayer that Jesus is indeed Lord. We also communicate that Jesus is Lord to other people; e.g. at church, in baptism, in conversations. A Christian who prefers not to speak the gospel is a contradiction in terms. Gospel speech is at the very core of what it means to be a Christian.
This is the fourth post in a series about gospel speech. In the next post, we’ll think about another objection: “I can promote the gospel better by my good works.”
Comments at The Briefing.
From The Briefing:
“I really should be more disciplined…”
How often do you experience that gaping chasm between ‘should be’ and ‘is’ in your regular daily habits? Most of us can think of good habits we’d really like to develop, but somehow have never got around to it. If you’re a Christian, some of those habits you wish to develop possibly include things like regular prayer and Bible reading; intentional care for others; disciplined consumption; not spending too much time online, etc. You may have heard countless times that these things are important; you’ve probably nodded sagely in agreement; you may even have spoken about them many times out loud in sentences that begin, “I really should…”. But you’ve just never got around to turning them into lasting habits. Maybe that’s because your desire to develop these habits has never been anything more than a vague wish. Or maybe you don’t know where to start. Or maybe you’ve tried repeatedly to develop these habits and failed miserably.
“Oh no,” you might be thinking, “not another article telling me to read the Bible and pray more!” No, that’s not what this article is about. What would be the point? You already know you should read the Bible and pray more. If you’re like me, your problem isn’t knowing it, it’s doing it. And that’s a real problem, isn’t it? So this is an article to help you understand yourself a bit more, and to give you a few ideas about how to go about actually getting into these habits. You might object, “But I don’t have a disciplined personality, this isn’t going to work for me.” If that’s you, let me ask you a simple question: do you brush your teeth every day? If you answered “yes”, then this article is for you.1 Personality has nothing to do with it. If you brush your teeth every day, you’ve already proved that you have the ability to develop good, lasting habits. And if you can do it with teeth-brushing, you can do it in other areas too.
We all develop habits, because we are creatures. That common expression, ‘creatures of habit’, points to an important truth. Habits are an aspect of the way God has made us, as creatures who live in his good creation. God has created us from the ‘dust of the ground’ (Gen 2:7). He’s placed us in time and in space. He’s given us minds and bodies that are suited to this world; we respond to familiarity, regularity, cycles and seasons. Because of this, we’re all constantly forming habits—often without even realising it. Our habits are a key part of our character, of who we are; and so they are closely bound up with our decisions and our desires. Even our seemingly spontaneous decisions are highly influenced by our character and habits. Neuroscientists have noticed the way that repetition creates physical ‘pathways’ in our brain, which in turn shape our desires. It’s true to our experience, isn’t it? The more we do something, the more we want to do it. Fast food outlets, supermarket chains and social networking sites know this only too well: in fact, they employ teams of people to shape our habits, and thus influence our desires and our ‘free’ decisions. That’s why we need to take control of our habits—especially in the really important areas of godly living—to ensure that we are being conformed to the things of God. Otherwise, we will continue to be manipulated by the desires of the world.
Of course, there’s an important difference between the mundane habit of brushing your teeth and the kind of important Christian habits I mentioned above. Unlike teeth-brushing, these Christian habits are directly involved in our daily spiritual warfare. On the one hand, that means they are ultimately God’s work; we can’t do them in our own strength, and they’ll never be perfect this side of the new creation. On the other hand, they will be particularly challenging for us to develop. They are habits that battle against the enemy—our own sinfulness, Satan, and the whole world opposed to God. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to develop them in the same way we develop other habits. In war (I’ve been told), very little time is spent waging glorious battles and smiting the enemy. Most of the time, warfare is about training, preparing and honing skills. The effectiveness of a soldier is only as good as his habits: his reflexive reactions developed through constant, repetitive training. The same applies to spiritual warfare. Our main task in spiritual warfare is to get prepared: to put on the “armour” of truth, righteousness, the readiness of the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the word of God through prayer (Eph 6:10-18). Putting on this armour is, in large part, about developing good habits.
Here, then, are some tips for developing habits. I’m going to concentrate mostly on personal prayer and Bible reading because it’s so important, but a lot of the tips can be applied to developing other good habits too.2 Most of these tips I’ve heard from other people; some of them have come from my own experience of failures and even occasional successes. Remember, of course, that they’re tips, not commandments or sure-fire recipes. Ponder them, weigh them up, and decide if they’ll work for you.
- Motivate yourself by preaching to yourself the gospel of grace. Why do you want to develop the habit in the first place? Are you just gritting your teeth and “doing the right thing”? Are you trying to conform to the expectations of others? Are you trying to make yourself closer to God through your efforts? I hope you agree, these are all terrible motivations. Instead, preach the gospel to yourself: remind yourself that you want to develop the habit because the Spirit of God is at work in you; the Spirit who has brought you as close to God as you could possibly be through his son Jesus and who has changed the entire orientation of your life, making you want to serve him and grow in your knowledge and service of him. Keep coming back to God’s grace over and over again.
- The ultimate goal in developing a particular habit is coming to the point where you love to do it. You know you’ve truly got a good, lasting habit when it’s an essential part of your life, and it feels right. In fact, you feel bad not doing it. This is even true of uninspiring things like brushing your teeth. When you don’t brush your teeth, you feel yuck all day. How much more should this be true of daily prayer, the amazing privilege of speaking to the creator of the universe?
- Realise, though, that the goal I mentioned in the previous point (to love what you’re doing) will probably take a very long time to develop. In the case of daily prayer, it will probably take months or years to even get a small way towards that goal, and will continue to be a struggle until Jesus returns.
- Don’t be a hero—you’ll only set yourself up for failure. If you’re not reading the Bible at all, for example, don’t jump in with a plan like, “I will read the Bible for an hour every day”. Sure, it sounds like a noble goal. But then, when you read the Bible for 30 minutes one day, you’ve failed. Instead of rejoicing in God’s word to you, you’ll just give yourself needlessly negative vibes because you don’t measure up to your own arbitrary standard. You won’t love what you’re doing if you feel like you’re failing all the time. It’ll feel like you have to climb a mountain every day. And you’ll end up fearing and hating it. You might recognise this scenario as the ‘New Year’s Resolution’ syndrome. Don’t fall into the trap.
- The flipside of the previous point is to start small. In fact, make deliberately small plans at the start. Set yourself the goal of reading the Bible for 5 minutes each day, for example. And each day, leave yourself wanting more. Leave yourself with the feeling, “I liked that, I want more”. Then, the next day, you’ll be motivated to do it again.
- Start now. Just do it. This is linked to the previous points. If you have a gigantic heroic plan, you won’t be motivated to start until the conditions are perfect. But if you plan to start small, you can start straight away.
- Think creatively about ways to fit your habits into your life circumstances. Think in terms of people, time and space. What are your relationships? What are your commitments? What’s your daily routine? What times of the day do you enjoy the most? Where do you enjoy to be? If you can, try to practice your habits in the times and places that you love to be, rather than in the downtimes or the uncomfortable places. Spiritual warfare is hard enough without making it harder on yourself.
- Learn from the habits of others, but don’t follow them slavishly. I was once inspired by a godly Christian father I knew who often urged us younger dads to lead regular times of family prayer and Bible reading ‘at the breakfast table’. I thought that was a great idea, except for the word ‘breakfast’. The thought of trying to do anything constructive with that bleary-eyed half-conscious Weetbix-encrusted crew that is our family at the breakfast table was not a happy one. There was no point following his advice to the letter (and he wasn’t expecting us to anyway). We had a go at doing it at the dinner table, which works far better for our family.
- When it comes to habits, simple regularity is much better than sporadic brilliance. Don’t expect your Bible reading to be constantly wonderful and filled with awe-inspiring insights. If you have a spectacular, life-changing quiet time one day and then don’t pick up the Bible for a month, you’re not going to get very far. It’s much better to have simple expectations, and to rejoice each time you open God’s word, even if you learned something that seems small and insignificant at the time.
- Make your habit-developing plans simple (e.g. “I’ll read the Bible for 10 minutes a day”), not complex (e.g. “I have a Microsoft spreadsheet setting out my Bible reading plan every day for the next 10 years”). Simple plans are more flexible than complex plans; they’re easy to adapt to changing circumstances. Life is full of unexpected events: we make plans, but God has his own ideas about how life is going to turn out (Prov 16:9). We have to deal with sickness and emergencies (in fact, when I first sat down to write this article, my wife called to say the car had broken down on the way to school and my plans went out the window!). If you have a complex plan, and then an unexpected interruption comes which throws it all into disarray, you might be tempted to get frustrated or angry or just to give up. If you have a simple plan, you can adapt it.
- Develop the super-habit of regularly reviewing your habits! This is especially important because your circumstances will change over the course of your life. Since habits are integrated with your life circumstances, whenever there’s a change in your life circumstances, your habits will suffer. That’s normal. Sometimes you might have to go back to square one and completely reassess your habits. When we had very young children, we found that our daily ‘routine’ was changing every few weeks, as the kids’ sleeping and feeding patterns changed. When this happens, don’t (as I sometimes did) use it as an excuse to give up on your habits. Rather, adapt your expectations to your circumstances. Then start again. And when you do start again, start small, and don’t be a hero (see above).
- Use the relatively good or easy times in your life to work hard at developing your habits. When the hard times come, and/or when life changes, you’ll have spiritual resources to use.
- I said it at the start of the list, and I’ll say it again at the end: keep coming back to God’s grace.
What do you think? Is there anything you have found particularly helpful in developing godly habits?
- If you answered “no”, stop reading this article and call a dentist right now. ↩
- Also, realise that these tips are mainly about developing good habits, not so much about getting rid of bad habits. Getting rid of bad habits sometimes might need more drastic measures, depending on the seriousness of the habit. ↩
Comments at The Briefing.
From The Briefing:
This is the third post in a series about gospel speech. Read parts 1 and 2.
“I’m not gifted enough!”
Maybe you think that you’re not qualified to speak the gospel to people because you’re not gifted enough. But if you’re a Christian, you already have the greatest gift in the world. It’s a gift that makes you talk.
Throughout the Old Testament, there is a recurring pattern:
- Sin
- Salvation
- Speech / singing
This is how God works, according to the Bible. People sin against God, repeatedly and inexcusably. God is therefore rightly angry with people. But instead of simply judging them, he saves them, proving how powerful he really is. And then, once he’s given them this great gift of salvation, God does something to their mouths. He puts a speech or a song in their mouths, and tells them to speak over and over again about how amazing his salvation really is.
Here are three places in particular where this pattern is clear. These are very significant parts of the Old Testament. In fact, the apostle Paul refers to them repeatedly in his letter to the Romans.1
Deuteronomy 32 is a song Moses taught to Israel just before they entered the promised land. It’s a song they must keep in their mouths, singing it constantly, never forgetting it (cf. Deut 31:19, 21). It’s a strange song for a nation to sing. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of a national anthem. It’s not a song about Israel’s glory, but Israel’s shame. Israel, according to this song, is a rebellious nation. They deal corruptly with God. They aren’t God’s children. They are blemished and crooked and twisted and greedy and scoffers and demon-worshippers and perverse and cheats and foolish and venomous. Israel is powerless and weak and utterly corrupt. But God is powerful and righteous. He will show his power through Israel; both by judging his enemies, and also by rescuing his powerless servants (see e.g. v. 36). He gives Israel the great gift of salvation.
But even though the song is about Israel’s sin and Israel’s salvation, it’s not just a song for Israel alone. It’s a song that is put into Israel’s mouth, so that everybody else can hear how God helps those who can’t help themselves. God doesn’t just rescue his weak and foolish people, he also uses them as his global mouthpiece. Israel’s job is to sing of God’s greatness to the world:
Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth …
For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! (Deut 32:1, 3)
Isaiah 59 echoes this same pattern. The chapter describes the total depravity of Israel at a particularly dark time in their history. Israel’s hearts, hands and mouths are defiled, because they are not upholding God’s justice. Nobody, none at all, is doing what is right. But the uselessness of God’s people doesn’t mean that God himself is powerless. He is powerful; he will achieve his purposes to judge the world and to deliver Israel, despite their sin:
He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. (Isaiah 59:16)
“And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD. (Isaiah 59:20)
What does God do once he’s saved Israel? He gives them a role; a task. This task is to speak God’s word; to have this word of salvation in their mouths and to declare the light of God’s glorious power to the nations:
“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from this time forth and forevermore.” (Isaiah 59:21)
And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:3)
Psalm 51 is a song of David, king of Israel, after he had stolen a man’s wife and then arranged his murder. David is stricken, and begs for forgiveness. He realises that he deserves nothing from God. But he knows that God’s response to his sin will prove God’s justice and power. In fact, his broken spirit and contrite heart will enable him to be a mouthpiece for God, to shout to the world of God’s mercy and power:
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Psalm 51:12-15).
For David, as for Israel, salvation is a matter of the mouth as well as the heart.
Do you notice, in all three passages, that the singers are exactly the right people to sing the song? The song / speech is about God’s salvation, not about human achievement. And so the singers / speakers aren’t powerful people, or talented people, or upright people. They’re weak people, broken people, sinful people. But when God saves these sinners, they also become gifted singers; singing (or speaking) about God’s salvation to the world. The gift they’ve received isn’t a melodious voice, or a clever turn of phrase, or a quick wit. The gift is salvation itself. Since they’ve been saved from sin, they’re qualified to talk about salvation from sin. If you’re a Christian, you already have the greatest gift in the world.
You’ve been saved. It’s a gift that makes you talk.
This is the third post in a series about gospel speech. In the next post, we’ll think about another objection: “I’m not really a ‘speaking’ Christian.”
1 Paul quotes these passages explicitly:
- Deuteronomy 32 is cited in Romans 10:19, 12:19 and 15:10.
- Isaiah 59 is cited in Romans 3:15-17 and 11:26-27.
- Psalm 51 is cited in Romans 3:4.
- Psalm 32, another Psalm about David being forgiven and then proclaiming God’s word, is cited in Romans 4:7-8.
Comments at The Briefing.
From The Briefing:
This is the second post in a series about gospel speech. Read part 1 here.
“I’m not good enough!”
Maybe you think that you’re not qualified to speak the gospel to people because you’re not godly enough. If you feel this way, then you’re absolutely right and you’re absolutely wrong at the same time. You’re right that you’re not godly enough. And you’re wrong about the gospel.
Think about the great prophet Isaiah. When God revealed himself to Isaiah, it scared him out of his wits. Isaiah realized that he had a very serious speech problem:
[Isaiah] said, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa 6:5)
This very same speech problem confronts us at the start of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Romans is a letter about the way God reveals himself to us. God reveals his gospel (Rom 1:1), his son (Rom 1:3-4), his power (Rom 1:16), his salvation (Rom 1:16), and his righteousness (Rom 1:17). But when God reveals himself, he also reveals something about human speech. And what we learn about human speech is not good. Whenever human speech is mentioned in the opening chapters of Romans (apart from Paul’s own words), it’s always an unmitigated disaster.
In the very first chapter, Paul gives us a catalogue of general human miserableness and rebellion against God. Near the climax of this list, Paul describes us human beings as:
… gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, …
(Romans 1:29-30)
A short time later, Paul talks directly about our speech-organs—our mouths. Our mouths are diseased; they’re intimately involved in our rebellion against God:
… For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, …
“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” (Romans 3:9, 13-14)
Our mouths reveal what’s in our hearts, and it’s very bad. We know all too well the terrible power of our words; how our words can wound and break hearts and lives. This isn’t a minor issue. The God who reveals himself is holy and powerful, and he is angry with our speech.
Romans also talks about another kind of revelation from God, a revelation God gave to the nation of Israel many years before. This revelation is called the law. It’s a very good revelation, because it shows us how holy and powerful God is, and it tells us what this holy God expects of his people. But the law-revelation provokes another serious speech problem. The people who have the law think that they should preach the law. They think that God gave the law to them so they could teach everybody in the world how to work hard and live better and please God:
… and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—(Romans 2:19-20)
But in fact, preaching the law is crazy talk. Because anyone who thinks he’s qualified to preach God’s law has got the same problem as the people he’s preaching to. Paul goes on:
You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal?
You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?
You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. (Romans 2:21-23)
In fact, law-preaching creates an even bigger speech problem. Whenever somebody preaches the law and doesn’t keep it, they prove that God’s word doesn’t work. And that just makes the listeners scoff and slander God himself:
For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:24)
This all just goes to show that the law isn’t there to be promoted or preached or proclaimed. In fact, the law isn’t designed to make anybody talk at all. The law has the opposite purpose. The law is designed to stop us talking:
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19-20)
God’s law-revelation is intended to bring silence. And when I say ‘silence’, I’m not talking about quiet religious contemplation. I’m talking about the silence of a defendant in the dock, who has been utterly convicted by the weight of the charges against him, and who simply has nothing to say. The law is there to mortify us; to show us just how venomous and bitter our sin really is. The law makes us accountable to God. The law is there to render us speechless. Only then will we hear the gospel, the message of salvation, the death and resurrection of Jesus which makes us right before our holy creator and judge (Rom 3:21ff). The law testifies to the gospel. But it’s not the gospel.
When God reveals himself, the first thing you need to do is to shut your mouth and listen.
This is the second post in a series about gospel speech. (Read part 1 here.) In the next post, we’ll think about another objection: “I’m not gifted enough”.
Comments at The Briefing.
From The Briefing:
Does God command every individual Christian to evangelise? Or is evangelism
just a job for specially gifted individuals?
If you’ve been a Christian for a while, it’s likely that these questions have popped into your head from time to time. You might remember an initial burst of enthusiasm for Jesus at some time in your life. Maybe you remember burning with a passionate desire to tell as many people as you can about the wonderful news of Jesus’ death and resurrection. After all, this news had recently rocked your world and given you hope and life and meaning; why wouldn’t you want others to know it? But by now, maybe, you’re feeling a bit jaded. Of course, you acknowledge that the ‘gospel’, the message about Jesus, is quite important. But you’ve come to realise that you’re not really the kind of person who feels comfortable talking about Jesus to other people. Maybe you just feel ill-equipped. Maybe it’s not your personality type. Maybe evangelism just feels plain weird to you. Maybe you’ve had a few bad evangelistic experiences. Awkward moments. Maybe you’ve lost friends. Maybe you’re getting fed up with that vaguely guilty feeling that nags away at you whenever preachers tell you you’re not doing enough evangelism. And so you might be asking: does God really want me to do this evangelism thing anyway? Does he actually command it anywhere?
In fact, if you go hunting in the Bible for commands to evangelise, you won’t find very much material. True, there’s the ‘great commission’ in Matthew 28:19-20. Jesus, having just risen from the dead, says to his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” and then adds: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” By applying the strict rules of logic, you can reason that “everything I have commanded you” includes the command to make disciples. So that means disciple-making is a command for all disciples, right? Peter also tells Christians to “always” be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). Paul tells the Colossians to use opportunities to speak to outsiders about ’grace’, which must have something to do with the gospel (Col 4:5-6; cf. Col 1:6).
But if you think about it further, these commands by themselves are a pretty flimsy basis to prove that God wants every individual Christian to evangelise. It’s possible, isn’t it, that ‘make disciples’ is just a general command for the church as a whole. Clearly, the church is expected to evangelise. But that doesn’t mean that I, personally, have to do it. Furthermore, the verses from Peter and Paul don’t really prove much. Being ‘ready to give an answer’ and to ‘make the most of opportunities’ seems to assume that evangelism is a passive and sporadic activity at best. When was the last time anybody asked you to give an answer for the hope that was in you? Anyway, the ’evangelist’ was a special role in the early church (Acts 21:8, Eph 4:11, 2 Tim 4:5). So these commands don’t amount to very much, do they?
But take a step back for a moment. Why are you looking for a command in the first place? Normally we look for commands when we need a reason to do something unpleasant. When I tell my kids to eat their vegetables, they want me to give them a command with exact specifications. They ask: Do I have to eat all of the vegetables? If not, how many? Does that include the ones mushed into the potatoes? But it’s a different story with chocolate. If I put chocolate in front of them, no command is required. That’s because there’s no reason not to eat chocolate. The same thing applies when we start asking whether we’re commanded to evangelise. By asking the question, we’re treating evangelism like kids treat eating vegetables. We’re saying that evangelism is technically a good thing to do, but we’d prefer not to do it unless we really have to. That should tell us that something has gone wrong somewhere.
In recent times, certain godly and gifted evangelists and writers have approached the issue in a better way. They’ve realised that it’s not enough simply to scour the Bible for individual commands. Instead, they’ve asked a broader question: what patterns of mission did the Bible writers (e.g. Paul) expect to be happening in their churches? And how can we follow the same patterns?1 This is a more helpful approach, because it helps us to think in terms of bigger principles. But in the next series of posts, I’m not going to follow that approach either. Because ultimately, it’s not enough. There’s something more fundamental; a truth that needs to grip us before we even start to think about commands or communities or church organisation or pragmatics or patterns or gifts. We need to understand the relationship between human speech and the gospel itself. According to the Bible, there is something deeply and profoundly important about human speech, especially when we come to think about the gospel. In fact, the Bible often talks about human speech and salvation in the same breath.
You might have noticed already that I don’t like the title of my own post, ”Are all Christians commanded to evangelise?” I don’t like the word ‘command.’ But actually, I don’t like the word ‘evangelise’ either. It’s too rubbery, and means different things to different people. What popped into your head when you read the word, ‘evangelise’? If I asked this question of ten different people, I’d probably get eleven different answers. From now on, I’m going to erase the word ‘evangelism’ from this series of posts. Instead, I’m going to use the more useful, albeit more clunky, phrase ‘gospel speech’. That will help us to get to the heart of the issue: What does the Bible say about how human beings use words to speak the gospel—to whomever, however, whenever?
Of course, that means we need to talk more about the gospel itself. And we will. In the following posts, we’ll look at what the gospel has to say about various questions or objections to gospel speech:
- I’m not good enough.
- I’m not gifted enough.
- I’m not really a ‘speaking’ Christian.
- I can promote the gospel better by my good works.
- I’m not the mouth in Christ’s body.
- I’m more comfortable speaking the gospel to insiders rather than outsiders.
- I can’t do what they’re doing.
1. Here are a couple of practical books from my part of the world with different perspectives on the issue of individual evangelism:
Here are some more academic books about Paul’s expectations for his
churches, again with different perspectives:
Comments at The Briefing.
From The Briefing:
This headline, or something like it, appeared around the globe on news sites last year (e.g. The Telegraph, CNN’s religion blog, and others). The story was also picked up (and embellished) by various blogs. Before you check out the links, let me ask you: What’s your gut reaction when you read a headline like that? Are you annoyed or disgusted that yet another ivory-tower scholar is denying the fundamental truths of the Christian faith? Are you in despair at the relentless attacks of the media on the church? Or maybe you’re pleased that the truth of science and reason is yet again prevailing over the religious dogmas of the past two millenia?
What if I told you that the scholar in question was simply reading his Bible in its context? Moreover, what if I told you that his scholarly findings are actually quite helpful for Christian faith?
A short while ago I attended a short presentation by this scholar, Gunnar Samuelsson, in which he explained his method and his conclusions. His question was simple: What do we actually know about Jesus’ death from the ancient historical sources (especially the New Testament Gospels)? Our own modern image of Jesus’ death is full of little details that we’ve absorbed from movies, statues, architecture, crucifixes, pictures, preachers’ illustrations, etc. In particular, we have an image of Jesus’ arms nailed to a horizontal plank of wood attached to a vertical pole. Samuelsson wanted to work out if this image can be substantiated from the Gospels themselves, in the light of other ancient sources. The Gospels talk about Jesus being put on a ‘cross’ and ‘crucified’ — but what do the original words mean? Samuelsson concluded that the words don’t imply that Jesus was nailed to something cross-shaped (or T-shaped). The original word ‘crucified’ simply means ‘stuck on a stick’. So all we know from these sources is that Jesus was nailed to a stick in order to die. Maybe the stick had a cross-beam. Maybe it didn’t.
This doesn’t deny any of the tenets of the Christian faith. Samuelsson himself believes “that Jesus was the son of God who was crucified for our sins, that he was raised from the dead after three days, that he is with God on this very day and will return in glory to judge the living and dead.” He just wants to point out what the Bible says, and what it doesn’t say, about the details.
Why is this all quite helpful for Christian faith?
Firstly, it highlights the fact that the Bible is remarkably silent is about the physical details of Jesus’ suffering. It reminds us that biblical spirituality is very different from a spirituality based on physical objects (e.g. crucifixes), images or movies (e.g. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ). The Bible focuses on Jesus’ kingship, his relationship with the Father, his love for his disciples, the mocking, the shame, the abandonment etc. If we want our own spirituality to be biblical, we should focus on the same things.
Secondly, it also shows us that we can’t base our acceptance or rejection of Christianity (or of Christian scholars, for that matter) on media headlines. Headlines are designed to be sensational. In fact, the headline I quoted is effectively a lie designed to get people reading a relatively low-key story. The scholar did not say that Jesus didn’t die on a cross. He just said that we can’t be sure of the shape of the so-called ‘cross’ from the biblical accounts. But the headline, “Jesus maybe died on vertical pole, says scholar” doesn’t have the same zing. You need to read the sources, not the headlines. If you haven’t read the story of Jesus’ death recently, why not check it out now?
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From The Briefing:
“In ministry, what matters is faithfulness, rather than results.”
If you’re involved in any kind of gospel ministry, you’ve probably heard this kind of sentiment expressed by others; perhaps you’ve even uttered it yourself. I actually agree with the statement wholeheartedly. However, I think it’s very important to clarify exactly what we mean by ‘faithfulness’. What or whom are we supposed to be faithful to?
You see, it’s possible to think of ‘faithfulness’ principally in terms of ministry structures. In this understanding, a ‘faithful’ minister is somebody who faithfully reproduces whatever particular pattern of ministry he learned in his youth. ‘Faithfulness’, in that case, means avoiding new-fangled ministry techniques, doggedly sticking to familiar patterns (e.g. 25-minute 3-point expositional sermons every Sunday), and lamenting the good old days. In that case, the expression “what matters is faithfulness, rather than results” sounds a bit lame. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like an excuse for avoiding hard questions about why hardly anyone is listening to what you have to say.
But that’s not what the Bible means by ‘faithfulness’ at all. Here’s a selection of passages from the New Testament that talk about faithfulness in ministry:
- The ‘faithful’ servant is somebody who manages well and exercises godly, other-person-centred leadership. He takes seriously his responsibility as a servant entrusted with the welfare of others. He does not live for self-gratification (Matt 24:45-51 / Luke 12:42-46).
- The ‘good and faithful servant’ is somebody who does something with the knowledge of God which has been given him; taking active steps to ensure that this knowledge bears fruit and grows (Matt 25:15-23 / Luke 19:12-17).1
- The ‘faithful’ servant is somebody who doesn’t live for worldly wealth; instead, he actively uses worldly wealth to make friends in eternal dwellings (Luke 16:9-13).
- The ‘faithful’ steward sticks with the seemingly weak and foolish message of the cross; he doesn’t change or tailor the message simply to win the approval of his congregation (1 Cor 4:1-5).
- ‘Faithful’ ministers encourage people to hold fast to the apostolic teaching and way of life (1 Cor 4:17; Col 4:7, 9; Eph 6:21-22).
- The ‘faithful’ minister communicates Christ to people (Col 1:7).
- ‘Faithful’ teachers are committed to transmitting the message of Jesus Christ rightly from one generation to another. A key task for the ‘faithful’ teacher is to actively raise up future faithful teachers (2 Tim 2:2).
- The ‘faithful’ hold on to Christ even in the face of persecution and death. They suffer, they struggle and if necessary they die for Jesus (Rev 2:10, 13).
Do you believe that faithfulness matters? If so, you might want to use the list to see how your faithfulness is going. And if, like me, you’re a bit discouraged when you compare yourself with the biblical ideal of faithfulness, remember the words of the apostle Paul:
I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, …
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Tim 1:12, 15-16).
1 I’m assuming that the money in the parables represents knowledge of the kingdom of God. If you want to know why, compare Matt 25:29 with Matt 13:10-12; also compare Luke 19:26 with Luke 12:48.
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From The Briefing:
One lazy afternoon in 1999, travel writer Bill Bryson discovered a shop that sold pet supplies and pornography.1 It was at the far end of the main street of an unassuming Australian country town called Young.
The front of the shop contained rather mundane supplies of flea powder, fish flakes, and other pet accessories. But at the back of the shop, behind a small wooden gate, there was a whole section devoted to the sale of explicit pornographic material. Bryson was apparently baffled by the existence of such a bizarre establishment. But I think I can explain what it was doing there.
If memory serves me correctly, there was a period during which various local planning laws existed to get rid of the ‘adult’ industry in Australian towns. The lawmakers didn’t ban small stocks of pornography in shops that existed for other purposes (e.g. newsagents2). But they did try to make sure that all such stocks were strictly controlled. No shop was allowed to have pornography comprising more than a certain small percentage of its total stock. Therefore, no dedicated ‘adult’ stores could exist. The laws were designed to create a safe and wholesome town environment by ensuring that the sale of explicit material couldn’t become a business in its own right (remember, at this point the internet was still taking off).3
But what actually happened? Did the laws work as intended? Not quite. Instead, bizarre shops started to spring up, shops like the one Bryson encountered. The shops still had pornography as their real core business, but to get around the planning laws, the stores put up not-very-subtle ‘fronts’. A shop that advertised pet supplies out the front could ‘legitimately’ claim that it was not really an adult store, since its main purpose was something else. And since there were more individual packets of cheap flea powder and fish flakes on the shelves than there were magazines out the back, the stocks of pornography technically came under the legal limit. But everybody knew what the shops were really for. The laws, despite their good intentions, had failed.
This is a clear illustration of a problem that crops up whenever we try to use laws to make things better. These planning laws were good. They were worthy manifestations of our community’s desire to uphold marriage as the proper context for healthy sexual expression, and to limit the harm and exploitation that arises when this context is ignored. I’m glad the lawmakers did what they did. But the legislation couldn’t, by itself, get to the heart of the problem. The laws couldn’t make men love their families more. They couldn’t convince people that being a real ‘adult’ is about care and responsibility, not self-gratification. The letter of the law did nothing to make people love the spirit of the law. It just brought about grudging compliance and tragically comic workarounds that exploited loopholes. A good law doesn’t make people good.
This isn’t just a problem for Australian planning laws. In fact, the problem also crops up when we try to put God’s law at the centre of our lives. In Romans 2:17-24, the apostle Paul has a debate about this very issue. Paul and his debating partner were Jews. This means they were law-people, and glad of it. The God of the entire world had especially revealed himself to Israel through the law of Moses. Jews had a fantastic privilege: they knew God’s will in the law. They knew what was good and right and proper, because the Creator himself had told them all about it. Jews were also equipped to teach other people all about this great revelation of God’s will. But Paul insists that God’s law-revelation has a fundamental problem. It’s not that the law is bad; actually, the law is great. But the problem is that the law won’t change the heart. God’s good law doesn’t make God’s people good. In fact, as Paul goes on to show in Romans 3, the law does something else entirely. In the end, the law makes our sin and hypocrisy crystal clear. It silences every mouth, and holds us accountable to God (Rom 3:19-20). The law doesn’t save us. Instead, it shows up our failure, and points to something greater: the forgiveness and transformation that we find in Jesus Christ, through the word of the gospel and the Spirit of God.
A heart that relies on the law to find salvation before God is a bit like that store at the end of the main street in Young. It might look respectable and well-ordered. It might seem quite attractive to a casual passer-by. It might have a plentiful stock of law-compliant good deeds on the shelves. And yet there are those sealed sections, the bits at the back. At one level, these sealed sections might seem small or insignificant compared to the much more obvious good deeds that can be pointed to as examples of that heart’s own inherent goodness. But in fact, it is these back sections that truly show up the heart’s real orientation. And if we admit it, there’s a bit of that hypocrisy in all of us, isn’t there?
Simply knowing God’s character and will, even his character and will as expressed in the pages of the Bible itself, will not solve our biggest problem. If we want actual forgiveness, salvation, and transformation, we need something far more radical and powerful than God’s law. We need God himself to forgive us. We need the cross of Christ. And we need God to change our hearts, imperfectly now, and soon our whole heart, soul, and strength perfectly on that last day.
1 Bill Bryson, Down Under, Black Swan, London, 2001, pp. 109-110.
2 Newsstands to American readers.
3 I’m relying on my memory of news reports. I’ve tried hard, but haven’t been able to track down the laws that were in effect twelve years ago.
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From The Briefing:
I’m about to use Yoda as a model for Christian love. If you haven’t seen the Star Wars movies, you’ll probably be mystified by what I’m about to say. This is not the article you’re looking for.
Our home group recently spent a few weeks discussing Christian love. We were focusing on how to love people facing particularly difficult problems like depression or relationship crises. We were thinking about how, in these situations, we could ‘speak the truth in love’ (Eph 4:15). We talked a lot about some of the mechanics of speaking the truth in love: for example, how do you ask the kind of questions that get to the heart of the issue? When a person reveals personal information to you, how do you organize the information in your head? Most importantly, how do you bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to bear in the situation?
We soon discovered that there were two kinds of people in the group. Firstly, there were the ‘naturals’, people who were instinctively good at loving people facing hard times. They knew how to be kind, they knew when to listen, they knew when to comfort and when to challenge. When it came to speaking the truth in love, they were Jedis. But there were others, like me, who were less intuitive. We needed to be more deliberate and conscious. We were more like apprentices, young Luke Skywalkers.
To some of the Jedis, all this talk about the ‘mechanics’ of love seemed a bit wrong. They thought: “Isn’t it a bit cold and calculating? Isn’t it inauthentic, formulaic, non-relational? Surely you just have to love people genuinely, from the heart, and the rest will follow?”
But after a while these Jedis realized something: the apprentices were different from them. The ‘just do it’ approach didn’t work for the apprentices at all. In fact, the apprentices needed the wisdom of the Jedis. We needed them to reflect on what they were doing, to break it down into little bits and teach us.
In other words, we needed the Jedis to become Yodas. Yoda was more than just a Jedi. He was a Jedi master. He knew that other people didn’t share his natural intuition. He reflected long and hard about his own innate Jedi skills. He was patient and kind. He shared his Jedi powers with Luke, in simple steps, so that Luke could understand and learn.
The Jedis in our group were very gracious to us. They became Yodas for us—and it was incredibly helpful.
When it comes to speaking and serving the body of Christ, what gift comes ‘naturally’ to you? In this area, can you become a Jedi master, break it down, and teach the rest of us?
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From The Briefing:
I’ve just read an article that I agree with, but can’t relate to. The article, by Carl Trueman, is about the problems with hagiographies (a hagiography is a ‘saint-biography’: an account of somebody’s life that treats them as a hero of holiness and leaves out the naughty bits).1 He argues that hagiographies are bad for multiple reasons: they’re not good history, they promote an unhelpful black-and-white view of the world, and they make readers feel depressed and inadequate when they don’t measure up. I think he’s right. But I just don’t feel his pain.
I’m not blaming Carl. It’s just that he and I come from opposite sides of the world. Carl is writing in an American context, where the common impulse is to praise heroes and aspire to greatness. So he needs to warn people about the dangers of hero worship (like Paul does in 1 Cor 3:4-9). But I’m an Aussie: my gut instinct is to sledge heroes and cut down tall poppies.2 So I need to learn more about how to affirm and praise examples of holy living and ministry (like Paul in Col 4:7-13). Hagiography is an American problem, not mine.
Okay, by now you might be protesting that I’m making wild stereotypical and racial generalizations. I’ll come clean, and admit that indeed I am. Americans and Australians aren’t that different, are we? We share a lot of culture. We even speak similar languages. Ultimately, both of us need to hear each of these messages. Whatever country we’re born in, we need to learn to affirm and praise great examples of holy lives, and we need to avoid the danger of hero worship. But how can we do both of these things at the same time?
I learned the answer from a wise and godly man—my former ministry trainer and the founder of this publication. He taught me this: when we see people persevering, growing, working, preaching, loving, praying and dealing with sin day by day, we should rejoice. But when we rejoice, we should remember that we’re not rejoicing in the holiness of people. We’re rejoicing in the holiness of the Holy Spirit, who makes all God’s children holy. That is, when we talk about the great deeds of ‘saints’, we’re not praising the saints. We’re praising the sanctifier: the Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.
No matter what our cultural tendencies are, the task is the same for all of us. If you’re inclined to cut down tall poppies, praise the God who made them grow tall. If you’re inclined to worship heroes, then praise God and not the person. In both cases, we’re doing what we were created for: praising and worshipping God, who alone is perfectly holy.
1 You can read Carl’s article at http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2011/06/writing-on-athanasius-a-genera.php.
2 Translation: insulting heroes and criticizing successful people who distinguish themselves
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