Mark Keown

In my previous blog I purposefully left out one utterly pivotal dimension; namely, the corporate witness of the local church. We tend to think individually about evangelism; us telling others one to one the gospel, or one person preaching to a crowd etc. This is all good and has its place; but, the corporate witness of the body of the Christ is an indispensable element of evangelism in any age and context. We are the body of Christ and collectively, as we express our humanity and faith with the Spirit flowing through our veins (metaphorically), Christ witnesses through us to the world. None of us is Christ, but collectively we are to be Christ to the world. Some will be more evangelistic than others. But as a unit we demonstrate Christ to the world. Jesus said this when he called for his followers to love one another and declared, 'by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another' (Jn 13:35). Our unity, love, compassion, care for each other, provi...

So the above blogs establish, at least for me, that evangelism is an utter imperative. Essential to being Christian is the call to share the faith with all humanity. God's purpose is that all live in eternal relationship with him. Those of us who have found him are to pass on the story to others, speak the gospel, proclaim the gospel, so that others can join us in God's family and experience the joy and wonder of living eternally with God. The question is how? How today? This is where it gets a little tricky. There are some things that I think we can take into account: 1. Pray: God has covenanted to answer prayers. When we ask him for his power, his leading, increased effectiveness etc, he answers. Luke records how the first disciples, after being told to stop preaching the message, prayed passionately for more passion for the task and for God to do wonders among the lost. The room was shaken and the result was unbelievable fellowship, passionate proclamation, people converted ...

So far I have looked at the explicit text to determine whether 'we' are to do evangelism. The evidence to me is overwhelming; essential to Christianity is the imperative to share the gospel with the lost. This is seen in the sweep of the OT narrative, the ministry and teaching of Christ, the ministry of the first Christians through Acts and Epistles. There are also theological strands that come together to reinforce this point: 1. Fall, sin, death and eternal destiny: it is clear through the NT that Christ, Paul and the other apostles worked from the premise that the Fall of humanity in Gen 3 led to all humanity being separated from God, under sin, facing physical death, and eternal destruction. There is only one solution in the bible given, Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection is God's solution to the problem of the Fall. He was without sin and died resolving the problem. He reconciles us to God. He redeems us. Through his death we are declared righteous if we believe....

When we hit the other epistles there is not a great deal of mention of evangelism. Peter tells his recipients in the churches of Asia in 1 Pet 3:15 that they are to be prepared to answer the enquiries of unbelievers. This is what some call apologetic evangelism, responding to the questions of seekers. The sentiment is the same as Col 4:5-6 where the believer is to know how to answer the questions posed to them. This presupposes a readiness to preach the gospel when the opportunity arises (cf. Eph 6:15). That believers are the recipients of evangelism is found in references to those who came and preached to the recipients of Hebrews (Heb 4:2, 6; 1 Pet 1:25; 1 Jn 1:1-3). This suggests that the process will go on although this is not directly expressed. Jude 23 is one of the clearest expressions of evangelism. Jude encourages his recipients to be merciful to those who doubt, those who are struggling in the faith. He then encourages believers to 'snatch others from the fire and save th...

Then we come to the ministry of the Apostle Paul. Undoubtedly Paul was utterly motivated to preach the gospel. Luke tells us in the accounts of his conversion (Acts 9, 22, 26) as does Paul himself in Gal 1:15-16 that he received a call to take the message of God's salvation to the non-Jewish world (the Gentiles) when he was converted. He was seriously devoted to this task, declaring that he deserved God's curse ('woe to me') if he did not fulfill his commission to do so (1 Cor 9:16). He felt an incredible internal obligation to preach the gospel to all peoples (see Rom 1:14). There are a number of evidences that Paul envisaged others working in the same business of sharing the gospel with the lost. Firstly, he saw the gospel as the means by which people found salvation i.e. for people to be saved, they must hear the gospel, which is God's power for salvation (see Rom 1:16; 1 Cor 1:18; Eph 6:17; Eph 1:13-14). So, the gospel must be preached for people to be saved. Th...

The World Women's U19 Lacrosse Champs were completed today. USA won the final comprehensively, beating Australia 18-3. The bronze was a surprise with England toppling Canada 9-8. NZ came in 10th of 11th which sounds unimpressive, but in fact was a brilliant effort. NZ lost all but one game, beating Germany in the play-off for 10th and 11th (8-6), their first win, after losing by 1 to Germany in the first round (10-11). They were competitive in every game, unlucky not to beat the Czech Republic after having 22 shots on goal to 11 but being thwarted by the brilliant Czech goalie. It was an impressive effort all up when one considers that NZ is new to the sport, this being their first U19 effort after debuting at the senior worlds in 2005. There are also a number of quality players at home who could not make the trip because of injury, other sporting commitments or cost. Of course such trips are not funded, each player spending $6000 for the trip! The top NZ team would have potentiall...

So then we hit the sequel to Luke, Acts. I like to call Acts, Luke 2 to illustrate that it is really a continuation of the same story on a fresh scroll. Acts is built around evangelism expressed in 1:8 in which Jesus tells the first disciples that they are to wait in Jerusalem to receive the Spirit which will empower them to be witnesses in Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. The story that unfolds speaks of this happening; chapters 1-8:4 centring on witness in Jerusalem; chapters 8-9 on the spread of the gospel through Judea and Samaria; 10-28 speaking of the spread of the gospel into the Gentile world and all the way to Rome. Acts is especially important because Luke tells us how the disciples sought to live out the injunctions of Christ which are found in his first volume, Luke. We see from the first that evangelism was a priority which was not to be sacrificed at any cost. For them it was a non-negotiable element of being Christian. This is seen at a numb...