Evangelism
EVANGELISM
Getting the Message Through
John 4:3-42; Acts 28:30-31; Philippians 1:12-14; 2 Timothy 2:9
There are certain things in your life and mine that are inevitable. We have to go to office, to school, to workshop, to home duties; or we may be compelled by circumstance to sit on a park bench, unemployed. Evangelize that inevitable thing; find your opportunity in the ordinary contacts of the day. Then that day will no longer be ordinary, for the contacts are redemptive. You are turning the commonplace into the consequential. The little things of life become the big things, big with destiny. Life-contacts become life-changing. Nothing, absolutely nothing bigger under heaven than just that.
Victorious Living
(Week 39, Tuesday)
The Goal
Matthew 10:8; Mark 5:19; John 1:35-37; 20:28, 31; Colossians 1:18
The end of evangelism is to produce an evangelist. We must not be satisfied to get somebody “in”; we must be Satisfied only when they are getting someone else “in.” Then we have really started something that knows no end.
Victorious Living
(Week 40, Tuesday)
A Ladder to a Contagious Life
Psalm 51:12-13; Daniel 12:3; John 15:5, 16; Acts 8:26-39
To have the qualities of Jesus branded into our beings will not be enough unless we have the quality of contagion. For contagion makes these qualities outgoing and places them at the disposal of others. “No heart is pure that is not passionate; no virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic” (Sir John Robert Seeley, Ecce Homo [Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1868], 14). No life is Christian that is not Christianizing. If there is no outflow, the inflow automatically stops.
We must deliberately set ourselves to be spiritually creative. Perhaps [this step] will help you toward a contagious life. . . .
I shall have the will to evangelize. Hitherto the desire to evangelize has been in my mind and emotion; now it gets into my will. I have decided to share with others what has been shared with me.
Abundant Living
(Week 47, Monday)
Making the Secular into the Perfect
1 Thessalonians 4:7-12; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 10-11
Our greatest need is laypeople on fire with evangelism.
The Way
(Week 44, Thursday)
The Way Is the Way to Creative Contagion
1 Thessalonians 1:2-8
Evangelism is not something specially connected with an occupation, certain people set aside for it by vocation and occupation. It is not an occupation but an outcome. It is the outcome of the nature of the life itself. Inherent in all life is the impulse to create; life produces life. If it doesn’t create, it dies.
The Way
(Week 46, Sunday)
The Way Is the Way of Reconciliation
Ephesians 2:14-22
Second, Philip went beyond the apostles in his reconciling impact. His evangelism was what all evangelism should be—reconciliation. Through everything he did reconciliation runs. And that is the heart of evangelism.
The Way
(Week 46, Monday)
Evangelism the Life Blood of the Church
2 Timothy 4:1-5; Revelation 12:10-11; Daniel 12:3
As soon as one finds Christ, there is an impulse to find another and bring that person to Christ. In the first chapter of John are three “finds”: Andrew “finds” Peter, Jesus “finds” Philip, and Philip “finds” Nathaniel. The gospel is a gospel of “finding.”
As Jesse M. Bader says: “We have been ringing church bells when we should be ringing doorbells. . . . We have been doing by proxy what we should do by proximity . . . by purse what we should be doing in person (Jesse Moren Bader, Evangelism in a Changing America [St. Louis: Bethany Press, 1957], 99). . . .”
O Christ, you hast given me the greatest work in the world, the work of bringing others to you. Help me here and now to dedicate myself to that simple task, and help me to be faithful to that dedication. For nothing counts so much as this. In your name. Amen.
The Way
(Week 46, Saturday)
Acts 16:22-25
The very end of the atonement is to get us out of ourselves and released in loving service to others: “And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves” (2 Cor 5:15), a saving of one from the self. This is the central release. The end of evangelism is to produce an evangelist. We all propagate something. When people see us, they get a dominant impression: an impression of self-preoccupation, or an impression of serenity and poise, or an impression of conflict, or an impression of impurity. The dominant impression that we leave is our evangelism. So we are all evangelists, of something. If this be true, then I choose; I choose Christ. He shall be my evangelism. And this shall be not merely by act but by tongue as well. For if I act and do not speak, then I am a half-witness; just as I am a half-witness if I speak and do not act. To be a whole witness I must witness with my total life—deeds and tongue.
The Way to Power and Poise
(Week 45, Friday)
Not Proselytism, but Conversion
John 4:1-4
Find your evangelistic opportunity in the inevitable contacts you have to have day by day. Evangelism isn’t something imported into special weeks and special occasions; it must be the breath of the life. . . .
O God, give me the alert heart and the responsive will to find my evangelistic opportunity everywhere in my daily contacts. Help me to make it a natural part of my natural contacts. Amen.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 38, Friday)
Not in Till They Go Out
John 4:27-38
The end of evangelism is to produce an evangelist. A law of the mind is this: that which is not expressed dies.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 39, Friday)
Mending the Seamless Robe
1 Corinthians 12:15-21
Philip, to whom a secular task was assigned, made the secular and the sacred parts of one whole. For he put evangelism through the tableserving, and made tableserving a part of evangelism. All life spoke one message: the good news.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 42, Tuesday)
Matthew 28:18-20
Christianity is not merely a conception; it is also a contagion. And when the contagion is lost, then the conception too is lost. For you cannot long be evangelical if you are not evangelistic. It is a law of the mind that that which is not expressed dies. And if our Christianity is not expressed in evangelism, it soon dies as a fact within us. Nothing is really ours unless we share it. For the moment someone else shares our faith, then that faith means something more to us.
Evangelism is not then an imposition into particular days and weeks; it is part and parcel of our Christian faith. . . .
Evangelism, then, isn’t something that we can take or leave and nothing happens; it is something that, if we don’t take it, we lose the very faith itself. For the expression of the faith is of the essence of the faith.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 46, Sunday)
The Creative Spirit
Ephesians 3:7-9
If the church is reaching out in evangelism at home and missions abroad, there the Holy Spirit is at work in some measure. When the church ceases to lay its hands on its members to send them forth, then the hand of the Lord is not laid on the church in blessing and grace.
Mastery
(Week 21, Sunday)
They Have an Enthusiasm among Themselves
Colossians 1:3-7
The story goes that one time [the Rev. James Alexander Bryan, “Brother Bryan” of Birmingham, Alabama] sat listening to a speaker who was expounding how to do evangelism effectively. Brother Bryan grew restive under the flow of words and ideas; he went out of the meeting, across the street, and sat down with a workman who was eating his noonday lunch, and led him to Christ on the spot. He felt that the way to do evangelism was to do it. The theory was the practice. The fact is that the thing we believe in is the thing we practice. If we don’t believe in a thing enough to practice it, then we just don’t believe in it. The only way to do evangelism is to do it.
Mastery
(Week 37, Thursday)
An Old Tattooed Woman Won a Thousand
Acts 8:4-8
In [East Asia], I was told that . . . a grandmother, a member of the head-hunters, was converted and immediately began to convert others. . . .
If an [elderly person] can do [evangelism], then a child can do it too. A little boy of ten said, “Mother, I think I saved the soul of a policeman today.” “How?” asked the mother. “Well, he was so nice to me in taking me across the street that I said, ‘You’re so kind, you’re like a Christian. Are you one?’” Whether or not the policeman became a Christian, the little boy was more of a Christian by sharing his faith.
Mastery
(Week 37, Friday)
Three Cardinal Urges
Acts 2:46-47
There are three cardinal signs of the new life in Christ: (1) the desire to pray, (2) the urge to join with others in worship, (3) the desire to bring others to Christ. Without the last-named, there is no new life. For Christianity is a contagion as well as a conception. And if there is no contagion, there will soon be no conception. If a church or individual Christian loses its power to convert it has lost its right to be called Christian. If we cease to be evangelistic, we will soon cease to be evangelical, for it is a law of the mind that that which is not expressed dies.
Christian Maturity
(Week 45, Monday)
All of Us: Evangelists of Something
1 Timothy 4:1-2, 5
There are no private worlds; we belong to one another for good or ill. And we are all propagating something. Out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouths speaks, speak something. Some propagate a grouch; they spill over on those whom they meet and douse them with their grouches. That is their evangelism. Others propagate their sex. They play up their sex appeal—the low-cut dress, the silent yet clamorous invitations to look—sex is their evangelism. Others propagate themselves. They introduce the self into every conversation and into every situation. . . .
All of us are evangelists of something. Then I choose Jesus! You are as mature as the thing you propagate. The only way to be really mature is to propagate the highest Maturity—Jesus; then you become what you give out. You, as a person, are born of the qualities you habitually give out.
You don’t have to be a saint to make Jesus your evangelism. You are not proclaiming a perfect proclaimer, but a perfect Savior. You are pointing to him, not to you. And the Savior is presented as the Savior of the proclaimer . . . as well as the Savior of those to whom you proclaim the Savior. The Evangel evangelizes the evangelists in the process of evangelization. Inwardly you go to people on your knees.
You don’t have to be a saint to share Jesus, but you do have to be sincere. We are all imperfect proclaimers of a perfect Savior. But in proclaiming the perfect we tend to become more perfect.
Christian Maturity
(Week 45, Tuesday)
Not in Until They Get Out
The only real proof of being in Christ is that we are getting others into Christ. The only proof of our being alive is that we are creating life. Nothing is ours until we share it. The end of evangelism is to produce evangelists. We really haven’t got people “in” unless they immediately begin to bring others in. They are not “in” until they go “out.”
In Christ
(Week 23, Sunday)
Damning Others Instead of Rescuing the Damned
Jude 19:21
Often evangelicalism itself, instead of propagating itself by evangelism and producing changed lives, makes its stock in trade, criticism, not conversion; damning others instead of rescuing the damned.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 32, Tuesday)
“It Is Inherent for the Christian to Propagate His Faith”
Matthew 10:7-8
We now come to the consideration of the Word become flesh and evangelism. An interesting incident took place when India’s new constitution was being passed in the National Legislature. In the portion where it says that each individual has “the right to profess, practice, and propagate his faith,” that word “propagate” was a question mark to many. In the midst of it, a Hindu said this, “To the Christian it is inherent to propagate his faith. If he is faithful to his faith he must propagate his faith. So if you do not allow him to propagate his faith you do not allow him to profess and practice his faith.” That argument swung the situation and it was adopted. The Hindu saw clearly that to propagate our faith is inherent in being Christian. Then why don’t all Christians do it? I can only testify.
I underwent a half-conversion and joined the church. A revival came on. I was urged to win someone. I tried but was rebuffed by my own lack of having anything to give. It was my first and my last attempt to win someone, until I had found something for myself. What I said was the Word become word. Then came the real thing; I found a conversion for myself, the real thing. The word of conversion became flesh. Then conversions began to happen right and left. . . .
When I tried to win others with the word of conversion become word, it was a failure. When the Word became flesh, it was a success.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 43, Sunday)
I Know That My Redeemer Liveth
Acts 5:40-42
We are looking at the motive for missions and evangelism. The only adequate motive is based on what God has done. God went on a mission, was the first missionary; God came to us to redeem us. Then when we do the same, we are in line with what God has done and is doing. God is still coming; God is still a missionary and an evangelist. God asks us to do only what God has done and is still doing. When God stops missionary activities so will I. Until then I keep on, not specially elated by success nor depressed by failure; they are irrelevant. To be true to what I see God doing in Jesus Christ is the only relevancy.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 44, Wednesday)