What is evangelism? Mack Stiles, author of the book, “Evangelism,” defines the word ‘evangelism’ as “sharing the gospel with the aim to persuade.” I like this definition.
Evangelism is sharing the gospel. We sometimes think evangelism is only about showing Christ by the way we live. We should do that, but we have not evangelized by living out our Christian commitments in front of our friends, family, neighbors, or fellow church attenders.
Other times we think that evangelism is sharing our testimony. I love hearing other people’s testimonies. I like hearing how someone came to Christ, or about what God is doing currently in their lives. But our testimony does not usually contain the gospel.
We can confuse the idea of sharing the ABC’s as sharing the gospel. Yes, people need to (A) admit they are a sinner. They need to (B) believe in Christ. And they need to (C) confess Him as Lord. This is a simple way of sharing the process of receiving Christ’s gift of salvation. But the ABCs are not the gospel.
The gospel is the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ. I like to use this simple outline to help me share the key elements of this good news:
- God – God is our holy creator. Therefore, He deserves our love and worship.
- Man – Man is a sinner who has rebelled against God and His laws. We deserve judgement and death.
- Christ – Christ is the perfect Son of God who lived without sin, died on the cross as our substitute, and was raised on the third day as a sign of God’s acceptance of His perfect sacrifice.
- Response – To be saved we must respond by repenting of our sins and putting our trust in Christ.
If you can learn and use that simple outline you will become more and more comfortable sharing the gospel. And that is the starting point for evangelism. “Evangelism is sharing the gospel with the aim to persuade.”
We want to share the gospel not just as a means of passing on factual information about God, sin, Jesus, and judgment. We want to persuade people to believe. “When they had set a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in large numbers; and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening,” (Acts 28:23).
We want to compel people to follow Jesus. We want to appeal to people’s minds with the truth of the Bible, of God, of prophecy, and more. But we also want to appeal to people’s conscience which is done through the law of God. The purpose of God’s law is to show us His holy nature the sinful nature of man, and our need for a Savior. By using God’s law, we can appeal to the conscience and heart of those who do not know Christ.
Being devoted to evangelism means preparing ourselves for the opportunity to share the gospel. We should be ready at any time to share the good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We should learn to easily engage in conversations with people, and practice ways of turning the conversation toward the gospel by asking good questions and speaking confidently about God’s faithfulness in our own lives.
By His Grace and For His Glory,
Pastor Mark
