Articles
“Honest & Humble Evangelism”
For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness.
1 Thessalonians 2:3-5
The defense of Christianity as objectively true, rationally compelling, and subjectively engaging plays an important role in evangelism. When engaging in apologetics, we are to persuade people of the truth of the gospel with rationally sound arguments. God calls us to love him with all our “mind,” as well as with our “heart” and “soul,” which necessitates an intellectual dimension to our devotion to God (Mt. 22:37). The Christian faith is a thinking, rational faith.
Since this is so, part of our approach to evangelism must be to help remove the intellectual obstacles that hinder others from coming to Christ. Therefore, apologetics is always in service to evangelism.
But we must be cautious. Our persuasion must not, as Paul puts it, “spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive.” The weapons we employ “are not of the flesh” but are spiritual in nature and have “divine power to destroy strongholds” of faulty “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:3-5). Therefore, we do not use personal threats, power plays, coercion or deception to achieve the goal of conversion. The means of evangelism must agree with the ends (conversion).
Instead, the methods we use to convince others flow from the Scriptures themselves. We speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15) with “wisdom from God” (1 Cor. 1:18-31) so that others may hear the gospel, believe it, and follow it. We tell the truth and leave the results to God who will judge the world in righteousness.
Jesus engaged in apologetics with his sharpest critics (for a series of good examples see Matthew 22). If he is our example in all things, we must follow his lead. Let us, as Jude says, “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jd. 1:3). But let us do so honestly and with the utmost integrity. “The bad man with a good argument is only half-clothed. One may have a sword (arguments) but lack a shield (godly character), and thus become vulnerable and ineffective.” (Groothuis, Christian Apologetics p. 37).
Paul told the young evangelist Timothy to keep a close watch on his life as well as his teaching (1 Tim. 4:16). Therefore, humility is also essential in evangelism. Humility is not, however, intellectual timidity or uncertainty. One can be humble and convicted of the truth at the same time. If we grow in our ability to persuade others without growing in the grace of humility, we will become arrogant which will undermine all our evangelistic efforts. Paul was well aware of this when he said, “we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (2 Cor. 4:7)
Another aspect of our humility in evangelism is our dependence on God through prayer. We cannot engage in anything for God without asking for his blessing and support first. Paul asked the Colossians to pray for his efforts to reach the lost (Col. 4:2-4). The church in Antioch prepared with prayer and fasting before sending Paul and Barnabas on their mission to preach the gospel throughout the Mediterranean world (Acts 13:1-3). We too must pray for wisdom when preparing to evangelize the lost.
Honesty and humility are indispensable to successful (i.e. biblical) evangelism. Success is not determined by the number of people converted but by whether or not we spoke the truth in love. We have been “entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts” (1 Thess. 2:4).
