The danger of evangelism

Dangerous evangelism

The Believers' Prayer

23On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

”‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the Lord
and against his Anointed One. 27Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people^[c] of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

31After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Acts 4:23-31

I remember talking to a friend one time, about the nature of evangelism nowadays and back in the days of the apostles. I remember him asking me "Why is it that during the Apostles era, everyone was so hated because of the gospel?" and he said “if the message in Acts were "good news" why were they so hated?”

Personally, I never experience people bashing me up or truly hating me for telling them the gospel. When I think about it, I don't ever recall sharing something worth hating. The message that I’ve been sharing to my friends are those of God’s blessings and kindness. The gospel that I had been sharing with my friends is those which I think is relevant and easier for them to understand. But is that truly the gospel that the apostles were boldly proclaiming. Does it actually need boldness to proclaim something that is good that is not challenging and is actually relevant?

Well, that friend of mine showed me a chart of Acts and that chart has a list and comparison and the number of times such and such message were proclaimed. While looking at that list, I noticed the message that we always hear now is the message that is rarely mentioned by the apostles. The apostles were boldly proclaiming the gospel of Jesus as king, His death and resurrection, and His second coming and that of repentance. Now isn't that weird? Rather than proclaiming about the specifics and preaching sermons about current issues at the time, the apostles were thinking of the big picture, the one true and only message that never change throughout history. It’s not that they are not concerned about everyday issues, but because they know very well that proclaiming the gospel is never about being relevant, it’s about proclaiming the Truth, whether it is relevant or not is not for us to judge. The apostles are convicted that the Truth is the only thing that can set them free from the bondage of sin which caused them the agony that they suffered.

And what is that truth?

The truth is that the gospel about love, blessings and anything that is good about God will always include Jesus Christ on the cross, His resurrection and His kingship, it's inseparable. The truth is that to fully understand God's love for us, we need to understand that He is just. We need to accept the both God in the Old Testament and the New Testament. We need to understand His kingship and ownership of us that we are fully His never vice versa; to believe in Him, we have to come in His own terms not ours. And I have to admit, this is something that is often lacking from the "gospel" that I share with most of my friends. It’s easier for me to tell others that God is a loving God, He is kind and He wants us to go back to Him, without actually mentioning of the seriousness of sin and the death and punishment that follows.

Realistically, this kind of message is something that many Christians are ashamed of, and reasonably so for that it’s not something that is normal or logical for the world to accept, this concept of love and the depth of it cannot be seen anywhere else except in the Bible. We can only pray that God would give us fear and reverence that will guide us to wisdom and understanding of the Lord.

One thing is for sure, when we try to mild down the gospel, the message is no longer important, and the focus shift from God to man; but when we are truly convicted by it and boldly proclaiming it, we will find God’s amazing hands at work in people’s life, and then we can truly learn that we are nothing without God.

For further reading I would like to recommend this article in Christianity Today website http://www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/areas/biblestudies/articles/080423.html.