This is another part of my “What is missional church” series … I’ve done so many now, but I think this is number 7! See parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
There has been so good comments and discussion on a post about a church day we had on our “vision” or direction that we are travelling in. There have been some great comments asking: as we serve or bless people should we talk about Jesus? So here are some thoughts, to provoke some discussion, on our role …
Nowhere does the NT describe the apostles of Jesus, or the Christians in the books of Acts doing evangelism. Not a reference. Zip. Nothing. Don’t believe me? Do a word search for “evangelism” in the NIV … or the New Living, KJV, New KJV, Living Bible, NASB … I got bored after that … But tell me if I am wrong …
OK I am being a bit provocative, but let me explain a bit …
What the apostles did do according the NIV is “preach the gospel” … this is a Greek word “evangelizo” which is where we get our word evangelise. But this word is actually means: “to bring a message of good news”.
Lets imagine someone is throwing a party: a fabulous 5 course sit down meal, fine wine, great music, and excellent conversation. And you are invited. One problem, you don’t know about the party yet … so someone invites you to the party, they tell you where it is being held, when, and how to get there. They are “evangelizo” … bringing you some good news of party.
Jesus tells a parable about a wedding banquet a King was holding for his son. Those who had been invited wouldn’t come, so the King sent his servants to the street corners to “invite to the banquet anyone who would come” (Mt 22:1-10). That’s “evangelizo“.
And that just seems to different from “preaching the gospel” …
The other thing the apostles did was to “witness”. For me that also doesn’t always have positive connotations, but really what they were doing was telling people what they “have seen and heard” (Act 22:15). They were to talk about Jesus, what they had seen him do or heard him say. There were to bear witness of what happened, what they saw, their experience of Jesus. Now what does that mean for us?
I think that means that we talk about Jesus has done for us. We tell stories of what Jesus means to us, stories of the change He has brought in us, of how important Jesus is to us, of what has said and done in us. We are witnesses to God’s activity in our lives and we tell others what we see and hear.
So here’s what I think we do: we invite people to best the party ever, and we tell stories about what Jesus has done in us. And this is part of being missional church.
What do you think?
Tags: Emerging Church, Evangelism, Kingdom of God, Missio Dei, Mission, Missional Church, Preaching
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I agree!
I’m a little confused though – I think maybe I’ve been interpreting the word ‘evangelism’ to mean something it’s not. For me, ‘witnessing’ and ‘evangelism’ are what you’ve described in terms of inviting people to the party and sharing our lives/our stories with those around us, being open about the faith that we have. When I think of ‘sharing the gospel’, i don’t envisage formal preaching at people, but being ‘prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’ (1 Peter 3:15). A much more relational approach. Showing that Jesus is central to our lives. Creating opprotunities. Encouraging people to seek, to question, to think. Praying earnestly that their eyes may be opened. Not dictating but facilitating?
I’m not really sure what evangelism is if not this? Are you referring to the more confrontational, cold-contact approach?
I try not to ‘preach’ at my friends, but be as open as I can about my experiences of God, what i learnt at church etc etc, and in so doing hope that maybe by the grace of God, despite my constant failings, every so often they might respond to something i’ve said or be made to think about faith and what they believe. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?
Liz
Great post.
I think to summarize, we need to look at what Jesus said and did, and then what the first Christians said and did.
They shared their stories, they shared God stories, and they shared their lives.
They proclaimed truth, but they didn’t do it like they where in a science lab or taking a linguistics course. They simply shared who God is and what He had done for them.
They didn’t pass out tracks.
They didn’t preach against sin (Paul corrected sin, but his preaching was all about Jesus and his great love for us).
They didn’t hide
They didn’t drag people into the temple to make them listen to some pop songs and a 40 minute message.
They didn’t invite people to church.
Obviously they reached their culture within their context.
But then so should we; and what we define as evangelism isn’t working.
Gotta get ready to share some stories…
Totally agree Rupert and Liz.
I don’t forcefully preach to others, instead I pray for God to give me the right opportunity to spread the good news, and He always delivers.
Yesterday I was at my mum’s whose anti-God, anti-church and anti-Christian (although she still loves me), I was wearing a T-shirt with the word FROG on it. She commented on it and I told her it stands for Fully Rely On God, and there was my chance to talk about Jesus. She is still shocked that I’ve become a Christian as do most people who knew me, but they see a positive change in me and my commitment to Jesus. That has to be a good form of witnessing/evangelism.
David, I like the gist of what you say but want to pushback/comment on a couple of points, if I may!
“They didn’t preach against sin” – as you say, Paul wrote about sin (as did James, and Peter, and Jude, and the author of Hebrews). Jesus himself was the first to preach against sin. And whatever the Apostles wrote, or Jesus said, we can rest assured the early church would have publicly read, retold and discussed. So in what didn’t they preach against sin? Am I misunderstanding you here?
“They didn’t invite people to church.” — by this I assume you mean that non-Christians were not invited to church? I would say that 1 Corinthians does contain instructions regarding how the assembled church should conduct itself in case a non Christian joins them.
“They didn’t drag people into the temple to make them listen to some pop songs and a 40 minute message.” –> good point. Rather, they went to where the people where already, such as the Temple, the Synagogue, the Marketplace, the Debating Hall (Mars Hill), etc. This is what I always ask myself: what are the gathering places of modern society? Trouble is, if we follow Paul’s example, perhaps we should be starting riots by our incessant preaching…Talk about not being seeker sensitive!
Hi Rupert. Not sure I follow you on this one, not on a historical and literary level at least. Surely, in 1st C biblical terminology, preaching the gospel = evangelism. I can’t think of any other way to define it. Yes, I agree, they didn’t go through all of towns and villages and hand out tracts, but then no-one is arguing for that, are they?
What I would say if that most of the Apostles had very much a “come to us” attitude, until persecution broke out against the church. Paul seemed like one of the first to actually plant churches outside of Jerusalem. The rest of them still seemed like Zionists, not fully grasping the vastness of God’s salvation plan.
But that aside, the Apostles continually preached the good news, the gospel, which is what evangelism is.
All of this boils down to: “What is the gospel?”, something we have both blogged on recently. I haven’t finished on this topic, and the more I read about it, the more I see that “the gospel” (the Good News) is a general catch-all phrase used by the Evangelists to mean various elements in the story of God’s Kingdom coming.
I’m not sure I follow the reference to the Parable. The Parable was an illustration of the rejection of (most of) ethnic Israel and the inclusion of the gentiles in the Kingdom of God. This is part of the gospel that we take for granted — the fact that non-Jews get to enter into the Kingdom at all was huge news 2000 years ago! As a message to the church, I suppose we can read the parable as a story of God’s lavish love and the willingness to include all that will come into his Kingdom. That is one slant on the gospel, and sharing that is evangelism, and that is surely part of what the Evegangelists and Apostles preached and shared.
So not sure what you mean when you say they didn’t evangelise?
Good point Alastair!
I tell you where I think the gathering places of modern society is, it’s in the pubs, at music festivals, popular holiday resorts and at football matches.
I’m not sure what crowds of people would think about a small group of Christians spreading the good newsat these places, but Jesus said be shrew when spreading the news (although I can’t find that in the bible at the mo), maybe we should not fear the possibility of a riot and just get out into these modern society gatherings and invite these people to the party.
Maybe I’m reading you wrong Rupert, but it looks like you are almost making a terminological argument:
“What the apostles did do according the NIV is “preach the gospel” … this is a Greek word “evangelizo” which is where we get our word evangelise. But this word is actually means: “to bring a message of good news”.”
That doesn’t make sense to me. They didn’t evangelise, but the word used in the Greek is the same as the root word for evangelism? Are you not splitting hairs there?
My basic view would be that the church, in the broadest sense of the word, has got caught up in presentation of the Gospel not in actually living it out. In a sense, there needs to be a balance, e.g. listen to this talk/song/watch this play/film/read this book and see if you can understand why I’m doing what I’m doing.
Ultimately, if we are to see people come to Christ, there needs to be a communication of belief and not just a demonstration of a lifestyle of worship, living as Jesus would. We are also charged to be messengers and to point the way to heaven, but by our actions alone can’t bring people into the Kingdom.
I suspect I haven’t communicated this very well (oh, the irony!).
I’ve been really thinking about this topic today!! I very much agree with the above posts. Just a couple of things I thought I might add…
1 Corinthians 9:16-23 –> “Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it. Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.”
And, Mark 1:38-39 –> “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so that I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”
I guess this backs what Matthew said about the need for a communication of belief, not just a demonstration of lifestyle – although definately the latter prompts the former.
Just another thing quickly…I do something called (now everyone’s going to cringe and pour out objections about this) Street Evangelism, which is run by the Christian Union at university. It’s great…we even have tracts……!! The difference is though: We do not confront people, we do not insist on talking about God to every person who comes to us. We are simply there, outside the Student Union bars on a Friday night (11pm-2am), with some free hot chocolate and biscuits, giving them to whoever wants them, chatting to people about general day-to-day stuff, and if they ask us questions, only then will we share our thoughts on faith. It’s amazing…the number of conversations we’ve had with students is phenomenal.
We are simply creating opportunities for people to talk about faith. People know who we are. We are a constant presence. If people wake up one morning overwhelmed with the apparent meaningless or complexities of life, they know where they can begin to find some answers if they so desire.
I was chatting to one of the guys who does it, and he says someone came up to him and took a drink and then said “Go on, preach at me then!”. The guy said that he wasn’t going to do that because that wasn’t what he was there for. The person who took the drink couldn’t believe that he was going to be allowed to walk away, biscuits and all, without having to listen to a load of waffle about Jesus. What happened next? The person compeletely opened up about life, faith, struggles etc. haha!
People are so, so thirsty for truth – they just need to be allowed to approach it in their own free will. Another story – someone took a booklet from the drinks stall home…the next week someone came to the drinks table asking for the same book…they’d seen their friend’s and wanted one for themselves.
Done in the right way, i think that literature can be useful and effective. I wonder whether if the apostles had the ability to mass-produce literature like we do, they would have stuffed a few copies of the bible, or a booklet of sayings of Jesus or eye-witness reports about the resurrection into their tunic pockets when they went off “to the nations” to preach the gospel just in case they felt it would be useful for someone they were speaking to…?
So sorry for the extreme length of this comment! I really ought to get back to revision….oops!
Street Evangelisms great
, we want to do that here for our youth. The problem we have is not enough people to do it. Also we want to put Prayer Request cards every week in all the pubs, shops, libraries (usual public places) and then collect them at the end of the week.
Amen!!! Liz
Now you’re talking! I have done something very similar, Liz, and as you say its not about “preaching at them” but about being available, hanging out on the streets, and being there to chat, listen, and in that context, share something of the gospel, or at least point them in the right direction, or prayer with them, etc.
At the end of the day, many Christians (and I include myself) are afraid of what other people think, and have no zeal or boldness to speak of. That’s why they don’t evangelise. To hide this, they make up so-called spiritual reasons as to why they don’t ever share the gospel. “Its not my gift” is one of the classic ones I have personally heard countless times. If you read Acts, the constant prayer is for “boldness” … and if the Apostles needed to pray for boldness, we should be praying that even more so!
The one downside of street evangelism is that we found its almost impossible to do any follow-up. Its very much a narrow window of opportunity, and often “seed sowing”, rather than “reaping”.
Thanks for the comments everyone … i may make a few comments to each comment, but i wanted to make this general response first.
OK, I was being a bit (deliberately) provacative. And maybe i am critiquing a older version of “evangelism” that isn’t as common today …
I think the one the main points i was trying to make was the “preach the gospel” isn’t a great translation for the word “evangelizo”. Of course i am not saying that the apostles didn’t talk about Jesus; I am more making a comment about how we do that, rather than if should we be doing that.
I am not a great fan of the word “preach” … here is one dictionary definition of preach: “To advocate, especially to urge acceptance of or compliance with”. That I think is often the connotation that many people have of preaching or evangelism … especially people who aren’t Christians – they expect us to preach, with an urging to accept or comply. I don’t like being preached at … i don’t like being urged to accept or comply with what someone else is saying … so why would I expect others to like it any more than me?
BUT, if we see it more of an invitation (as i think the word really means) that changes it for me …
There are Christian groups that believe we must “proclaim” the gospel … this proclamation is essential. I agree with you matthew we must speak and live out. I am suggesting a different kind of speaking from the proclamation method. Inviting. Story-telling. It is more respectful, more loving, represents Jesus better, disarming, caring, honoring etc. And I think it will be more fruitful. And more Biblical.
I think too, i am trying to broaden the appeal of “evangelism” … many Christians don’t like the word … or the connotations. Many aren’t into the more blatant forms of it. But i think all could invite, and tell stories…
I am concerned that those get put off the crusade / cold-contact form, just stop talking about Jesus … lets find something that we can all do: tell some stories … invite people to a party.
Thanks Liz for the comment … i think you are right i am critiqing a more confrontational approach … a preaching approach. See my comment below.
I think you last paragraph is exactly what i am talking about: that is story telling and people love stories …
Great comment David … i think that is exactly what i am saying. In fact i think you say it so much better … hope the story telling goes well…
On the comments you make alastair / tayna … I think you are absolutely right about being where the crowds are. I am sure that a few people who weren’t christians came to the churches gatherings, but i think they were the exception rather than the rule (so the comments in 1 Cor 14 where IF someone who isn’t a Christian…).
In the main, i think the people stayed away (cf. Acts 5 … fear spread after annanias and saphira, and people didn’t go near …). So we need to go to them …
Jesus seemed to model this well: he hung out with people, ate with them, played poker with them (oh no, not that one actually…)
I think my point is the preaching the gospel isn’t a good translation of the word … see my comment below. I think the traditional approach of evangelism does need to change, to be something more relational, story telling, invitational, respectful. I guess i am wondering about a change in terminology too … there are too many people (both Christians and non-Christians) that hate the word evangelism.
I totally agree about the “come to us” approach that i think needs to change as we rapidly speed into post-Christendom.
On the parable, i was using it a picture … of the inviting to a party, which i think it partly what Jesus is alluding to. yes the point was the invitation is a very wide invitation to the gentiles etc … But the Kingdom of God (the good news) is like a King who holds a wedding banquet for his son …
I remember Tony Campolo writing a book called: “the Kingdom of God is a party” … which has always captured my imagination …
Good comment Matthew – thanks. Yes … i am making a terminology argument, as well as methodolical one.
I think what we have done is bring a greek word into common usage. But in time the root meaning of the greek word is lost, and we just have the common usage of the new word (evangelism), which can be a long way away from its orginal mean. Preaching the gospel doesn’t seem to capture the meaning either.
It is rather similar to baptise, which i am know you know (but for the sake of others reading!) comes from “baptidzo” … which really means to immerse or dip. We have lost that meaning with the way baptise is most frequently used in the church today (although that is changing). If we substitued “invite” every time we read “preach the gospel” i think we might nearer to the true meaning of the word.
I thoroughly agree about speaking and living. I think i am trying to make the point that we do need to speak, but maybe that isn’t about someone standing up on a sunday morning (or friday night) in a large gathering “preaching the gospel” but us over a beer, or coffee, or meal, or while watching the football, telling our story of Jesus.
I think you have communicated well … thanks.
Thanks Tayna and Liz. I am glad that this has been thought provoking Liz … that is one of the main reasons why i do this … not so every one agrees with me (which they clearly won’t and don’t!!!!), but to get us thinking, including me! I hope i didn’t distract you too much from your exams.
I think you are making a great point about people coming of their own free will. That is my point about the word “preach” … see my comment below. I don’t think it is a good translation … that is why i like the word invite. It allows people to make a choice if they want to come.
Just to make clear too … for the verse that you bring about Jesus is very helpful. I think we could translate:
“I must go elsewhere, to the nearby villages, to announce the Kingdom of God has come, and to invite them to be part of it. To inaugurate the Kingdom is why i have come.”
Rupert, you’re going to have to help me out here. I still don’t understand the driving force of this argument.
I am not Greek scholar, but my understanding is that the English word “gospel” is used for the Greek word euangelion, a word that simply means good news (of the best kind, eg. “we’ve won the war”, rather than a mundane, “its sunny today”). The Greek word, apparently, for “to preach” is euaggelizo. And the Greek word for evangelist is euaggelistes. Now I know etymology isn’t the be and end all of meaning, but surely we can conclude that all these words are talking about the same thing.
=> “preaching” is the proclamation of the Good News
=> the “gospel” is the Good News
=> an evangelist is one who proclaims the Good News
=> and therefore by implication, evangelism is the activity of proclaiming the good news.
Now, I think you are saying that opening our King James bibles and shouting verses at people about penal substitution and hell without their leave is not evangelism as carried out by the apostles.
If you are, then you are critiquing two distinct modern practices:
– a particular style and method of communicating the Message
– the content of the Message itself.
You are, then, suggesting that the way we “present” or “share” or “proclaim” the gospel is not the way the Apostles did the same; and you are saying that the very Message we present is not the same one preached either.
(Am I right so far?)
If you are saying this, then we have two different issues here:
1) Of Contextualisation. Just because the Apostles did something in a particular way, or even told a particular story, does not necessarily imply that we should do the same. This is the domain of cultural relevancy, of contextualisation, and of post-modern mission. If you are saying we need to heed all of this, then I completely agree. The very Greek words used to describe what the Apostles did (preaching) indicates that they did not share stories or pitch up and listen to everyone. Presumably this is because proclaiming a message about God was very much in vogue in their culture. I grant this point. But I would imagine that the reason they were “preaching” was not to talk down to people, but was in direct response to the historical events that had unfolded before their very eyes. If a dead man appears to a group of your friends and it turns out he is alive and is the God and King of the Universe, this is not just some personal story that is shared over a cup of coffee. They “preached” because they were proclaiming a life-changing universe-shattering event which they were witnesses to.
One thing I do note is that as the gospel went further from Jerusalem, we begin to read of Paul “reasoning” and debating with people in the synagogue.
But I don’t think we can escape from the fact that as Christians we are bearing witness to the most revolutionary event (Resurrection) and amazing implications (Kingdom now) that the world has ever or will ever hear of. I suggest its the nature of the Message itself that drives the gospel-writers to use words like “preach”. By definition, good news is so exciting and so amazing that it is by definition “preached” — declared, shouted out, enthusiastically presented. It makes no sense to maintain something is good news, and then only to mutter about it if someone pesters you long enough.
HOWEVER, having said all of that, perhaps post-modern contextualisation requires us to listen first, to share, to speak with humility. I get all that. As long as we hold it in tension with the basic meaning of what sharing good news is all about.
2) Of Content. Its clear to me that the Apostles talked about the death and resurrection of Jesus. When Paul in 1 Cor says
“Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you,”
he goes on to say only
“that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day…”
its curious to note he doesn’t say
“that heaven is a party and you’re all invited”
or
“remember that Jewish concept called Shalom? Its available now”
So, the death and resurrection of Jesus as an act of atonement in continuity with the Jewish scriptures forms the core of the historical gospel. I see this as an indisputable historical fact!
So if you are claiming that to speak about such things is not in congruency with what the apostles or early church said, I would respond that history seems to say otherwise!
Hi Rupert. Thanks for clarifying your position. I’ve commented in detail to your response above…just wanted to pick up on one thing here:
I think the one the main points i was trying to make was the “preach the gospel” isn’t a great translation for the word “evangelizo”.
Don’t want to repeat myself, but you’re going to have to expand a little on this, as I stated above, it seems to me that this is a 100% accurate textbook definition of what the Greek word meant. I would expect that someone doing a transliteration would use those very words to gloss said Greek words. Indeed I would expect the Greek lexicons to have those definitions. For example:
“The relevant Greek words are evangelizo, used 55 times, evangelion, used 77 times, and evangelistes, used 3 times. In Greek, eu means “good” and angelos (nearly always translated “angel”) means “messenger,” “one who is sent in order to announce, teach, or perform anything” (E.W. Bullinger Lexicon). The idea conveyed by the evangelizo word group is that of proclaiming a good message, or good news. “
Hi ya’all,
Thanks for your patience as I haven’t been able to check much and sometimes things happen rather quickly.
Alastair,
To address your questions, I must first say I was painting with some broad brush strokes to make a general point. You bring up some great questions so I’ll clarify a bit…
Jesus, Paul, etc etc, all did ‘preach against’ sin – if you want to put it that way. Paul seems to be clear that he ‘preaches Jesus crucified…’ thus I like the terms, ‘correct’, or ‘educate’. Most of the time Paul is addressing a specific question or practice at a local church that needs some guidance.
But if you look at Paul, or even more importantly the life and words of Jesus, the correcting was done in the light of the knowledge of Christ. Jesus healed, and then said, “Go and sin no more…”
Today, for too many times, we try and correct the outside to look good, or attempt to correct the outside of others to look good so they ‘fit in’ in church. We correct the behavior before Christ is revealed and therefore we fall into some sort of humanistic behavior modification rather than letting Jesus transform us from glory to glory.
Paul was very clear, even in ‘preaching against sin’ that Jesus was the one and only prize. It wasn’t not to sin, but to follow Christ who changes us.
So my point is, is that we should always point others to Christ…not away from sin. Christ will do the rest. We can disciple, but not modify behavior. If I say, “Don’t think of pink elephants!” What to you think of?
If I try and get someone to quite cocaine, and bring them to Christ, I don’t say, “Don’t think of cocaine!”, because if that’s all they try not to think about, that what they end up thinking about, and then they ‘fail’.
I’m probably beating a dead horse, because I think I’m preaching to the choir.
To more quickly answer your other good question… I’m sure people were invited to church (which looked a helluva lot more different than the corner church today) but today evangelism is the 4 spiritual laws and pray they show up at church. Like it’s some big accomplishment if they actually do come! And in todays society I guess it is. But you are correct in your last statement, that we must bring Jesus to them, because even if Jesus lived in the four walls of church (and He does) they usually don’t come anyway…
To add on to your points about the gospel…IMHO, the gospel is the good news…and the good news is that Jesus came bringing the Kingdom of God and to destroy the works of the devil. It includes, but is much more than simple personal salvation.
I hope that’s not too long. hehe
Thanks for the response, David. I understand what you are getting at now!
One thing you mention: “today evangelism is the 4 spiritual laws” — I would counter that by saying that is not true with the people I have done organised evangelism with, and it is not true for me either. I have been a Christian for 10 years and never even heard the 4 spiritual laws (I am in the UK). My understanding is that the 4 spiritual laws was a technique used with much success in U.S. campus ministries in the 1980′s.
Good comment Alastair. Thanks for taking the time to reply so thoroughly and engage in this fruitful conversation.
So to clarify and respond:
1. The Greek word “evangelion” is, so I understand, a composite of two words … one is good news as you rightly say. The other is the word that we get angel … or messenger. So I think it really means “to bring a message of good news”. I don’t think there is much debate on the “good news” bit … at least the translation here. So i guess we are talking about the meaning of “bring a message”.
I see no reason to make that preach … it doesn’t seem to me to be the meaning of the word. I think we have interpreted it as “preach” as that is what made sense to us in our culture over the last few centuries, but isn’t the true meaning of the word. I think “announce” would be a good phrase …or “to make known” … “to bring a message” … all of those would be better translations, in my opinion.
As you say later, I don’t really have a problem in seeing it as “preaching” if that is appropriate in a particular culture, as long as we don’t insist on that being the true meaning. I just don’t think it is appropriate in our postmodern culture.
2. I think, as I have said elsewhere, the good news is the good news of Kingdom. So i think you could see the word as an announcement that the Kingdom of God has come. However, it does seem it is more than just an announcement that the King has come … but something of an invitation to “enter” the Kingdom. Hence, i think to use the word invite is actually a good translation … an invitation to participate in the Kingdom.
3. My main point here is about the methodoly of communicating the message, rather than the message itself. I have written previously about how i think the good news was about the Kingdom, rather than a very definition of the gospel = forgiveness of sins.
4. I love you words on contextualisation. Great. Fantastic! I really agree. I am certainly not saying we should be passionless in our communicating about the Kingdom – infact the opposite. BUT i do think that we should do so with respect, and not foisting something on others. For me words like “preach” and “proclamation” don’t have good connotations. But yes, absolutely lets “invite” and “tell stories” (which i incidently I feel should be stories of what God is doing and saying to me or you) with conviction and passion.
5. As i have stated elsewhere, i think the whole Christ-event, including the cross and resurrection, is essential in the bringing of the Kingdom. So i agree with much of what you saying in the last past of your comment. i guess i am wanting to start with Jesus, and what he talked about. The Christ-event was to bring in, or usher in, the Kingdom … the rule of God bringing shalom (or peace with justice as mentioned in another post).
It almost seems like we might agree alastair … what do you think????
Hi Alastair … i have responded pretty thoroughly above … i hope that clarifies what i am thinking at the moment?
David – thanks for clarifying. Great stuff … it really helps all the wrestling we are doing here on the gospel.
Alastair … thanks for the info re. the 4 spiritual laws … i actually couldn’t tell you want they are!
But i guess one i have heard in the UK is ABC? Have you heard that one?
Accept
Believe
Confess
It just seems so trite and simplistic (although i am not saying there isn’t some truth in there!).
A perfect example of one culture crossing another!
In our cirlces on this side of the pond, we always refer to the 4 spiritual laws as something that just doesn’t work now days….
Although you are correct it was very successful in it’s day.
It’s the example we can use here and have everyone go…”oooohhhhhh” because they understand what that means.
In your case…I have heard of, but don’t know much about the ABC but I’m guessing it’s similiar?
Is that an Alpha Group thing?
Yes indeed … although i think we mostly do a good job of understanding one another!!
I think the ABC predates Alpha, but i think it is found in some of the Alpha literature. There are some good points … it is pretty simple for people to remember, but it does seem a bit simplistic to me! … and probably too formulaic. How do we really introduce people to Jesus, rather than a set of beliefs????
Hi Rupert – responding to your points
1 – OK I double checked the Greek for this one. Where our English bibles say “gospel” or “good news”, the Greek has euangelion . This breaks down into two words, thus:
eu — good, benign
angelion — messenger, herald
So as a noun, eu-angelion means “good news”.
However it contains within it the nuance of heralding, or proclaiming, because that is what an angelion is. An “angelion” does not arrive to listen to people; on the contrary he or she arrives with a message to tell! (Note, I am not talking about how to evangelism, simply trying to get agreement on what these words meant in 1stC!)
Concerning the verb “evangelizomai”, this must mean “the act of bringing good news”. I concede here that to define this as “preach good news”, as is often done, may be going beyond the warrant of the text. I think this is the word that was traditionally translated “bring good tidings”. I would accept that “announce”, and “make known” are equally good translations. I would note however, that there are reference works floating about which maintain the definition is “preach the gospel”. I would also comment that the problem is probably with the modern understanding of “preaching” rather than the definition per se.
I would add though, that most of the time the New Testament puts eu-angelion in conjuction with kerussein/kerusso. I’ve actually preached on this in the past, and I can report that this word means preach/proclaim/herald/announce. If you think it doesn’t, I am open to see the evidence!
Going beyond etymology into exegesis, this theme is confirmed and re-enforced by secular and Jewish usages of this word group. See, for example: New Perspectives on Evangelism:
Insights from Biblical Theology.
2 – I cannot agree with this. I don’t see modern scholarship (or traditional scholarship for that matter) supporting this claim. I can’t think of anything Wright has written. Here’s some quotes:
“In a similar vein as Pauline scholars such as Wright, Walter Brueggeman argues that evangelism is best understood as a message about a cosmic victory by God.”
“According to Wright, the gospel is a message about who is king: Jesus.”
“As Wright says, “’the gospel’ itself, strictly speaking, is the narrative proclamation of King Jesus.”
(All quotes from the link above)
I just don’t think you get all of the above if you reduce the gospel to the Kingdom.
The thing is, I agree with you, that the gospel is not and should not be a trite method of “how to get saved”. But, on the other hand, its not just about a new era of Shalom that has floated in either! Given that Chalke apparently got most of his ideas about the Kingdom from Wright, I’d rather go back to his statements when it comes to understanding the Kingdom.
3/4 – I think we are in broad agreement here. I think that in Pauline contexts, the Apostle sees the gospel “preached” because he is thinking of a church assembly, or an opportunity to speak at a synagogue. Outside of those appropriate contexts, I think we see much more “witnessing” and “debating”. I am certainly not advocating standing in the street and shouting words of judgement from Revelation, in an attempt to “preach the gospel”!
5 – its clear that different NT authors used the word gospel in different ways. If you want to start with Jesus, perhaps we should not forget Jesus’ own statement about his mission: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. Again, Wright has argued that Jesus saw the Suffering Servant role as key to his mission. The Christ-Event was indeed to usher in the Kingdom, but the whole point of the Kingdom is that the God himself is going to turn up and sort things out. Jesus is King, and has turned up to defeat evil and usher in God’s new age. The primary way this was accomplished, according to the bible, is by his perfect life leading to his suffering unjust death (and by implication, his resurrection).
I rather suspect that if you look up every time the gospel is implied or defined in the New Testament, you will always see Jesus and his death as central themes. Because of this, I am rather wary of any attempt to redefine the gospel to mean anything else.
My only concession would be that, since the biblical writers had a variety of nuances concerning the gospel, I can see that it is OK for us to come up with different nuances and different slants, to suit our own contexts. But I think there is only so far you can go from the biblical definition before you are no longer using the same word, so to speak. Like the popular understanding of the gospel, as a way to get to heaven, is in a narrow way correct, but is not really the same thing as what Paul, or Mark, or others talked about when they used the same word.
Cheers, have responded above!
And here was me thinking ABC stood for Airway-Breathing-Circulation!
Still, fairly simplistic application of the latter ABC has saved literally millions of lives by now, so ……… lol
On the other hand, to become an expert in practising ABC, i.e. an anaesthetist/emergency/acute medicine consultant, requires 14 years at school, 5 years at university and at least 7? years of postgraduate training. But it’s still ABC.
I may manage that ABC, but I doubt whether even on my deathbed I’ll yet be an expert in accepting, believing in and confessing Jesus’ lordship…
Anyway, enough playing devil’s(?!) advocate!
On the question, What is the gospel? Albo, I’m afraid I have to side firmly with Rupert on this one. Almost every time JESUS refers to the gospel, it is “the good news of the Kingdom of God/Heaven”. Of course, what all is packaged up in that statement is a far greater and broader matter, and from what Jesus is recorded as saying, it encompasses a wide range of things. And if you also add in what the authors of the New Testament thought, you treble or quadruple that.
Hi Adam,
Just want to clarify one thing here: I am not suggesting the gospel is not “the good news of the Kingdom of heaven”, as you pointed, the Evangelists themselves describe Jesus’ preaching in this way. Rather, I am saying this:
1) That the narrative or theme of Kingdom places the emphasis first on the coming King (see e.g. Wright: The Victory of God))
2) One of Jesus’ roles was to proclaim and announce the Kingdom, and call people to repentance. However…
3) Subsequent to his death/resurrection/etc, the early church saw the gospel=good news of the kingdom as primarily found in the ministry of Jesus himself, especially in his death and resurrection, and by extension (and in and through the former), the Kingdom he preached about, which was “ushered in” by the completion of his ministry. In other words, the narrative of Kingdom, flowing from the OT, through John the baptist, through Jesus, must flow through the Cross and Resurrection and into the early church.
Ultimately, Jesus’ statements about the gospel (and they are very few) must be informed by looking back to the OT, by looking sideways at his culture, and looking forwards to how the early church understood the gospel. We cannot drive a wedge between Paul and Jesus, and we cannot drive a wedge between Jesus and the history of Israel. Nor can we drive a wedge between the OT scriptures and Jesus. So, with all of these in appropriate tension, we then can frame and shape and nuance the meaning of the “gospel”. If we don’t, we risk taking statements out of their full and proper context, even from Jesus’ own mouth.
We then may end up saying that the early church got it completely wrong, or the OT prophecies got it completely wrong; neither of which I can accept! To suggest that Paul understood the gospel in a radically different way from Jesus and his discples also makes no sense in light of the NT record of Paul and the Apostles interacting and double-checking that their message was the same.
An example of why this all makes a difference, take a look at NT ethics or codes of behaviour, for Christians. The NT writers did not derive their ethics, or reformulate their ethics, from abstract notions of Shalom. Rather, the central event behind the bulk of NT ethics is the death, resurrection, and (I think) second coming of Christ, and subsequently how that should inform and shape our behaviour.
In more detail, consider the command “love one another”.
Why? Because “he first loved us”
How has God concretely loved us?
The Father, by sending his Son to die for us
The Son, by dying for us
The Spirit, by filling us with the Love of Father and the Son.
I find this fascinating and had never even noticed this until Wright pointed it out.
Anyway, I guess my point is not simple, but the great thing about blogging is that you get to keep banging on about something until you can say something with clarity
thanks alastair …
Good work on the definition. I pretty much agree with you – and i think a lot of the dictionaries have put “preach the gospel” as that was thier culteral contextualisation.
Re. Kingdom etc … i am certainly not wanting to remove or minimise the cross etc.
I am just arguing that the good news isn’t the cross, it is what the cross accomplishes. The cross make the Kingdom possible … yes Jesus the King of the Kingdom, yes God coming to sort it all out (or just maybe we are to do that on His behalf?). The cross makes that all possible. But the good news is that Kingdom of God has come … the rules of God, to bring peace, shalom, justice, love, healing, jubilee etc…
Good comments guys … thanks.
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i agree with this – that evangelising is just telling people about how God is real in your life and what he has done in our own lives re “salvation”, “forgiveness”, etc. jesus always talked to people as individuals – there wasnt a formula or a 5 point plan of what to say, he took each person where they were at.
am doing a shout out to you on my blog – enjoyed this and other posts i looked out…
thanks!
claire
Thanks Claire for comment and for the link from your blog. I really agree that Jesus spoke to individuals and there wasn’t a formula.
I think what i am mainly getting at is that we should be engaging with people, loving them, and not preaching AT them … but listening, engaging, and enabling …
Thanks for popping by …
Hey Rupert — been reading Scot McKnight’s blogs on the Kingdom recently, had made me think about all of this again. I’m being forced to re-evaluate my opinion on this whole gospel vs kindom debate. From reading McKnight, he seems to be affirming both what I was saying and what you were saying…and also challenging the concept that there is any significant difference between Church and Kingdom. Just thought you might want to know that your challenging words have planted a seed which continues to grow
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