Comments on: The Apostles didn’t do evangelism

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By: Alastair

Alastair — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:33:02 +0000

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

By: rupert

rupert — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:36:35 +0000

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 …

By: claire

claire — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 19:40:32 +0000

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

By: Rupert’s Blog » Mission and Development - Part 5

Rupert’s Blog » Mission and Development - Part 5 — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:26:26 +0000

[...] to see a vast mission that God has for His people. It encompasses telling people about Jesus, inviting them to the party, telling of what God has done in our lives. It also encompasses bringing justice, caring for the [...]

By: Rupert’s Blog » What is Missional Church? - Part 8

Rupert’s Blog » What is Missional Church? - Part 8 — Mon, 28 May 2007 20:49:52 +0000

[...] not yet. Part 8 of missional church (although confusingly Part 7 was provocatively called: “The Apostles didn’t do evangelism“). Here are Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. For those who are thinking: when is he going to blog [...]

By: rupert

rupert — Sat, 26 May 2007 14:45:53 +0000

Good comments guys ... thanks.

By: rupert

rupert — Sat, 26 May 2007 14:36:05 +0000

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…

By: Alastair

Alastair — Thu, 24 May 2007 13:38:25 +0000

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

By: Adam A

Adam A — Wed, 23 May 2007 23:36:24 +0000

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.

By: Alastair

Alastair — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:14:48 +0000

Cheers, have responded above!

By: Alastair

Alastair — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:09:31 +0000

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.

By: rupert

rupert — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:48:03 +0000

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????

By: David

David — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:22:45 +0000

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?

By: rupert

rupert — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:15:40 +0000

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!).

By: rupert

rupert — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:12:11 +0000

Hi Alastair ... i have responded pretty thoroughly above ... i hope that clarifies what i am thinking at the moment?

By: rupert

rupert — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:04:47 +0000

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????

By: Alastair

Alastair — Sat, 19 May 2007 08:53:10 +0000

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.