You Won’t Want To Hear This, But Here Are The Two Surefire Signs That It’s The Right Moment To Share The Gospel

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Pastor Foley

Pastor Foley says that we will never find the “right moment” to share the gospel, if by right moment we mean that people are showing interest in Christ first.  The Apostle Peter says that the sign of a “right opportunity” is precisely when people show no interest and then subsequently laugh at you after your initial proclamation. Pastor Foley also notes that Peter presumes that our proclamation will give plenty of time and attention to the second coming of Jesus, which is a subject that near zero percent of your hearers will want to consider. And this, says the Scripture, is the “right moment” for your proclamation.

For all of the latest podcasts on Proclaiming the Gospel and on past Works of Mercy visit our Seoul USA Podcast Page!

Posted in Proclaiming The Gospel, Videos | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Most Embarrassing Thing About Church History May be Our View On It

Posted on July 24, 2013 by tdillmuth

WLO_proclaimgospelPost by Pastor Tim – Many families have the “crazy old aunt” that everyone loves but that also greatly embarrasses everyone. Our family had one, and our family gatherings would have been quite boring without her. Even though we truly loved her, the things she said always made us squirm in our seats a little bit.

Unfortunately, this is also the way evangelicals often view the church fathers and church history.  We pay quite a bit of “lip service” to the early church found in the New Testament, but we are quite embarrassed about the 1500 years that followed. In our minds, Martin Luther bravely declared that the Bible is the only thing that matters, and thus we can forget about (and thankfully so) what Origen, Tertullian and others spoke about so long ago.

I became aware of this even more deeply a few days ago when I decided to look for some good church history books in my local Christian bookstore. I filtered through shelves and shelves of Christian Living, Spirit-Filled, and Fiction books, but there was no section dedicated to church history. Ultimately, I found one book on Church History tucked away on a bottom shelf – sort of like the lovable, crazy old aunt.

This month our church has been studying how to proclaim the gospel, and I’ve been confronted with the fact that our evangelical gospel proclamations are a far cry from what we find in church history and even in the Scriptures themselves.

One of the clearest gospel proclamations in the Scriptures comes from 1 Corinthians 15:1-8.  Notice that it doesn’t have the gospel elements that we consider so important today, namely . . .

• If you were to die today, where would you go, heaven or hell?
• Do you have a void in your heart that you need filled?
• Pray this simple prayer and you will be saved.
• Do you feel the goosebumps? That’s how you know you are saved.

Maybe these questions are overdone just a touch (and maybe not), but you get my point: We have particular emphases in our modern day gospel proclamations which haven’t been so evident in times past. C.S. Lewis got to the heart of this issue when he said,

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook – even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it (Intro. to Athanasius’ on the Incarnation).

In other words, we shouldn’t interpret Scripture on a 21st century island. The councils, the debates and the commentaries of early Christianity should shape and inform our thoughts today!

Where should we start? Although nothing can replace reading the actual words of the church fathers, try starting with an introduction to church history, such as Justo Gonzales’ The Story of Christianity. But if you want a taste of some of the richness and depth found in the church fathers, here is a sample of what some of the church fathers said in relation to key scriptures concerning the gospel:

Chrysostom (347 – 407 AD) – But first it is worth while to hear what those who are infected with the Manichaean doctrines say here, who are both enemies to the truth and war against their own salvation. What then do these allege? By death here, they say, Paul means nothing else than our being in sin; and by resurrection, our being delivered from our sins. Do you see how nothing is weaker than error . . . Neither was he content with this, but added, according to the Scriptures: hereby both again making his argument credible, and intimating what kind of death he was speaking of: since it is the death of the body which the Scriptures everywhere proclaim. – Chrysostom, Homily 38 on First Corinthians

Jerome (342 – 420 AD) – We are saved by grace rather than works, for we can give God nothing in return for what he has bestowed on us.” – Jerome, Epistle to the Ephesians, 1.2.1.

Cyril of Alexandria (376 – 444 AD) – Let us glorify therefore Him Who being God the Word became man for our sakes: Who suffered willingly in the flesh, and arose from the dead, and abolished corruption: Who was taken up, and hereafter shall come with great glory to judge the living and the dead, and to give to every one according to his deeds: by Whom and with Whom to God the Father be glory and power with the Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.- Cyril, Commentary on Luke (Luke 24:45)

Posted in Proclaiming The Gospel | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

He Used No Napkin Doodle: Why The Post-Resurrection Jesus Was The Worst Gospel Proclaimer Ever, Or Why Perhaps We Are

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Pastor Foley

WLO_proclaimgospelHe used no napkin doodle.

Instead, he was agonizingly uncreative, long-winded, and theologically taxing. It took him all day and at the end of his gospel sharing he did not even invite his hearers to pray the prayer of salvation by repeating after him. He even took them through Leviticus, for heaven’s sake. He did not share the grand narrative of God’s story with them. He talked only about himself. He did not mention God’s crazy love for them above all, or even at all. But he did call them fools.

Jesus, I mean. In his post-resurrection proclamations of the gospel.

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (Luke 24:25-27, NIV).

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things (Luke 24:44-48, NIV).

But surely this was not intended as the normative gospel proclamation; after all, these were Jews well-versed in the Scriptures with whom Jesus was sharing, not to mention their being his closest followers. Surely if someone were sharing the gospel with Gentiles, one would break out The Bridge, or rap The Gospel in Four Minutes, or spellbind people with The Story of God.

Or not.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31, NIV).

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born (1 Corinthians 15:1-8, NIV).

Interesting: When you catalog every proclamation of the gospel in the New Testament, you quickly realize that it’s not only Jesus who didn’t use the Romans Road when he was on the Emmaus Road. As the folks at paul-timothy.net note, the way the apostles proclaimed was far closer to the way Jesus did it than the way we do.

That is, there really was common content in sharing the gospel in the apostolic age; it’s just that the sharing was more comprehensive, and deeper, and more Scripture-drenched than we would ever dare to do or perhaps even think necessary. Consider the ten common elements the paul-timothy.net brothers observe in the apostolic proclamation (and, for good measure, check out John Stott’s similar list in Christian Mission in the Modern World, along with C.H. Dodd’s grandaddy list in The Apostolic Preaching and Its Elements):

1. This is the Good News that Jesus commanded and that his apostles announced.
2. God has fulfilled all that his prophets foretold in the Scriptures would come to pass.
3. God sent Jesus to be his promised Messiah. God anointed Jesus with his Holy Spirit and with power. Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.
4. Although Jesus was the holy and righteous one, lawless men killed him by crucifixion. It was God’s plan for his Messiah, the Author of Life, to suffer and to be put to death, for human sins. Afterwards, men buried his body in a tomb.
5. On the third day, God raised his servant Jesus from death back to life, and Jesus appeared for many days to many men who knew him. God has given assurance to all men by exalting Jesus up into heaven as Leader and Savior.
6. God now commands everyone everywhere to repent from his wickedness, and to turn from the power of Satan to God. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.
7. God will forgive you of your sins through Jesus’ name. All who believe in Jesus are freed from everything, and Jesus makes them clean.
8. God is going to judge all people everywhere, by Jesus whom he appointed Judge of the living and the dead. Jesus has commanded his followers to tell this message to all kinds of people everywhere.
9. After Jesus rose from death, he appeared to those who had lived with him and saw him being exalted to the right hand of God. God chose these men to serve as witnesses to these things.
10. God gives his promised Holy Spirit, with power, to those who obey Jesus.

The apostolic evangelists were convinced, perhaps even more than we, that they lived at the end of the age and that Christ would return in their generation. And yet in their proclamation there is no hint of theological shortcutting for urgency’s sake, no sense that evangelists focused on provisioning as many as possible with the minimum spiritual content or confession necessary to qualify for heaven. Instead, one gets the sense of the exercise of great care, of abundant theological provision, of urging hearers to count the cost before deciding to believe and follow. Evangelism as master craftsmanship, in other words. Stott quotes Hoekendijk:

To evangelise is to sow and wait in respectful humility and in expectant hope: in humility because the seed we sow has to die, in hope because we expect that God will quicken this seed and give it its proper body.

Our urgency, it appears, is one of time; theirs was one of faithfulness, e.g., were they faithful to share all they had received that was of first importance? Were they equipping hearers with what was necessary to make a decision that would turn their lives–and the lives of everyone around them–upside down if they made it?

When one contrasts modern methods of evangelism with the gospel proclamations of the apostolic age, one can’t help but think: Haste does not make disciples. Haste only ever makes waste. Have our evangelism strategies strengthened the church, or paradoxically laid waste to it? When those outside the church are just as likely to obey everything Jesus commanded as those inside the church, then maybe it is time to reassess who is the worst gospel proclaimer ever: Jesus or us. 

Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

(I am sorely indebted to Chuck Huckaby at praythebible.net for midwifing this post. Blame me for any heartburn it induces and give Chuck and the Holy Spirit credit for any burning hearts.)

Posted in Proclaiming The Gospel, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments