Seven Ways We Can Improve Our Proclamation Of The Gospel, Part IV: Promote A Belief That Is “According To The Scriptures”

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Pastor Foley

The one phrase that appears twice in Paul’s presentation of the “first things” of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 is “according to the Scriptures.” We might be tempted to say, “Well, the ‘first thing’ is that Jesus died for my sins. We can fill in the blank on the rest of the Scriptures in the discipleship process. Let’s get people saved first.”

It’s interesting just how differently things were done in the Scriptures and by the early church fathers and by the Reformers. J.I. Packer and Gary Parrett have a book called Grounded in the Gospel that does a great job talking about how in the good parts of church history the goal has not been to get people into the church and then teach them, but rather to get people taught and then into the church. So when people would express a desire to follow Christ, they wouldn’t begin with the sinner’s prayer and then a celebration with a free gift available at the back table afterwards to help you grow in Christ. Instead, they would first of all interview each person to make sure they were wanting to follow Christ for the right reason. Then they would train these potential followers by teaching them to believe “all that the prophets had spoken,” to quote what is said of Jesus when he talks to the disciples on the Emmaus Road in Luke 24. Then they would join the church on Easter.

And that was not a weird stage of church history that ended quickly. The Heidelberg Catechism of the Protestant Reformers took the same approach. It says in there, “What, then, must a Christian believe? All that is promised us in the gospel, a summary of which is taught us in the articles of the Apostles’ Creed” (Oden, 222). Because they took the long view of salvation rather than seeing it as a singular event, they didn’t ask, “Well, what is the one thing a person has to believe to be saved?” They asked, “What does a Christian have to know in order to believe ‘according to the Scriptures’?”

And instead of asking people to close their eyes and raise their hands or come forward or pray the sinner’s prayer after me, they required new Christians—who were baptized on Easter—to share the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed from memory. They understood that the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed or the ceremony of baptism didn’t save anybody any more than the sinner’s prayer saves anybody. That’s not why they had people learn the Creed or be baptized. People did these things because they had been taught to believe “according to the Scriptures” “all that the prophets had spoken.” That way when people asked them what the heck they meant when they said, “I believe Jesus died for my sins” or why they were being baptized, they could explain it—or, rather, proclaim it. And that’s an important part of how God uses us to make Christians.

The Scriptures and the early church fathers and the Reformers knew something else that was crucial for making new Christians. As we’ll talk about in our next point, it’s the one thing that the Scripture says that sinners do that makes the angels in heaven rejoice.

And it’s not believe.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seven Ways We Can Improve Our Proclamation Of The Gospel, Part III: Proclaim Salvation As A Lifelong Process, Not A Spiritual Orgasm

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Pastor Foley

When we evangelize, we sometimes do big events where music functions as foreplay, preaching gets everybody revved up, and the decision to accept Jesus becomes the climax—after which time everyone heads home, tired but feeling pretty good.

But Scripture never portrays salvation this way. Salvation is always portrayed as a lifelong process that starts with a seed. Jesus said in Mark 4:28 that the kingdom of God would come gradually: “first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head” (Mark 4:28). Even the new birth is portrayed in Scripture as part of a growth process to full maturity. We start as infants and we know it—or ought to. We’re to move on to solid food. And then in 1 John we hear about little children, young men, and fathers. So salvation is always portrayed as a call to new life as part of a lifelong process, one that climaxes not at birth but when we become fully formed into the image of Christ.

It’s interesting that the first of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses proposes that the whole life of believers is a life of repentance (Oden, 577). When we talk to people about salvation, we need to talk to people about taking the first step in a process that will never end.

Scripture always connects three tenses of salvation: “We have been saved from the penalty of sin for our justification. We are being saved from the power of sin for our sanctification. We will be saved from the remnants of sin for God’s glorification” (Oden, 566).

Listen to how each of these three tenses strains forward eagerly to the next, not just backwards in memory of when we “got saved” (this is Paul in Titus 2:11, 12): “For the grace of god has appeared [past tense], bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed [future] hope.” Paul always reminds us that “we who ‘have the first fruits of the Spirit’ wait eagerly for adoption as sons and daughters, for ‘the redemption of their bodies,’ while the whole of creation still is groaning for redemption (Rom 8:23)” (Oden, 567).

So when you proclaim salvation, think marriage, not orgasm. As we’ll talk about in our next post, taking the long view of salvation will remind you to talk about faith and belief in a way that will prompt people to genuinely count the cost of following Christ, not just go home a little bit less tense about life.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seven Ways We Can Improve Our Proclamation Of The Gospel, Part II: Proclaim The Victory of Jesus

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Pastor Foley

The Holy Spirit persuades, not us. The Holy Spirit prompts a response, not us. So what’s our part in the work?

Proclaim the victory of Jesus.

C.H. Dodd wrote up a summary of the earliest Christian preaching as reported in Acts. Listen to these and ask yourself: Who’s the subject here?

  1. “God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer” (Acts 3:18; 2:16; 3:24).
  2. This has occurred through the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, of Davidic descent (Acts 2:30-31), “a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs” (Acts 2:22).
  3. “God raised him from the dead” (Acts 2:24; see 3:15; 4:10), making him Lord and Christ (Acts 2:33-36), and “exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel” (Acts 5:31).
  4. God has given the Holy Spirit to those who obey him (Acts 5:32). “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2:33).
  5. Christ “must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything” (Acts 3:21; 10:42). Having suffered as Messiah and having been exalted as Messiah, he would return as Messiah to bring history to a fitting consummation. So:
  6. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38) (Oden, 220-221).

Or how about C.H. Dodd’s summary of Paul’s gospel proclamation in all of his letters:

  • The prophecies are fulfilled, and the new age is inaugurated by the coming of Christ.
  • He was born of the seed of David.
  • He died according to the Scriptures, to deliver us out of the present evil age.
  • He was buried.
  • He rose on the third day according to the Scriptures.
  • He is exalted at the right hand of God, as Son of God and Lord of quick and dead.
  • He will come again as Judge and Savior of men (Oden, 221).

When was the last time you heard these things in a gospel presentation?

The Scriptures and the church fathers and the faithful church around the world and the Reformers all point to the same thing when they preach the gospel: they point to the victory of Jesus. They preach about it. It’s not us convicting our hearers that their lives are messed up and then us introducing Jesus as the cure. This is not a cosmic deodorant commercial we’re in. This is the gospel. We’re not selling anything. We’re not even convicting or persuading anyone. That’s the Holy Spirit’s work. And our failure to understand that leads to the point we’ll make in our next post—that by our actions in proclaiming the gospel we sometimes show that we don’t understand salvation very well at all.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment