The Injustice of the Lord’s Controversy

Micah 2

6.1 Hear ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice.
2 Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD’S controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.

Welcome to our discussion of the little known and studied book of Micah. Last time we saw the theme of the book is that the Lord has a controversy with His people. In today's post we will clearly see the injustice of the Lord's controversy. I do not mean by that statement that God was unjust or unfair to Israel in having a controversy with them, but rather that Israel was unjust to God in causing Him to need to have a controversy with them.

Let me reach into my own life for an illustration of what I mean. Seventeen years ago Mandy took my hand and we entered life together as husband and wife. The truth is she loved me before I loved her. She gave up her name and her life, essentially, to take mine. She accepted my offer of marriage when I was living in the office at church, pastoring fifteen people, and driving a car that was four different colors. She has born me four children. The first five years we moved repeatedly with nary a word of complaint from her, including to the inner-city here thirteen years ago. For all these years she has washed my clothes, cleaned my house, cooked my meals, nursed me in sickness, and partnered with me in ministry. In short, she has been good to me. It would be a grave injustice for me to run off with the piano player. Well, she is the piano player, but you get my drift surely. I should give her no cause to have a great controversy with me. She has showered me with blessings, and consequently she ought to be immune from me causing her grief.

This is exactly God's thinking in relation to Israel.

6.3 O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me.

Has God done anything to cause Israel harm? Has He been unjust or cruel or even mean to them? Has He wronged them in any way? Of course He has not.

6.4 For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

Micah preached in 800 BC, over three hundred years before Israel's deliverance from the Babylonian Captivity. This mention of deliverance is in reference to the events of the Exodus six centuries before. The fact of the Exodus and the method of it are eternal proofs of God's design to be good to His people. Not only that, but He gifted them with Moses et al, who was perhaps the greatest leader in all of human history.

6.5 O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the LORD.

God through Micah is referencing the story of Balaam found in the Torah.

Numbers 22.4 And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.
5 He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me:
6 Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.

Balaam was not a Jew but he was nevertheless a prophet of God. The king of Moab was concerned about all the immigration <ahem> into his area via an Israel escaping Egypt. Knowing Balaam's words had power he sought to persuade Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam asks God if he can go and God says no. (Numbers 22.12) Undeterred, the king of Moab raises his offer to Balaam and thus seduces God's prophet. Happily, God prevents Balaam from pronouncing curses on Israel and instead places words of blessing into Balaam's mouth. The king of Moab, sputtering with anger, responds, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether. (Numbers 23.11)

God's point here, via Micah, is that the interaction of Balak and Balaam proves His everlasting intention of pouring out on Israel numerous blessings. Like Mandy with me, God had a track record of blessing His people. Furthermore, He had promised them that He would continue to bless them. Why in the world, then, were they living contrary to Him like they were? It was unjust of them to put God in the position of needing to have a controversy with them. It was not fair. It was not just. It was not right.

What is the application for us today? Has not God been as good to you and I, as His people, as He was to Israel? Has He not promised us perpetual blessings, as His people, like He promised them? Then why in the world do we give Him cause for controversy with us? It is unjust. It is unfair. It is not right.

I think of this in relation to some preachers I have known. God blessed them richly. He let them be born in America. He drew them to Himself as Christians. He gifted them with lovely wives, precious families, and thriving ministries. And then they throw it all away in pride, in lust, or in greed. Now God has a controversy with them, and it is not fair.

I think of this in relation to some young people I have known. God blessed them richly. He let them be born in America. He drew them to Himself as Christians. He gifted them with a godly heritage, a loving church, and with all the health and strength and energy of youth. And then they spit in His face and walk away from all they have been given. Now God has a controversy with them, and it is not right.

I think of this in relation to some spouses I have known. God blessed them richly. He let them be born in America. He drew them to Himself as Christians. He gave them a good church, a measure of health, and a precious, unselfish, loving, caring, dedicated, faithful spouse. And they turn up their nose at God's gracious marital provision, abandon their family, and lose themselves in selfishness. Now God has a controversy with them, and it is not just.

I think of this in relation to some church members I have known. God blessed them richly. He let them be born in America or emigrate here. He drew them to Himself as Christians. He placed them in a good church, one with correct doctrine, the right spirit, affection for one another, and a culture of pursuing both God and sinners. Yet someone or something in the assembly gets in their craw and they walk out on God and on church for the rest of their life. Now God has a controversy with them, and it is not warranted.

The simple truth is God has been, is being, and will continue to be an incredibly good God to us, and this ought to drive us to Him in humble adoration rather than away from Him in stubborn self-will.

Eight centuries after Micah Paul expressed it this way:

Romans 2.3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:
8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;
10 But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:

It was not fair of the Israel of Micah's day to cause God to have a controversy with her. After centuries of God's blessing, it was unjust for her to give Him cause for grief.

…and it is not fair of us either.

The Lord’s Controversy

Micah 1

One of my frustrations with so much that passes for good writing in the Christian blogosphere is that it is dedicated to simply reacting to the issues of the day. Look! Starbucks is attacking Christmas! I must respond! Look! Target is attacking my daughter! I must respond! Look! The Democrats are attacking prayer! I must respond! Such blogging satisfies a temporary emotional urge to vent, and gets attention if it is inflammatory enough and I understand that, but I desire to be different. I want to write something worth reading (whether anyone bothers to read it or not) and I want it to still be worth reading twenty years from now.

Because of this I tend to write connected series. I want to explore issues and topics in some depth. That is usually best done in a book but it can be done (carefully) in a blog as well. Further, in a blog it is free to one and all; books are not. Thus it is that I have written series on music, alcohol, urban ministry, soul winning, how to respond to hypocrisy in leadership, worship, how to pay a pastor, etc. as well as the gigantic series on the life of Christ that birthed this blog.

In this vein I begin a new series today, yet one that is different too. For the next three or four months on this blog I am going to walk you through a small, rather obscure book of the Bible. In a sense this will be like my first book, though substantially shorter. It will not be controversial. It will not be inflammatory. It might not even be interesting, frankly. What it will be is scriptural and helpful, if you care to read it. It will also give you a much better understanding of one of the books of the Bible that you probably don't have a clue about. Thus it is that I invite you to join me for a while as we explore the book of Micah together.

The foundational thought establishing Micah is that God has a problem with His people, Israel.

6.1 Hear ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice.
2 Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD’S controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.

In this we notice two things. First, we see the depth of the problem that God had with them. The dictionary defines "controversy" as a prolonged and public contention. The original language has ideas behind it such as strife, quarrel, and legal dispute. This is not a light word. It is not a simple disagreement over something relatively minor. Additionally, God uses this strong word not once, but twice. In essence, then, we see that God has a big problem with the behavior of His people.

Understand this – that the Lord has a controversy with Israel, and that Micah is God's messenger attempting to deal with it – and you understand Micah. Over the course of 105 verses Micah will logically explain that there is a controversy, Who it is that has the controversy with them, why they cannot counter-claim against Him, what exactly the controversy consists of, who God blames for the problem, what will happen if they do not fix it, how they can fix it, and how God will ultimately deal with His people.

The second thing we notice immediately is Who exactly has this controversy with them. This is not just some quarrel between women at the market, or even between Israel and some neighboring political power. It is the Lord Himself who has a problem with their action.

1.1 The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
2 Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.
3 For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.
4 And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.

The Lord GOD is Jehovah Elohim, the incredibly all-powerful and completely righteous and holy God that has a problem with them. And whatever they thought was going to protect them from such a one as Him was not going to stand a chance.

Does this not, then, reveal something to us that is critical to understand about God? Does not this, then, have some bearing on our lives nearly three millennia later? It must, beloved, and for me it is this: our God is a demanding God. If He gives us a set of directions or commands He expects to be obeyed. In the fullness of time He will not let the world get away with any sin, but beyond that, He will not even let His own slide. He is too good a parent for that. What He requires of His people will be required, not ignored. He will call us to account for our actions. We will not get away with it.

The Lord has a controversy with His people now and again. Wise would we be to heed it.

What is Love?

Poetry 3

I do not speak about this publicly very often but I went through a lengthy period of depression as a young person. In retrospect it was actually good for me for a number of different reasons. One of those reasons is that it developed in me an appreciation for poetry. Out of that appreciation grew a desire to write some of my own. From time to time in this blog I will bring you one or two of those. Today is one of those times. 

What is Love?

What is love? 

Love is not like. 

Love is not lust. 

Love is not infatuation. 

Love is not passion. 

Love is not a feeling. 

Why? 

Love is an attitude.

Love goes deeper than lust, passion, like, or infatuation. 

Why?

Love is an attitude.

I work on a bus route. 

I love my bus kids. 

That doesn't mean that I always like my bus kids. 

That doesn't mean I always feel love for them, but I love them.

Why?

Love is an attitude.

Why isn't love a feeling?

Because feelings come and go.

Love isn't a feeling but love has feeling. 

People confuse the feelings of love for love itself.

There are times when feelings of love will leave, but if it's true love the love remains.

Why?

Love is an attitude.

-Tom Brennan, A Teenager's Heart

December 14, 1988

Five Limitations of Personal Evangelism

A Philosophy of Personal Evangelism 9

I am for every kind of scripturally appropriate evangelism. I wish there were more of it, not less. But I also believe that the only kind of evangelism that has the potential to reach the entire world is personal evangelism. That last sentence is the the philosophical heart of this blog series but I would remiss if I did not admit that personal evangelism has its own challenges. Personal evangelism has the most potential usefulness for the cause of Christ but there are a number of things that limit that potential. Understanding those limitations I think can help us to minimize them, and thus maximize our application of confrontational soul winning.

The first limitation is simply this: not enough Christians do it. I pastor an average sized

church with an above average number of soul winners. I would estimate that 30-40% of our average attendance personally witnesses at least once a month. But, transparently, I have had to fight and claw and scratch and bleed and pray and beg and preach myself half to death in these thirteen years to get those percentages that high - and they still are not a majority. Additionally, I recognize that the average church is in worse shape than mine. Various studies I have seen assert that in the typical Gospel preaching American church of all kinds less than 20% of the people attending ever personally witness.
What does that mean? Well, in practical terms, in a city the size of Chicago, if there are 250,000 people attending a Gospel preaching church (generous numbers here, too) that means less than 50,000 people will be personally confronted with their need of Christ this year – in a city of 2.7 million! We can shade those numbers a dozen different ways for better or worse but the stubborn truth is clear: personal evangelism is hamstrung because the vast majority of American Christians refuse to do it.

Secondly, personal evangelism is limited because many Christians have the wrong concept of what it is. Inviting your neighbor to church is good but that is not personal evangelism. Putting a tract in with your check when you pay your electric bill is good but it is not personal evangelism. The biblical illustrations of personal evangelism – Jesus with the woman at the well, Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch, Paul and Silas with the Philippian jailer, etc. – all involved one person talking to another person about his need for Christ with the view of bringing him to an immediate decision. In the book of Acts the early church went house to house seeking to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. 
This limits personal evangelism because many a Christian has silenced their conscience by convincing themselves they are being evangelistic when in fact they are not. They have not clearly presented the Gospel. They have not engaged anyone in a conversational give-and-take to assure understanding. They have not pressed any individual to the point of decision.

Third, personal evangelism is limited when we motivate Christians to win souls on the basis of results rather than the basis of obedience. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. (Mark 16.15) That verse does not say "…and win them to Christ." That verse does not say, "…and build a big church." It says go and it says preach.
When we motivate people to be soul winners so that we can see or experience a good result they will stop if and when those good results stop. I went to a Bible college that emphasized personal evangelism to the max. In its forty year history it has matriculated thousands of soul winners who long since gave up the practice because it did so largely on the basis of results. Those results dried up so the soul winning inevitably dried up too. Soul winning is not a church growth method; soul winning is being obedient to the command of God to take the Gospel to every creature.

Fourth, personal evangelism is limited because some soul winners sell Jesus rather than offer Him.
When your motivation is results oriented you will automatically place pressure on people to produce those results. That pressure at some point always causes an appropriation of worldly methods of getting someone to say "yes" when what they really want is to say "no." At this point, soul winning has become salesmanship rather than a Gospel presentation.
For years I made my living as a salesman. I have sat through dozens of hours of sales training and application. I am more than familiar with phrases such as it's a numbers a game, "no" just means I need more information, abc – always be closing, somebody is selling somebody in every conversation, don't be an order taker, make them feel bad about theirs, and what is there to think about. I have used the Socratic method and the power of positive thinking. I extensively developed my product knowledge. Etc. etc. etc.
I was good at what I did, and the things I learned transferred across industries because the principles work. Sales is push, push, push. It is out thinking the customer, and in a sense manipulating their mental outlook into spending more than they want on things they do not really need sooner than they think feasible.
For me, selling was a selfish thing. I got a commission, and the more I sold the more commission I made. Soul winners who sell Jesus are no different. I get a number, I get a result, and I get to feel good about myself as a soul winner. This only comes through results so I am motivated to push the envelope in order to obtain those results.
Beloved, motivation is just as important to God as the outcome is. When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king, he departed into a mountain himself alone. (John 6.15) The people had the wrong motivation in offering Him the crown and so He wisely refused it.
We cannot justifiably manipulate someone into Heaven. Likewise, it is unscriptural to browbeat or intimidate a person into making a decision for Christ. In such cases all we really do is manipulate someone into praying a prayer and that does not accomplish anything. Manipulation produces no understanding. Manipulation produces no conviction. Selling Jesus produces statistics that please the soul winner and his peers but it does nothing to advance the cause of Christ.

Fifth, personal evangelism is limited because oftentimes the training is suspect. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. (II Timothy 2.21) Good works require training and preparation, and there is no work better than the work of saving souls.
In some cases there is no training whatsoever. "Here is a New Testament. Here is a fistful of tracts. Now go get 'em, tiger." What is the result of such foolishness? There is rightly little boldness in such a person's witness for they have none of the knowledge necessary to inspire confidence. There is little clarity in such a person's witness because there is no carefully prepared plan to put into execution. There is little personalization of in such a person's witness because the best they can do is read a tract.
In more cases there is bad training. Let me reach to my wife by way of example. For more than 15 years she has taught piano to numbers of people. Those lessons have always been conducted one-on-one. On the other hand, there is a piano store in our area that conducts free lessons for everyone who purchases an instrument. But those lessons are done in lecture style to a group. Guess which approach actually develops effective musicians?
In my twenty years as a pastor I have spent hundreds of hours conducting one-on-one personal evangelism training. I want to develop a church that believes deeply in soul winning but that does so in a careful, thorough, scriptural manner. Anything less fails over the long term and is an injustice to the cause of Christ.

It is fairly common for the average Christian to believe at a higher level
than his practice. He readily admits he should read his Bible but he often fails. He knows he needs to pray but neglects his spiritual duty here too. In the abstract he is for a vigorous church attendance; in the concrete he finds all manner of other things pressing upon his time. The same is true in relation to witnessing. Nearly all genuine Christians freely confess their responsibility to share Christ with the lost yet the vast majority of them never do.
I think perhaps an argument could be made that the last example is worse than all the rest. If I fail to read my Bible, or to pray, or to attend church I hurt myself; if I fail to witness I hurt the entire world.
Jesus died for that world. He died for you and me. The least we can do is open our mouths and speak a word for Him.

A Defense of House to House Personal Evangelism

A Philosophy of Personal Evangelism 8

Last week we laid out for you a brief case for the nearly unlimited potential for personal confrontational evangelism. I would be remiss if I did not admit that the majority of American Christianity disagrees with me. This is seen in the fact that so few churches have an active, organized, vibrant personal soul winning program, but it is also seen in the sometimes sincere and sometimes snide criticisms leveled at soul winning. I plan a much longer blog series dealing with many of these objections but I want to briefly address them today.


"You will never reach everybody."

I know. I agree with you. But that is not our aim. Our aim is to fulfill the Great Commission which tells us to preach the Gospel to every creature. (Mark 16.15) And personal evangelism is the method that offers the greatest opportunity to personally offer Christ to the greatest number of people.

"That might have worked fifty years ago but nowadays people don't want anyone badgering them. Our culture isn't like that anymore."

I've got news for you. There's never been a culture where people liked people badgering them. People are people, and they largely share similarities across cultures and generations. The church in Jerusalem didn't start practicing house to house evangelism because the Jews welcomed it so eagerly, and we shouldn't stop it when people don't. 

…and I might also add I routinely have precinct workers, alarm salesmen, Jehovah's Witnesses, plumbers, and school kids selling all manner of things ringing my doorbell in 2017. It's funny; apparently the only group that thinks it is inappropriate to ring a doorbell anymore is evangelicals.

Some days I just want to shout at American Christianity, "Stop being culture driven; be Scripture driven!"


"Well, confrontational evangelism always results in false professions, and you ought to be concerned about that."

Actually… you're right. Yes, I can hear your gasp all the way over here in Chicago. Confrontational personal evangelism results in false professions – and so does every single other method of evangelism. But the solution to false professions isn't to stop witnessing. The solution is stop being pushy, to teach soul winners to look for people with whom the Holy Spirit is dealing, and above all to emphasize a detailed, thorough presentation of the Gospel.

False professions don't make soul winning a bad thing; they make badly done soul winning a bad thing.


"Confrontational. Do you understand what that word means, Tom? You're going to run people off with such an approach."

Um, they are already on their way to hell now. Where are you going to run them off to? Hell number two? He that believeth not is condemned already. (John 3.18) I'm being a little snarky, and I realize that but I'm still right. If we allow ourselves to become concerned about not offending people we will close our mouths for Christ and never open them again. I am not advocating that we purposely seek to offend, but I am advocating that we ought to purposely seek to confront. And that is entirely scriptural.


"You soul winners are plucking green fruit. Those folks aren't ready to get saved, and your premature efforts are causing much harm."

How do you know that? Is there some waiting period in the Bible I've missed somewhere? To the contrary, behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (II Corinthians 6.2) I realize that the Holy Spirit must convict the sinner in order to prepare him to be regenerated, but there is no reason the Holy Spirit cannot convict him today. Scripturally, there is a sense of urgency both explicitly stated and implicitly referenced in relation to witnessing all through the Bible. Jesus led Nicodemus, the woman at the well, and the thief on the cross to Himself in the first conversation. 


"Witnessing is not a set time scheduled on Saturday morning. It is a way of life."

I could not possibly agree with you more. If you preach that in my church I'll sit on the front row and holler "Amen" as loud as I can. …but thirty years of experience in soul winning and close observation of churches has proven one thing to me: the only Christians who actively incorporate witnessing into their daily life are those who first incorporated it by schedule.

The truth is our flesh fights witnessing more than any other spiritual activity besides prayer, I suppose. Building an evangelistic culture is the single most difficult thing to do in any church. If we do not purposely and regularly schedule a time for soul winning we will rarely witness. If we leave it there we are remiss, but if we do not begin there we seldom if ever progress to an active life of witnessing.


…so take the Gospel to someone this week. Better yet, do it today. Step out in compassionate boldness and speak a word for Christ. Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. (Luke 10.2)

Go into it. I don't mind if you put up a sign with the Gospel on the edge of the field. I don't mind if you play the Gospel on a PA system aimed toward the field. But get up from the table and walk out into that field. That's where the harvest is.

The Potential of Personal Evangelism

A Philosophy of Personal Evangelism 7

 
This is a series that attempts to explain why our kinds of churches emphasize personal evangelism, and why we are right to do so. Thus far we have discussed both good and bad motivations to witness. We then briefly sketched for you a history of evangelism. In the process we discovered that there are really only two kinds of evangelism, personal and impersonal, and that impersonal evangelism is limited in its effectiveness primarily because it calls for men to come to church rather than calling for them to come to Christ. 

Personal evangelism, on the other hand, has more potential than impersonal evangelism. This is because soul winning takes Christ directly to the lost where they are at.

The first part of the book of Acts records the staggering rate of growth of the Early Church. How were they able to reach so many people with the Gospel so quickly? There are several answers to that question but one answer is that the Apostles placed an emphasis on taking the Gospel to every home in Jerusalem.

Acts 5. 14 And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)
…
17 ¶ Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,)and were filled with indignation,
18 And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.
19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said,
…
27 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,
28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.
…
42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

I have met those who maintain that in every house was not evangelism but rather the 1^st century equivalent of home Bible studies or house churches, but the context does not bear this out. From verse 17 to verse 42 is one story. In that story the Sanhedrin is not attempting to stop sermons to the saved but rather the Apostles' efforts to give the Gospel to the lost. Some of this was done via public preaching (daily in the temple) but some of it was also done personally from house to house (in every house).

This emphasis on a personalized individual presentation of the Gospel at each house was not just modeled in Jerusalem by Peter. It was taken up by Paul and used in his church planting efforts.

Acts 20. 17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.
18 And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons,
19 Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews:
20 And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house,
21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Clearly, this is not a Bible study for those who are already saved. I am not against that, by any means, but going house to house and preaching repentance and faith in Christ is explicitly connected with soul winning. In other words, both Peter and Paul, and the churches they influenced, believed in preaching the grace of Christ corporately but also in taking the Gospel to the lost where they were at.

Acts 17.16 ¶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.

Potentially then, personal evangelism is the only form of evangelism that can reach an entire community. Indeed, both in Jerusalem and in Ephesus they took the Gospel house to house and this is precisely what happened.

Ac 5:28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.
…
Acts 19. 10 And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
…
Ac 20:31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

Jonathan Goforth was a Canadian Presbyterian. The Lord moved on his heart to take the

Gospel to China and then used him in a wonderful way. In his wife's short biography of him she tells of his days as a Bible college student in Toronto in the late 1800s.

On weekdays, Jonathan spent much of his time visiting in the slum district. His strategy was to knock at a door, and when it opened a few inches, he would put his foot in the crack. He would then tell them his business and if, as was usually the case, they said they were not interested and went to close the door, his foot prevented the proceedings from being brought to an abrupt end. As he persisted, the people of the house almost invariably gave way and let him in. Of all the many hundreds of homes that he visited during his years of slum work, there were only two where definitely failed to gain an entrance. While visiting in slum homes, Goforth would sometimes lead as many as three people to Christ in a single afternoon. Dr. Shearer, who accompanied him in his visits one day said, as they parted, “Goforth, if only this personal contact could have been made with every human soul, the Gospel would have reached every soul long ago.”

I don't advocate this approach to soul winning, but look past that to the fact that Bro. Goforth was using confrontational soul winning long before its so-called heyday in the 1950s and 60s. This is because he found such an approach to personal evangelism modeled in the Word of God. Nor was Goforth alone in this. The oft-quoted C. H. Spurgeon said in his 1863 sermon, "Am I Sought Out?":

There are thousands in London who never will be converted by the preaching of the gospel, for they never attend places of worship. Some of them do not know what sort of thing a religious service is. We may shudder when we say it: it is believed there are thousands in London who do not even know the name of Christ - living in what we call a Christian land, and yet they have not heard the name of Jesus. Thank God things are better than they were, but things are bad enough still. Brethren, you must go and see these things and mend them. To the lodging-houses, young men, you must carry the gospel, and to those thickly-peopled habitations, where every room contains a family, and not one room a Christian. I believe there is very much good to be done by house-to-house visitation - not by City Missionaries and Bible-women only, may God speed that noble body of laborers - but by all of you, by you that have position in society among your neighbors. Make yourselves free, and go and talk to them of Christ in the little houses that are near to you. As far as your time allows be a visitor, and if there be one dark part of the town known to you as the haunt of sinners, make it a point to use this agency of visitation from house-to-house. Let the lost sheep of Israel's house be sought out.

Peter and Paul, Goforth and Spurgeon, why even D. L. Moody understood the importance of personally confronting the lost with the Gospel. In Richard Ellsworth Day's biography of him he describes Moody in 1860s Chicago as "…this man who rushed through life making felonious assaults upon total strangers with his rude challenge, 'Are you a Christian?' "

I am not saying impersonal evangelism is wrong. It isn't. It just isn't as effective at reaching the entire community as confrontational soul winning can be.

…and that position is not one invented by the independent Baptist movement of our father's generation. It has a long and storied history for very good reasons.

The Rest of the Five

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There are only two kinds of evangelism, personal and impersonal. Personal evangelism – otherwise known as soul winning – is the most effective form of evangelism. That is the premise of this blog series. Impersonal evangelism can be wonderful but it is limited in ways personal evangelism is not. In the last post we examined two of the things that limit impersonal evangelism. In this post we will examine three more.

Third, impersonal evangelism strategies such as mass evangelism and niche evangelism cannot be sustained over the long term, and usually not even in the medium term.

From time to time we attempt to have a special day in our church. We promote something

exciting or at least interesting and different. We wind our people up to work extra, pray extra, visit extra, prepare extra, etc. In due course we get a large crowd. But what we cannot do is keep that large crowd. We cannot constantly keep the interest piqued, nor can we keep our lay people working at turbo speeds indefinitely.

On the other hand, what was the testimony of the Early Church? Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. (Acts 2.47)

There are only two ways I can think of that a church can evangelize so effectively as to see people saved every day. The first is if it is a mega-church that has some kind of promotion, program, or niche outreach every day of the week. The problem with this is not that such churches exist. Some do and I am glad for all of their efforts at evangelism. But this is not where the typical church lives, nor can it live there. The second way is for a church to be so caught up in soul winning that its people witness constantly, at work, at school, in the neighborhood, or in some organized capacity perhaps. A church like this wins people to Christ constantly and it has little to nothing to do with promotion, targeted group marketing, or any kind of formal program whatsoever. Instead it happens almost organically. Witnessing becomes part and parcel of who your people are in Christ, and that kind of approach is sustainable over the long term.

The fourth weakness of impersonal evangelism is that the individual Christian does not personally participate in witnessing. If I get my people wound up to invite their coworkers to church, and many do that is wonderful. But that is not participation in evangelism. Inviting someone to Sunday School is not evangelism. Manning the dunk tank on a Big Day is not evangelism. Witnessing is one person speaking to another person about his need for Christ with a view of bringing him to a decision. Every Christian is tasked in the New Testament with winning souls, and I short change my people spiritually if I do not give provide them the training, motivation, and opportunity to personally do so. Again, bear in mind, I am not criticizing any service for the Lord, nor am I criticizing those who work so hard to make mass, enlistment, or niche evangelism work. I am saying, however, that I have not helped my people reach their full spiritual potential until each one personally and actively seeks to talk to others around them about Christ. For far too many years I have known too many Christians who have never led a soul to Christ. That is a tragedy.

Lastly, impersonal evangelism has driven American Christianity into the pragmatism of worldliness. This is certainly not true in every case but it is often true.

Allow me to illustrate. Pastor A and Pastor B both know that their church is not reaching their community like it should. Pastor A is visionary, conscientious, and bold leader. To solve the lack of fruit in his church he focuses on teaching his people how to do personal evangelism and on motivating them to continue to do so constantly. Pastor B is also a visionary, conscientious, and bold leader. However, instead of focusing on taking his church into the community to actively witness he focuses on how he can get a greater percentage of his community to attend one of his services, programs, or events. But you can only invite people so many times to the same type of program or event. He must constantly find newer and better ways to motivate lost people to show up. Eventually, out of a sincere and sheer desperation or a misplaced sense of purpose, he grasps that he can motivate the carnal, worldly lost man with carnal, worldly things. So this is what Pastor B does.

Did you ever wonder why the modern edition of American Christianity is so widely soaked in worldliness? There is more than one answer to that question but a large part of the answer is a visionary leader and a burdened church set out to reach the "unchurched", the lost men around them, and they decided the best way to get the unchurched into church was to make the church as much like the world as possible. Contemporary American Christianity has the right motive – they want to reach the lost. But contemporary American Christianity is using the wrong philosophy to do it – get the "unchurched" into church – and is using the wrong method – worldliness – to do so. As long as we view our city as "unchurched" instead of "unsaved" we will focus on getting them into church instead of getting them to Christ, and pragmatism will drive us to increasingly carnal means of attracting them into church in an effort to reach them.

In the past two posts I have given you five limitations or potential weaknesses in impersonal evangelism. Not all of these five things happen in every situation every time. But these five foundational flaws are still there, and a church that chooses to use solely such means to evangelize will often find itself working from a position of weakness rather than a position of strength.

Two Limitations of Impersonal Evangelism

A Philosophy of Personal Evangelism 5

Let me say at the outset that I am not against the types of evangelism I will mention in this post, or in the ones to come. The only kind of evangelism I am against is unscriptural evangelism. I am against witnessing that does not point people solely toward Christ. I am against unclear or incomplete or manipulative explanations of the Gospel. I am also against using worldly means or methods to attract attention to the Gospel. But outside of those parameters I am not against anyone anywhere who is witnessing in any way. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. (Philippians 1.18) It is important to me that you understand I am not attacking certain kinds of evangelism with this series.

At the same time, I do want to speak up for confrontational personal evangelism, what is more commonly called soul winning. There are good reasons to do it, and some of those reasons include the fact that personal evangelism is better than any other form of evangelism. In order to explain this it is incumbent upon me that we examine the limitations of impersonal evangelism. Again, I am not attacking these types of evangelism; I am explaining why they are not as useful or as helpful as personal evangelism.

First, impersonal evangelism cannot win the world to Christ.

Billy Graham Crusade, 1967

Take mass evangelism, for example. It is premised on gathering into one location as many unsaved people as possible. But the simple fact is that no matter how stirring or popular the preacher is, and no matter how accessible the venue is you will never get everyone to attend. The same facts are true about media evangelism. No matter how many people you invite to your small group or your Sunday School not all of them will attend. No matter how well produced your Gospel podcast is or how well designed your tracts are you are never going to get everyone to listen, read, or watch the Gospel.

Let me illustrate this with enlistment evangelism. Studies I have read show that the average Gospel preaching church wins one out of every five people they enlist in a small group, Bible study, or Sunday School class. By enlisted I mean they get them to attend at least once. At the same time, the average church only wins one out of every 240 unsaved people in the community that they do not enlist. Those two sentences support this supposed solution: we need to enlist more people. After all, a higher percentage of those enlisted trust Christ then those who do not. I understand that, but the simple fact is that the vast majority of people refuse to be enlisted. Roughly 97% of the unsaved people in the community that I attempt to enlist in a class will refuse to attend. If my basic evangelistic thrust as a church is enlistment evangelism I have just essentially thrown away any ability to win almost the entirety of my community to Christ.

Chicago proper, the city in which I serve, has a population of about 2.7 million people. According to the above numbers, even if I could possibly try to enlist all of them roughly only 81,000 would respond. If we win one out of every five of these we have won about 16,000 people to Christ. Let's say by dint of hard work and prayer we manage to double that number to 32,000 people. That is nothing to sneeze at by any means but do you see the problem? There are another 2.6 million people I will never reach. After thirteen years of pastoring in this city these statistics ring true to me. If there are more than 32,000 people in this city regularly attending services at a sound, Bible preaching church I would be very surprised. Yet what are these 32,000 Christians in Chicago doing to reach the rest of the city? You guessed it, didn't you? They are busy inviting people to attend their church service, small group, Bible study, concert, or event. The result is that most of the city will go to hell.

The painful truth is most of the churches in this city have no plan to reach people who will not enlist in their programs or attend their services. I am not saying we ought to stop enlistment evangelism. It reaches people, and beyond that it ministers to them in a very real way. It gives them fellowship. It teaches them the Bible. But what it does not do is reach this city with the Gospel.

Secondly, impersonal evangelism is limited in its ability to make sure every person clearly

understands the Gospel.

Every unsaved person is trusting something other than Jesus Christ. In order for them to get saved you must demolish that misplaced trust, help them understand they are rotten and deserve hell, and then help them to trust in Christ alone for their salvation. But each individual is different. They are different in their understanding of biblical words and terms. They are different in which illustrations will bring clarity. They are different in their concerns and their hang ups. They are different in respect to which Scripture verse or passage will pierce their darkness and bring them light. In every setting other than a one-on-one setting the unsaved man practically cannot ask any questions. He cannot object that he does not understand or agree. The person witnessing to him cannot probe his thought process and belief system. The plan of salvation cannot be effectively tailored to any personal situation in mass evangelism or media evangelism, and its ability to do so in enlistment evangelism is limited.

Again, I stress, I am not saying it is wrong or even bad to attempt to broadcast the Gospel, to place it on billboards, to put it on web pages, to put it on television and radio, or to invite your coworker to attend church with you next week. I am saying, though, that as good and as helpful as these are they are limited. They cannot possibly reach your community for Christ.

…and if we are going to build a philosophy of personal evangelism we must come to the place where we grasp this, and allow that understanding to inform our chosen evangelistic emphasis.

The Only Two Kinds of Evangelism

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In the last post we briefly sketched for you a history of evangelism from the time of Early Church to the birth (or re-birth) of mass evangelism in the eighteenth century. This is a series that attempts to teach you the reasons that underlie our emphasis on personal evangelism. To do so, it helps us to understand how evangelism has flowed through history. In that light, let us pick up the thread of the story again in the eighteenth century where we last left it.

Following the birth of mass evangelism, or perhaps I should say along with it, came the birth of enlistment evangelism. Robert Raikes (1736-1811), out of a desire to see the street children of his day receive both a religious and a secular education, revolutionized England via the Sunday School. He was so successful that by 1831, within twenty years of his death, one out of every four children in the country were receiving a religious education in Sunday School.

This successful idea naturally came to America, and then spread around the world as the re-birthed modern missions movement pioneered by Carey sent British and American preachers into every continent.

The original premise of the Sunday School system was an attempt to enroll unchurched people in a small class. This brought them under the influence of the Word of God and the sound of the Gospel. At the same time, it explained to them doctrinal concepts about God and man in a non-threatening manner. In his own inimitable style Mark Twain humorously shows us this in his classic Tom Sawyer. With Sunday Schools being started by the thousands all across the world the result in the nineteenth century was a wide scriptural literacy and huge numbers of people being evangelized.

As the nineteenth century rolled into the twentieth the pace of technological change began to accelerate. The century that would begin with horseless carriages still being relatively rare would end with the dawn of the information superhighway. In the early decades of the century this technology was aimed squarely at enabling humanity to communicate faster and wider. Evangelistic minded Christians immediately seized upon radio, television, and then the internet to communicate the gospel. We broadly label this approach as media evangelism.

Historically, in Western society, pastors did not attempt to build churches. By "build" here I mean to grow them. They did not need to for the vast majority of the European and American population attended church, period. They preached the Gospel and pastored the people but they did not put much emphasis on church growth methods. I am not aware of any church growth book written in the nineteenth century, let alone centuries prior. But in the twentieth century that changed as church attendance began to wane. The result was an increasing emphasis on adding programs that would appeal to, attract, or reach various subsets of the population.

I call this concept niche evangelism. Modern churches have programs centered on divorce recovery, addicts, prisoners, senior citizens in nursing homes, young mothers, teenagers, college students, athletes, etc. About once a month I get a call from a random Christian comedian who wants to come to Maplewood. What is that (besides ridiculous)? It is an attempt to reach people who like comedy. CCM artists do the same thing with music. Examples of niche evangelism are numerous.

Some of this is done inside the local church structure and some of it is not. But they are all

aimed at getting some subset of people to show up at a club, group, meeting, concert, etc. In a sense then this is another example of enlistment evangelism. Perhaps the most widely used example of this synthesis in our circles of niche and enlistment evangelism is the bus ministry.

I would be remiss if I did not include before I am done with this sketch the rise of personal evangelism that began in American society with the post WWII generation. Motivated in part at least by a desire for church growth but also a sincere burden for the lost, influential and large churches in the 1950s increasingly emphasized organized personal soul winning. Every person reading this blog understands that because we grew up in that kind of a church culture, were nourished in that culture, and if we did not we have certainly encountered it. It is found most often but not exclusively in Baptist circles, and though it has waxed and waned through the decades it is certainly still incorporated on a wide scale.

If the purpose of this brief sketch is to learn from history what do we learn? I think we could answer that several ways but in the context of this series we see this: in reality, there are only two kinds of evangelism – personal and impersonal.

Mass evangelism has reached millions, and I am glad for that. But did the evangelist individually talk with each of those people? Did they respond in a back and forth conversation? No. It is impersonal evangelism. Media evangelism has reached countless numbers of people, and I am glad for that. It too is impersonal evangelism. Much of the time enlistment or niche evangelism is likewise impersonal, although its structure allows for much more personal interaction than mass or media evangelism.

Personal evangelism – one person talking to another person about his need for Christ with a view of bringing him to a decision – is different than all of these. It is individually tailored. It is almost certainly the method that guarantees the highest rate of clarity. And it is also the only one that has a real possibility to reach every person.

In the weeks to come we will explore this last paragraph in more depth. As always, you are more than welcome to add your own perspective here. It is always welcome.