I’ve noticed some changes in Christians’ attitudes and motivations in evangelism over the years. A while ago, many Christians evangelized out of guilt. They felt so bad that they hadn’t told their friends about Jesus that they just had to “get it off their chests.” This was not ideal.
Then, for a while, we proclaimed the good news with confidence in our methods and apologetic firepower. We had answers – lots of them! No one was going to stump us. So, we shared the good news of grace with the bad attitude of pride. This was even worse than the guilt-ridden days.
In the past few years, I’ve heard another motivation expressed in numerous ways – compassion. More and more Christians, I sense, don’t know what to say to their non-Christian friends but they feel burdened to do so out of love. Their friends’ lives are falling apart and Jesus can help them. I’m greatly encouraged by this trend. When we proclaim the gospel out of concern for people, they feel a qualitative difference than when we exude pride, guilt, anger, or superiority.
But, recently, I’m hearing another attitude creep in – Despair. As I conduct evangelism training seminars, I’m sensing some pushback that wasn’t there just a few years ago. Believers tell me the answers we offer to outsiders might be true and accurate and Biblical. “But they just won’t work. People will just think we’re crazy,” they tell me. “They won’t even listen!”
I do agree the temperature has gotten hotter when it comes to gospel conversations. And I do not deny that our task has gotten more difficult. Put another way, we have more work to do in pre-evangelism and plausibility building than we used to.
But here’s what we need to remember. While the challenges to evangelism may be more formidable than in recent years, God’s power to break through has not diminished. People may be more resistant than ever. (I believe they are). But God’s “two-edged sword” is just as sharp as ever. The prevailing culture may encourage more condemnation of Christians than in recent times. (I believe that’s the case in America, at least). But the Gospel’s “power to save” hasn’t lost any potency.
If we ever thought evangelism was easy, we failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. If we ever relied on the power of our reasoning skills or strength of our apologetic arguments, we had succumbed to an arrogance that trusted in ourselves rather than God. Somewhere along the way, we forgot that people are “dead in their trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). We thought they were just confused or misinformed or ignorant. We slipped into thinking people needed answers instead of a savior.
But evangelism isn’t just difficult. It’s impossible. And that’s actually liberating.
When we remember that evangelism involves talking to spiritually dead people, we ask God to do what only he can do – raise the dead. When we recall that the devil has blinded people, we ask God to lift the veil. When we see that people need more than just answers, we do our best to give them good answers but, at the same time, we ask God to soften hearts.
We should not ignore the obstacles we face. Nor should we doubt the God who cuts through those obstacles.
