Jesus used the analogy of fishing to describe evangelism when He said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Instead of fishing for men, many churches are merely keepers of the aquarium. How do we change that? How do we as Christians engage in evangelism, and when we do, what is our message?
The book of Acts describes the early history of the church and it was far from “smooth sailing.” The Christians experienced great difficulties while at the same time there was a notable expansion of the gospel. When, early on, persecution of Christians commenced, God’s people were dispersed from their locations. That brought terrible disruption, as we might imagine. Yet, rather than this persecution meaning the end of the church’s witness, it resulted in Christians sharing their faith way beyond the normal parameters of their locality. As we know, God uses means to achieve His ends! Amazingly, our Sovereign God actually used the persecution of Christians to expand the rule of the Lord Jesus.
Luke (the author of Acts) describes the situation in these words: Acts 8:1 And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Then we read in v. 4:
Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.
Question: Who were preaching the word?
Answer: The Christians (but not the apostles)
Let that truth sink in: Though God used the apostles greatly to see conversions, the massive expansion of the early church occurred when the people of God (the normal, everyday, non spectacular, non superstar Christians) shared the word of God with others.
In a similar way, here in the 21st century, statistics tells us that while God uses well known preachers in our day to some degree, the vast majority (more than 80%) of those coming to faith in Christ, do so through Christians sharing the gospel with those they know and meet. That should be a great encouragement to us.
Some teachers overstate things when they say that evangelism is our ONLY purpose here on earth. When we go back to Creation, Adam and Eve in the garden had purpose to glorify God and obey Him well before there were any other people around to reach with His truth.
In the same way, each of us also have great purpose in living for God and obeying Him, even apart from evangelism. And yet, our pilgrimage here on earth is our only available time to reach others with the gospel. In heaven, with all the glorified saints of all ages there, we will have no need to share our faith, for all will know Him. It is here, at this time, we are called to be witnesses of Christ.
For the Wednesday Bible study, I made a recording of just less than an hour, walking through key principles for sharing the gospel with others. It may well be the first part of a longer series on the subject… we will see… but it is something vital to our task here on earth. I hope you find it to be a blessing.