Models of Evangelism

Pope-Levison, Priscilla

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781493427383
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Ministerio cristiano

Outreach 2021 Resource of the Year (Theology and Biblical Studies) Many sincere Christians dismiss evangelism due to enduring evangelistic caricatures. This book helps readers move beyond those caricatures to consider thoughtfully and practically how they can engage in evangelism, whether it's through one-on-one conversations, social media, social justice, or the liturgy of worship services. At once biblical, theological, historical, and practical, this book by a seasoned scholar offers an engaging, well-researched, and well-organized presentation and analysis of eight models of evangelism. Covering a breadth of approaches--from personal evangelism to media evangelism and everything in between--Priscilla Pope-Levison encourages readers to take a deeper look at evangelism and discover a model that captures their attention. Each chapter introduces and assesses a model biblically, theologically, historically, and practically, allowing for easy comparison across the board. The book also includes end-of-chapter study questions to further help readers interact with each model.

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Personal

To envision how effective a model of evangelism can be, in which one person shares her faith one-on-one with another, simply recall a time when you got caught up in a friend’s enthusiasm for the amazing food she ate last night at a trendy downtown restaurant, or the movie he saw over the weekend that you just have to see, or—yes, this is true—a revolutionary new hair product, as Kevin Harney experienced: “I once saw a woman come up to her friend and say, ‘Smell my hair.’ It seemed like a strange request. But to my surprise, the other woman leaned over and took a big whiff. This led to an extensive conversation about a particular hair-care product. They chatted for a good ten minutes about it. The first woman touted the benefits of her new shampoo with great enthusiasm and passion. The second listened, asked questions, and seemed quite intrigued.” Harney, an advocate of personal evangelism, goes on to make the point that “we evangelize all the time. . . . The truth is, when we are zealous about something, when we really love it, we talk about it. We invite others to experience it. We want to share the joy.”1

It sounds so easy, but talking about a hair-care product or a restaurant is much easier—and typically far less liable to resistance on the part of the hearer—than conversing about religion. Who doesn’t want to eat a delicious meal, watch a good movie, or have hair with, oh, that perfect luster and bounce? But religion? Faith? Christianity? A recent study by the Barna Group documented two reasons in particular why people do not talk often about faith: avoidance and ambivalence.

• Religious conversations always seem to create tension or arguments: 28%
• I’m put off by how religion has been politicized: 17%
• I don’t feel like I know enough to talk about religious or spiritual topics: 17%2

The conundrum that avoidance and ambivalence presents is that fewer and fewer Christians in the United States are willing to engage in what is the most effective model of evangelism. As Tom Stebbins writes, “The gospel spreads most effectively across an existing network of trust relationships.”3 What then to do? If you are someone who resists the very thought of personal evangelism, I would ask you to suspend your hesitation, put down your crossed arms, and quiet your criticisms just long enough to read carefully the rest of the chapter, in which you may find some surprising, even admirable, qualities of personal evangelism that you have yet to encounter or consider.

Biblical Foundations

Though it is possible to find countless examples in Scripture of individuals sharing good news one-on-one, there are enough illustrations in John’s Gospel to prompt us to begin there. In John 1:39, Jesus responds to a question from Andrew, one of John the Baptist’s disciples, by inviting him to “come and see” where he is staying. Andrew then finds (heuriskei) and brings (ēgagen)—the Greek verb agō, perhaps better translated as “led”—his brother, Simon Peter, and the two brothers end up becoming two of the twelve disciples (1:40–42). In the next verse—the next day chronologically—Jesus finds (heuriskei) Philip and calls him to follow (v. 43). Philip responds affirmatively and then invites a more skeptical Nathanael—who cannot believe that anything good could come from Nazareth—with the simple words, “Come and see” (v. 46), which Jesus had spoken earlier.

So many simple words in this first chapter of John’s Gospel, words that encapsulate the essence of personal evangelism. Come and see. Found. Led. Found. Come and see. In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, the good news spreads one by one via personal invitation among friends and family, underscoring a central thrust of personal evangelism: the gospel spreads most effectively and efficiently across an existing network of relationships.

Two chapters later, Jesus interacts with another person, Nicodemus, “a leader of the Jews” (John 3:1). This time, Nicodemus is the one who initiates the encounter, with questions he wants to discuss (vv. 1–21). After Jesus’s crucifixion, Nicodemus shows up with a large amount of spices and helps Joseph of Arimathea place Jesus’s body in the tomb (19:38–42). Whether Nicodemus ever comes to believe in Jesus as the Messiah is a question left unanswered; his response in this respect is not at all like Andrew’s and Philip’s. The ambiguity that marks Nicodemus’s final appearance in John’s Gospel is something for which we can be grateful, since it is true to life: spiritual conversations can be tricky and tentative, and they often end without a clear decision, a certain conversion.

In the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel, one of the most successful examples of Jesus as an evangelist occurs in a most unlikely, even unseemly, encounter with a woman whose sexual promiscuity is legendary. In Jesus’s longest conversation, he talks alone with the Samaritan woman at the Sychar well in the heat of the noon sun (4:1–42). Jesus prompts the conversation with a simple request. “Give me a drink,” he says (v. 7). The woman proceeds to ask several questions, which Jesus answers, and the conversation continues, touching on topics from her personal life to divisive religious issues. When the disciples return, the woman leaves her water jar at the well and rushes back to town with these words on her lips: “[He] told me everything I have ever done” (v. 29). As a result of her testimony, the townspeople come to Jesus to hear more for themselves. Jesus stays for two days, and many, whose curiosity was piqued initially because of the woman’s words, come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

The Gospel of John is not the only New Testament book to offer clear models of personal evangelism.4 The book of Acts, which narrates the story of the early church, contains a breathtaking account of personal evangelism involving Philip and an Ethiopian eunuch (8:26–40). Note Philip’s responsiveness to God’s messenger. Immediately and obediently, he gets up and goes to the wilderness road that stretches from Jerusalem to Gaza. Immediately, obediently, and swiftly, he follows the Spirit’s direction to go over to the chariot—by running toward it (vv. 29–30). He opens the conversation with a simple question: “Do you understand what you are reading?” (v. 30). The eunuch reacts, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (v. 31). Then he invites Philip into the chariot to talk further.

Note how Philip allows the conversation to unfold at its own tempo. The eunuch, not Philip, raises the question, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” (v. 34). Philip honors the question and connects what they read in the Isaiah scroll to the good news about Jesus. He begins precisely where the eunuch is and deftly leads the conversation from the prophet Isaiah to Jesus Christ.

Philip does not take charge of anything in this story. He reacts eagerly to the Spirit’s prompting to approach the chariot. Then, after asking a simple opening question, he responds to the eunuch’s request. Philip’s ability to respond rather than control the conversation appears especially clearly in the eunuch’s request to be baptized. Without a word from Philip, the eunuch commands the chariot to stop; the two of them then head into the water together, where Philip baptizes him and leaves the eunuch to continue on his way rejoicing. What a story to inspire a responsive and supple approach to personal evangelism!

Picture this pair sitting side by side, a black man and a (relatively) white man, a sexually crippled man (a eunuch) and a robust man with four daughters (Acts 21:9), bouncing along in a chariot on a desolate road, united solely by the scroll of Isaiah that is draped over their knees. It’s a sight to behold. . . . An unexpected pair, a shared scroll, an out-of-the-way location, yet at the very center of God’s work. One by unexpected one, the people of God grew. One by surprising one, the church of God was enriched. And why? Because Philip found himself in unexpected places, listened to the Spirit, was willing to take the initiative, open to questions and requests, and contented to sit and study scripture at another person’s pace.5

Theological Foundations

Personal evangelism finds its orientation in two theological foci: Christology and Pneumatology. The christological aspect to which advocates of personal evangelism primarily appeal is the incarnation, the full humanity and full divinity of Jesus. Jesus, the divine Word who from the beginning was God, was born as one of us fully and bodily. John 1:14 offers a lovely, earthy image of Jesus’s pitching his tent (skēnoō) in humanity’s midst: “The Word became flesh and lived [eskēnōsen] among us.”6 The related noun, skēnē, shows up in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, where it refers to the tabernacle as the earthly place where God’s presence dwelt.7 As God’s glory shone from the tabernacle, so Jesus shone forth God’s glory: “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (v. 14). Through his incarnation, Jesus became “a visual aid” for the invisible God.8 “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9).

Jesus was sent into the world to make known the invisible G...