The Trouble With Evangelism (part 4)

Let’s dispense with the formalities and dive right into the question at hand, shall we?

What if someone receives a Christian, that is embraces that person’s community relationally, has that someone received Jesus?

Big question, ain’t it? Lot’s of implications, right? Steps on a lot of doctrinal toes, crushing them into a meaty pulp, doesn’t it? Please understand that I’m not trying to establish in this, or any article I write, a doctrinal absolutes. Most doctrinal “absolutes” make me queasy, like I’ve just discovered a pile of someone else’s chest hair in my burger at Steak-n-Shake after taking several bites already (have fun with that image, by the way). Most doctrinal absolutes are not absolutes at all, but simply someone’s misinterpretation of random Bible passages that were not written with the idea of establishing doctrines by which churches and denominations can control people’s thinking and questioning and further fragment the body of Christ.

But I digress… (I’ll be working on that argument for another article…or maybe I already have…)

My intent here, before I veered wildly off course, is to ask questions that have been on my mind and share them with you. Let’s begin this discussion with a couple of scriptures.

We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving and receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing. __Matthew 10:40-42 (the Message)__

And this is real and eternal life: that they may know you, the one and only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. __John 17:3 (the Message)__

And just so you know that I’m not trying to manipulate the Scriptures by using a linguistically “loose” translation like the Message I’ll include a more accurate, direct translation.

He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. __Matthew 10:40-42 (NASB)__

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. __John 17:3 (NASB)__

So, let me get this straight: Jesus sends out his disciples into towns all over Galilee and tells them that when people accept them and receive them they are receiving Him AND receiving God, who sent him. So people all over Galilee are accepting Jesus’ emissaries, his direct representatives of himself, and, in accepting them they are accepting Jesus and God at the same time.

Talk about blowing apart most evangelistic programs and totally turning the whole idea of accepting Jesus (a phrase never found in Scripture to my knowledge) on its head.

In Acts 2, during Pentecost, the disciples receive the awaited gift of the Holy Spirit, literally, the risen Jesus takes up residence inside each one of them. This is traditionally the beginning of the Christian community, the ekklesia. Now, if in receiving the disciples people received Jesus, how much more true would it be for us as Spirit-filled Christians that when people receive us that they are receiving Jesus? How huge are the implications for this? If this is true it completely transforms what our communities should be, how we should live with and for each other as a legitimate conduit of reception. This is why it is so important for us to be authentic human beings, because when people respond by wanting to be part of this “new humanity” (Ephesians 2:15, TNIV) they are receiving Jesus—the supreme authentic Human, who now lives in us. After all aren’t we made in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:27, TNIV) and “clothed in Christ” (Galatians 3:27, TNIV)? The Church according to Scripture is now “the letter of Christ” (2 Corinthians 3:3, TNIV) not written on tablets of stone or paper with ink, but with the Spirit on human lives. Jesus is written all over us. We’ve talked about the importance of love in reference to evangelism in previous articles. What we do, how we receive people, accept them as one of us without restraint and with massive doses of grace, forgiveness, and patient love, serve as the pipeline through which people see the real Jesus, the one of the Scriptures that loves them and serves them through the willing disciple. Too often our evangelism and subsequent “accept Jesus” rhetoric has reduced receiving the extraordinary, mysterious, resurrecting and redeeming life of Jesus to a few propositional doctrinal statements. How many times have you heard this, or, in my case, said this?

Repeat after me: I believe (I believe) that Jesus is the Christ (that Jesus is the Christ) the Son of the living God (etc.) and I accept him as my Lord and Savior (etc.).

Not that these words of affirmation aren’t important, but does that really make you a Christian? If it does then why doesn’t any of that appear in the Bible? Why don’t we have record of Peter taking 3000 confessions at Pentecost and then baptizing everyone? This is not to make light of doctrine or deem it unnecessary. Clear cut verbalization of what we believe has its place and has for centuries in the church (see every creed of the church, particularly the Apostle’s Creed). Isn’t evangelism relational and communal? Shouldn’t it be if it isn’t already? Faith in Christ, life lived with Christ, is more than just a bunch of random crap (and by crap I mean over-emphasized doctrines that are forced on us and we aren’t ever supposed to question) that we are supposed to intellectual and verbally ascent to. It has to be or it isn’t life-giving; it is soul-crushing legalism and law.

If we are, in fact, as I believe we are, and I believe Scripture says we are, the Word made flesh again in our neighborhoods then in receiving us and our faith communities people are receiving the Word in us. I can’t get away from this very possible reality. This makes our evangelism entirely relational, loving people for the sake of loving them, knowing that when they accept us and our communities and desire to be a part of that they are, in some mystical way, accepting the One who has sent us out into “all Galilee.”

shalom, matt

Next time: why church is the last place you should invite someone. Stay tuned.