The Methods Versus the Message

Written by R.C. Sproul |
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Ultimately, evangelism is less about the method one uses and more about the message one proclaims. Evangelism, remember, is the proclamation of the gospel—telling the story, announcing the news.
Many Christians go their entire lives without being used by God to be the human instrument and means by which a person comes to Christ. My own calling is not as an evangelist, but seeing another human being come to Christ is the most meaningful ministry experience I’ve ever had.
I once was hired by a church to be the minister of theology, which meant that my job was to teach. They also added to my job description “minister of evangelism.” I said I didn’t know anything about evangelism. So, they sent me to a seminar to train in evangelism.
The minister leading the seminar talked about how to memorize an outline, how he uses key questions to stimulate discussion, and how there’s a pattern to the way in which evangelism is to flow. The idea behind the method he used was to focus attention on the ultimate issue of a person’s individual redemption—how can he justify himself before God? Most people will say that they have lived a good life; very few will say that they have been justified by faith alone in Christ alone.
You Might also like
-
From Silence to Complexification to Capitulation
…the movement is unmistakable, and it is unidirectional. Evangelicals who set down the path toward LGBTQ acceptance rarely turn around and head back in the other direction. And once the revisionist jump—that really wasn’t a jump—is complete, the tolerance and inclusion don’t usually last long. Sex is too powerful a thing to allow for competing visions. And so Neuhaus’ Law almost always proves true: Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be outlawed.
I don’t often agree with David Gushee, the liberal Christian ethicist whose “battles,” by his own description, have included “issues like climate change, torture, LGBTQ inclusion, and white supremacism.” But he spoke the uncomfortable truth when he observed years ago that when it comes to LGBTQ issues, there is no middle ground: “Neutrality is not an option. Neither is polite half-acceptance. Nor is avoiding the subject. Hide as you might, the issue will come and find you.”
I thought of those words, written way back in 2016, in recent weeks as I read of Michael Gerson’s tacit approval of gay marriage and of Dr. Bradley Nassif’s claims that he was expunged from North Park University because he upholds traditional views of sex, sexuality, and marriage. These aren’t the first cases of a self-described evangelical or evangelical institution moving into the revisionist camp, nor will it be the last. I hope I’m wrong, but I have my mental list of writers, thinkers, schools, and organizations that eventually will make the same move.
I almost wrote “jump” in the last sentence instead of “move,” but “jump” is not really the right word. Rarely do evangelical leaders and institutions leap all at once from the open celebration and defense of orthodoxy to the open celebration and defense of (what they once believed was) heterodoxy. In fact, when evangelical capitulation on LGBTQ issues makes the news it is rarely a surprise. There are almost always a series of familiar steps.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Lying to Ourselves
An excellent example of the tendency to adopt ideas that are known to be false and yet are made the basis of policy is the Scottish government’s bill to reduce the legal obstacles to sex change. The bill proposed that adolescents from the age of sixteen could change their sex (for all legal purposes) without having to undergo any medical examination or treatment, and simply after completing three months of living as the sex that they desired to be.
One of the peculiarities of our age is the ferocity with which intellectuals and politicians defend propositions that they do not—because they cannot—believe to be true, so outrageous are they, such violence do they do to the most obvious and evident truth. Agatha Christie (a far greater psychologist than Sigmund Freud), drew attention almost a century ago to the phenomenon when she had Dr. Sheppard, the protagonist and culprit of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd say, “It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial. I burst immediately into indignant speech.”
Among the propositions defended with such suspect ferocity is that men can change straightforwardly and unambiguously into women, and vice versa. Now everyone accepts that they can change into something different from ordinary men and women, and can live as if they were of the opposite of their birth sex; moreover, there is no reason to abuse or otherwise maltreat them if they do, and kindness and human decency require that we do not humiliate them or make their lives more difficult than they are. But this is not at all the same as claiming that those who take hormones and have operations actually are the sex that they choose, or that it is right to enshrine untruth in law and thereby force people to assent to what they know to be false. That way totalitarianism lies.
To propound and defend ideas that you know are false is intellectually and morally frivolous, but it lacks the usual enjoyment that frivolity is supposed to supply. It is combined with earnestness but not with seriousness: one thinks of the Austrian saying under the Habsburgs, “the situation is catastrophic but not serious.”
An excellent example of the tendency to adopt ideas that are known to be false and yet are made the basis of policy is the Scottish government’s bill to reduce the legal obstacles to sex change. The bill proposed that adolescents from the age of sixteen could change their sex (for all legal purposes) without having to undergo any medical examination or treatment, and simply after completing three months of living as the sex that they desired to be.
Read More
Related Posts: -
How “He Gets Us” Fails to Get Jesus
The ”He Gets Us” campaign never presents the need for sinners to repent. Their campaign promotes works and service but it doesn’t present the good news of Jesus. The social gospel never saves, it only sooths people as they journey onward toward the gates of hell. The “He Gets Us” presents a Jesus who affirms rather than confronts. There is no message of repentance and no message of hope.
The most important human being to ever live on planet earth was not a powerful athlete, an influential politician, or a wealthy business tycoon. The most powerful man in the history of the world was born in a stable for animals in an obscure village rather than in a palace in one of the world’s strategic cities. He spent his time in a carpenter’s shop working with his hands. He never graduated from an important school or wrote an important book. He was not impressive in his physical features. He never commanded an army. He was not an innovator or an inventor.
However, if you consider the most innovative and brilliant person in the history of science, physics, mathematics, engineering, politics, military, and the most capable person in the history of literature—all of them together have not impacted our world as has this one man—Jesus Christ. The Bible points out that Jesus is more than a gifted rabbi or a divine social worker who came to serve humanity. Jesus is the Son of the living God. He is the promised Messiah who took upon himself flesh and came on a rescue mission to save sinners (Matt 1:21; Luke 19:10).
Over the last couple of years, a campaign titled “He Gets Us” has been pointing people toward Jesus through television and social media advertisements. However, sadly, they have been pointing millions of people to the wrong Jesus.
The “He Gets Us” Campaign
The launch of “He Gets Us” began in 2022 as a media campaign designed to promote Jesus to the world through television, social media, and billboard advertisements. According to their website, the campaign seeks to tell the true story of Jesus to the world. Their website reads:
How did the story of Jesus, the world’s greatest love story, get twisted into a tool to judge, harm, and divide? How do we remind people that the story of Jesus belongs to everyone? These questions are the beating heart of He Gets Us.
The campaign started with a massive $100 million dollar investment backed by business owners and investors who claim the name of Jesus. Through messages that are designed to connect with the social moments of our culture, “He Gets Us” promotes messages that read: “Whatever you are facing, Jesus faced it too.”
One of the campaign’s videos, titled “The Rebel,” has been viewed more than 122 million times on YouTube in only 11 months. Needless to say, many people are watching and talking about the “He Gets Us” advertisements. According to their website, the organization believes the following:
“He Gets Us has chosen to not have our own separate statement of beliefs. Each participating church/ministry will typically have its own language. Meanwhile, we generally recognize the Lausanne Covenant as reflective of the spirit and intent of this movement and churches that partner with explorers from He Gets Us affirm the Lausanne Covenant.”
They are intentionally broad and unaffiliated with a specific Christian denomination or orthodox confession in order to partner with a wide range of organizations and churches across evangelicalism.
The Wrong Jesus of “He Gets Us”
It doesn’t matter if you’re a student or a professor, a janitor or a chief executive officer, a common citizen or a politician—one day every single person will stand before the throne of Jesus. Prior to the incarnation when the Son of God took upon himself human flesh and was born as a little baby in Bethlehem, he was enthroned in heaven and worshipped by angels (Is 6). Today, Jesus is seated upon the throne clothed in glorified flesh complete with the scars of his crucifixion.
The Jesus who is often presented in our culture is quite simply not the Jesus of the Bible. Our modern culture praises Jesus and curses him at the same time. In December of 2013, Time Magazine revealed Jesus to be the most significant figure of human history.1 From politics to country music, Jesus is referenced in nearly every sphere of life. It was Kid Rock who referenced Jesus as “the man from Galilee” who an assistant to Hank Williams Jr.to lead him to the light.2 John Lennon once claimed that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.3 As time continues to ebb and flow, cultural references of Jesus present a deficient view of Jesus that serve as a distraction from his true mission, holiness, and sovereign authority.
In the “He Gets Us” campaign, the presentation of Jesus is driven by the winds of culture rather than the pages of Scripture. The “He Gets Us” message is built upon the sinking sand of social justice rather than the firm foundation of the gospel. In the messages of “He Gets Us” the text of Scripture is filtered through a cultural lens that’s overly contextualized so that the true Jesus appears to be a social worker rather than the sovereign Savior of the world.
In their presentation of Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well in John 4, the boldness of Jesus and his confrontation of her sin is minimized.
Read More
Related Posts: