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Mark Dever: The Gospel and Personal Evangelism
By jason | April 16, 2008
I just finished up Mark Dever’s book, The Gospel & Personal Evangelism this morning. It was a helpful little book (only 120 pages long).
Chapters:
1. Why Don’t We Evangelize?
2. What Is the Gospel?
3. Who Should Evangelize?
4. How Should We Evangelize?
5. What Isn’t Evangelism?
6. What Should We Do After We Evangelize?
7. Why Should We Evangelize
Dever is the senior pasot of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in DC. He’s one of the peculiar cats with a Ph.D, a mentoring heart, leading a significant elder-led, congregationally-governed church. He’s a regulative principle guy and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him in a picture or at a conference without a suit and tie. Not only that but he’s one of these “nasty” reformed guys who isn’t supposed to care about evangelism. But strangely enough this isn’t the case. Maybe the pejoratives don’t always fit. (That’s all a bit tongue in cheek if you couldn’t gather tell.)
I don’t want to travel through every chapter but Carson and I were talking the other day and his chapter describing what evangelism isn’t is really helpful. Especially in our church-world culture today I think. So here is his short, helpful list from that chapter.
1. Imposition.
Many object to personal evangelism today (inside and outside the church) saying it is imposing our personal beliefs on others and therefore is inappropriate. But imposition implies something of an opinionated belief that may or may not be true to reality. But as Dever states, “the truths of the gospel are not yours, in the sense that they uniquely pertain to you and your perspective or experience, or in the sense that you came u with them.” He continues, “evangelism is simply telling the good news. It’s not making sure that the other person responds correctly.”
2. Personal Testimony
Often we are encouraged to share our story with others as a way to introduce people to Christ (I do this and encourage others as well). But sometimes in our story we are able to clearly articulate what Jesus has done, even in compelling ways, but we fail to actually share the gospel. This isn’t wrong per se, but we need to realize this isn’t the same as evangelism.
3. Social Action and Public Involvement
This is one that needs addressed in our current church world with all the talk of the “emerging church.” Too often I hear well intentioned believers say that what we need to do to share the gospel is _____ (fill in the blank with some social endeavor). All those all may be great and valuable and even necessary. But we mustn’t forget that they are not evangelism. Evangelism must entail a verbal witness of the problem, God’s solution, and our response (to maybe over simplify things).
4. Apologetics
This was a helpful section especially since I am someone who has always gravitated in this direction having had many questions myself. But we must remember that just answering questions, showing the truthfulness of Christianity, and even showing the inadequacy of other worldviews is not evangelism in itself. Important for me to remember as we host our Open Forum next week at BR.
5. The Results of Evangelism
This is something I think many struggle with (including myself). Not so much because we really believe conversion is the same as evangelism, but there is an implicit pressure to “produce” results. But as I learned long ago from something Bill Bright often said, effective evangelism is simply “taking the initiative in the power of the Holy Spirit to share the gospel, leaving the results to God.” It is freeing to know that it is not our job to convert people.
There are surely many others, Dever didn’t intend for an exhaustive list, but I think his short list can be very helpful for all of us who desire to live out God’s mission in our world.
Topics: Books, Missional Movements |