Proclaim Good Tidings

Evangelism for the Faith Community

by Vernard Eller

Forword

Evangelism: Early Brethren and Early Christians
Evangelism and the Gospel of the Kingdom
How to Be Inviting Through Body Language [originally appeared in The Outward Bound]
Go, Tell It on the Mountain

Foreword

Number me among the admirers of Vernard Eller. I suspect their number is only a little less than legion. Like myself they read with relish whatever he writes–stylistically idiosyncratic, often slightly acerbic, but always biblically informed. A thought-provoking spokesperson for evangelicalism of an Anabaptist orientation, he has an ability which Jesus commended: out of the treasury of God’s truth he brings things that are both old and new, refurbishing hackneyed doctrines and finding in centuries-old theology insights that are contemporary.

Though I am a Baptist and he is a staunch Brethren adherent, we share a wide range of convictions and concerns beyond our basic evangelicalism–the imperative of peacemaking, the challenge of radical discipleship, the stewardship of personal and environmental resources, the need to recover and practice New Testament ecclesiology. We also draw refreshing inspiration from the same intellectual wells: Søren Kierkegaard, the Blumhardts, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, and Jacques Ellul.

Not that my admiration for Eller is Unqualified. What mere mortal deserves adulation? He, no more than I, possesses the charisma of infallibility. Yet I profit from my interaction with his thinking even when he is prejudicially shortsighted and egregiously wrong!

In his discussion of the Lord’s Supper, for example, he makes assertions that will cause–I suspect to his delight–an arching of ecclesiastical eyebrows. Following Australian scholar Robert Banks, he denies that this dominical ordinance is to be practiced as a “religious ritual” and that Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 10-11 are to be construed as “liturgical formulae.”

Eller also repudiates the notion of “closed communion,” contending with Banks and Latin American Methodist Bishop, Mortimer Arias, that “the open table” is obviously not an “exclusive and in-group affair,” limited to Christians of a certain denominational persuasion. So for Eller, I must assume, any “fencing of the table,” as the stricter Presbyterians once called their deeply soul-searching and severely restricted participation in the Lord’s Supper, would be a contradiction of what the Supper’s Institutor (and still its invisible host) had in mind.

In so arguing Eller is of course asking that we rethink our Free Church (or Believers’ Church) tradition. Most of us in that tradition, to say nothing of other traditions which in this matter concur with ourselves, believe contra Eller that the Lord’s Supper is in fact a “religious ritual” and that Paul’s First Corinthian statements are to be construed as “liturgical formulae.”

In addition, Eller suggests that the apostolic love feasts were ordinary meals which Christians shared together, simply feeding themselves and spontaneously talking about their Savior, recalling all he had done for them. Those earliest disciples, in Eller’s opinion, would have repudiated the thought that they were performing any cultic ritual. He suggests, too, that first century Christians probably invited “hungry people off the street” to share their supper. They would do this, he surmises, not only because of their concern for purely physical need, but also because it was an ideal method of evangelism, a golden opportunity to show how the Savior’s love has motivated the oneness of his loving, caring Body. Vernard Eller’s earlier book, In Place of Sacraments (Eerdmans, 1972) [and updated as Can the Church Have It All Wrong? (House Church Central, 1997)] is a more detailed study of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Moreover, Eller criticizes the prevalent concept of evangelism as being a lop-sided individualism. Certainly, salvation is not received en masse. One by one sinners in their lostness must make a personal commitment to the sin-atoning Jesus. Certainly, also, there are immediate benefits of incalculable value which accrue from such destiny changing decisions. But evangelism, if faithful to the full-orbed teaching of the New Testament, must proclaim the Good News of God’s victory over evil by the cross. It must likewise proclaim Christ’s kingly reign over the Church, his new community which is a pilot-model of history’s end-state when the Kingdom will be universally established. Leave out the message of the new community, the Body of Christ, and you preach a truncated Gospel. Evangelism demands the proclamation of individual liberation from sin and guilt together with the announcement–the promise–of incorporation into the world-embracing, history-fulfilling Body of Christ. New Testament religion is personal but not individualistic. As John Wesley insisted, Christianity knows nothing of the solitary believer. In the Lord’s Supper the cross-created togetherness of redeemed individuals is magnetically exhibited.

I especially appreciate Eller’s emphasis on Body language. He takes an idea, body language, which is a cliché of communication theory, and applies it strikingly to the evangelistic ministry of the whole church. Skillful and earnest homiletics, he argues (and, one might add, a zealous witness using the “Four Spiritual Laws”) will not by itself win non-Christians to the faith. In Christians, in our Body relationships incarnating love and care and service, they must see a living out of reconciliation. If our corporate speech is the eloquent and convincing idiom of grace, unbelievers may respond as Paul predicted they would: they will fall down and worship crying, “God is certainly among you” (1 Cor. 14:25).

Evangelism therefore is not merely the responsibility of a few disciples who have been uniquely gifted for that task. It is–it ought to be–a function of the whole Body communicating the Gospel by its agapaic interaction. Physicist Robert Oppenheimer once remarked, “If you want to send an idea, wrap it up in a person.” God did that, of course. God articulated the truth in the person of Jesus, the resurrected Christ. God’s Word became flesh. The Gospel is successfully proclaimed only as the great idea of sacrificial love is enunciated through the Body language of the church, and where the message of the cross is daily enfleshed and persuasively enacted.

For compelling us to rethink our traditional belief and practice regarding the Lord’s Supper and for calling us back to the New Testament concept of evangelism, I for one am gratefully indebted to my esteemed brother, Vernard Eller.

Vernon Grounds

President Emeritus, Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary

1. Evangelism: Early Brethren and Early Christians

There are, I suggest, two basically different perspectives from which the Christian gospel can be approached. The one we will identify as “Historical Eschatology” and the other as “Immediate Amelioration.” I beg your pardon for the big words so will proceed to try and reduce them to common language.

In the first instance, “eschatology” denotes “the dynamic process of bringing events out to a future, end-state goal.” The addition of “historical” makes the phrase say “God’s long-term, all-pervading work of bringing history out at the goal he intends (which is, of course, the kingdom of God).”

In the second instance, “amelioration” denotes “improving the conditions that presently obtain.” And the addition of “immediate” says only that the amelioration is effective beginning now, rather than being postponed to the future. And we have in mind, of course, God’s improving “our present human situation”–either on an individual or the social basis (or both).

It is much too neat an oversimplification to see Historical Eschatology as interested only in future benefits and Immediate Amelioration only in present ones. Rather, the issue is how the present benefits of the gospel are to be understood and interpreted.

Historical Eschatology would never deny the reality of “present benefits.” However, it does see these as world-historical events whose full significance lies in their being current indications of God’s progressing yet still-to-be-consummated work. As foretastes, premonitions, and guarantees, they certainly are valued for themselves–while, at the same time, being even more highly valued for what they promise.

With Immediate Amelioration, on the other hand, these benefits are valued simply for what they are–namely, ends in themselves, the significance of which lies entirely in their ameliorative effect upon the present.

Now, my thesis here is that Classic Evangelism (by which I mean “evangelism as the church has regularly understood and presented it”) has as much as invariably understood itself in the context of Immediate Amelioration rather than that of Historical Eschatology.

Under Immediate Amelioration, evangelism has been valued primarily for one dominant benefit and secondarily for perhaps two lesser ones. Primarily, it is through evangelism that an individual comes to accept Jesus Christ and so have his spiritual status immediately changed from “lost” to “saved” (“that whoever believes in him may not perish but [beginning at that very moment] may have eternal life”). In short, through the act of his “accepting Christ,” God’s primary intention regarding that person has been accomplished. Of course, it is vital that the person proceeds to demonstrate his salvation in his character and public behavior. Nevertheless, the crucial amelioration offered by the gospel came in this accomplished change of status and is not expected from some future event either of the individual’s or the history of the world.

Conversely, on this point, the advantage of Historical Eschatology is that–without its in any way belittling personal conversion–the “salvation” of the individual is now understood as also enlisting him into the forward-looking historical process of God’s “salvation” of the world. Thus, personal salvation is perhaps now even more significant as a world-historical portent of the kingdom’s coming than it is simply as an ameliorative change of private status before God.

Secondarily, from the standpoint of Immediate Amelioration, evangelism serves “church growth,” the augmentation or increase of the church. This one, of course, is currently much talked among us; and there is nothing wrong with that–except when it threatens to displace evangelism’s primary focus. But on this point, Historical Eschatology would stress evangelism’s accessions more as a sign that the coming of the kingdom is indeed underway–this much more than simply as an immediate gain for the Institutional church.

Immediate Amelioration may also value another secondary effect that is, at best, a quite indirect one. However, it could be argued that, the more Christians are won by evangelism, the better chance Christians will have of mounting political power to ameliorate and recast the present social order. Yet, by relating evangelism to the coming of the kingdom, Historical Eschatology looks to the one, true, guaranteed revolutionizing of society–this, instead of to the entirely chancy business of our powers accomplishing immediate sociopolitical betterment.

However, it is the farthest thing from my purpose to imply that–between Historical Eschatology and Immediate Amelioration–one of these views is true and the other false. Both are valid biblical positions, although showing up at different points in scripture. For instance, the synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke clearly belong to the school of Historical Eschatology, while the Gospel of John just as clearly belongs to the school of Immediate Ameliorization–yet with each having equal authority and standing within the New Testament canon. Accordingly, our intent, now, is not at all to put down or eliminate the classic evangelism of the Immediate Amelioration school. Not at all; our purpose is rather to keep both perspectives in view by relating them to one another dialectically. We want simply to open out classic evangelism to the new glories it acquires by being cast in the perspective of Historical Eschatology.

Historical Eschatology assumes a narrative account of what God has done, is now doing, and intends to do by way of bringing world history out at the end-state kingdom he has in mind for it. The Bible provides us that narrative; and I here make bold to draw up a synoptic outline of it. Our task, then, will be to find the proper place of “evangelism” within that synopsis. (Of course, no claim is made for this as being the only correct way to outline salvation-history. Others well might want to include some items I omit–and perhaps omit some items I include. So the general idea of an eschatological/biblical synopsis is all that need concern us here.)

A Synoptic Outline of God’s Eschatological Plan for World History

The Creation: God’s very act of creating the universe perhaps implies a “covenant” with humanity that, if it will continue to live “in his image,” the total life of the universe will continue to be as “very good” as God initially declared it to be. And even following the Fall, to Noah, God reaffirmed his own faithfulness to that same covenant–in spite of all.
The Fall of Man: Humanity chooses sinfully to pervert its created status as “the image of God” and thus throws the whole creation out of kilter.
God Covenants with Abraham, through him to form a people (Israel) by which, in God’s good time, all the families of the earth shall come to bless themselves (in his kingdom, of course). The Mosaic covenant is simply a later reaffirmation of this one-again, in spite of all.
God Covenants with David that, out of faithless Israel, he shall anoint a line of kings that, again in God’s good time, shall eventuate in The Anointed One (Messiah Jesus, of course)–as always, in spite of all.
Jesus’ Earthly Ministry: Through it, the Davidic Messiah (and One who is more than just Davidic Messiah) proclaims the at-handedness of the kingdom–and not only proclaims it but bestows upon people the powers of its soon-coming, recruits them for its membership, and teaches them its ways.
Jesus’ Death on the Cross: In the upper room, in obvious reference to his imminent blood-sacrifice, Jesus tells his disciples, “I am covenanting a covenant with you, according as my Father covenanted a kingdom to me, that you may be eating and drinking at my table in my kingdom” (Luke 22:29-30, Concordant Literal Version). With this, it is made plain that scripture’s “covenant theme” and its eschatological “coming-of-the-kingdom theme” are in actuality one and the same theme. Both the coming of the kingdom and the fulfillment of God’s total covenant promises point to the same event. And in addition, scripture also sees Jesus’ crucifixion as marking God’s victorious overcoming of the world and all its powers.
Jesus’ Glorious Resurrection signifies God the Father’s confirmation of that victory and his sending Jesus back into play.
Jesus’ Exaltation as LORD puts him in charge at the right hand of power–and thus in position for the final actions of bringing in the kingdom.
Pentecost: The Spirit’s “rush of a mighty wind” can be understood as the turbulence, the backdraft, the big swoosh, resulting from the all-powerful thrust by which the Lord Jesus barrels through history and into the kingdom. And the first effect of that “rush of wind” is to pull all sorts of onlookers into its kingdom-bound train, thus bringing them into the body of Christ and preparing them to serve in his mission.
The Eschaton (The End), the finale, the consummation: This is “the return of Jesus” in which he fulfills all God’s covenantal promises, eliminates all opposition, establishes the kingdom in fullness and in power, and then offers it all back to God the Father–making him everything to everyone (1 Cor. 15:20-28).

At this point, then, it is my purpose to argue that, biblically, the blank space of No. 10 can he filled in by nothing other than “evangelism” (the church’s mission of evangelization). I will also argue that this step is just as vital to the synopsis as a whole, to the accomplishment of God’s end-state goal, as is any item in the sequence. And of course, classic evangelism–with its “immediate amelioration” simply of saving first one individual and then another–has never managed to give evangelization a setting like this! The classic mode inevitably has seen evangelism as a one-at-a-time, here-and-there, largely individualistic and thus publicly invisible phenomenon. Biblical eschatology sees evangelism, rather, before the fans, as Jesus’ grand-slam homer that empties the bases of history (“Run, you guys; don’t just stand there looking. Don’t you realize we’ve just taken the World Series?”).

Indeed, this new perspective will necessitate something of a redefinition of “evangelism.” Classically understood, I think “evangelism” might be defined something as follows: “our inviting and helping others to come to accept Jesus Christ in a way that spells their own personal salvation.” There is nothing wrong with that, of course. But I shall now propose an eschatological definition–and then spend the remainder of this chapter demonstrating that it is indeed biblical.

Evangelism is

the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom-victory God has won through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
which proclamation triggers the homecoming of those hostages who have been liberated through that victory (or, if you prefer, the harvest of the world’s heavy crop)
in order that those so gathered can be incorporated as that end-time community which is “the body of Christ,”
living as bride in readiness for the wedding supper of the Lamb–which “love feast” is the last-day banquet of the kingdom, supplied from the tree of life, as has been God’s covenant promise since Day One.

Note, first, that the word “gospel” (Anglo-Saxon derivation meaning “good news”) is synonymous with “evangel” (the New Testament Greek derivation meaning “good news”). With those two words, we are simply saying the same thing out of different linguistic backgrounds. So, at least linguistically, “evangelism” must have to do with proclaiming and promoting “the gospel.”

“The gospel,” in turn, is a technical term bequeathed us by the New Testament. It obviously has in mind but one particular item of good news; for instance, “Dinner is ready” is sure enough good news, although clearly not what the New Testament has in mind as the euangelion. So where did the word come from, and what implications is it meant to carry? Several scholars suggest that the key word euangelion probably came into New Testament usage as a loan from (and a reference to) a Hebrew word of Isaiah 52:7:

	How beautiful upon the mountains
		are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
	who brings good news,
		who announces salvation,
		who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

Now, “Your God reigns” [Heb., “Your God is king”] is, of course, simply another way of spelling “kingdom of God”; and scripture regularly understands peace, happiness, and salvation to be marks and characteristics of that kingdom. If, then, this is where the New Testament word euangelion comes from, the word itself can’t intend just any and every sort of “good news.” No, the bearer of this “gospel,” the guy with the feet “how beautiful upon the mountains,” is undoubtedly a runner from the battlefield hurrying back to proclaim: “Victory is ours! The good Lord has won it all!”

And to translate this into New Testament terms, then, the Christian gospel would be: “In the world you have persecution. But take courage! I have conquered the world!” (Jn.16:33). “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col.2:15).

Yes, of course, your own personal salvation is important as part and parcel of this total victory; however, quite beyond the implicit individualism of classic evangelism, we can now be much more truly “evangelistic” with a truly biblical “gospel” that proclaims God’s universal kingdom-victory (which you personally are invited to join).

The above, you should realize, is commentary on the “a. clause” of our new definition of evangelism; we proceed now to the “b. clause.”

The biblical idea of “the eschatological ingathering” goes a way back. Hear these words from Jeremiah–which, by the way, are part of his “new covenant” chapter (and probably not accidentally so):

	For thus says the Lord:
	Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
		and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
	proclaim, give praise, and say,
		“Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.”
	See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
		and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
	among them the blind and the lame,
		those with child and those in labor, together;
		a great company, they shall return here. (Jer. 31:7-8)

Catch the drift: With God’s great victory (in Christian terms, his accomplishment through the death and resurrection of Jesus), he has, of course, liberated all the prisoners of war taken by Evil over the years. And once they have been liberated, the thing to do is bring these hostages home–that is what this ingathering signifies. And “Proclaim! Praise! Shout!”–that is evangelism. It is, at one and the same time, the announcement of the victorious ingathering and also God’s means of moving people into that ingathering.

Matthew 9:

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Mt. 9:35-38)

Now, of course, Jesus himself is here acting as an “evangelist”–and that not only in his announcing “the gospel of the kingdom” (which is, by the way, a fine phrase for our redefinition of “gospel”). His activity of healing and helping people is just as truly “evangelistic”; those benefits are themselves understood as results of God’s victory and as advance signs of the kingdom’s soon-coming. So the total package of Jesus’ kingdom-words and kingdom-actions constitutes “evangelism.”

However, Jesus’ word to the disciples should not be thought of as a sociological observation to the effect that the situation of the moment was entirely auspicious for successful efforts in church-growth (nor his actions thought of simply as a sociological effort to ameliorate social conditions). Such considerations affect our evangelistic responsibilities neither one way nor another. No, Jesus is saying that we stand at that point in world history (between Items No.9 and 11 in our synopsis) in which it is urgent for God’s harvest to be gathered before the entire operation is closed off by the arrival of the kingdom itself. Jesus stood at that point of world history then; we still stand at it now–and will stand so until Jesus himself returns. Yet, for all you know, that could be tomorrow–so beg the owner to be quick in getting more and more evangelistic laborers into that harvest. Notice, too, that Jesus’ call is not for laborers to volunteer but rather for them to be sent. There’s a difference; true evangelists are those who have responded to God’s call and are acting under his direction–not people who have figured out what needs to be done and so set about doing it on their own. But Jesus wants to speak of the eschatological urgency of evangelism.

Revelation 14:

Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand! Another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to the one who sat on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earthy is fully ripe.” So the one who sat on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped (Rev. 14:14-16)

As a word we much need to hear, this text tells us that evangelism is far from being just another human “good cause,” another project the church has come up with as a means of advancing its own interests. Not at all; the evangelistic ingathering is one of the specific and mighty acts of God–in which he has called us to participate with him. Yet it is always his work and not anything we can program.

We now begin a transition into the “c. clause” of our definition. Hear these lines from the Eucharistic prayers of the Didache, perhaps the earliest Christian liturgy preserved outside the New Testament (early second century):

As this bread was scattered on the mountains and yet was gathered and made one, so too may thy church be gathered together from the corners of the world into thy kingdom–for thine is the glory and power through Christ Jesus forever.

And again

Lord, remember thy community to deliver it from all evil, and perfect it in the love of thee, and gather it in from the four winds, once it has been made holy, into thy kingdom, which thou hast prepared for it. For thine is the power and glory forever…. Maran atha! Our Lord, come!

Notice, with these prayers, that the harvest is not complete simply with the gathering. The gathering is itself purposed to the end of the incorporation (the perfect word) of the body of Christ that is the end-time community. Evangelization is an unfinished work if it stops with the candidate’s simply “accepting Christ”; he is not ready for the kingdom until he has been brought home and incorporated into community. The New Testament is entirely clear on this matter–and that at particularly crucial junctures, namely its treatments of the Lord’s Supper.

Verses from Luke 22:

When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” ... Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body….” And he did the same with the cup after saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood…. “

“You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Lk 22:14-15, 19-20, 28-30)

n sum, Jesus’ bread-word here effectually says: “This communal action in which we are participating signifies your becoming my blood-covenanted body in anticipation of the kingdom’s imminent consummation.” Here is pledged the covenant that forms these individuals into the body which shall become the end-state community of the kingdom. The operative terms are “covenant,” “body,” “kingdom” (strongly social terms all; in no way individualistic) and with no suggestion that there is anything which rightly can be called “salvation” outside of this social economy. Evangelism will have to break out of its classic “individualism” and into this high order of “socialization” if it is to have any chance of being truly biblical. “Convert individuals in order to incorporate them into a body” is how the Bible has it.

Paul, then, in 1 Corinthians 11:

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death…. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. (1 Cor. 11:26, 28-29)

In partaking of the Supper, Paul says, we are working our own condemnation–unless we discern this action as being to no purpose other than that we acknowledge ourselves to be Christ’s end-time covenant body and dedicate ourselves to live accordingly, faithfully anticipating the kingdom until the very moment he comes bringing it.In partaking of the Supper, Paul says, we are working our own condemnation–unless we discern this action as being to no purpose other than that we acknowledge ourselves to be Christ’s end-time covenant body and dedicate ourselves to live accordingly, faithfully anticipating the kingdom until the very moment he comes bringing it.

Revelation 19

And finally, then, with Revelation 19, we move to the “d. clause”:

	Hallelujah!
	For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.
	Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,
	for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
		And his bride has made herself ready;
	to her it has been granted to be clothed
		with fine linen, bright and pure”
	For fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Rev. 19:6-9)

Do you see any reason why what is there called “wedding feast” ought not also be called a “love feast”? Do you think it could be anything other than what Jesus originally promised as the resumption of the Lord’s Supper in the kingdom of God? Can this “bride of the Lamb” be anyone other than the end-time body of Christ we have been eschatologically tracking? And what might be the point of all the evangelistic ingathering and incorporation–except to get us (the whole lot of us) in place for this wedding, this feast, this victory celebration? Evangelism, I hope you see, is no little thing in the eyes of God or in his plan for the world. Happy are those to whom your beautiful feet have run the good news that God’s victory in Jesus Christ has made possible the ingathering that can get them (with Christ’s whole corporation) to the wedding feast of the Lamb.

2. Evangelism and the Gospel of the Kingdom

It was an entirely chance event but through it I came to realize that “evangelism” is actually an item demanding to be listed (along with peace, the simple life, radical discipleship, and what all) as one of the core distinctives of Brethrenism. This means, first, that the Brethren played a particular role in the historical development of modern evangelism. It means also that this tradition is in position to contribute an understanding of evangelism somewhat different from the ordinary.

Though doing it for a purpose entirely unrelated to evangelism, a graduate student from the Fuller Seminary School of Missions showed me the book History of Evangelism by the German scholar Paulus Scharpff. In great detail, Scharpff traces the Protestant development of “evangelism” (as a deliberately programmed interest) from the time of the Reformation down to the present day.

For the Reformation period, he prefers to speak of “forerunners”–in that a full-fledged movement did not develop until later. He explains how the concept of “state church” effectively prevented Luther and the other Reformers from thinking in terms of what we would call “evangelism.” Accordingly, he spots the true evangelistic forerunners as two: Kaspar Schwenkfeld (who had at least something of a connection with Anabaptism) and the Anabaptists themselves. So it turns out that the sixteenth-century forerunners of “evangelism” and the sixteenth-century forerunners of the Church of the Brethren are the very same forerunners–and also, of course, the direct progenitors of the Mennonites.

But where Scharpff becomes quite explicit is in his argument that the entire modern movement of evangelism traces back directly to the European Pietism of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Consequently, in developing those beginnings, he names the very same people that Don Dumbaugh, Dale Brown, David Ensign, and Bill Willoughby have been naming as the Pietists out of whose thought-world the Brethren came to birth: such people as Johannes Arndt, Jakob Boehme, Gottfried Arnold, Jean de Labadie, Theodor Untereyck, P. J. Spener, A. H. Francke, Gerhard Tersteegen, the Berleburg group, the Community of True Inspiration, Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians.

In other words, Scharpff portrays the very milieu from which the Brethren sprang–yet without naming them explicitly. However, he does come close–very, very close. He gives major attention to Hochmann von Hochenau, calling him “a prince among evangelists in the early period of pietism.” And Alexander Mack, the first minister of the Brethren, was, of course, an actual convert, protégé, and colleague who traveled with Hochmann on his evangelistic tours. It would be entirely correct to call the original Brethren “followers of Hochmann who broke with him in his understanding of the church but certainly not in his understanding (or practice) of evangelism.”

I don’t know that anyone has seen it until now–but the Church of the Brethren was born as an evangelistic body right in and with the birth of Protestant evangelism itself. Historically understood, “evangelism” might even rate as the first and prior among traditional Brethren emphases. Consider, the Brethren got their start with just eight lay people. They didn’t have brilliant, educated leaders of the likes of a Martin Luther, a John Wesley, or a Count Zinzendorf. Neither did they have a parent body from which they could pull off a goodly bloc of people and an established organizational pattern. Yet, out of the oodles of groups that came into being at the time, the Brethren are one of the very few to have survived. This in itself must indicate that the group knew and did something evangelistically right. It’s a thought that will bear some thinking about, in any case.

Then, a second chance event put me onto the evangelism–not of the early Brethren this time, but of the early Christians. And of course, it would be hoped that these two “evangelisms” might bear some relationship to each other.

Mortimer Arias is a Methodist bishop from Latin America who, at the time of my story, was teaching evangelism at the School of Theology in Claremont, but is now heading a seminary in Costa Rica. He is author of Announcing the Reign of God–a book highly recommended in the Church of the Brethren program for evangelism. And in that book, in a section headed “Opening the Table,” he says, “It is time for us to recover the evangelistic dimension of the Eucharist.”

This passage, in turn, was enough to trigger a newsletter-writing Brethren pastor to complain that the suggestion of inviting unbelievers to the Lord’s table is rank heresy and that, consequently, Arias’ is a bad book. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I felt Arias was probably right.

His being a Methodist bishop, I assumed Arias had picked up his “open table” idea from John Wesley’s having called the Lord’s Supper “a converting ordinance.” However, upon my putting it to him, Arias confessed he had never heard of this teaching of Wesley’s–although upon his checking with a real, true Methodist Wesley scholar, I was found to have it right. The bishop was grateful for my helping him out with his Methodism. However, his notion of the “open table” had come to him directly as he had stated it in his book: “‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes’ (1 Cor. 11:26). The Lord’s Supper is an act of proclamation–that is evangelization!”

Nevertheless, being Brethren and thus knowing that the Lord’s Supper was meant to be a real meal (a love feast, remember), I was able to go those bread-and-cup Methodists–Wesley and Arias–one better. Simply on the basis of my New Testament familiarity with the early Christians, my guess was that it would have been lust like those people to have invited to the table hungry people off the street–first, as a way of ministering to their physical need and, second, as giving them what must have been the best possible evangelistic opportunity for “discerning the body of Christ” (which is what Paul insists the Supper is all about).

“Goodness knows I’m nothing but a broken-down, ignorant beggar; but I didn’t even have to approach these people for a handout. They were out on the street looking for me, inviting me in. And once in, they put me right up at the table with everyone else just as though I were one of them. And would you believe it? they even washed my feet, just like the big spenders have their slaves do for honored guests at these wonderful banquets you hear about. And then we ate a good supper–while they talked about Jesus and told about how he was the one who was responsible for all this; how he had been ready to welcome them, people like me, anybody … and make them into his people, his body. Of course, I couldn’t do anything but fall down crying, ‘God is really among you’ (1 Cor. 14:25).”

It was my earlier reading of Robert Banks (an Australian and thus obviously non-Brethren, though denominationally unidentified scholar) that had me set up for this interpretation of the New Testament love feast. Being a social historian as well as a biblical scholar, in his book Paul’s Idea of Community Banks sets out to discover and deduce all he can about the nature and procedures of the congregations founded and addressed by the Apostle.

His first revelation (or at least what struck me as such) had to do with congregational size. The regular gatherings–perhaps as often as daily–would be those of “house groups.” Intermittently, then, on special occasions (such as the reading of a letter received from Paul), all the Christians of a locality (what Paul addresses as “the church at Corinth,” or wherever) would congregate for a big meeting. Banks’ educated guess is that the house groups numbered approximately eight to ten people and the big meetings not over forty or fifty. The normal locale for the Lord’s Supper (love feast) would have been the smaller house group rather than the big meeting. And this difference in group size and setting is itself enough to indicate that a New Testament “love feast” was something quite different even from what the Brethren tradition has known as the love feast–let alone the broader church’s bread-and-cup communions, Eucharists, and masses.

Banks’ next “revelation” came with his suggestion to the effect that, if you were to interrupt a New Testament love feast and ask the participants to explain the religious ritual in which they were engaged, they would be flabbergasted: “What do you mean, ‘religious ritual’? This isn’t any ‘ritual.’ We are just Christians who have come together to eat supper because it’s suppertime. And when Christians eat together they naturally take the opportunity to talk about the things nearest their hearts. We are Christians eating together as the body of Christ; but what we are doing is feeding ourselves, not performing some sort of cultic ritual.”

Banks further suggests that the sentences from 1 Corinthians 10-11 (“The bread which we break, etc.”), which we use as liturgical formulae, were never intended so by Paul nor understood as such by the early Christians. No, Paul was simply saying, “When you eat together as the body of Christ–which is whenever you eat together, period–here are the topics you should take pains to get into the conversation.”

Obviously, once the love feast had been converted into what was truly a religious ritual–for that matter, it soon became the central and constituting rite of the church–it is easy to see why participation became a very exclusive and in-group affair. Clearly, only Christians should be allowed in on Christianity’s most special and sacred mystery–and if only “Christians,” then only true Christians, namely, those of a particular and true persuasion. As the administrator of one Eucharistic rite gently excluded me: “The Lutheran Eucharist is for Lutherans”–and, as he admitted, that meant only Missouri Synod Lutherans. As I say, if holy ritual is what the New Testament love feast is meant to be, then the idea of “closed communion” (or at least somewhat closed communion) is as much as inevitable.

However, if Banks’ reading of the New Testament is correct, then Arias’ idea of “the open table” becomes just as likely. And within that context my proposal begins to sound “right.” Namely, in the New Testament love feast,

the church’s service ministry to the poor and needy,
its evangelistic ministry of outreach and proclamation, and
its internal ministry of reminding itself of its identity as the body of Christ and actually exercising itself in being such–in the love feast these three came to a common focus and were as much as a single, integrated action.

Consequently, I was, of course, delighted when, upon my broaching this idea at Bethany Theological Seminary (related to the Church of the Brethren), professor Graydon Snyder cited me to a German-language journal article by the Scandinavian scholar, Bo Reicke–in which, Snyder says, Reicke virtually proves my thesis. So you don’t have to take my word for it; we have the word of some people who actually know what they’re talking about.

Now, the Brethren certainly have been ahead of the pack in eating a love feast that could at least qualify as a meat for a hungry person; but there is no indication that they have ever used that love feast evangelistically, is there? Well, yes and no. My conversation at Bethany expanded into a professorial trinity with the accession of Don Miller. By virtue of his “Old Order” (Old German Baptist Brethren) background, he knew one fact about the good-old-days Brethren love feast that I had never heard before. I knew that ‘love feast” had been an only-once-in-a-while event that was quite something. The host congregation would invite in the Brethren from miles around and give the service the accouterments of an entire weekend of preaching, worship, and fellowship. There went on a very great deal of “love feasting” in addition to the one “sacred” meal.

I knew, too, that–for lack of TV, sports events, and what not–a Brethren love feast was often the greatest show in town (actually “in the countryside”). Crowds of curious onlookers were regularly to be found hanging around the fringes at Brethren love feasts. But what Don Miller knew that I didn’t was that the Brethren took advantage of such situations to provide special (and undoubtedly evangelistic) preaching services for the visitors. Guests would also, on occasion, be fed. Granted, this hardly amounted to the “open table” for which Bishop Arias calls–and not at all to the full-fledged practice we have here attributed to the early Christians. Nevertheless, it certainly qualified as a biblical nudge in the right direction.

Now I am quick to admit I have no insight as to how or if–in our day and situation, and with congregations much larger than simple house churches–it is practicable to think of using the Brethren love feast the way the New Testament Christians used theirs. Yet perhaps the principle is more important than is the detailed model in any case. Upon my sharing some of the foregoing ideas with Bishop Arias, he responded with an earlier-published article of his, in which he argued that the truest New Testament form was what he called “hospitality evangelism,” the Inviting of people in–in not only to our love feasts but into our homes, our social activities, our churches, our Christian “life together.” That is where Brethren/biblical distinctiveness could have us centering.

Arias’ hospitality article in turn brought the realization that–in one of my earlier-published books I had all along been thinking “hospitality evangelism” even though I didn’t have the right words for it. That chapter, on “Body Language” from The Outward Bound is here reprinted.

3. How to Be Inviting Through Body Language

[originally appeared in The Outward Bound]

When it comes to a recommended method for doing evangelism, my proposal is somewhat different from what has normally been regarded as good evangelistic style. I call mine “evangelism through body language.”

“Body language,” of course, is one of the great psychological discoveries (or fads) of our day. As with others of its kind, my own guess is that it is about ten percent discovery and ninety percent fad. Nevertheless, proponents of body language claim that, in our conversations with others, subconsciously our physical postures are more expressive of what is actually going on between us than are our words of deliberate communication. For example, if, when speaking to someone, I stand with my arms folded in front of me, in reality I am indicating that I want to hold myself in rather than open myself out to be shared with the other person.

The analytic experts of body language claim to be able to read a whole glossary of such signals and thus come to a deep, relational knowledge of what any particular conversation means. Although what we have here may be a grain of truth swimming in a bucket of hogwash, the theory of bod language can provide us entree for profound insight into the most truly biblical method of evangelism.

The particular body whose language constitutes evangelism is, of course, the one Paul calls “the body of Christ.” And this immediately points us toward a root distinction to which we will return with emphasis: rather than being a responsibility that can be delegated, evangelism is a function of the church itself, of the faith community as community, of the body as body. Accordingly, it was precisely while establishing the church as “body,” Paul was the one who best made the point:

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues…. Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy. For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if all prophesy, an unbeliever or outsider who enters is reproved by all and called to account by all. After the secrets of the unbeliever’s heart are disclosed, that person will bow down before God and worship him, declaring, “God is really among you.” (1 Cor. 12:27-28, 14:1-4, 23-25)

The path of Paul’s thought–and the outline for our consideration of it–is as follows: The calling of the church is that it function as “the body of Christ.” Thus, within the body, the members are to operate, not for their own enjoyment or enhancement, but to the end that the body as a whole is built up. When the group is functioning so, its body language is such that a chance observer can read it and be moved to fall down and worship, crying, “God is certainly among you!” And what is going on here is nothing more nor less than evangelism.

It is the body language of the church that is our best means of helping Christ win people to himself. And we need to take special note in this regard. Paul never calls the church “the torso of Christ” with the head as something different, presumably distinguishable, and even separable. No, “the body” is an inclusive term designating the totality of torso, head, and all members whatever. So, following Paul, we ought never think of the church as something different or apart from Christ himself; the church is his body only when, as head, he is present and included.

And it is this body (head and members) that is to be the evangelist. The idea runs somewhat counter to the accepted pattern of evangelism which, as often as not, understands evangelization as taking place outside of and apart from the congregational life of the church. In many cases, it is only after the prospect has been evangelized that (if ever) he is handed over to the care of a congregation. Now I am not saying that true evangelism absolutely cannot happen this way; but it clearly is not the New Testament’s normal and preferred mode.

So the evangelist is not some traveling celebrity preacher. The evangelist is not the pastor in the pulpit. The evangelist is not the congregation’s evangelism committee. The evangelist is not selected laity making house calls. Any of these may be, can be, and should be members of that body which is itself the evangelist; yet ultimately, it is the community–Christ performing in and through his body–that is meant to accomplish the evangelizing.

After all, the purpose and goal of evangelism is to help people see Jesus, meet Jesus, know Jesus. And if he actually is its “head,” where else would one stand a better chance of seeing, meeting, and knowing him than in his “body”? It stands to reason.

Presumably, then, the truest and best evangelistic approach would be for you to invite the prospect to come with you to church. I know this is contrary to a great deal of evangelistic counsel. Indeed, some instructors insist that, until you push the prospect to make a personal decision for Christ, you aren’t even doing Christian evangelism.

My guess is that you would not have to seek far to find testimony as to how, as much as instinctively, lay visitors resist the idea of flat-out asking a stranger to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And the more I think about it, the more I think the instinct to be a true one. This, in effect, is to ask the customer to buy a product sight unseen (a ploy customarily used only with cheap, gimcrack merchandise). Or, to put it even more truly and tellingly, it is to ask someone to marry a “head” before he has even seen the “body” of which it is a part. It is asking him to become a “member” (a hand, an ear, or an eye) of a body he hasn’t even met. And that can’t quite be right, can it?

Yet simply talking about Jesus (even if that talk be good and true) will hardly qualify as “body language.” No, disembodied “talk” is just too superficial–in the same sense some psychologists claim that only hearing what is said in a conversation is superficial in comparison to the deep knowledge revealed through body language. For one thing, the words of evangelistic invitation tend to be confined to great promises regarding what Christ will do for you once you accept him. Conversely, body language allows a person to see what Christ has done and is doing for the members of his body. Further, it also lets one see how members perform and what, under Christ’s headship, is expected of them. To put it otherwise, an evangelism of sheer words is quite likely to communicate a false gospel of “cheap grace”–whereas an evangelism of body language is in much better position to communicate the true, biblical gospel of discipleship’s “costly grace.”

Of course, the evangelism of “immediate confrontation” is strengthened if the prospect happens already to be familiar with the Christian who approaches him. In such case, the prospect already has observed a certain amount of body language in having seen who that Christian is and how he conducts himself. Yet even then, the prospect will have a better chance of truly observing Christ in his body if he can witness the members together, involved in the full-fledged motions of their body language. So, in any case, the best evangelism is still the invitation, “Wouldn’t you like to come with me to church?”

Yet–we must be quick to admit–there is a difficulty with this approach. Body language will be of no value at all if it is communicating the wrong message, if the church to which the prospect is invited is functioning as something other than the true body of Christ. If the body is not actually performing under the direction of its head, the visitor is going to be hard put in sensing that it even has a head.

And just here we must pick up a caution. The mere fact that a church’s body language seems to be working, that people are indeed coming in and joining – this does not necessarily indicate that everything is as it should be. “Body language is, of course, a medium, a means, a method. However, evangelism itself has essentially to do with a message, that particular message commonly identified as “the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Obviously, then, the medium is legitimate only insofar as it subserves its message. So, the goal of evangelistic body language is not simply that people join a church but that, out of a true desire to join the body of Christ, they join a congregation which truly means to function as the body of Christ. “Body language” in and of itself is an entirely neutral device and may very well prove of greatest effectiveness in the service of “cheap grace”–a church whose gospel of “worldly ]success” successfully attracts seekers of worldly success by affirming them in what they seek. Yet, of course, simply the successful use of the “medium” of churchly body-language does not amount to Christian evangelism unless the “message” itself be gospel truth.

Thus, a congregation’s growth rate indicates nothing one way or another about the authenticity of its evangelism. Authentic evangelism consists in just two factors:

tthat the congregation project the truth of its existence in its performance as the body of Christ; and
that it actively be inviting people to come, see, and join with Christ in this body of his.

Yet, how many people actually do accept the invitation is a matter entirely out of the church’s control or responsibility. God no more guarantees success to “smart evangelistic operations” than he does to any other sort of smart operators. It is quite possible that some congregation not growing at all may be doing a better and more faithful job of evangelization than one growing by leaps and bounds. The very word “evangelism” connotes a spread of the gospel rather than the growth of the institutional church–and those two are by no means the same thing.

Let us consider, then, some of the common postures, or gestures, that do not qualify as true evangelistic body language. First, we do not invite a prospect to church merely to expose him to the evangelistic words of the preacher. Paul specifically told us that, “if all are uttering prophecies,” then the visitor will hear something “from everyone” and so be moved to confess God’s presence. But otherwise, to center simply on the preacher is only to substitute pulpit words for visit words–and such is not true body language. So, in this regard, clergy and laity together need to take care not to behave in any way suggesting that the minister is the actual head of this body. Being won to an attractive pastor or to attractive preaching is not the same thing as being won to Christ. If our body language says, “Look at our fine pastor,” it can only be a detriment to our helping people look to Jesus.

Second, if the church’s body language says, “See what a fine program we have, how attractive our facilities are, how beautiful our music is, how many activities we offer, or how socially relevant we are”–any of this obscures rather than clarifies the visitor’s view of Jesus.

Finally, we do not invite people to church simply in the hope they will enjoy the fellowship as a social occasion. This one, we will come to see, does get closer to true body language; yet, unless the socializing points beyond itself, it cannot be claimed as making Jesus visible. After all, the world itself is pretty good at providing opportunities for mere socializing. The church’s must be sociability with a difference.

So, none of these postures qualifies as evangelistic body language–no matter how effective they may prove in bringing new members to the church. No, as Paul implied, the only language qualifying as that of the body of Christ is whatever communicative actions might convince a visitor that God is certainly present. Words alone, I think, seldom can do that; our simply “telling” the visitor that God is present doesn’t quite cut it. No, verbalized actions and actualized words are much more likely to be convincing. So, specifically now, what are the things we should most want our visitors to see? What body-language signals will he find most inviting? Will winking at him do the trick?

First and foremost, I suggest, our visitor should see the same thing that first impressed observers of the early church, leading them to exclaim, “See how these Christians love one another!” And this “loving one another” has to be something much more than just hearty sociability. In order for it to have any chance of making Jesus himself visible in his body, it will have to be a love of the quality of Jesus’ own as I have loved you.” It must be something extraordinary enough that the visitor will sense the difference and get curious: “Where are they getting that? For sure, that isn’t what I saw at Kiwanis last week or in the tavern last night.”

This love must go beyond simply our feelings about one another to demonstrate how we care about one another, how we share with one another, what we are ready to do for one another. Further, the visitor should be impressed that our “one another” is not at all confined to our own circle of friends but includes the totality of our brothers and sisters in Christ–and for that matter, whatever neighbor is in need or we are in position to serve. Recall that it was precisely when Peter and John directed body language toward a poor beggar (presumably not a Christian) by loving, caring, serving him–it was just then observers “saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men–and recognized them as companions of Jesus. ” (Acts 4:13). That’s the one sort of love where Jesus really shines through.

However, with his once having seen our love for one another, it should perhaps be our hope that the visitor next catch on that the body got that way because of its biblical orientation. Now the body language at this point surely dare not consist sheerly in how many people carry Bibles or how often scripture is quoted. That may not indicate anything more than pious habit. No, the visitor must be led to understand that the love these Christians display comes from the fact they have studied God’s word and allowed it to mold them. A biblical church is not so much one that uses the Bible as it is one that lets the Bible use it. It is a body that studies, loves, and lives the Bible.

Finally, through all this body language, the visitor must come to realize that the entirety of the congregation’s “life together” is in fact a following of the Lord Jesus and a giving him the praise for that high privilege. It must consciously and deliberately be made evident that this body includes a head and that this head is the sole source and center of the congregation’s being and activity–the message behind all its body language. This is his body (not ours); the body language is that of his communicating himself (not us communicating ourselves). Only thus will the visitor be enabled to see him; and only such body language will qualify as “evangelism.”

Now it is nothing of our desire here to deny that other forms and methods may have a proper place in “evangelism.” We contend, however, that that place has to be within the context of a Christian congregation doing its body language. Those other evangelistic methods are true only insofar as they subserve this one. As we saw in a previous chapter, a major aspect of Christianity’s good news is that Jesus Christ provides his people a body (gathers them into a body) they can call “home.” So certainly nothing can truly be called evangelism” (“good news”-ism) that chooses to Operate outside, or in disregard of, the body language of homecoming.

4. Go, Tell It on the Mountain

	O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion,
		get thee up into the high mountain!
	O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem,
		lift up thy voice with strength;
	lift it up; be not afraid!
		Say unto the cities of Judah,
	Behold your God!
		Arise, shine, for thy light is come;
		and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee!

A writer often leads off with an anecdote to catch the attention and interest of the reader. I propose to do better and use an anthem to lead into my sermon. It will call for a bit of cooperation on your part. If you have a recording of Handel’s “Messiah,” now find the alto aria based upon the words printed above and listen to it. If not that, get the score and sing it. If not even that, read the words above and hear in your head as much of Handel as you can manage. Our treatment necessarily will focus upon the word of God; but I am utterly convinced God meant those words to be heard to Handel’s music–it adds!

The composer’s text is taken from two widely separated passages�Isa. 40:9 and Isa. 60:1–and it uses a translation that does not conform even to the King James and almost certainly is in error. It seems clear that the prophet’s original command was for Zion Jerusalem) to get up into the high mountain–which is where it is located–and tell the good tidings to the lower down cities of Judah. Besides, neither we nor Handel will interpret the good news as the prophet intended: he was talking about the return of the exiles from Babylon; we are talking about what God has done in Jesus Christ. But all these glaring discrepancies will bother us not a whit; the Holy Spirit acts with a freedom that sweeps right over them!

0 thou that tellest good tidings. “Good tidings” is, of course, a precise translation of our word “gospel” and the “evangel” of our word “evangelism.” Yet perhaps we need to be reminded of the translation more often than we are; the gospel of evangelism as discussed in this book dare never, in the first place, be the conviction of sin, the threat of eternal punishment, or the implication of moral or spiritual distance between the evangelist and his hearer. No, always, in the first and primary place, we are called to be tellers of good tidings.

And once a person has “good tidings,” once he is convinced that what he has are indeed “good tidings,” what possibly is there to do except to “tellest” them? That’s what good tidings are good for; that’s about the only thing one can do with them. As a medieval English poet humorously observed, the likely reason Cod engineered a group of women to be the first discoverers of Jesus’ resurrection was that he wanted the good tidings to be told abroad. Good tidings–truly good tidings as much as impel their own telling.

It follows (inevitably, I am afraid) that to the extent we are not involved in some sort of evangelism, to that extent is indicated the fact that we have not yet heard Christianity as truly being “good tidings,” the best possible tidings. The first step in evangelism, then, lies not in our deciding to become evangelists but in our hearing the gospel in such a way that nothing can stop us from becoming evangelists. Once the word actually is heard, it has its own way of making an evangelist out of the hearer.

In this regard, it must be said that the good tidings of our concern are themselves broad enough and “good” enough that “evangelism” dare not be limited to that proclamation directed at winning people to a first acceptance of Jesus. No, these tidings also are good for those who already know him as Lord and Savior. They are good for those who are still too young to adequately understand what it means for him to be Lord and Savior. They may even have a quality of goodness that can be heard by those who have chosen not to hear that he is Lord and Savior.

Although the telling of good tidings dare never omit the interest in new acceptances of Christ, neither dare it be confined to this interest. Yes, the language of the “body” in Christian education, worship, fellowship, and service–any activity that effectively communicates to anybody any aspect of the good news of what God has done for us in Christ–any of this is authentic evangelism. We need take care only that our pursuit of one sort of evangelism does not become an excuse for ignoring other sorts.

Get thee up into a high mountain; lift up thy voice with strength! With this command the prophet seems to have had two thoughts in mind. First, Zion should get up to where she has a good angle for beholding God as he brings the exiles home across the Arabian Desert. Evangelists are not encouraged simply to charge out and start telling whatever they have heard from whatever source; they have a responsibility to know what they are talking about, to have seen it for themselves with some clarity and perspective. So, get thee up into the high mountain of Bible reading and theological study, of learning what Christianity is, so you can know what’s going on, so that there will be some chance that the good tidings you tell will be an accurate first-hand report.

Second, obviously Zion should get up so that her voice will carry as far as possible. For us, this means looking out to find the methods and styles of evangelism which, according to our own particular gifts and resources, will make for the widest and most effective hearing. So what is your high mountain? For some, certainly, it will be that which goes under the name “visitation evangelism.” For others, perhaps, “revival preaching.” For others, “everyday witnessing.” For others, teaching. For others, writing (my own particular mound). For others, the providing of financial support, building up a high mountain from which someone else’s voice can be heard. It would be foolish for us to try to enumerate all the possibilities. And it is foolish, too, for any evangelist to claim that his method marks the only truly high mountain and so look down on those who feel they can do better from a different peak.

Say, “Behold your God!” Here is perhaps the most important and helpful note of all. The message of evangelism can be summarized just this briefly: Behold your God!

“Look! Look! God is here! He has come to us in Jesus Christ! Look! See him in his love, his grace, his kindness, his helping and healing, his serving and saving! Behold your God; see who he is and what he does. See him come to us, come for us, come wanting us.” Evangelism is more of a pointing and saying, behold–so that the other person can see for himself–this, more than it is like anything else.

This means that evangelism is not a case of matching wits with another person, of trying to convert or win him (in the sense of “getting victory over him”). We simply invite the prospect to look … and God is able to take it from there. This means that we do not in any sense make ourselves a focus of attention; we are pointing away from ourselves. We do not set ourselves over others to lecture them, to set them straight, to get their theology corrected, to sell them a product, to convince them they’re sinners, to get them to confess to us or to make a commitment to us or to sign a dotted line for us or to agree with us. No, simply:

“Behold your God!”–calling attention to God in as winsome a way as possible … and letting God take it from there.

In actuality God is his own evangelist–and an entirely capable one, it should be said. It is not that he has laid upon us the evangelism assignment as some sort of task that he needs us to do for him. Rather, he has invited us, offered us the privilege of joining him in the exciting thing he is doing. And all we are asked to do is point, “Behold your God!”–and if this beholding of God doesn’t convince that other person, then you can be sure that none of your techniques would change the situation in any case. If you feel “a burden to win souls” (to expose an old chestnut of a phrase), it isn’t Christian evangelism you’re talking about, because it, by nature, is very much a light, free, exciting, “looky-here-would-you” sort of thing.

Arise, shine, For thy light is come! This is it, what evangelism is all about! Rise and shine! And you don’t even have to generate your own candle-power. The text makes it clear that the only reason you can shine is because thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Your shining is done with reflected light and in no other way.

Each morning when the sun comes up and its first rays hit the snow-crowned top of Old Baldy (the ten-thousand-footer beneath which I live), what does It do? It rises and shines. “Rises?” Indubitably; any fool can see that that mountain is much higher early in the morning than at any other time (for that matter, you can’t see it at all after the smog builds up). From its high mountain, Old Baldy gives a witness and tells to the cities of Judah (actually, those of the eastern Los Angeles basin) the good tidings that the sun is up and the day has come, Behold your God!

And now that the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon us, what are we to do? Obviously, arise tall and proud and free–and shine! And just how does one do that? There are as many different ways of doing it as there are different people. Don’t let anyone tell you that it has to be done a certain way or it isn’t evangelism. No, you let the light shine in the way it happens to bounce off a “you”–shaped mountaintop–whether that happens to be an Old Baldy or some more hirsute prominence. If the light is indeed that of the glory of the Lord, the shape of the reflector won’t make all that much difference. It is all right, even, to plan, learn, and practice some “evangelistic techniques”; but it is not here that success or failure lies. The only success is the success that God himself gives to the effort; the only failure is our failure to rise and shine.

How varied can they be, these ways of evangelism, of telling the good tidings? We will speak to the question through the refrain of a familiar hymn. Recall the opening anthem and what Handel did with the Isaiah texts through the use of classic, formal, sophisticated orchestration. But hear now (better, sing now) another treatment of one of those same texts, exploring the same idea, proclaiming the same message–yet done in a completely different musical idiom. And don’t you even dare ask the question as to which is the truer, more authentic expression. If it is the one God each song moves us to behold, both are wanted and both needed.A writer often leads off with an anecdote to catch the attention and interest of the reader. I propose to do better and use an anthem to lead into my sermon. It will call for a bit of cooperation on your part. If you have a recording of Handel’s “Messiah,” now find the alto aria based upon the words printed above and listen to it. If not that, get the score and sing it. If not even that, read the words above and hear in your head as much of Handel as you can manage. Our treatment necessarily will focus upon the word of God; but I am utterly convinced God meant those words to be heard to Handel’s music–it adds!

Say, “Behold your God!” Here is perhaps the most important and helpful note of all. The message of evangelism can be summarized just this briefly: Behold your God!

“Behold your God!”–calling attention to God in as winsome a way as possible … and letting God take it from there.

Go, tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere.
Go, tell it on the mountain–
That Jesus Christ is a-born!

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