Incarnational Evangelism

Biblical evangelism is personal. It means nothing less than the whole Church bringing the whole Gospel to the whole world. Evangelical Christians who know what evangelism is are often uncertain about how it is to be done.

Methods of evangelism commonly fall into two categories: evangelism is considered to be identification with the world without any proclamation of the Word, or it is seen as proclamation of the Word without any identification with the world. Both these methods are unbiblical. To practice the first is to be guilty of compromise, while to practice the second is to be guilty of pharisaism. The Christian who wants to be an effective witness must avoid both extremes.

In presenting the Gospel, we must be constantly aware that we are confronting non-Christians who are unique personalities. We must take into account each person’s particular situation of lostness, and let that determine the manner in which we speak to him. Jude distinguishes various situations of lostness in these words: “Convince some, who doubt; save some, by snatching them out of the fire; on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (vv. 22, 23). The Apostle Paul indicates that there are appropriate ways of witnessing to different types of persons when he says, “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one” (Col. 4:5, 6). These passages suggest that we must gently probe to discover what particular questions each person is asking. Only then will we be in a position to answer, not the questions we think he should be asking, but those that are really troubling him. It is said that someone wrote on a subway station wall, “Christ is the answer,” and someone else came along afterward and wrote beneath it, “What is the question?” The evangelizing Christian must take people as he finds them and try to speak in terms of their experience.

The classic description of this personal method of evangelism is found in First Corinthians 9:20–23. The Apostle Paul’s position on evangelism was that he could accommodate his personality to the situation of men without compromising truth. It is important that we understand this, lest we think Paul was inconsistent in what he said about evangelism. Paul believed that though he had to try to get right beside men in their own condition, though he was to weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh, yet the Gospel he presented could not be accommodated because it was not a matter of his preference. He was convinced that it was the Word of God and not the word of man that he was presenting, and that what God had said was not his to alter.

Paul gives us three examples of what he means by accommodation without compromise. First, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law” (v. 20). Paul explains that one type of person we will encounter acknowledges the existence of God and even accepts his Word as the valid authority on matters of salvation. A perfect example of this is the Jewish audience the Apostle confronted at Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13). In order to find common ground (always necessary before a rational discussion can take place) upon which to present the Gospel, Paul took the Old Testament prophecies and pointed out how these were fulfilled in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. He started with the Old Testament but then moved quickly to the objective evidence for the truth of the Gospel, just in case the Jews might say, “Well, Paul, that is your interpretation. Our rabbis do not read it as you do.” Paul leaves no doubt about his affirmation of truth when he says, “It isn’t a matter of interpretation, because God actually raised Jesus from the dead, and many of those I have talked to in Jerusalem are witnesses of this.” After appealing to evidence in history, he presses the logic of his claim by saying, “Let it be known to you therefore, brethren, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him every one that believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses” (vv. 38, 39). Paul accommodated himself to them by going into their synagogue, but he did not compromise the truth of the Gospel.

In our day, we must be discerning about when to use Scripture as common ground in personal evangelism. Many non-Christians in Western culture have what we might call a “Christian memory”: they respect the Bible as God’s message of salvation because of Christian training they received as children. With these persons we can use the Bible in our witness for Christ. But a growing majority of non-Christians do not respect the Bible as God’s Word and will not permit the Christian to use it in his witness to them. So he has to use a different approach.

Paul had such an approach. “To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law” (v. 21). Paul here explains that we will encounter some persons who are confessed agnostics, to whom we must also accommodate ourselves. He, it seems, was skilled in dealing not only with those who had a theistic base but also with those who did not. The example is his experience in Athens (recorded in Acts 17), when he was perturbed about what he saw and felt he must find common ground from which to speak with the Athenians. When the confrontation came, Paul set up his view of the world with God as Creator of all things, and with man created in God’s image and dependent upon him, as his ultimate point of reference. This was the common ground. But to support it, Paul quoted from two Stoic poets. He could not quote from the Old Testament because the Greeks did not recognize it as God’s Word; instead, he drew from their own culture in order to preach the Gospel to them. Because the Greeks did not accept the theism of the Old Testament, Paul had to cite evidence for theism from sources the Greeks did respect.

However, once he had done this, he immediately moved into the realm of the truth of the Gospel by saying, “Now, God commands you to repent. You have been worshiping the unknown god. But there is no reason to worship the unknown god, because he has become known in Jesus of Nazareth. God has given you assurance in that he raised Jesus from the dead.” It is important to observe that Paul’s appeal to empirical verification is the same with the Gentiles as with the Jew, though he began with different common ground. Why? Because the truth claims of the Gospel are open to all men. Jesus’ resurrection is evidence that the Gospel is true.

We might say that Paul had to do some pre-evangelism. He could not begin preaching the Gospel to the Greeks right away because he needed to find a context within which to do this. So, with much spiritual discernment, Paul drew from Greek culture to substantiate theism so that he could preach the Gospel.

Christians in our day need to learn this approach. Where the Word of God is not respected, another source must be used that is recognized as significant. Someone has said that the Christian should read the Bible he holds in one hand while reading the newspaper he holds in the other. The secular media of communication describes the lostness of man as the Bible does. The Christian must be alert to the felt needs of modern man—frustration, boredom, fear, loneliness, meaninglessness—and one of the best ways to do this is to be aware of the culture that influences man. Evangelical Christians have largely failed in this area of evangelism because of their cultural barrenness, a product of their so-called separation from the world.

Art, music and literature have been free from religious domination since the Renaissance and have consequently taken up secular themes. This means that they have become excellent sources for observing man’s lostness. Modern music, theater, the new cinema especially, deal with ultimate questions about life. Indeed, almost every area of man’s endeavor—economics, politics, education, and so on—is separated from the influence of the Church and has thus become a showcase of man’s lostness. Such an approach to evangelism to be used with confessed agnostics could be called “cultural apologetics.”

“To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak” (v. 22). A third type of person we will encounter in presenting the Gospel is the one who wants to debate religious issues without trying to reach any conclusions. Paul was wise enough in his application of truth to know the difference between essentials and non-essentials. He also knew the difference between the right and the wrong time to press something. This is something all Christians need to learn.

An example of this approach in evangelism is found in Acts 21. When Paul returned to Jerusalem from his third missionary journey, he rehearsed to the elders of the church there how the Lord had used him to bring many Gentiles into the Kingdom of God. The elders glorified God when they heard this, but they were also troubled. A serious charge had been brought against Paul because of his ministry to the Gentiles. Many Jews who had become Christians in Jerusalem while Paul was away had heard that the Apostle was discounting the law of Moses, and they were upset because they felt such talk might hinder other Jews from becoming Christians. The elders suggested that the only way Paul could restore the integrity of his ministry in the eyes of the Jews was to observe the law publicly. He could do this by paying the expenses of four men who had taken vows in Judaism, even going so far as to sit with them in the Temple for seven days. Paul agreed to do this, so that he could continue to preach the Gospel to the Jews. The Apostle appears to have been a sensitive, versatile, and tactful Christian. The point, once again, is that his method was accommodation in culture and personality to the persons he wanted to reach without any compromise of theological imperatives.

This strategy cannot be summarized any better than by Paul’s own words: “I became all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (v. 22). He could have formulated this philosophy of evangelism only by observing a divine pattern of evangelism in action. Because Paul understood the purpose of the Incarnation, he understood God’s strategy of evangelism. As the Lord emptied himself and took the form of human flesh to carry on his work of reconciliation, so each Christian must be willing to empty himself and identify with sinners so that he can declare the message of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:16–21). As Christ penetrated humanity without being assimilated by it, so each Christian is to penetrate human society without being assimilated by it. This is incarnational evangelism.

The contemporary scene should always influence the direction and philosophy of evangelism. We must take seriously Ephesians 2, where it describes the non-Christian as “having no hope and without God in the world,” if we are to share a meaningful Gospel with him. We cannot do this effectively if we are complacently insulated from the culture around us. With gentleness the Christian must be able to remove from the non-Christian’s view what he has taken from the Christian position and emphatically say of what remains, “This is your position without Christ: either be honest enough to live with it or become a Christian.” We must, like Paul, be “all things to all men” if we are to share the Gospel with them.

In a way, our world is more ready for incarnational evangelism than was Paul’s, for his world had not known the overwhelming despair that ours knows. The non-Christian world is waiting to be evangelized—person by person. Biblical evangelism is personal evangelism.

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