The Lutheran Hour
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"What Is Evangelism?"
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Text: Mark 9:7-8
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Author Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story about what may have been the defining moment of her life, though she didn’t realize it at the time. It happened when she was a sophomore attending college in Atlanta, Georgia. She’s in her dorm room amid sounds of, I don’t know, the Rolling Stones or The Beatles, coming from the record player. She hears a knock at the door. She opens it to find two young women eagerly clutching their Bibles to their chests, wearing modest skirts, sensible shoes, and pious looks on their faces.
“Are you saved?” one of them asks abruptly.
Barbara says, “Well, that depends on what you mean by…”
“No,” the other one answers for her, jotting something down on her notepad. “Do you want to be saved?” the first one asks. Both of them gleamed. For a split second, Barbara thought about how awful it would sound if she said no. “Sure,” she answered. They ushered themselves into Barbara’s room and sprang into their spiel: memorized Bible verses, slightly forced rhetorical questions, and a diagram, God on the one side and a tiny stick figure, Barbara, on the other, and in between them, a yawning chasm. “In between you and God,” the one said, pointing at the chasm, “is sin and death. So, how are you and God going to get together?” she asked.
“I don’t have a clue,” Barbara said. At this, they could barely contain their delight. The one with a notepad quickly drew a cross that spanned the chasm and explained how Jesus laid down His life so that Barbara could cross over to God’s side. “Do you want to cross over?”
“Sure,” she said. Their eyes lit up, maybe half surprised that it was going so smoothly. They instruct Barbara to kneel by her bed and each of them kneel on either side of her and lead her in a prayer:
“Dear Jesus. I accept You as my personal Lord and Savior. And I ask You to come into my life. Amen.”
Then they got up, hugged her, gave her a schedule of campus Bible study, and left. The whole thing took less than 20 minutes.
Barbara wrote about it later: “I was half serious, half amused. I cooperated as much out of curiosity as anything and because I thought that going along with them would get them out of my room faster than arguing with them. But nothing they said really affected me. Most of it was just embarrassing, the kind of simplistic faith I liked the least.”
What these two young women were doing is called evangelism. To evangelize is to “good-news-ify” someone, to share with them the good news about Jesus of Nazareth. Evangelism, in various ways, is what we’re doing on this program every week. We are evangelizing, talking about Jesus, who He is: the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior. What He’s done: lived a perfect life on our behalf, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead. And why He did it;—so that everyone who trusts in Him, including you, would be saved, would not perish, that is, would not suffer hell without God, but instead would have life eternal with God, starting now. And He did it because He loves us, because God loves us. There, I just evangelized to you.
There are many methods that Christians use to evangelize. The method of evangelizing we heard described by Barbara Brown Taylor was probably more prominent in America in the south in the 1970s when Barbara was a college student, but forms of it are still around today. The cold-calling, get-right-to-the point, direct approach to evangelism. In contrast to the direct approach, some Christians have opted for an approach that’s more indirect. It’s been called lifestyle evangelism or relational evangelism. This involves doing good deeds, being friendly, getting to know people, loving them sacrificially, and then if someone asks you why you do all this or why you’re different, you tell them it’s because of Jesus. Those who advocate for the indirect approach, sometimes repeat memorable sayings like “Preach the Gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words.” Or as a mentor of mine likes to say, “Don’t tell me what a friend I have in Jesus until I see what a friend I have in you.” Or here we could just quote Jesus: “Let your light shine before all people,” He said in one of his sermons, “so that they may see your good deeds and give glory to God, your Father in heaven” (see Matthew 5:16).
Sometimes the direct and indirect methods of evangelizing are put in opposition to each other, as though one were more faithfully Christian than the other. However, there are several forms of evangelism modeled in the New Testament. Some direct, others less so. Some simple, others sophisticated. For example, there are multiple occasions recorded in the New Testament when followers of Jesus went directly into the local market, into the public square, and jumped right in, evangelizing, talking to people about Jesus, about His crucifixion and resurrection, and the urgency of what He means for them. Read the book of Acts.
But also in the book of Acts, there’s a slightly less direct approach, more conversational. There was a time when there was this guy reading a passage from the Old Testament of the Bible. A Christ-follower named Philip asked him, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” The guy had some questions and Philip, answering him, uses the opportunity to evangelize him, to share the good news about Jesus. See Acts 8. Also less direct, there are times when Christians tell personal stories first about how God has been at work in their lives, and then they tell about Jesus. See Acts 26. Finally, there are also examples when Jesus’ followers do good deeds first, acts of kindness, healing people, and then when someone asks them, “What makes you all so different?” They tell them about Jesus. See Acts 3. The Bible presents all of these as forms of evangelism and does not pit one against the other. There’s another form of evangelism modeled in the Bible, an approach that is sometimes overlooked. It’s both direct and indirect, both simple and sophisticated at the same time.
These are the biographies of Jesus known as the Gospels. Gospel’s a translation of the Greek word “evangel,” which means “good news.” It’s why these biographers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are sometimes called the four evangelists. All four of their narratives are also examples of evangelizing and especially the Gospel according to Mark. Mark alone says it right up front, right at the beginning, that this is what it is. Chapter one, verse one, he says, “The beginning of the Gospel, the evangelizing about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.” First sentence, direct to the point, way to go, Mark! But then notice what he does. He doesn’t draw a diagram with two cliffs and a chasm and a cross in between. He tells a two hour long story. He indirectly shows you who Jesus is. In some ways, it’s a simple narrative. It’s about one guy, Jesus. Mark never lets you get Jesus out of your sight. Jesus is the central actor in every scene except for this one longer flashback when this king named Herod murders the guy who prepared the way for Jesus. But even that flashback ends up being about Jesus indirectly. It’s always about Jesus because it’s a simple narrative, but also sophisticated. It’s sophisticated because Mark in his storytelling employs irony and illusion, repetition and symbolism. The way he tells the story raises questions and doesn’t always answer them. And in many cases when you hear answers from Jesus, often what He says is cryptic or confusing or sometimes just plain odd. Mark and the other Gospels aren’t stories you can read just once and be done with them. Each one invites, even demands, multiple readings and hearings and not just on your own but in conversation and in community with other readers and hearers, a lifetime of returning to see more than what we saw the last time.
And all this makes me wonder how things may have been different for Barbara if those two ladies, in addition to their stick figure diagram, what if they would’ve said, “Barbara, we want to tell you a story. It’ll take about two hours, but it’ll be worth it.” Maybe Barbara would’ve said, “No thanks,” given that she was already anxious to get them out of her room. But maybe since it was their simplistic explanations that bothered her, maybe she would’ve been intrigued enough to listen. Maybe you’re listening to this and thinking of introducing someone to Jesus. Or maybe you realize that most of what you know or remember about Jesus is from simplistic diagrams or from soundbites you once heard in a church service. Whatever the case, why not try letting Mark evangelize you or energize you for evangelism?
This week, many Christian communities will begin observing the season of Lent. Lent is a 40- day season of preparation, leading to holy week and Easter at the end of March, when we’ll commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus for our sins and His resurrection for our salvation. During this season, maybe you could commit to listening to the whole Gospel of Mark from start to finish. Maybe you could listen to it once a week, seven times. Over the next seven weeks. We’re going to be talking about Mark’s Gospel on this program during these weeks. We’d love to walk alongside you. One version of Mark’s Gospel I’ve been listening to a lot lately is an immersive dramatized version from Graphic Audio. If you’re looking for something different, I recommend that one. You can find it on the internet by searching “Gospel of Mark, Graphic Audio.” They use a word-for-word translation of Mark, a full cast of voice actors, realistic sound effects. It’s like a movie in your mind. It puts you in the moment like you were there, like you’re witnessing it. So why should you devote two hours to listen to all of it? Why not just part of it?
David Rhodes;—a man who is a personal hero of mine because he memorized the entire Gospel of Mark and retold the whole thing from memory from start to finish about 200 times over the course of 15 years;—David said it this way: “Because the Gospel of Mark is a coherent narrative with a powerful impact, it’s important to experience the narrative as a whole. Those who first experienced the Gospel of Mark would’ve heard the whole Gospel proclaim to them in a group setting on a single occasion. They undoubtedly got involved in the drama of the story, experienced the tension of the conflicts, identified with the characters, and felt the suspense about the outcome. Emerging from the experience, they were perhaps able to see the world around them in a new way, to have new possibilities awakened in them. And to that, I say yes, amen.”
I have been blessed to listen to different versions of Mark’s Gospel all the way through many times. I’ve been evangelized by Mark maybe a hundred times, and it’s true, it does something to you that’s hard to put into words, like trying to explain the feeling of skydiving or of falling in love or becoming a dad or a mom for the first time. It’s just something you have to experience for yourself. Five hundred years ago, a famous Christ follower named Martin Luther, the guy after whom this program is named, wrote a brief introduction about what to look for and expect from those evangelists. First, Luther says that the evangel, the Gospel, is and should be nothing else than a narrative, a story about Christ telling who He is, what He did, said, and suffered. Luther says it’s simple. The Gospel is a story about Jesus. You could tell it briefly or more fully, directly or indirectly, with stick figures in a diagram, with good deeds done in the Name of Jesus, or with a two-hour dramatic immersive narrative complete with sound effects.
Luther also encourages us about what to expect in the Gospels. He says that people often go to the Gospels expecting an example, that Jesus will set them an example to follow so that they can live a better life. That is on the right track, but Luther has some advice we do well to remember. He wrote, “Before you take Christ as your example, accept Him and recognize Him as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own. This means that when you see or hear of Christ doing or suffering something, you do not doubt that Christ Himself, with His deeds and His suffering, belongs to you. On this, you may depend as surely as if you had done it yourself, indeed as if you were Christ Himself. See, this is what it means to have a proper grasp of the Gospel, of the overwhelming goodness of God, which no one has ever been able to fully express, and which no heart could adequately fathom or marvel at;—the great fire of God’s love for us.” That’s from Luther’s Works, volume 35.
At the center of Mark’s Gospel, about one hour into the story, Jesus leads three of His followers up to the top of a mountain in northern Israel. They do a double take because Jesus changes, transforms before them, shines like fire from the sun and for a moment, before His crucifixion resurrection, we see behind the scenes as the voice from heaven says, “This is My Son whom I love. Listen to Him.” We get a glimpse of God’s love radiating in and from and through Jesus to us. It’s something no one can adequately express. No heart can fully fathom, and maybe that’s why God’s given us so many ways to evangelize, to share Jesus, to revisit His story, to cherish His presence, with us and in us.
Years later, Barbara Brown Taylor reflected on that brief, awkward, amusing, but mostly embarrassing experience of being evangelized. After the two ladies left her room, she went for a walk. She said, “The world looked funny to me. Different. People’s faces looked different. I’d never noticed so many details before. I felt weightless, and it was all I could do to keep myself from floating up and getting stuck in the trees.” For a full hour, she said it felt like her face was on fire. Something happened to her, a gift from God that got her attention and has not let her go through all the years that have passed since then. “I may have been fooling around,” she said, “but Jesus was not. My heart may not have been in it, but Jesus was. I asked Him to come in, and He came in. Although I have no more words for His presence in my life than I do for what keeps the stars in the sky or what makes the daffodils rise up from their graves each spring, it just is. He just is.”
Would you talk to Him with me?
Dear Jesus, You’re already here, but by grace I accept You as a Gift from God, My Lord and Savior. Come into my life. Amen.
Reflections for February 11, 2024
Mark Eischer: You are listening to The Lutheran Hour, and we’re back once again with our Speaker Dr. Mike Ziegler.
Mike Zeigler: Hey, Mark!
Mark Eischer: In your message today, you recommended reading the Gospel of Mark all the way through at least once, maybe even trying to read it once a week from now until Easter. If someone were drawn to that challenge, what’s the next step they could take?
Mike Zeigler: Great question. First step is to tell somebody. It’s always helpful when you have a goal for yourself just to say it out loud and the presence of another human being, and that makes the commitment real in a way that wasn’t real when it was just an idea in your head.
Mark Eischer: And if you told somebody you were going to do it, they might come back and ask you about it later.
Mike Zeigler: Exactly, yes. That’s what we call positive peer pressure. So say it out loud to someone and then be specific. Tell them I plan to read or listen to Mark’s Gospel all the way through seven times between now and Easter, or however many it is that you decided. The next step I would recommend is to put it on your calendar. Schedule an event, schedule two hours of uninterrupted time where you’re going to sit down and you don’t necessarily have to be reading it. You could listen to it while you’re taking a walk or going for a long drive or on a plane ride. That’s one of the benefits of our technology these days, is that we could encounter Mark’s Gospel in a variety of ways. You could listen to it on one of several audio versions out there. I mentioned the dramatized version from Graphic Audio, but there are others that you could listen to. You could watch it as a movie on YouTube if you just search the “Gospel of Mark full movie.” It’s the two-hour long video from jesus.net, another ministry. So there’s lots of ways that you could encounter Mark’s Gospel
Mark Eischer: And tell us again why we should start with Mark’s Gospel.
Mike Zeigler: Well, it’s the shortest, so that might be a benefit to some. Matthew, Luke, and John are closer to three hours. Also, many churches around the world follow a pattern of Bible readings called the lectionary, and each year the lectionary focuses on one of the Gospels, and Mark is the one that’s in focus this year. So that’s another reason to listen to Mark. And also, since Mark is the focus of the lectionary, this year, Lutheran Hour Ministries is going to be offering a Bible study on the Gospel of Mark that’s going to be released in parts throughout the year. I’m the host of those videos, and if you wanted to watch them, you could find them in our Lutheran Hour devotions app. It’s titled “Daily Devotions by LHM.” It’s the one with a little white cross seen from an angle on the turquoise background. And inside the app, if you go to the bottom, scroll to the bottom, there’s a little tab called “Resources,” tap on that, and then look for Bible studies. And it’s the one titled Nurturing Your Faith: Patient Urgency.
Mark Eischer: Once again, you can find that app by searching “Daily Devotions by LHM.”
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
“O Wondrous Type! O Vision Fair” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.