Today on the Evangelist Podcast we're talking about evangelistic speaking. What is it?
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_01Hello again. Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. And this week we're going to be talking about evangelistic speaking. What is it? Glenn, perhaps you'd like to uh explain what this one's all about.
SPEAKER_04So we're we're going to start a series really. What is evangelistic speaking? Uh why do it? What does it do? Uh if we do do it, what should be our manner? What should be our method? Um so lots of questions about uh speaking the gospel to others in settings where it's one person with a gathered lot of people around them who are talking about Jesus. So like preaching. Like preaching, exactly like preaching, um which is a dirty word in in some circles.
SPEAKER_01We live in such a sort of a visual age, but with one-on-two minute videos and and not on the internet and uh no short sound bites. You still think there's a place for preaching?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely I do. And that's fantastic. If you want to put on dramas, put on dramas. If you want to um have musical content to to your missionary outreach, fantastic. If you want to do uh an outreach and use puppets in the street and all that kind of stuff, fantastic. Uh if you want to talk about, you know, having more dialogical events, so getting into dialogues rather than monologues, if if you're kind of into that, then okay, that's cool. I'm into all those things as well, but I think we must have a place for someone getting up and saying, Thus saith the Lord. Um now there's very good reasons why people might be suspicious about that. They might be suspicious about the person who gets up, they might be suspicious about the sort of the power plays that might be involved in that. But I think reading the Bible, this really is uh a key, I would even say the key way that the gospel spreads through gospel preaching.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's using words, you know, uh uh it talks a lot in the Bible about about using words and uh we're gonna look at that specifically.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely. You know, from the beginning, how does God even create a world? And God said, and God said, and God said, and God said, and God said, you know, we're we live in a world that sort of birthed out of the word of God, and we are created as creatures who who've been made by the word of God to hear the word of God. Um so if people are gonna receive new life, then how's it gonna come? It's gonna come through the Word of God coming to them.
SPEAKER_01But Glenn, why not sort of demonstrate in the works of the kingdom, you know, doing social uh activities? I mean, you know, people understand that sort of thing, don't they?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's yeah, it's often said that um look, uh a language that the world speaks, they don't understand words like propitiation and atonement and repentance and wrath, and they don't understand those words anymore. But one language that they do understand is um doing good and you know, feeding the poor and and and clothing people and giving them shelter and all that sort of stuff. And and I I guess as evangelicals, we believe we come into the kingdom by faith, and we continue on in works. So Ephesians chapter 2 says um it's by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast, for we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. So it's this idea that you come into the kingdom simply by receiving the gift of Christ, and then of course you continue in the kingdom by doing good works that God has prepared in in advance for you to do. And so we're all aware that individually in our Christian lives, the way you come in is simply by receiving, and then the way you continue is by carrying Christ out with you into the world. And I think you want to model that flow in the way you do mission. If that's what you're inviting people into, then what what you want to invite them into is something where Jesus is offered to you for free so that you can receive him and then go off and and do and do the good works. And I and I think that's the way that mission should really happen. So obviously I love people going out in the name of Jesus and acting like Jesus acts. And I think that's wonderful, and I and I think that can commend the gospel to people, but they've got to they've got to hear of Jesus coming to them for free. And the only way they're gonna hear of Jesus coming to them for free is if we put words to it.
SPEAKER_01Faith comes by hearing. Faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the word of God.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so that's Romans ten, and which precisely why Paul says we've got to send out preachers. We've got to send out preachers because faith comes by hearing. And you know, people say, you know, uh the works of the kingdom is a language that people understand. I'm not so sure. I d I I think you need to I think you need to explain what you're doing to people, because it might just it might just look like we are a sort of a reformation task force put on planet Earth to pretty things up through our own efforts. And if if that's the message that people are hearing, and of course they're gonna naturally think that that's what we're doing, then that they're actually not getting the right message. They're not understanding our language. We need to put words to what we're doing so that people understand, ah no, this is the kingdom we're receiving as a free gift because God gives us Christ. Um all that requires words, all that requires preaching.
SPEAKER_01So Glenn, uh let's look at the word then. Yeah. Uh we're gonna look at two Corinthians chapter four. I'll read the first six verses then. Two Corinthians for therefore since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But even if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled to those who are perishing, whose mind the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bond servants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. A lot of uh theology packed up in that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And we'll be we'll be unpacking it over the course of the next four episodes, really. But one thing that strikes me here is is you've got the here is the battle that we're involved with. In verse four, it speaks of the God of this age, has blinded the minds of unbelievers. And you know, Jesus calls him the Prince of this world, and Paul calls him the God of this age. We're talking about Satan here. And he blinds people. And it's sort of this this idea of of like a veil that that is over the eyes of unbelievers, but it's even worse than that, it's over the minds of unbelievers. So if you see someone walking down the street in a burqa and you think, my goodness, they they are very physically veiled, Paul is saying there's an even deeper veiling that goes on with an unbeliever, that actually their minds are veiled, uh, which is really scary. Even if you're in a burqa, you can kind of retreat into your own head. And you're almost free in your own head to think things, even if you're physically veiled. But Paul is saying there's a deeper veiling. You can be blinded in your mind. You can't even escape your mind. It's a fearful blinding. And in the light of that, okay, that's that's the spiritual condition of all those who are outside of Christ. They can't even think straight. What should we do? And in some ways, Paul gives the really surprising answer. What should we do? Preach. You know. Verse 2, you know, we don't distort the word of God, we set forth the truth plainly. Um I like your translation. Yours is New King James, is it right? It is, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so like But by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience. Yeah. The sight of God.
SPEAKER_04Manifesting, and in the original Greek, it's kind of it's it's this word that's connected with the word shine. Yeah, it's like revealing broadcasting. Broadcasts, you know, the the letting the light shine. Which is interesting, if that word's about shining, then it connects really strongly to verse six. God, who says let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts. Yeah. Oh well, how did he do it? How how did God shine in our hearts? Actually, when a preacher opened up the word and shone the light of Christ into our lives. So so this so when did God say, Let light shine out of darkness? You know, Genesis chapter one, let there be light. But Paul is saying that same creative miracle happens when a preacher gets up and shines, you know, the word of Christ into people's lives. So as preachers manifest Christ, so Christ is shone into the hearts of unbelievers, and then this miracle of miracles. Here are people who are blinded in their minds, all of a sudden they see they see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Incredible power to preaching.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it's you know, it's like where it says, Whose minds the God of this age has blinded, you know, Satan has has captured people, he he's blinded them, so they're kind of helpless. Yeah. But uh Christ comes to reveal through the preaching of the word to snatch them back.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. And it's very much snatching out of this realm of darkness. These people, they don't just need to think a little bit clearer. It's not like they they just need some encouragement to join the dots, but you know, you you already know about Jesus. You already know the gospel, don't you? And let me just help you to join the dots between what you already know, and before you know it, you're a hop, skip, and a jump away from the kingdom. It's not like that at all, is it? Is that they're blind and they need this supernatural light to shine into their hearts. Interesting, isn't that, verse six, their their minds are blinded? And you'd almost expect, like, verse six to sort of answer that by saying the light shines in their minds. Now, today we kind of divide the mind and the heart in a way that the Bible doesn't. But it is interesting that he doesn't say the light is shone into their minds, the light shone into their hearts. Which doesn't mean it's when we preach we should just just preach, you know, fluffy messages that that, you know, deal with the emotions. Actually, Paul's been been saying, look, we don't set forth we we set forth the truth plainly, we don't distort or shamefully, you know, distort the word of God. So it's not about just playing with people's emotions, but it is about something about capturing the heart in our preaching. And if you capture the heart, it deals with the blinding of the mind. It's an interesting kind of understanding of the human person, how to how do people tick? I've heard one uh one person talk about evangelistic preaching and saying, you know, we don't treat the mind as though it's a debating chamber that just needs more excellent arguments to be presented. The mind is far more like a picture gallery, and we need to, you know, paint attractive biblical portraits of Christ. That's what will capture people. But it's very much that that idea, you know, Satan has captured them for the kingdom of darkness. We need to well, God through his word will capture people for Christ.
SPEAKER_01And we have the light within us which gives light, and God chooses to shine through us. Isn't that fascinating? You know, not uh it's not just that he shines directly to them, but he uses us and he shines through us to them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, which is astonishing. Like you might because you might think verse six, God's you know, once once upon a time, God's said, let there be light, mm-hmm and it was just this big zap. But that's not the way he builds his kingdom today. He doesn't just go zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap. Um it's this organic thing. It's this it's this building of a family. It's this face-to-face encounter as one child of God meets somebody else and and through their preaching they become another child of God, and they you know, it's this organic, it's you know, it's this going viral kind of a thing. Um through preaching, through the word of Christ being proclaimed.
SPEAKER_01And it's all done in the face of Jesus Christ, you know, it's like Christ is present. Yeah. When you're having this conversation, it's uh the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_04I love that in Ephesians chapter four, Paul talks about how um when the Ephesians came to Christ, it says, Surely you heard Christ and were taught in him. And it's this like all the translations kind of mask this because they like the translation I've got in front of me at the NIV says, um, um, surely you heard about Christ when we preached. But that's not what it is in the original. In the original, Paul and the other apostles around him were just preaching to these Ephesians, the unbelievers at the time, and Paul says, You know what happened to you? You heard Christ. It was my lips that were flapping, but it was Christ you were hearing. And and I think that's a that's an astonishing thing, isn't it, to think that when we preach, we're not just bringing people some ideas about an ancient religion, that we're actually bringing Christ to people, with all the power and the authority and the and the enlightening power of of God shining through it all.
SPEAKER_01So are you saying, Glenn, that when we speak, people should sort of obey the preacher as if it is God speaking.
SPEAKER_04As if it is God speaking. Well I don't know. You be the judge, you be the judge. In chapter five, the last few verses of chapter five are fascinating. If you go to two Corinthians five, verse eighteen, all this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That's God's own ministry. Verse 19, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Verse 20, we are therefore Christ's ambassadors, God making his appeal through us. Some translations say, you know, as though God were making his appeal through us. Almost as if. But the words as though is not really there. It's it's that's a complete over-translation of what's going on. As we preach this message of reconciliation, we are Christ's ambassadors, and God the Father is making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. So, well, according to the Bible, as I speak the message of reconciliation, as I preach the gospel, God Himself is making his appeal to the world. And, you know, people who take that seriously have ended up saying things like, Well, the the Second Helvetic Confession, which was a a great old sort of reformed confession of what Christians believed in the 16th century, it said the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God. And you think, woo, hang on, I'm a little bit further, isn't it? Yeah, isn't that going a bit far? Well, I th I think if if we are Christ's ambassadors, you know, I was just reading a story about uh an Australian missionary in North Korea, and uh he was interrogated by the North Koreans and he and he got out after a couple of weeks of of really intense interrogation and and he was delivered over to the Australian ambassador in Beijing. And as soon as he was delivered to the Australian ambassador in Beijing, he was safe. He was actually officially on Australian soil, and everything that the Australian ambassador was saying to him was what the Australian government was saying to him. The ambassador was, you know, bringing the word of Australia to this guy, and in the same way we are we are Christ's ambassadors, yeah. And and we implore people on Christ's behalf. I think one person who's really helped me to understand this has been Martin Luther, um, who um he had this very interesting and very helpful uh theology of the Word of God. And essentially he was saying, look, when you go through the Bible and you look at all the times when it talks about the Word of God or the Word of the Lord, actually all those verses fit into three different buckets. One bucket refers to Christ. Christ is the Word of God, he's the Word of the Father. Another bucket that you fit all these verses into is to scripture, like sometimes it calls um scripture the word of Christ or the Word of God. And so that's another bucket that it falls into. But then some other verses, like here in 2 Corinthians, or in Hebrews 13, or in 1 Thessalonians 2, or all through Acts, actually, um, the Word of God is found on the lips of preachers. Actually, preaching is the Word of God. And Luther said, Well, this is very interesting. We've got these three buckets Christ, Scripture, and proclamation. And all three of them are are referred to as the Word of God. And then Luther says, Now, is that because God's saying three different things? Does he have three different messages for the world? And Luther says, No, no, no. God has one unified message for the world, but it comes in three forms Christ, the eternal word of the Father, Scripture, which is the Word of Christ, and then proclamation, which is like the word of the Spirit. And he says, You've got this Trinity, don't you? Here's a Trinity. A unified word, but it comes in three forms Christ, Scripture, and proclamation. And therefore, because they need to all come together, Luther says, Well, think about it. What should proclamation be? Well, it must be biblical and it must be Christ focused. But to the degree that it's biblical, and to the degree that it's Christ focused, then it is the word of God.
SPEAKER_01And spoken with the breath of God, you know, the Spirit.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Yeah. As Jesus says to the the apostles at at the end of uh John twenty-one, you know, he breathes on them and says, Receive, uh, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they're forgiven. If you don't forgive their sins, they're not forgiven. Now, what's he saying there is he saying to the disciples at the end of John 21, um, just go out into the world and randomly forgive people? You're forgiven, you're not. You're forgiven, you're not. Like in this is that what he's saying? And and all those people who just hear one of the disciples say you're forgiven, suddenly, zap, they're forgiven. No, what he's saying is, as you go out into the world, he's just told them, as the Father has sent me, so am I sending you. So he says, as you go and carry my word out into the world, the the world's reaction to your word is not just a reaction to your word, it's it's their reaction to me. And their reaction to me is the reaction to the Father. So that as you carry the word of Christ out into the world, you're carrying forgiveness with you. And those who receive that word receive that forgiveness. Those who resist that word have resisted that forgiveness. Um but by the Spirit out we go with Christ's words, and how the world responds to our little silly stumbling words, how it how it responds to our words is how it responds to God Himself. It is the word of God.
SPEAKER_01But Glenn, surely not every word a preacher says is right. I mean, how many times have only when I'm preaching. Oh yeah. Just plain wrong sometimes.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Yeah, no, absolutely true. And but I that's why I think Luther's thing is so helpful, because it gives us the context in which to hear preaching. A preacher is only to be heard to the degree that they preach Jesus biblically. Because you get but then then you've got the three the three forms of the word going together. And so in Acts chapter 17, you've got the Bereans, who are of more noble character than the Thessalonians, because they're listening to the Apostle Paul with their Bibles open. Well, they didn't have Bibles then, you know, but but remembering the scriptures and they search the scriptures each day to see if what the Apostle Paul said was true, because they they want it to be a biblical word, and it has to be a biblical word. Even though Paul was preaching, I mean Paul writes the Bible for goodness' sake, and yet they hold him to account by the Bible. So we must hold preachers to account by the Bible. And then in in 1 John 4 it talks about testing the spirits, and the and the spirits there is is speaking about prophets, speaking about proclaimers of the word. And you must uh those those preachers must be pointing you to the Christ who has come in the flesh. So they they must be focused on Christ. So I think between 1 John 4 and and and uh Acts 17, you've got these uh standards that you are meant to hold a preacher in in account to. But to the degree that they are being biblical and Christ focused, I think to that degree we are to receive their words as the very word of God.
SPEAKER_01So there's room if we do make mistakes, but uh, you know, we're not completely written off, we are speaking the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, and I and I think um you know, obviously th we're human, and there's a great humanity um to preaching, but actually there's a great humanity to to all three forms of the word. So there's so there are there's a humanity to preachers, obviously. There's a humanity to the Bible, you know, that is written by human beings, um, even though it's entirely and utterly the word of God. And there's a humanity to Christ as well. Um the humanity of the Bible and the humanity of Christ do not err, they do not make mistakes. Um the Humanity of the preacher does, unfortunately. But I think it's kind of a price that God is happy to pay in that he wants us to encounter his word through humans. He doesn't want to do the zapping thing. He doesn't want to just say, let there be light in an impersonal way and just go, boom, I want China converted. Bam! There it is. Actually, what he wants is people in all their struggling and brokenness and which is why in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 7 it talks about we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. God actually wants weak people to go and preach, and there's there's a great danger that those weak people will go wrong, but it's almost as though God absorbs the hit on that and and and thinks it's worth it's worth having weak human beings preach the gospel because that's what he's doing. He's building a family, he's not just zapping people from on high. So the humanity of the preacher can be a problem and it can go wrong, which is why there are tests for preaching, and you must test it according to the Bible and test it according to its Christ focus. But at the end of the day, the fact that this treasure is in jars of clay is in the at the end of the end of the day a good thing, because actually God wants us to build a family, not so much to zap impersonally individuals.
SPEAKER_01So it's it's it's a spiritual thing then when we go and speak or hear, you know, a preacher. Yeah. You know, this is a spiritual act that's going on, it's not just a chat or a just menial conversation.
SPEAKER_04No, and and so many times I get invited to a church and they say, you know, and in a second, somebody's gonna read Matthew chapter three, and then Glenn's gonna get up and share a few thoughts about that. Thinking, hang on, am I? What uh what am I doing to I'm I'm as Christ's ambassador, I implore you on God's behalf, be reconciled to God. Is that me sharing a few thoughts on 2 Corinthians 5? Or like hmm. So I th I think we need to be building expectation for what happens in a Sunday sermon. But but what I also love about the threefold word stuff is that the context in which we hear God's word is not just, well, it's a Sunday morning and this is a pulpit and that guy's ordained, so that's the context in which I hear God's word. The context is whenever Christ is proclaimed biblically, whenever, wherever, over a coffee, you know, in a toddler group, one mum talking to another mum, sharing about Christ. Even in that context, you can speak the word of God to people. And and God can let light shine out of darkness through just a conversation with another young mum. Um so that gives me that gives me confidence in the word of God and gives me confidence in that what I do, whether I'm ordained or not, whether it's Sunday morning or not, whether I'm in a pulpit or out of the pulpit, w wherever, there is the chance of speaking God's word and having him shine his light through that word and unblinding people. It's an astonishing, it's an astonishing promise that is not attached to anything else. It's not attached to the you know the works of the kingdom that we do and all that sort of stuff. But actually through the word, more faith comes by hearing.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, uh we're going to go on next time to talking about what does it do? What does evangelistic speaking do? And uh we'll we'll press on a little bit more with this subject. If you'd like to comment about this show, uh you can go to this episode's web address, which is simply revivalmedia.org slash TEP46. You can also share it from there, and why not send off for our international daily prayer bulletin? It gives you good news around the world of what God is doing. It's stuff that you don't hear in the usual news channels. Just send off for that there. And uh if you would care to give us a rating on iTunes or on Stitcher, that would be most gratefully received. Just go to revivalmedia.org slash iTunes or revivalmedia.org slash stitcher. So the web address again revivalmedia.org slash tep forty six. Thanks very much for listening and see you next time.
SPEAKER_03See you later.