Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we're concluding our look at 321 the Gospel Presentation.
SPEAKER_01The 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_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. This is the show where we encourage you in your witness to your friends, your family, and even complete strangers. With me is Glenn Scrivener. Hello. And I'm Andy Brinkley. If you like listening each week, we'd really appreciate a rating and review on iTunes. It helps us get seen by more people. Just go to revivalmedia.org slash iTunes. If you listen on Stitcher Radio, you can go to revivalmedia.org slash Stitcher, and that will take you directly to the podcast page where you can leave us a rating and review. We'd be very happy if you could do that for us. So Glenn, we've been looking at the three two one gospel presentation. We did an introduction, we did three. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Let me test you. Let me test you.
SPEAKER_02What's three?
SPEAKER_00What's three?
SPEAKER_02Come on, Andy. God is three persons united in love. Correct. What's two? There are two representatives, Adam and Christ.
SPEAKER_00Adam and Christ, excellent. And one and one, who are you one with? Brilliant. Right, there you go. Adam or Christ. There you you've been listening.
SPEAKER_02So what we're gonna do today is is sort of uh a bit of uh application of three two one is it to uh answer some questions perhaps about it and why we do it the way we do it, and yeah. So three two one does seem to be all about doctrines. Hmm. We don't seem to discuss creation or the birth of Christ or Christ's resurrection, not not in any great detail.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um where are they?
SPEAKER_00Where are they? Because they're not in three or two or one, because three and two and one are sort of the doctrines that underpin the gospel. Three, two, one, if you just say three, two, and one, you don't actually talk about the gospel events creation, fall, Christ's coming, his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension. Um, all that stuff you've got to actually put into your gospel presentation. So um there are some very good gospel presentations out there that are kind of based on things like the four spiritual laws and things like that, and the the four-point gospel that sort of has, you know, creation, fall, then Christ, especially his death on the cross, and then sort of repentance and faith, or uh John Stott used to say that the sort of the the story of the Bible was creation, fall, redemption, consummation when Christ comes at the end. And and those are kind of the gospel events, and it is absolutely vital to proclaim that because what the gospel is is news to tell. Um, not ideas to share, but news to tell about stuff that's happened. So it is absolutely vital, as as we're sharing 321, that we don't neglect those gospel events. So the video presentation that we've done absolutely talks about, you know, creation and it talks about Christ coming and dying and rising again, and so that's absolutely vital. But the reason why 321 kind of focuses on the doctrines is that it is possible to discuss the events and to fit them into a context that they weren't meant to be fitted into. You could talk about Jesus' death, for instance, and simply see that as an example, couldn't you? You could you could you could proclaim Christ and Him crucified and just say, Well, Jesus gave everything for God, now it's your turn. You could you could preach it like that. That wouldn't be gospel. That wouldn't be good news. You could preach the resurrection and simply preach it as you know, I suppose that just goes to show that there's more to life than death, and that there's you know um which would be one application of the resurrection, but that's not particularly the good news according to the Bible. According to the Bible, Jesus was raised from the dead according to the scriptures, according to Scripture's story of these things. So three to one um doesn't give you the events, but it does give you the doctrines into which these events fit.
SPEAKER_02Okay. No. Um isn't it a bit complicated? Hmm.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, it is. It is it is it isn't simple, and um in some ways I want to see that as a positive. I hear the drawback, and we want to be simple, as simple as possible. But um it was Albert Einstein who said things should be made as simple as possible and no simpler. Uh and what he was getting at is that there is a danger of being too simplistic. Um when you start to be simplistic, you start not just to be simple, but to to fall into error. And you start twisting the truth, you start cutting off things from your gospel that ought not to be cut off. So, yeah, talking about Trinity, union with Christ, and Adam and Christ, and that's not the simplest thing in the world, but I I I think what it's an attempt to do is to say, I know this won't instantly make sense to you, non-Christian, I know it won't instantly make sense to you, but why don't you come on over to the Christian household and take a look around and and spend some time here? You're not gonna get it instantly, but I hope that actually the time that it takes to understand 321 will be time well spent because it'll be time kind of soaking in a a biblical worldview, and time that is spent seeing the world in a different way. And the fact that it doesn't instantly connect with the way we ordinarily see the world, I I would see as as a plus point. Because we don't we don't want to just say, hey, everything you believe is true, let me just add this Jesus gloss. That's not what evangelism is. Evangelism is inviting someone into a story that seems quite weird to begin with. But actually that strangeness can be a real attraction if we're saying something different. So there is a drawback to it being not the simplest thing in the world, but I I think use that, draw people into into this world that is strange, and then hopefully that strange world starts to infect them a little bit.
SPEAKER_02So 321 doesn't begin where people are at.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_02So how are people gonna sort of connect with it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And that's really important because so so often what you see evangelism uh evangelism is explained in terms of find out where people are at and then make the bridge between where they're at to Jesus. And and essentially 321 doesn't attempt to do that at all, really. I mean it starts with Trinity. You know, like nobody's nobody's beginning there, or very few people are beginning there. Sometimes sometimes people ask, so what's this whole deal with the Trinity? Sometimes they do, but um it's it's not what people are talking about in the pub. Um and so I I guess I don't really believe evangelism is building stepping stones from the unbeliever to the gospel. Essentially I believe evangelism is proclaiming that gospel, which itself, once you understand it, connects with people where they are. Uh it was interesting, I w I was doing a a talk about um Martin Luther and how he preached the gospel to people, and it was interesting, he he had this sort of illustration about marriage, and uh we were talking about this in the last episode about um how marriage is a great illustration of oneness with Jesus. And Martin Luther said, you know, imagine a marriage where this king goes and marries this prostitute and and kind of gives himself to her and gives his kingdom and his throne and his inheritance and his royalty all to this, you know, poor, impoverished, debt-ridden woman. And he kind of painted this picture that was very down to earth, but at the same time was utterly upside down. What he didn't do, what he didn't do was say, hey, we all know those marriages, don't we, between rich people and poor people, and how rich people give themselves utterly for the poor people and and cover over all their debts and you know invite them into their royal family. You know that. Well, that's just like what happens in the gospel. It wasn't like that at all. It was, here's this really weird story, but let's see if I can tell it in a down-to-worth way that sounds really strange, but that that still manages to connect. And I think that's what I want to do in evangelism, it's what I want to want to do with 321. Start with this strange story, but hopefully by the end of it, once you've understood it, you go, oh, that's why we feel like love's the greatest thing. Because God is love. Like, oh, that's why we think that you know connections of minds and hearts uh are what life is all about. Oh, because actually God is that kind of community, and we're we're made for oneness with Jesus and and that actually out the far side of understanding 321, that's where the connection happens. So I I am presuming on the non-Christians kind of indulgence, I'm begging their indulgence. Come on in. I know this seems weird to begin with, but let me do that. So that it's not it's not really my evangelistic techniques that are building the bridges. I'm presuming that there are relationships going on. I'm presuming that there is love. I'm presuming that the Christians who are using 321 actually have relationships with non-Christians and actually love them and actually build up trust enough to say, hey, do you wanna do you wanna think about the Christian message for a few minutes? Please do come on over. So I'm not I'm not trying to I'm not trying to bridge into the Christian story. I'm assuming that Christians have loving relationships with non-Christians, that they can build up the trust and and just invite them, hey, do you want to hear about this Christian story? And then where I think the connection happens is once they've understood the Christian story, then they see how it makes makes sense of their world.
SPEAKER_02How have you found that uh 321 has has been received by people? What has this response been?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's uh really surprisingly good. So it it's it's being translated into I think uh twelve or thirteen languages at the moment, and and they're oh in fact I just got an email just before now, they're putting it into Welsh as well. So I think I think that might be thirteen or fourteen. Is it is it in Japanese? It's in Chinese. What else is it? It's in that's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. They're putting it in into Hint so Chinese and Hindi. So there's ri reaching a couple of billion people. Um and it's been put into German and Italian and French and Spanish and Farsi and Turkish and oh a few others. I'll I'll have to check. So so that that's really exciting that that's happening. And just in the sharing of of the videos, you know, we've seen people a friend of mine said um he um was talking on Skype with somebody in Singapore about the gospel, um, sent him the vi the video link via email. The guy watched it, they kept talking about it on Skype. The next day on on Facebook he changed his status to Christian, you know, which is kind of that's evangelism in a modern age, isn't it? And I've heard other stories about people just sharing the video. Uh other people who uh are doing the course, we'll talk about the course in a second. There is a three-week evangelistic course that people can do, and and um I heard recently, you know, a a girl did that just absolutely in tears, just saying this it's it's like the greatest love story. Um the gospel is like the greatest love story. This is amazing. You know, other people saying at the end of the course, I want in on this Jesus. I went I want in. Um I've been to baptisms in in different churches where people have, you know, they've come to Christ and 321's been part of part of their journey. A friend of mine um was doing it as baptism preparation for a for a couple, and and uh at the end of it um this guy was saying, you know, 321s taught me that Jesus is good news because he gave himself selflessly to me. And all this stuff. So there are there are now dozens of churches running uh three two one the course and so this is sort of a a longer look at each of the three sections of three to one. Yeah, it's a three-session evangelistic course, which um a lot of churches and Christian unions are enjoying. That's um inviting people to like a ten week course is um is a massive commitment. Saying, Do you want to come to a three-week course is a much easier buy-in. But then what they find is at the end of the three weeks they say, Oh, what else can we do now? Um once you've got them through the doors, it's much easier to get hold of them. So people are enjoying the the three weeks and they go through three and then two and then one. Um and uh it's just me speaking to camera.
SPEAKER_02So these are sort of longer videos, ten ten minutes or so.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, about fifty yeah, thirteen, fifteen minutes uh of me talking, and then just some discussion questions about that. And different people are running it differently. Um some people are running it so that by the end of the three weeks you've read through John's gospel. Uh other people they're reading a little bit from John chapters one uh Genesis chapters one to three and then John chapters one to three. There are some sort of little Bible studies you can do alongside that if you like. But essentially it's three talks with some discussion time afterwards, and uh and some people have found the Lord through this and it's uh it's great.
SPEAKER_02So if someone was interested in in doing that course or perhaps w wanting to run a uh series at their own church, would they get an email from you? Absolutely. Yeah, we'll put a link to it on this uh episode show notes and uh Yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And then yeah, just um send me uh send me a message and I'll email you the password and then you're good to go. It's kind of at sort of beta testing stage, because we'd we'd love to film them more professionally uh maybe next year. But we'd love to hear back from churches and Christian unions and and people just doing it one-to-one with others. Love to hear uh their feedback on it so we can make it as good as possible.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so you've got uh so there's the gospel presentation, the course, is is there anything else in the pipeline?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well working on the book, so just a little sort of cheap and cheerful evangelistic book that you can uh uh give away to friends. I'm also working on three to one go, which is kind of evangelism training. Right. And um and uh basically it's taking the doctrines of three, two, and one and and seeing how they might apply to evangelism. So, you know, so because God is three persons united in love, actually that's the foundation for mission, because God is this outgoing community of love, and he sweeps us up into his mission, and now we as the church are this outgoing community of love, and and out we go, and and so it's so it's taking three, two, and one and and applying them evangelistically and trying to equip people in sharing the faith. So so I'm working on that as uh as a course as well. Um and yeah, tracts and that kind of thing, they're all in the pipeline. But watch this space, watch this space. But it's it's just exciting to see that getting back to the core doctrines of scripture actually equips Christians, reinvigorates them, re-excites them about what the gospel is. You know, I I I do 3-2-1 with Christians, and Christians are like, I never really got Trinity, I never I never really got Adam and Christ, I never really got union with Christ. And now I see how it all fits together, and I see how actually the Christian life makes sense. I think so many Christians live their lives, and you know, they go to church over here and they read their Bible over there, and they they try and live a good life over here, and they know that it's got something to do with Jesus over here, and it's this this disparate kind of Christian life that that we live. So I've I found it really, really great with Christians to get us back to the core doctrines and and see how Christians suddenly say, you know what, actually, I had I had a girl on Saturday come up to me and say, I I never really understood the gospel before. Just like it was a it was a you know a thing for Christians, and she just came up, I don't think I ever understood the gospel before. And and and basically I was just doing three, two, one, go with with with the guys and just taking them through the gospel again. Another girl came in tears and just said, I I never really got that Jesus loved me uh until I went through this stuff. So I'm just I'm just loving getting us back to those core doctrines and then seeing that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, seeing that out out of just a a deeper understanding of the gospel itself, that helps us to gospel others. So, yeah, watch this space. We'll we'll keep on uh plugging away at that.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, thanks very much, Glenn. It's uh it's good to have an overview of this, and uh as I say, if anyone that's listening is interested in uh doing the course or finding out some more information, you can just go to this episode's web address which is revivalmedia.org slash TEP30. That will take you directly to the page. There'll be there'll be the videos there and links to the course. You can find out more information. Well, thanks for listening to the Avengers podcast, and uh you'll have to find out what we're gonna do next time because uh we don't know yet.
SPEAKER_00Email in your suggestions. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, thanks very much.