On this edition of the Evangelist Podcast, we're continuing to think about what's stopping us.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what you in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With antiquity and Glend Scripture.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. This is the show where we encourage you in your witness to your friends, family, and even complete strangers. How are you doing, Glenn?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm doing good. What have you been uh doing with yourself recently? I've been uh writing 321 the book. So um yeah, that's been that's been a lot of fun actually, thinking thinking hard about how to make it plain and clear and yeah.
SPEAKER_02So three two one being uh a sort of a gospel presentation, easy to remember, easy to share. That's it. You know, sort of straightforward truth.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Go to 321.org and find out more. But um yeah, so yeah, wanting to get uh a cheap, shareable book out there that just goes through the gospel for people.
SPEAKER_02When's it due?
SPEAKER_01Uh we don't have a date, but I'd I'd love it to be uh ready for Easter next year.
SPEAKER_02Right, okay. Well, Glenn, we looked last week we started the series What's Stopping Us and we looked at problems of the head part one. This will be part two. Mm-hmm. And uh so we Are you part one and I'm part two?
SPEAKER_01People who are wrong in the head.
SPEAKER_02Speak for yourself. Um so last week we looked at uh the fact of we shouldn't build up to God um from the points of reason. Yeah. But instead God comes down to us in Revelation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Do you think that means that we should ignore sort of the intellectual objections of non-Christians and just sort of sing songs and repeat John 3.16?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So yeah, so whatever question the non-Christian asks, you just stick your fingers in the air and go, no, no, no, I can't hear you. God so loved the world. Um I'm not saying that. No, I'm not saying that. Um but what I am saying is we need to fit those questions into a bigger framework, um, a bigger understanding of what evangelism really is. And and I I think I've said this before on the on the podcast at some stage, but I I often think coming to Christ is a lot like getting married. And you know, think about how you get to know the person you're gonna marry. You know, do you sit down with them with a clipboard and a pen and 27 questions, each more cunning and tricky than the last?
SPEAKER_02You know? You found me out, Glenn. Is that how you got together with Mary? Yeah, no, not really.
SPEAKER_01And you scored her with an A-, and you got married. That would be a really weird and probably very short courtship, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_02Probably how a lot of dating sites work. That's true.
SPEAKER_01But even with those dating websites, the make or break thing is encountering the person.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that's that's really what the relationship is sort of founded on encountering the person, spending time with the person, they share a bit of their story, you share a bit of your story. And then at some stage, uh, you know enough to trust them. You don't know everything about the person you're about to marry. You know, and when you stand before God on the congregation and you declare, you know, till death us do parts, you don't know everything about the other person at all, which is what makes the first year of marriage so very, very interesting, you know. Why are you like this? You know, how did your mother raise you? What's what's going on with this? In the same way, with with Jesus, the point is not to have a clipboard and a pen and twenty-seven questions and to tick off every single answer to those twenty-seven questions. The point is to encounter a person, to know more of his story, to enter into his world, to get to the point where you say, I trust this person. I haven't had all my questions answered. There's still a thousand and one things I don't know, but I know enough to trust him, and I will entrust what I don't know to him because I see in the gospel that he's trustworthy. So that's kind of that's what's going on in the back of my mind as people are asking this question, this question, this question, this question. And and it can be good to to say to a person, if if they do have twenty-seven questions for you, to say, Listen, if I were to give you a perfect answer to all twenty-seven, would you want Jesus in your life? Yeah. Um and at that stage you you're communicating what this really is about. Yes. And it's not yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think I've said before, my um my wife, she had loads of questions before she became a Christian. Uh when she became a Christian, she still had questions, but they didn't matter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Before she was a Christian, she thought that she had to get all the questions answered. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02To get there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But in the end, you know, the Lord came and touched her and she became a Christian. And then it was almost as if the trust was there, as you're saying. Exactly. You know, there's she trusted. Yeah. And uh it didn't matter whether whether she had the answers or not.
SPEAKER_01Well, exactly. And that's why I'm glad we're doing, you know, these episodes, and and we we did do episodes like this in the past as well, because I I don't want to give the impression by doing, you know, the series that we've just been doing, we've been doing a series on, you know, questions that come up and how to answer certain thorny issues in the Christian faith. I don't want to give the impression that, you know, becoming a Christian is jumping through those hoops until until you know everything. Um it's it's certainly not like that. Ask all the questions you like and be dealing with all the questions that you like. Through those questions you can know Jesus, and that's the point of it. Um not so much scratching an intellectual itch, but but meeting the person of Jesus. That's the point.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, can you give us some tips then on what to say when people do ask these questions?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I often think in terms of three R's. Um I'm a preacher, so I've got thinking three points beginning with the same letter. Um when someone comes with a question, uh it's important to reframe the question, to reflect the question back, and to use it to reveal Jesus. So let me explain what that means. Um the first thing you need to do is is to uh reframe the question. Uh somebody comes to you with a question and they'll present it to you in a certain light. And I think it's important not to not to always answer questions on their own terms. You'll so often see Jesus. Someone comes to Jesus with a question, and he'll just uh ask them another question back. Yeah. Or he'll say something that seems so out of left field, you know, what's he doing? He's reframing the question and not not simply answering the question on its own terms, um, but trying to give some more biblical definitions of the terms of the question. Uh that's always very, very important to do.
SPEAKER_02Um So if someone said, you know, if God is all loving and all powerful, how can he allow suffering?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02How would you reframe?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well that's a perfect example, isn't it? Because when someone comes with if God is all loving, all knowing, and all powerful, how can he allow suffering? Instantly you might want to reframe that question because they're coming to you with the God of their religious studies um lesson from you know from GCSEs. They they're coming to you with um a very philosophical definition of God. And so you might you might want to start saying, Oh, that's interesting, where do you get that definition of God from? Um let me tell you about um I I want to answer your question, but let me tell you the God at the centre of my answer. And the God at the centre of my answer is not so much the omnibeing of philosophy, but the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come and stooped and suffered and bled and died for us, and you know, his his great revelation of his divine nature has been on a cross with his arms outstretched to the world, suffering for the world. So I'm really happy to answer your question about suffering, but let me reframe it and tell you about the gods who I believe interacts with suffering, and it's this God, the suffering gods. And as soon as you do that, you're on a much healthier footing because suddenly, suddenly you're like, Well, you know, what does Jesus have to do with suffering? You're like, Well, have you read the Bible? Um So I th yeah, so that that's an example of reframing. Okay. Um the second R is uh reflecting the question back. Okay. Now, even though I'm explaining it in this order, I'm not saying you have to, you know, follow these three steps in this order or anything like that. Um but another another R to keep in mind is to reflect the question back. Because the ask of the question um will probably have to answer their own question just in a different way. So, like who made God, for instance? You know, so the the unbeliever who said, Ah, you know, you think we've all come from God. Well, where did God come from? Um at some points you can turn that around and say, Well, if you think you came from the universe, where did the universe come from? Um and and this is true and on the suffering question as well, you know, reflect the question back to them. Okay, I'm happy to deal with your question about suffering. But once I've talked to you about Jesus for a little bit, what are you gonna do about suffering? Because you still live in this suffering world that I live in, but you don't have the comfort of Jesus. So how do you answer that question? So reframe the question, reflect the question back and also uh to reveal the gospel truth of Jesus somehow through the question. Um and and again, this is this is all together with th the belief that evangelism is proclamation. The arrow is coming down. And even though they're asking you this question, is there a way of of using that question to uh to proclaim Jesus?
SPEAKER_02Okay, well we'll let's just do another uh example. Um someone says uh religion causes wars. Yes. So uh reframing that would be I agree. Yeah. You're right, but uh let's let's look at um you know how religion in its attempt to reach God and to you know affect other people. Yes. Let's force them all to do this and you know, if they don't we'll kill them and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Well you're reframe you're you you're redefining the term, religion, aren't you?
SPEAKER_02But Christianity can't be defined in the same terms that you know all the other religions can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And then so so reflecting that, you would say even atheism has caused wars in its own atheism has, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Reflecting. Yeah, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_02And then reveal.
SPEAKER_01Religion causes war. How how do you then reveal the gospel through that? Um was it last I think last year, September the 11th, fell on on a Sunday, and I was preaching on September the 11th. So my my title for my sermon was um Religion Causes War, Man is the answer. Um and my my text was uh Romans chapter 5. And and so I did that reframing thing and just said as yeah, you're right. Religion does cause war, you know, the the works of Adam, the works of the flesh, to right raise ourselves up leads to all sorts of spiritual pride and and and um feelings of domination and superiority, and it does lead to war and and uh and feelings of control and all that goes together with religion in that negative sense, does cause war. Um man is the answer. Um because well, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, in in Romans 5, rather than coming into this world in order to dominate, Jesus says Mark chapter 10, verse 45, I did not come into the world to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. So yeah, I can see how all sorts of understandings of the world could lead to war. Religious understandings, Marxist understandings, other atheistic understandings of the world, um, could cause war because it's all about you ra raising yourself up. Um here is the Jesus who comes and dies for his enemies. If I follow him, am I going to be more warlike or am I gonna be more sacrificial? Um But yeah, so they're looking for opportunities to to again reveal Christ and reveal Christ as the one who comes down.
SPEAKER_02And what happened what do you do, Glenn, if if you just you don't know, you're just stumped on a question.
SPEAKER_01Thankfully I'm a I'm a real expert on that one. Um being stumped. I've had lots of experience of being uh completely stumped. And and I think when we understand what evangelism really is, and it's not trying to get them to answer the 27 questions and to build their their reasonable arguments towards heaven, once you realise that, then I think it gives you a lot of freedom to say, opp, I don't know. That's a really good question. I have no idea how to answer that one. Let me find out. Let me find out. Let me think about it. And you're modelling a few things there. You're modelling it you're modelling that okay, it's not about dotting all your d I's and crossing all your T's. It's it's not about knowing all the answers. It also shows that um what you believe in is a checkable thing. A thing you you can go back to the primary source material, you can go back to the Bible, and you can see what the answers are. You know, it's it's you're not just making it up as you go along. There the you know, there are answers somewhere else. We have a textbook. We have a textbook, you know, we have the answers book. And we we don't have the answers, but we look somewhere else. So it it models that and it also gives you a br a brilliant opportunity to have another another conversation later on. You say, that's really that's really good. Let me go and find out. And then next week you can come back and and you can say, Yeah, I've I've I've looked up and there's this brilliant verse I want to share with you. Thank you so much for you know, and then all of a sudden you've got another bite at the cherry down the road. But don't be uh don't be afraid if you don't I mean I th I think that's what you know stops so many people. When you when you do surveys of why people don't do evangelism, coming very high up on on those surveys, it's always I feel like I'd be exposed, you know, as not knowing the answers. Um which yeah, I think that's coming from a really wrong understanding of evangelism. It's not really about knowing all the answers. Um it's about with the give and take of a conversation, being able to just sow a little bit of a seed here and a little bit of a seed there, um, and you don't need to know the answers.
SPEAKER_02So just sum up for us, Glenn. Uh we've done this for for two episodes now, but the problem of the head. What's kind of the main uh thrust that we need to remember uh at this point?
SPEAKER_01I think one thing that's simplified my evangelism so much is just me realizing that that it's actually about offering Jesus. That's that's literally what evangelism is, of offering Jesus himself. And that really frees you from this model of Christianity or or or of coming to faith that is, you know, ticking boxes and that kind of thing. It's it's really offering an introduction to Jesus. And and so it I don't need to know all the answers. I really don't. I I I just need to offer them Christ, which is what you know Whitfield and Wesley all always used to they always used to describe their evangelism in those terms. They offer them Christ. And and so often in my evangelism I know that I've I've tried to I've tried to be cool. I've tried to offer them cool rather than offer offering them Christ. You know, I'll mention that I I know all the latest bands or or whatever. You know, I'll do do a youth talk and I'll try to get down with the youth and you know they see through you they see through me anyway in a in an instance. But but we we so often try to offer them cool instead of Christ, or we or we try to offer them you know credibility rather than Christ. You know, we talk to them about all the very, very clever people who've believed in Jesus, and that's why you should be a Christian, because it's credible, because clever people have believed it. Or, you know, we offer people creeds instead of Christ. I believe in creeds, I believe there is a body of doctrine um that that we must believe. Um but so often we can we can give to them formulas, formulae, I guess, rather than offering them the person of Christ.
SPEAKER_02So attractive though, isn't it, to sort of like give give someone a process or you know, you've got to do these four steps and uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that and and that's like courses as well. You know, we we we so often offer of offer people courses where you know you've got the you know, there is a three, two, one course and it's three weeks, and you can, you know. But instead of offering them a course, yeah, you can do the course, but the course is just another opportunity to offer Christ to you. And he is the heart, he is the heart of evangelism. And so often in evangelism training, I I just get people to workshop. Um how are you gonna finish this sentence? The sentence is that's what I love about Jesus. Dot dot dot. You know, how are you gonna finish that sentence? Uh if you don't know how to finish that sentence, don't whatever you do, do evangelism. Because you know we don't we don't need more dry, dusty, cold-hearted, you know, kind of taking people through stages. We we need people who love Jesus and who know how to just talk about him. So he's the great simplifier of evangelism. We must be talking about him.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so you've just you've just said three four C's there. Yes. That's true. Cool credibility, creeds, courses, but it's Christ.
SPEAKER_01But it's Christ, there's the the the fifth C, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Glenn, well we've uh come round trip with that one, and uh next time we'll be looking at problems of the heart. Now if you've got any comments about today's show or would like to share it, you can go to revivalmedia.org slash TEP22. Or if you've got a question for Glenn or something that you'd like to see in the podcast, get in touch with us and we might put it on. That'd be good. If you like listening each week and don't want to miss an episode, you can sign up via email. If you just go to revivalmedia.org slash TEP21. There'll be a sign up page there where you can sign up via email. Just another way that you can subscribe to us, you may find that helpful on your phone or whatever. And also uh we'd really appreciate a rating and review on iTunes. It helps us to be seen more by more people within iTunes. It's very easy, just go to revivalmedia.org slash iTunes. That will take you directly to the podcast page. So again, the web address for this episode is revivalmedia.org slash tep twenty two.