Book Review: The Heart of Evangelism

It has been 7 years since I took one of my favorite seminary classes, Apologetics and Outreach to Contemporary Culture, taught by Jerram Barrs at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. I took the class the year before this book, The Heart of Evangelism, was published. My recent reading of the book took me back to some of the most paradigm-busting and helpful lectures I attended while studying theology. What I learned recently from The Heart of Evangelism will follow selected quotes throughout this review.

“Francis Schaeffer used to say that the church in Antioch was his favorite church in the New Testament because of its commitment to overcome cultural and racial barriers. At the beginning of Acts 13 we read about the leaders of the church in Antioch. There were two from Africa, Simeon and Lucius, at least one of whom, Simeon, was black. Two were Jewish, Manaen (“brought up with Herod the tetrarch”) and Saul, a Jew with Pharisee’s training and also with Roman citizenship. It was this church in Antioch from which the first missionaries, Paul and Barnabas, were sent, and thus missions, as we think of them today, began and became a part of the life of the church from that day to this (Acts 13:1-4ff).” (37)

One of the things that most attracted me to the church when I was an young believer in the early 1990’s was observing the power of the gospel to reconcile relationships between people of different races. I’ll never forget standing side-by-side with Mrs. Myrtis Robinson (one of the few African-American women in affluent West St. Louis County at the time) and hundreds of other old white folks who grew up in the racist South, all loudly singing hymns together at First Baptist Church in Ellisville, Missouri. God had given Myrtis a real love for the ex-racist white people in our church, and it was evident that He had also changed the hearts of these Southern transplants who had grown up under segregation. These people loved Jesus and they loved one another. They were also committed to the cause of local and world missions, something I had not yet given much thought to (and now have devoted my life to).

“Sometimes Christians care so much about family and friends that they start questioning God about the fairness of his judgment against those who do not know Christ. It is better to struggle with these questions and doubts than to wall ourselves off from such difficulties. The only alternative to painful struggles is either breaking off close ties with those who are not Christians or refusing to get close to anyone who is not a believer because of the emotional ties that come and the questions that arise with those ties.” (47)

This is excellent pastoral perspective. What Christian has not felt their love for family and friends turn into sorrow over the fact that these loved ones remain alienated from God? What Christian has not faced the temptation to cut-off or avoid close relationships with people who are not believers? Knowing the reality that eternal, conscious torment waits for those who do not repent and believe in Jesus brings pain and sorrow into the hearts of Christians that love non-believers. This is another example of the Christian’s calling “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Avoiding the painful emotional ties that come from relationships with nonbelievers is not an option for Christians called to obey Jesus’ Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).

“All truth is God’s truth, and all good human qualities arise from the image of God that is indelibly printed in our human nature.” (107)

“Paul built a bridge to his hearers by searching for aspects of truth in their thinking and of virtue in their lives that could be commended.” (203)

“No man or woman inhabits the world of his or her own belief system. Whether people like it or not, there is only one world, the world that God made, and they have to live in it and function in it as God has made it. In addition, people never escape their own humanity. They are in the image of God because that is the way God made them.” (206)

Oh, how I wish I had reflected more on these truths during my younger days of zealous personal evangelism! I’m confident that I would have had fewer confrontational conversations with family, friends and others. In my middle-age zeal, I’m seeing increased fruitfulness in evangelism as I follow Paul’s example in Acts. Even though every person I meet is thoroughly and radically corrupted by sin, some aspect of truth and virtue still remains in their lives. This is our point of contact with them and the place from which we may most effectively proclaim the gospel to them. Jerram Barrs makes a significant contribution to the church’s understanding of evangelism here.

“The time will come in every contact to make…a challenge. That time comes only when we have earned the right, when we have built a sufficient relationship, so that the wounds we give will be experienced, as Proverbs says, ‘as wounds from a friend’ (27:6).” (210)

While I appreciate this point, I don’t agree with it entirely. The time will come in every contact to make a challenge and that time comes when God gives it to us, not merely because we feel we have somehow “earned” the right to challenge someone else’s beliefs. As we live by the Spirit, He will regularly give us many opportunities to call people to repentance from sin and faith in Jesus. We may have to wait for some of these opportunities for years, but we may also be given many opportunities today. God is the one who gives his evangelists favor in the sight of non-believing people. Christians should be more concerned about the leading of God’s Spirit and his provision of gospel words to speak than they are concerned about their own efforts to “earn” the right to be heard by others. Jesus has given us a commission to make disciples and that commission has a real sense of urgency.

“What is needed is genuine love and concern for the person we are meeting, a readiness to ask questions because we truly desire to know the person, and prayer for the discernment of the Holy Spirit about what to say.” (225)

Amen!