Are You An…Evangelical?

 

Apparently it is a bad thing for a person to be identified as an evangelical Christian. That was one of my conclusions after reading this online article, which made mention of some comments to a newspaper article that had to do with US Vice President Mike Pence. Now the newspaper article came from the Times of London, and the online article I was reading came from a pastor in Australia, so I don’t take either one of them as anything that should have any influence on voters in the US. But what was interesting was the alleged dangers associated with evangelical Christians. 

“Christian” is a label that can have a very broad meaning. At its most basic level a Christian would be a person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. But right there we can go in a number of directions as to what it means to believe in Jesus. My attaching the word “Lord” to His name would be an issue for some Christians, as would my decision in this post to capitalize pronouns referring to Him. 

When we add the word “evangelical” to Christian/s we can similarly go into a variety of directions. It does not have a single, or even generally recognized, primary definition. Some Christians would welcome it while others would cringe at any association between their faith in Jesus and the term evangelical. A number of years ago, fairly early in my journey of faith in Jesus, I had a conversation with my pastor. I was trying to understand some things that had been said at a recent class I had attended at our church. He tossed out, almost as an aside, words to this effect: “Brad, the problem is that you’re an evangelical and there aren’t very many of you here.” Two things in that sentence caught my attention. First, I was an evangelical at a church that didn’t have very many of them, and second, the pastor had said “you” rather than “us.”

I’m of the opinion that to be an evangelical as a Christian is a very good thing. You could easily make a case that being evangelical is essential to being a Christian, that you are not really maturing as a follower of Jesus if you don’t have your evangelical radar turned on.

To be an evangelical means that you are intentional about sharing the good news of Jesus with others. This is something that He told his followers to do, in what we call the Great Commission:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” 

The responsibility given to evangelicals is to engage in evangelism, of which making disciples and teaching are the core tasks.

This summer I read a short and very good book on evangelism, which gave this excellent definition: Evangelism is to teach the gospel with an aim to persuade. Here is how I understand those four key words.

Teach: To give someone instruction in something, to guide them in learning something. 

The gospel: The good news of the Lord Jesus as the only Savior of the world. Explaining the gospel means dealing directly with the problem of a holy God and human sin. It is not a simple problem but it does lead to a unique and beautiful solution.

Aim: To have a particular target in mind as you teach the gospel.

Persuade: To teach in such a way that the other person not only knows the gospel, or understands the gospel, but that they believe the gospel.

The real problem for the average person with evangelical Christians is that the gospel message is a message that no ordinary person wants to hear. It’s a message that confronts us as the lords of our own lives. It calls for us to reject the gods we serve. It doesn’t matter if we serve those gods knowingly or not. It doesn’t matter if every other person we know or respect says that the things we are worshipping are harmless. Jesus is a jealous God. He tolerates no rival gods, and that is truly a good thing.

Believing the gospel sets us apart as children of the One True God, calling us to live our lives in ways that, above all else, are pleasing to Him. All of our lives. All of the time. This is something that literally takes a lifetime to learn, often by taking two steps forward and one step back. Over and over.

Living as children of the King is challenging, but also infinitely good. In virtually every respect it is different from the ways of the culture we live in, no matter where in the world you may be living. Small wonder that evangelicals are frowned on, at best, and in other cases reviled or worse.

One of the things I ask for nearly every day is that God would grow me in evangelism. That He would teach me in what to say and give me opportunities to share His good news.

I’m an evangelical. Are you?

 

 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.