Book Reviews: The Broken Hearted Evangelist by Jeremy Walker & The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever

The Broken Hearted Evangelist – Jeremy Walker
 (Reformation Heritage Books, 2012, 150pp)

 

            The Broken Hearted Evangelist takes the unique tact of viewing evangelism through the lens of Psalm 50 and how David’s confession of sin and plea for restoration is coupled with a promise to teach the wicked the ways of God in such a way that they will come to repentance.  In many ways this very framework is the most helpful thing about this volume.  While it is common place in the evangelical world to acknowledge that recent converts are often the most zealous evangelists, the author’s linking zeal for evangelism to the experience of repentance and forgiveness is very helpful and presses home the need to constantly preach the gospel to not only to the unsaved, but also to one another to spur on the Body of Christ to evangelism by reminding them of the great forgiveness they have received.

            After beginning the work with a chapter on the obligation to evangelize, which travels well worn paths, the author moves on to a discussion of the equipment necessary for evangelism, making the excellent observation that the primary tool needed by evangelists is the joy of their own salvation?  This is very insightful, and I think an under appreciated truth, as we seek to grow our church, by growing the Church Universal, it will be important to emphasize not only the forgiveness found in the cross, but the joy of salvation as we seek to disciple our people and encourage them in evangelism.

            The author’s next section “am I committed” takes its cue from the Psalmist’s pledge to teach unbelievers the way of the Lord.  This chapter included a helpful reminder that evangelism is not a fire and forget strafing of unbelievers with calls to repent or with Gospel tracts, but rather it is teaching the about God.  The author also provided a helpful section on treating each unbeliever as an individual, a needed correction in this era of evangelism systems and methods.   There is no one size fits all approach to evangelism and that is a truth that must be impressed modern evangelical church, and the over reliance on programs to do the work of the ministry has been, in my view, disastrous.  Likewise the reminder that in order to reach unbelievers, we must rub shoulders with unbelievers is a welcome reminder for those of us in ministry.  The tendency to withdraw into a Christian bubble is the greatest obstacle to evangelism for man and must be avoided as the author points out.

            The penultimate chapter “am I focused?” was in large part a response (it seemed) to the seeker sensitive movement and its approach to evangelism, and was helpful and accurate but was not anything new.  The reminder that the goal of evangelism is conversions was helpful, but I am not convinced is entirely accurate.  The ultimate goal of evangelism is the glory of God through the obedience of His people, the addition of worshippers to the body of Christ through the preaching of the gospel and to magnify the holy Justice of God when those who have heard the gospel and rejected it are judged according to their deeds and their knowledge of the truth.  To limit the goal of evangelism to conversion of unbelievers, may be a discouraging message to believers who faithfully share the Gospel, but do not see the fruit of conversions.  This needed perspective was also missing from the final chapter “Am I fruitful”?

            On balance the book was a profitable read, but while much of the content was good, it was buried under needless verbosity and suffered from a lack of clarity of thought.  Often devices that would have admirably served as illustrations of a paragraph or two, were dragged out for dozens of pages, and at times seemed to guide the author’s writing rather than serving it it.  My overall impression of the writing was that the author was either struggling to reach a contractually specified page count, or was trying to ape the style of the puritans.  Whatever the cause, the work would have benefited from a firmer editorial hand, and more concise thought.  While it was a profitable read, there are many other books on the subject I would recommend before The Broken Hearted Evangelist.

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The Gospel and Personal Evangelism - Mark Dever

(Crossway, 2007, 128pp)

            The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever was one of the most impactful and valuable works I have ever read on personal evangelism.  It was at the same time intensely practical, but entirely devoid of pragmatism, in fact in many ways it is a powerful polemic against the pragmatism that typifies the American evangelical world and the church growth movement.

            Dever opens the discussion with a pithy section on “why we don’t evangelize”, and while he lays out a number of specific reasons, he boils them all down to one underlying theme, selfishness.  He prescribes a few remedies to “stop not evangelizing”, the most important being love.  One thing that I have learned is that the key to evangelizing people is to love them, but like all sinful Christians at times I struggle to love the unbelievers who are hard to love.  This chapter is an excellent corrective.

            Having admonished the reader to share the gospel, he helpfully provides a chapter on what the Gospel is, and he clearly states that it is the biblical truth about God, man, and the relationship of sinful man to a holy God and that the only hope is the atoning sacrifice of Christ.  His emphasis on a full presentation of the biblical Gospel was very helpful.  Particularly useful was his description of the resurrection as evidence of God’s acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice.  This is a point too often left out of gospel presentations and entirely absent from many works on evangelism.  The resurrection is key to any gospel presentation and Dever gives it the attention it demands.

            Dever then provides two helpful chapters “how we should evangelize” and “what isn’t evangelism.”   Particularly helpful and convicting to me was his call to evangelize with a healthy balance of honesty, urgency and joy.  I can be so mindful that I deserve hell, that my personal evangelistic focus tends to be on honesty and urgency at the expense of joy.  I also deeply appreciated the chapter on what isn’t evangelism.  It is one of the most succinct and helpful primers on the subject I have read.  Particularly helpful was his brief discussion of the role of personal testimony.  I was certainly taught that one method to evangelize is to “share what God has done for me”, and while I would affirm the telling of personal testimonies, Dever provides a helpful reminder that testimonies that do not include a clear articulation of the Gospel are not evangelism.  His section on the difference between evangelism and results was also needed and encouraging.  While this is a truth I know and embrace, he expresses it in a  succinct and memorable manner and provides a map for teaching this truth to others as we seek to disciple one another in the area of evangelism.

            His discussion of what to do after evangelizing was excellent, especially his discussion of responses to the gospel, both negative and positive.  It was very helpful, and provided a needed reminder that there are nuanced responses to the Gospel, and that we need to differentiate between the kinds of negative responses, and react accordingly.  Sometimes it is wholly appropriate to shake the dust off of our feet, and other times not and Dever gives needed guidance here.

            His chapter on why we evangelize was the most convicting portion of the book for me,  specifically the call to evangelize out of the love for God.  The fact that evangelism is the means of bringing more worshipers to God and more glory to God as he shows mercy to more unworthy sinners seldom enters my thinking, and this is a serious fault.  My evangelism is too man centered.  I will meditate on this and pray and my prayer is that I am renewed in my thinking, and that my love for God motivates me to more personal evangelism, and a more active pursuit of opportunities for evangelism.

            I was also deeply impacted by Dever’s constant call to pray about the nuts and bolts of personal evangelism.  I pray for opportunities, and I pray for salvation, but I don’t pray for a lack of fear, or for new relationships with unbelievers or any of the other details I should be praying about.

            Perhaps the biggest impact this book will have on my future ministry, is as a resource.  I have been looking for a short, God focused, resource to help equip and motivate people to evangelism, without locking them into a system or a technique, and I have found it in The Gospel & Personal Evangelism.  This is simply the finest work on personal evangelism I have read in many years.

             

RGIII's Knee and the Outrage of Gospel Complacency

            Seminary is an incredible and indispensable preparation for full time ministry.  The amount of learning is amazing.  The learning of the languages, and how to actually use them, the theology, and how to think systematically about the things of God, and even a real understanding of church history equips a man for ministry to a depth that nothing else can.

            But there is something else that takes place in seminary, at least in seminaries where the professors are also pastors and elders in local churches in addition to being excellent scholars, which is invaluable.  The professors sometimes pull you aside and dole out little nuggets of wisdom about how to shepherd the flock.  And one of those nuggets that was shared with me was that you need to be aware of the local sports teams.  This was a piece of advice I bristled against.  Being from Pittsburgh I was aware I hated all teams that didn’t wear the black and gold, and that was as far as I wanted to go.

            But considering that the man who took time to tell me that has the greatest heart for the flock I have ever seen, I decided I had better listen.  So every day as I drive into the church, I listen to the local sports talk radio station. (And I hate to admit it but I have taken a little bit of an interest in the Nats and the Wizards, and have stopped actively hating the Redskins.  The Capitals, well I have stopped actively hating the Redskins.)

            I mention this for one reason, for the past few weeks one subject has dominated the airwaves here in metro D.C., the injury to Robert Griffin III’s knee.  It is a massive injury, and considering it is the second time he has torn the ACL in that knee, you would think that the discussion would center on the question of whether he can come back and ever compete at the same level.  But it doesn’t.  The key question being debated is what did coach Mike Shanahan know about the seriousness of his injury, and when did he know it?

            RGIII had injured his knee earlier in the season and during their season ending playoff game clearly aggravated it.  Yet after consultation with the team doctor and the coach he was sent back into the game, and in case you missed it, RGIII subsequently crumpled to the ground clutching his severely injured knee.

            And so the debate rages, should he have been sent back into the game?  Should Shanahan be held accountable for his quarterback’s injury?  And underneath all of the debate there is an undergirding awareness that if the coaches and doctors knew that by sending RGIII back into the game they were endangering his health, it was wrong.  It was a morally wrong act to not protect their player’s health and future.  (And truth be told most of the people who call in are a lot more concerned with the future health of the Redskins that with the health and career of Robert Griffin.)

            And this caused me to ponder a question.  If people are outraged because a coach might have known a football player's knee was in danger and refused to take action to protect him, where is the outrage that millions of professing Christians know beyond a shadow of a doubt that people all around them (including friends and relatives who they claim to love) are in imminent danger of judgment and yet fail to take any action?  Millions of professing believers refuse to share the Gospel with the lost.  And that is a lot more outrage worthy than a coach knowingly jeopardizing a player’s knee.  In fact it is unconscionable.

            Consider this quote:

“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward—and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me alone and keep your religion to yourself—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

“I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.”

            There is a palpable sense of outrage there isn’t there?  And it is appropriate sense of outrage isn’t it.  You can agree with everything in that statement can’t you? After all isn’t it really a hateful act to not alert someone to the perils of hell and damnation?  You might think that quote came from the pulpit of a powerful preacher of the Gospel, but it didn’t.  That indignant condemnation of evangelistic cowardice came from noted atheist and skeptic Penn Jillette (The speaking half of the illusionist duo Penn & Teller).  If an avowed atheist sees that it is outrageous to not share the Gospel, what is wrong with the church?

            I think that the only answer is that the collective conscience of the American church has been seared against the common sin of not sharing the Gospel.  And yes, I just called it sin.  Believers are commanded to make disciples, and the very purpose of the universal Church is to proclaim the excellencies of Christ.  To fail to do so is an act of disobedience, plain and simple.

            While the fear of damaging relationships is understandable, it is not an excuse to not share the Gospel.  Jesus said if anyone values their familyrelationships more than Him, they are unworthy to follow Him.  And He also clearly told his disciples that not only was following Christ not the pathway to popularity, it would result in the world hating them.  But following Christ is more than worth the cost.

            And I don’t say that idly, I didn’t come to faith until later in life, and I was a fairly popular guy.  Having worked in the corporate world, at a popular night spot and at a ski resort I had a wide and diverse circle of friends when I came to Christ.  Today virtually all of those friends are gone.  The interesting thing is that there weren’t any heated confrontations with them or tense interactions.  Once they realized that I actually believed the Gospel, that I actually desired to live under the Lordship of Christ and it wasn’t some kind of scheme, scam or dodge they quietly walked away from our friendship.  It happened with the friends I shared the Gospel with and it happened with the friends I was too cowardly to share the Gospel with.  

The social awkwardness happened simply because real and true faith is always a divisive issue.  Remember that Jesus said families would be divided because of Him, to expect anything else is to ignore the clear teaching of Scripture.  God is often merciful in preserving relationships, but it is wrong to expect it.  After all, we are the aroma of death to those who are perishing, and that is something a lot of people just don't want to be around.

Now that doesn’t mean that we should be harsh or unloving in the presentation of the Gospel, we must always do our best to limit the offense to the Gospel, remembering that if you don’t have love, anything you say will be as annoying as a clanging gong.  And always remember that the message of the Gospel is deeply offensive to unbelievers.  No one likes to hear that they are not a good person, hopelessly sinful and will justly incur eternal punishment for their transgressions against a holy God unless they repent of their sins and place their hope for salvation solely in the atoning sacrifice of Christ who bore the wrath of God against sin, poured Himself out to the point of death then arose again signifying the defeat of the power of sin and death and the Father’s acceptance of His perfect sacrifice.  (And make no mistake that is the Gospel, it is not that God has a wonderful plan for your life if you would just invite Jesus into your heart.  The Gospel must include the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God if people are to repent and believe as Jesus commanded when He preached the Gospel.)  But the truth of the Gospel must be shared in love, in a winsome manner, and with the acute awareness that apart from the sovereign grace of God you would be just as dead in your sin as the one you are sharing with. But you need to warn them, in the clearest of terms of the danger they are facing.

The issue isn’t so much that believers need to start sharing the Gospel, it is that believers need to stop NOT sharing the Gospel.  After all we know that the bus of judgment is bearing down on unrepentant sinners, and we need to warn them.  And if an atheist, who is utterly incapable of showing true love because he has never received the love of Christ recognizes it as unloving to not share the Gospel, so should we.  To not warn someone of the danger of hell is infinitely more outrageous than sending a hobbled quarterback back into a game.  It is high time that the Church in America stopped turning a blind eye toward this despicable sin.

Has John Piper Jumped the Shark?

            I have spent a lot of my time recently listening to bad preaching, in fact I have been spending a good chunk of time listening to false teaching.  Not because I am buying it, but because I am preaching through the book of Colossians and have come to Chapter 2 and Paul’s response to what theologians call the Colossian Heresy.  And while the exact nature of that heresy has been lost in the mists of history, there are several elements of it preserved in Paul’s response to it. 

Sadly they all are still with us and have infected large segments of the professing church.  Legalism – check, calls for asceticism – check, unhealthy obsession with angelic/demonic beings – check, sensuality of mind – check, being puffed up and  going on in detail about “visions” – double check.

Which brings be back to why I have been listening to so much false teaching lately, I want to get a taste of how bad it really is out here, and unfortunately it is pretty bad.  Just walk down the aisles of your local mass market Christian book Store or peruse youtube and you will find that every aspect of the Colossian heresy on prominent display.  I wanted to see and hear just how bad it is, and that is how I Ran across this “testimony” from Kim Walker – Smith, the lead singer of a band called “Jesus Culture.” 

 If you don’t want to waste the time to sit through the video, let me summarize it for you.  She sees “Jesus” who has stretch Armstrong like super powers and uses them to show her that he (the lack of capitalization is purposeful, whatever she may have seen/imagined it wasn’t the Jesus of the bible) loves her "this much".  Then she has another vision where she not only sees Jesus, she also sees the father who reaches into his chest and tears a piece of his heart out Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style.  She also canoodles with her vision of Christ and both the father and son of her visions apparently have the habit of bursting into maniacal laughter.  To call it crazy and heretical would be an insult to crazy heretics the world over.

The video itself wasn’t that shocking, after all Jesus Culture is from the heretical Bethel Church in Redding California, where students of the church’s School of Supernatural Ministry are promised that they will receive no instruction from professors or trained theologians (or anyone else who might point out the gross heresy, different gospel, and cult like control exercised at Bethel) but only from Apostles and prophets.  (And I am guessing not in the form of study of the inspired scriptures written through the Apostles and the prophets, but I digress.)

What I did find somewhat surprising was that Jesus Culture was invited to be one of the featured worship bands at the Passion 2013 conference, an ostensibly “mainstream” conference for evangelical young adults held last week in Atlanta, with as many as 60,000 in attendance.   But in the grand scheme of things even this is really not that surprising, given the willful lack of discernment in the broader “evangelical” world of 21^st century America.

But what I did find absolutely flabbergasting and shocking was that my wife interrupted my rant about how any youth/college pastor that took his students there or senior pastor who knowingly allowed the young members of his flock to go there and be exposed to this kind of deadly false teaching should be immediately fired by saying "but Piper was there."

I thought that couldn’t be.  I said she must be mistaken.  She countered that she saw an article about it on the Christianity Today website.  I countered that it must be Don Piper who also made outrageous unbiblical claims of visions of heaven.  She demurred and said she couldn’t be sure.  So I googled and sure enough John “desiring God” Piper was a speaker and participant at Passion 2013 along side of Jesus passion and a host of other problematic participants.  My jaw dropped.  So with much sadness I think we all have to ask an important and weighty question.  Has John Piper jumped the theological shark?

Now let me say that it brings me no joy to ask this question.  I deeply respect and love the ministry of John Piper.  As a young believer, saved out of a very sinful lifestyle, his book When I Don’t Desire God: Fighting for Joy was a real lifeline for me more than once, and his book Let the Nations be Glad was formative in my view of global missions, and I actually mourned when he ceased his radio broadcasts because they were a great encouragement to me during a period where my job required lots of solo time behind the wheel.  And I appreciate his more scholarly work as well.  I deeply appreciated The Future of Justification his scholarly response to N.T. Wright’s new perspective on Paul, it was brilliant and decisively took the exegetical fight to Wright who tends to intimidate lesser minds with his command of the Greek language and confuse them with his circuitous use of the English one.

I also appreciate Piper’s pastoral heart.  His commitment to living, and having the staff of Bethlehem Baptist live in the same Minneapolis neighborhood as the church, even though it is not the best, and his willingness to engage with and teach on social issues beyond abortion and homosexuality from a truly biblical perspective is a model that all shepherds should seek to follow.

In short, I am a Piper lover and have been deeply impacted by his ministry.  Sure I wish he would repudiate continuationism.  And I am baffled by his relationship with Mark Driscoll, whose misogyny, impropriety and generally unloving and prickly demeanor have only gotten worse despite Piper’s mentorship.  And I was alarmed by his invitation to Rick Warren to Speak at the Desiring God 2010 conference.  But I have always given Dr. Piper the benefit of the doubt.

I understand the reluctance to come out of the closet as a cessationist, and the doubt that can be injected into an otherwise excellent exegete’s mind by a few experiences or the testimony of experiences by trusted friends.  It is wrong, but I can see how someone would be wobbled there.  And I sort of sympathized with his motive for mentoring Driscoll, after all Driscoll does undeniably have a huge audience, and seems to get soteriology right, so I can see wanting to straighten him out.  As far as Warren goes, I bought into the explanation that he wanted the DG attendees who had likely never heard Warren be exposed to what he actually teaches.  After all I have often thought that if discerning believers heard what seeker sensitivity actually espouses they would sound the alarm so loudly that the Druckerite ministry model would be forever wiped away.  But participating in Passion 2013 may well be a bridge too far.

It was the involvement of Jesus Culture that drew my attention but their participation was far from the only deadly dangerous problem with Passion 2013.  In Fact I suggest you actually take the time to google “problems passion 2013” you will likely be, if not shocked, deeply saddened by the results that come up.  Contemplative Spirituality and mysticism were front and center for the entire conference, including a lectio divina session that Dr. Piper helped lead.   Hosting pastor Louie Giglio delivered the final message of the conference which was an exhortation based entirely on an extra-biblical revelation he claimed to receive.  Prosperity-lite preacher Jude Smith delivered a seductive message redefining the Gospel not as the atoning sacrifice of a sinless savior by which repentant sinners can be reconciled to a holy God, but as a call for community based on a deeply twisted (twisted and in error yet seemingly plausible – see Colossians 2:4) understanding of Genesis 1:26.  And the whole shebang was capped off by Beth Moore preaching the Sunday service at Giglio’s Passion City Church (so much for 1 Timothy 2:12 and biblical authority).

By his presence and participation there John Piper lends his de facto endorsement to all of these practices, ministries and teachers, and that is an enormously dangerous thing.  John Piper is one of the very few names that have earned a reputation for absolute fealty to the biblical gospel, the authority of scripture and the Lordship of Christ.  And now that reputation is lending credibility to the ministry of false teachers who proclaim a different gospel and those who deny the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.  It is a very short leap from John Piper and Jesus Culture were both at Passion 2013, to John Piper is trustworthy so Jesus Culture is trustworthy to Jesus Culture is Trustworthy so Bethel Redding and Bill (and Beni) Johnson are trustworthy to the "gospel" they preach is just as able to save as the Gospel Piper preaches.  That is how Satan does his work as a murderer.

While John Piper, to my knowledge, hasn’t himself said anything contrary to the gospel, this is an enormously alarming development.  And while I am sure that Dr.Piper would say he would never depart from the biblical Gospel, I am equally sure that if you asked Billy Graham in 1968 if he would ever say that Mormons are Christians or James McDonald circa 2000 if he would ever embrace someone who denies the trinity as a brother in Christ they would have said no too.  It is my prayer that Dr. Piper ceases to share the platform with the kinds of teachers found at Passion 2013, and that he disassociates himself with them before it is too late.  As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:33 bad company ruins good morals, and bad company can destroy a ministry too.  Has John Piper jumped the shark?  Maybe not, but he is definitely water skiing in a leather jacket.