Three Book Reviews by Samuele Corciulo

GOD CENTRED EVANGELISM

Book 1

Tell the truth. The whole Gospel wholly by grace communicated

truthfully & lovingly.

Fourth Edition by Will Metzger.

Publisher: Inter Varsity Press, USA, 2012

a) A summary of the difference between professing faith and possessing faith.

The proof of a true claim lays in the facts. A car cannot be fast on paper and slow on a racing track, if this happens then it means that the claim on paper is false. The same argument can be applied to Christians, someone cannot claim to be a born again Christian and at the same time live a life that does not shows any tangible sign of this status. Someone can have a theoretical knowledge of Christ and profess many things about Him, but this knowledge has no value unless it translates in a real experience that moves the individual from the position of knowing and professing faith to the position of experiencing and possessing faith. In other words professing faith is what we think, speak and know about faith, while possessing faith is the actual presence of faith that is shown by its fruits and characterized by a life which reflects Christ. Metzger lists three things that characterize a real born again believer who possesses faith and does not just profess it, “A Christian has the Holy Spirit, being baptized, indwelt, sealed and sanctified by him… A Christian has acknowledged the lordship of Christ… All Christians turn away from sin” (Will M. 1981, 61-62).

b) Will Metzger’s emphasis on a gospel to the mind, emotions, and will.

Metzger explains the three parts of an individual that are involved in the process of making the choice of following Christ and subsequently that influence his/her journey of faith. These parts are mind, emotions and will. His argument is that a Christian life cannot be based only in one of these areas, but it must involve all three areas in a balanced way. He also separates the journey that brings an individual to Christ in two parts, the ‘awakening’ and the ‘conversion’. The awakening is when an individual starts to become aware of Christ and of the Gospel’s message, this step can be initiated by only one of the three areas – mind, emotions, will- on the other side the conversion happens when the individual experiences true salvation, these steps must involve all three areas.

I find myself agreeing with Metzger's position. Man’s nature is built around these three areas.  Our intellect is as important as our emotions and our will; a true conversion has to involve the individual as a whole and not just a part of him/her. When one of these three areas is not involved in our commitment to follow Christ, the individual is divided and not fully committed to be a follower of Jesus. Wholeness is important,  and if we observe Christ's ministry we can observe wholeness in His commitment to save the world as these three areas were working together within Him. He had the understanding that it was necessary to come and die, in His mind.  He felt compassion for the people around Him, with His emotions and He willingly gave His life for us, thus involving His will.

c) Human centred Gospel VS God centred Gospel

In the attempt of making the message of the Gospel more easy and simple to accept and understand, the Church in time has developed what we call a ‘Human Centred Gospel’. This kind of approach has oversimplified the message of the Gospel as it takes into consideration only the human pleasant part of the whole truth, such as the love and forgiveness that an individual can find in Christ, making the overall message unbalanced and incomplete. The Human Centred Gospel tends to paint a picture which sees man at the centre of it, and God becomes almost just like a man’s life option to be chosen in order to satisfy its need according to its pleasures.  The Human Centred Gospel might see many people accepting it but only few of them will then result in being real converted and repentant followers of Christ. On the other side, the ‘God Centred Gospel’ is complete as it presents the listeners with the whole truth and not only with a part of it. It speaks of the pleasant part but also of the importance of commitment, repentance and sacrifice.  The God Centred Gospel brings God at the centre of the picture, primarily presenting Christ not like an option but like the only way to follow in order to be saved and reconciled with Him.

In his book Metzger explains his view on how these two different approaches influence the way in which we see and perceive God, sin, Christ and human response.

God. The Human Centred Gospel focuses on God’s love as it claims that love is His chief attribute. God’s authority is blunted and He cannot do anything before the sinner’s will. The God Centred Gospel on the other side places God’s attributes of justice and love on the same level, it is focused on the fact that God created man and therefore He has ownership rights on the daily life of each individual and He is capable of empowering the sinner’s will.

Sin. The Human Centred Gospel sees sin has the fruit of an imperfect human nature, this put the individual in a position in which there is need of forgiveness for specific sins. Opposite to this, the God Centred Gospel treats sin as a condition in which man, because of his sinful nature, is in a state of rebellion against God. Through Christ’s death, man comes out from this state of rebellion and is reconciled with God.

Christ. The Human Centred Gospel emphasizes Chris as the Saviour. Christ’s priestly role is the focus and, of His life, His death is more important than the righteous way of how He lived. Christ came to supply man’s needs, He saves the individual from their sins, failures and hell. The God Centred Gospel, along with Christ’s priestly role, emphasises also His kingly and prophetic roles. Both His death and righteous life are equally important. He came primarily to establish His kingdom and to receive honour and glory and finally His death saves the individuals from their sinful nature, sins and hell.

Human Response. The Human Centred Gospel puts man’s choice as the base for their salvation therefore God’s work in the individual can happen only as a response to his decision. Repentance and tangible fruits of a changed life are not important signs to distinguish a true salvation. The God Centred Gospel put God’s choice as the base for man’s salvation and it is the individual who responds to God’s initiative and not vice versa. Faith and repentance are both essential in order to experience true salvation which is always followed by a transformed life.

d) Grace & Loving Communication of the Gospel

As I read the sections on ‘Grace’ and ‘Loving Communication of the Gospel’ of Metzger’s book, it caught to my attention that grace is not something that comes and is manifested as a reaction to a choice that a man can do to follow Christ, but it is an independent work of the Holy Spirit that comes before the choice and  that actually enables the people to make it, Metzger plainly states, “Saving grace is what initiates and secures an individual’s salvation” (Will M. 1981, 163). If then this grace can be resisted or not, is all together another topic which is not the subject of this paper.

To know that the work of the Holy Spirit starts even before someone can make any type of choice is something important within the realm of communicating the Gospel to people. Sometimes when we present the Gospel we might fall into the trap of thinking that it is our responsibility if someone does or does not accept the message, therefore we start a process in which we try to convince people using our human means and logic. The truth is that it is the Holy Spirit's work to convince sinners, our work is just to speak out the message.

INCARNATIONAL GOSPEL

Book 2:

The Celtic Way of Evangelism. How Christianity can reach the West again.

By: George G. Hunter.

Publisher; Abingdon Press, USA.

The incarnational principles of Patrick of Ireland and the Celts

One of the greatest revolutions of the first Millennium in the field of evangelism was surely the one initiated by Patrick of Ireland among the Celts in the fourth century. Until this point in history, the Gospel was mainly spread by using the Roman method of evangelism which was based on teaching and proclaiming first, the second step was to ask the people to make a decision for Christ and finally to include these people in their fellowship. Opposite to this Patrick’s method to spread the Gospel among the Celts starts with having fellowship with people, the second step was to expose these people to some sort of ministering, and finally to invite them to believe. This method of evangelism was not invented by Patrick, in fact if we look at Jesus we can observe that He followed pretty much the same method, Jesus came and lived among man, “rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, made in human likeness” (Phil. 2:7, NIV), He ministered to man, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:28, NIV), and He invited people to believe in Him “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die’” (John 11:25, NIV).

The Celts were classified as Barbarian people because they were for the most part illiterate and because they would not embrace the Roman culture. When confronted with the challenge of bringing the Gospel to the Celts, Patrick decided to use an Incarnational approach which is to live as a Christian among them so that he could expose the people not to something written but to a living example of the Gospel, his own life. Bessenecker describes the incarnational approach as “moving into a community as neighbours and friends just as Jesus did when he relocated from heaven to live among us” (Scott B. 2010, 19), when moving into a Celtic village Patrick's goal was to form a faith community among the people so that he and his team could work closely with those to whom they wanted to reach out. While living among the people Patrick and his team would engage themselves in conversations with the people, they knew the Celtic culture and language and, by using also imagination, they were able to contextualise the message of the Gospel in a way that would be more understandable to the people without changing its message.

Hunter's approach to evangelism and discipleship and the twenty-first century

Hunter's approach to evangelism and discipleship was strongly inspired by Celtic Christianity. In his book The Celtic Way of Evangelism Hunter speaks about how according to him the church should adopt Celtic incarnational methods to reach out to the world, and how Christians should seek a discipleship that is more based on the Celtic example.

Evangelism. As we have seen above, Celtic Christianity was developed on an incarnational model of evangelism. Communities of faith and churches were built among the people and for the people, relationship, conversation and acts of service were the keys used by the Christians to reach out to the unsaved. The understanding of the language, traditions and culture were essential in order to preach the Gospel in a way that was understood by the people. Hunter supports the idea that these methods should not be classified as obsolete historical events that happened within the first millennium of church history, but that we should rediscover and use them in today’s church.

Discipleship. Hunter describes how unfortunately in his time the understanding of what it means to be a disciple was very much self-centred; he writes, “Christianity is almost reduced to accepting Christ as your Saviour so that you can go to heaven when you die, and between now and then you attend church, have a daily devotional, live a clean life, and ‘let’ God meet your needs and attain your goals” (George H. 1938, 94). Opposite to this in Celtic Christianity we find less individualism and a more community orientated life-style and a spiritual formation of the individual that aims in blessing not only the single person but mainly all the people around him/her. In other words the Celtic model of discipleship does not orbit around the benefits for the individual only but of all the community.

Application of these models to the twenty-first century church.

I do believe that the Celtic approach to both evangelism and discipleship are fundamental keys to win our generation to Christ. Celtic Christianity was about bridging the cultural differences with imagination and creativity and today, like never before, our towns and cities have become places in which different people with different cultural backgrounds merge and live together. It is essential for the church today to use imagination in order to find new ways to win people who are different from us to Christ.

In order to achieve this Christians should abandon the often common ‘me-centred’ mentality and embrace a mentality that is projected to the people around us. We have seen how in Celtic Christianity the goal of a Christian is to grow in Christ so that other people around him/her can also be blessed; I believe that when this attitude becomes a priority then Christians start living their lives with a sincere desire to reach out to others.

THE JESUS’ MODEL

Book 3: The Master Plan of Evangelism. Second Edition.

By: Robert E. Coleman. 1963.

Publisher: Revell, USA.

In his book The Master Plan of Evangelism, Robert C. analyses the approach that Jesus gave to His earthly ministry and draws an interesting parallel with evangelism, suggesting eight important learning points for the church today.

The eight guiding principles of Jesus’ ministry:

1. Jesus selected a few. The first interesting thing that we observe is that Jesus did not use all of His time talking to the crowds, but opposite to this the majority of His effort was focused on twelve disciples.

2. Jesus associated Himself with the twelve. The best way to teach is to spend time with the students as learning does not only come from listening but also from observing. Jesus wanted to be sure that His disciples could observe a reflection of His teaching in His life, Coleman writes, “Knowledge was not communicated by the Master in terms of laws and dogmas, but in the living personality of the One who walked among them” (Robert C. 1963, 38).

3. Jesus required consecration. When interacting with people Jesus was not looking for specific human qualities but for obedience. To be a true disciple of Christ is about being consecrated to Him and it all starts with obedience. By dying on the cross Jesus set an example of obedience for His disciples as He willingly aligned His will with His Father’s will. For the disciples at the time of Christ and for us today obedience is necessary to learn and to be set apart for Him.

4. Jesus imparted good and essential things to His disciples. As a good master Jesus wanted to equip His disciples with all that they need to accomplish the calling over their life. Starting with His own life, time and energy, Christ was equipping the twelve with various tools that were essential for them to grow in Him, and to prepare them for when they would have brought forward His work after His ascension in heaven. The process of impartation was culminated with the giving of the Holy Spirit who would have become their comforter and a limitless source of power.

5. Jesus demonstrated to His disciples how to live. In the practicality of their everyday life Jesus’ disciples could observe and learn about Christ's devotion, the importance of practicing Prayer and of Scriptures. They would also see the way He loved, how He would react to various situations, what and how to answer and so on. In other words the disciples could observe in Christ a living example of what the life of a child of God should look like.

6. Jesus knew the importance of delegation. All that Jesus was teaching His disciples was with a view of the delegating the mission to go around the world to preach the Gospel and to make disciples. The fullness of this would have come into play only after the outpouring of the Spirit at the day of Pentecost but in a few occasions, while still on earth, Jesus gave to His disciples the possibility to practice what they had learned.

7. Jesus supervised the work of His disciples. He was not just sending them out to accomplish their mission, but Jesus was interested in knowing the outcome of it “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught” (Mark 6:30, NIV). Jesus was interested to see their development and was ready to correct and teach them whenever there was the need for it.

8. Jesus’ desire was to see His disciples reproducing themselves. While on earth Jesus was laying the foundation for something that was destined to last until the end of time, His church. To accomplish such long lasting vision it was important that His disciples would come to a place in which they were prepared and able to reproduce themselves and to pass on to the next generation the teaching, the faith and the example which was set by Christ Himself. The great commission was meant to be fulfilled not only by the first disciples but from the church across generations.

Successful Evangelism.

How can we define a successful strategy of evangelism? In our days often we see that a big emphasis is given on numbers, the more people that  are saved during a single event the better it is, but, is  this really the only measure to determine the success of evangelism? As we have looked at the example of Jesus we have seen how discipleship was following the calling, and both evangelism and discipleship were equally important to Him. I believe that what we can learn is that a good strategy of evangelism will always lead to discipleship, we cannot separate the two; evangelism helps in making the call, and discipleship contributes to the formation of a true follower.