Introduction — The Point Is to Change It
”Philosophers,” Karl Marx wrote, “have only interpreted the world differently; the point is, however, to change it.” Distinctively, the church does not dispute the diagnosis — it proclaims the changed world as the consequence of changed men. That conviction raises a question urgent enough to shape an entire study: how do we go forward with an evangelism that is continuous, contagious, and compelling — a widening of the circle of faith so that it includes more and more people who have transformingly trusted Christ as Savior?
The work that follows concentrates on the pattern seen in our Lord and his disciples. Theory has its place, but if we do not make the journey from theories and ideals to concrete situations, then the concrete situations will be lost under a smog of words. The point is to change the world. And the pattern for doing so has been there from the beginning.
Preface — The Master and His Plan
Merely because we are busy, or even skilled, at doing something does not necessarily mean we are getting anything accomplished. The question must always be asked: Is it worth doing? And does it get the job done? That the church is busy trying to work one program of evangelism after another cannot be denied. But are we accomplishing our objective?
The difference between activity and accomplishment begins with purpose. Just as a building is constructed according to a plan for its use, so everything we do must have a purpose. Otherwise our activity can be lost in aimlessness and confusion.
The Gospels were written to show us Christ, the Son of God, and that by faith we can have life in his name (John 20:31). But what we sometimes fail to realize is that the revelation of that life in Christ includes the way he lived and taught others to live. The plan of this study, then, is to trace the steps of Christ as portrayed in the Gospels — to follow him as his disciples did.
What that following reveals is both sobering and magnificent. There was nothing haphazard about his life — no wasted energy, not an idle word. When his plan is reflected on, the basic philosophy is so different from that of the modern church that the contrast is almost startling. When Jesus declared “I am the way” (John 14:6), he was not offering a map. He was offering himself — and with himself, a method. This is the record of that method.
Chapter 1 — Selection
It all started by Jesus calling a few men to follow him. Remarkable as it may seem, he started to gather these men before he ever organized an evangelistic campaign or even preached a sermon in public. John and Andrew were the first to be invited, as Jesus left the scene of the great revival of the Baptist at Bethany beyond the Jordan (John 1:35–40). Andrew in turn brought his brother Peter (John 1:41–42). The next day Jesus found Philip on his way to Galilee, and Philip found Nathanael (John 1:43–51). It is believed that all the disciples’ calls occurred in the first year of the Lord’s ministry.
What is more revealing about these men is that at first they do not impress us as being key men. None of them occupied prominent places in the synagogue, nor did any of them belong to the Levitical priesthood. For the most part they were common laboring men, probably having no professional training beyond the rudiments necessary for their vocation. They had no academic degrees. Most were raised in the poor section of the country around Galilee. By any standard of sophisticated culture then and now they would surely be considered a rather ragged collection of souls — impulsive, temperamental, easily offended, and with all the prejudices of their environment. Not the kind of group one would expect to win the world for Christ.
They were indeed “unlearned and ignorant” according to the world’s standard (Acts 4:13), but they were teachable. Though often slow to comprehend spiritual things, they were honest men, willing to confess their need. Such men, pliable in the hands of the Master, could be molded into a new image. Jesus can use anyone who wants to be used.
As the company of followers around Jesus increased, it became necessary by the middle of his second year to narrow the group to a more manageable number. Accordingly Jesus “called his disciples, and he chose from them twelve, whom also he named apostles” (Luke 6:13–17). This does not mean others were excluded from following him — many more were numbered among his associates. The seventy (Luke 10:1), Mark the Gospel writer, and James his own brother (1 Corinthians 15:7) are notable examples. Nevertheless, there was a rapidly diminishing priority given to those outside the Twelve. And within that apostolic group, Peter, James, and John enjoyed a still closer relationship to the Master than the other nine. Other things being equal, the more concentrated the size of the group being taught, the greater the opportunity for effective instruction.
None of this meant Jesus shirked mass evangelism. Sometimes the whole day would be spent ministering to the multitudes, even to the extent that he had “no leisure so much as to eat” (Mark 6:31). He loved them, wept over them, and finally died to save them from their sin. But unless Jesus’ converts were given competent people of God to lead them, they would soon fall into confusion and despair. Before the world could ever be permanently helped, people would have to be raised up who could lead the multitudes in the things of God. Most evangelistic efforts begin with the multitudes, with little genuine concern for the establishment of these souls in the love and power of God. If the pattern of Jesus means anything at all, it teaches that the first duty of church leadership is to see to it that a foundation is laid in the beginning on which can be built an effective and continuing evangelistic ministry to the multitudes.
In an age when facilities for rapid communication of the gospel are available as never before, there are actually more unevangelized people on the earth today than before the invention of the horseless carriage. It will be slow, tedious, painful, and probably unnoticed by people at first, but the end result will be glorious.
Chapter 2 — Association
Having called his men, Jesus made a practice of being with them. This was the essence of his training program — just letting his disciples follow him. He had no formal school, no seminaries, no outlined course of study, no periodic membership classes. None of these highly organized procedures entered into his ministry.
This simple methodology was revealed from the beginning by the invitations Jesus gave to the men he wanted to lead. John and Andrew were invited to “come and see” the place where Jesus stayed (John 1:39). At home with Jesus they could talk things over and there in private see intimately into his nature and work. Philip was addressed in the same essential manner: “Follow me” (John 1:43). One living sermon is worth a hundred explanations. Later when James, John, Peter, and Andrew were found mending their nets, Jesus used the same familiar words, “Come ye after me,” adding only the reason: “and I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).
They walked together along the lonely roads; they visited together in the crowded cities; they sailed and fished together on the Sea of Galilee; they prayed together in the deserts and in the mountains; and they worshiped together in the synagogues and in the Temple. The work of formation happened in the company of the committed.
If Jesus, the Son of God, found it necessary to stay almost constantly with his few disciples for three years, and even one of them was lost, how can a church expect to do this job on an assembly-line basis a few days out of the year?
Chapter 3 — Consecration
Jesus expected the men he was with to obey him. They were not required to be smart, but they had to be loyal. It soon became apparent that being a disciple of Christ involved far more than a joyful acceptance of the Messianic promise: it meant the surrender of one’s whole life to the Master in absolute submission to his sovereignty. “No servant can serve two masters,” Jesus said, “for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13).
Many liked to be numbered among his followers when he filled their stomachs with bread and fish, but when Jesus started talking about the true spiritual quality of the Kingdom and the sacrifice necessary in achieving it (John 6:25–29), many of his disciples “went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:66). The surprising thing is that Jesus did not go running after them to try to keep them on his membership roll. “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). He did not have the time nor the desire to scatter himself on those who wanted to make their own terms of discipleship.
From the time he appeared at their businesses and asked them to follow him, “they left all, and followed him” (Luke 5:11). Jesus did not urge his disciples to commit their lives to a doctrine, but to a person who was the doctrine. “If a man love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).
We are engaged in warfare, the issues of which are life and death. If we have learned even the most elemental truth of discipleship, we must know that we are called to be servants of our Lord and to obey his Word.
Chapter 4 — Impartation
Jesus gave his disciples everything he had — his joy (John 15:11; 17:13), the keys to his Kingdom (Matthew 16:19), his own glory (John 17:22, 24), and finally his life. Love is like that. It is always giving itself away. When it is self-contained, it is not love.
They saw how their Master denied himself many of the comforts and pleasures of the world and became a servant among them. As they watched him minister to the sick, comfort the sorrowing, and preach the gospel to the poor, it was clear that the Master considered no service too small nor any sacrifice too great when it was rendered for the glory of God.
This was to be the measure by which they were to regard their own service in his name. They were to give as freely as they had received (Matthew 10:8). Love — Calvary love — was the standard. Such a demonstration of love through them was to be the way that the world would know that the gospel was true. Love is the only way to win the free response of men, and this is possible only by the presence of Christ within the heart.
”It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63). That is why even to begin to live in Christ one has to be born again (John 3:3–9). Thus Jesus explained to his disciples that the Spirit would prepare the way for their ministry — giving them utterance to speak (Matthew 10:19–20), convicting the world “in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8), illuminating truth (John 16:14), and empowering them to do the works of their Lord (John 14:12). Evangelism was not interpreted as a human undertaking, but as a divine project that had been going on from the beginning.
It was at this time that Jesus told them about the Spirit as “another Comforter” — an Advocate, one who would take exactly the same place with them in the unseen realm of reality that Jesus had filled in the visible experience of the flesh (John 14:16). In his flesh, Jesus was confined to one body and one place, but in the Spirit these limitations were all removed. Now he could be with them always, literally never leaving them nor forsaking them (Matthew 28:20). Looking at it from this perspective, it was better for Jesus, having finished his work, to return to the Father and send the blessed Comforter to take his place (John 16:7).
The superhuman work to which they were called demanded supernatural help — an enduement of power from on high. The fact that these men were of the common lot of mankind was no hindrance at all. It only serves to remind us of the mighty power of the Spirit of God accomplishing his purpose in disciples fully yielded to his control. After all, the power is in the Spirit of Christ. It is not who we are, but who he is that makes the difference.
Chapter 5 — Demonstration
Take, for example, his prayer life. It was no accident that Jesus often let his disciples see him conversing with the Father. They could see the strength that it gave to his life, and though they could not fully understand what it was all about, they must have realized that this was part of his secret. He did not force the lesson on them — he just kept praying until at last the disciples got so hungry that they asked him to teach them what he was doing.
He would also take special pains to impress on his followers the meaning of Scripture. Altogether there are at least sixty-six references to the Old Testament in his dialogues with the disciples in the four Gospels, to say nothing of more than ninety allusions in his speaking with others. All this served to show the disciples how they too should know and use the Scriptures in their own life.
Through this manner of personal demonstration, every aspect of Jesus’ personal discipline of life was bequeathed to his disciples — but what perhaps was most important was that all the while he was teaching them how to win souls. Practically everything that Jesus said and did had some relevance to their work of evangelism. He did not have to work up teaching situations, but merely took advantage of those about him. For the most part, the disciples were absorbing it without even knowing they were being trained.
His method was to conceal the fact that he even had a method. He was his method. The disciples never had a handbook or a seminar in soul winning — all they had was a teacher who practiced with them what he expected them to learn. Watching him, they learned what it was all about. In all types of situations and among all kinds of people — rich and poor, healthy and sick, friend and foe alike — the disciples watched the master soul winner at work.
People are looking for a demonstration, not an explanation. Those of us who are seeking to train people must be prepared to have them follow us, even as we follow Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). They will do those things that they hear and see in us (Philippians 4:9).
Chapter 6 — Delegation
Jesus used his disciples in various ways to help along his work — caring for the manual burdens of getting food and arranging accommodations, and even letting them baptize some who were aroused by his message (John 4:2). Outside of this, however, it is rather startling to observe that these early disciples really did not do much more than watch Jesus work for a year or more. Even after they were formally ordained to the ministry (Mark 3:14–19), they still showed no evidence of doing any evangelistic work on their own. This observation perhaps should cause us to be more patient with new converts who follow us.
Before letting them go, Jesus gave them briefing instructions regarding their mission. He first reaffirmed his purpose for their lives: they were to go and “preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick” (Luke 9:1–2). He gave them his own authority and power to do his work, and closed by assuring them that what they were doing was as though he were doing it himself. “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me” (Matthew 10:40).
The plan of Jesus was also specific about strategy in each new place. He instructed his disciples to find some friendly person in each town they visited, and live there as long as they continued their evangelistic work: “Into whatsoever city or village ye shall enter, search out who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go forth” (Matthew 10:11). In effect, the disciples were told to concentrate their time on the most promising individuals in each town, who would thereby be able to follow up their work after they had gone. Jesus had lived by this principle with his own disciples, and he expected them to do the same.
Not many months after this, “seventy others” were sent out again two by two to witness for their Lord (Luke 10:1). Later, as Jesus had breakfast with his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, he told Peter three times to feed his sheep (John 21:15–17). And on a mountain in Galilee he gave his Great Commission to the whole church, numbering then about five hundred brethren (1 Corinthians 15:6): “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you” (Matthew 28:18–20).
Clearly Jesus did not leave the work of evangelism subject to human impression or convenience. Christian disciples are sent men and women — sent out in the same work of world evangelism to which the Lord was sent, and for which he gave his life. Evangelism is not an optional accessory to our life. It is the heartbeat of all that we are called to be and do.
Chapter 7 — Supervision
Consider the incident that occurred while Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John. In his absence, the other disciples had tried to heal a demon-possessed boy brought to them by his father. The case was too much for their faith, and when Jesus returned he found the distraught father with the sick child having a fit before the helpless disciples. Jesus took care of the boy, but he did not let the occasion pass without giving the frustrated disciples a much-needed lesson on how they, through more prayer and fasting, should have laid hold upon God’s faithfulness (Mark 9:17–29). His plan of teaching — by example, assignment, and constant checkup — was calculated to bring out the best that was in them.
It is thus crucial that those engaging in the work of evangelism have personal supervision and guidance until such time as they are mature enough to carry on alone. Much of our effort for the Kingdom is dissipated precisely because we fail not because we do not try to do something, but because we let our little efforts become an excuse for not doing more. When will we learn the lesson of Christ — not to be satisfied merely with the firstfruits of those who are sent out to witness?
Chapter 8 — Reproduction
We must not fail to see the direct relation between bearing witness of Christ and the ultimate victory over the world. In one of his most simple yet profound analogies, Christ explained that the purpose of both the vine — himself — and the branches — believers in him — was to bear fruit. Any branch that did not yield produce was cut off by the husbandman; it was worthless. What is more, those branches which did produce were pruned that they might yield more fruit (John 15:2). As surely as the disciples were participants in his life, even so they would bear his fruit (John 15:5, 8), and their fruit would remain (John 15:16).
The Great Commission summed it up in the command to “make disciples of every creature” (Matthew 28:19). When the Greek text of the passage is studied, it becomes clear that the words go, baptize, and teach are all participles that derive their force from the one controlling verb “make disciples.” The Great Commission is not merely to go to the ends of the earth preaching the gospel, nor to baptize a lot of converts, nor to teach them the precepts of Christ, but to make disciples — to build people so constrained by the commission of Christ that they not only followed his way but led others to as well.
The test of any work of evangelism is not what is seen at the moment, but in the effectiveness with which the work continues in the next generation. The criterion on which a church should measure its success is not how many new names are added to the roll nor how much the budget is increased, but rather how many Christians are actively winning souls and training them to win the multitudes.
This is our problem of methodology today. Well-intended ceremonies, programs, organizations, and crusades of human ingenuity are trying valiantly to do a job that can only be done by people in the power of the Holy Spirit. When will we realize that evangelism is not done by something, but by someone? It is an expression of God’s love, and God is a person. Committees may help to organize and direct it, but the work itself is done by people reaching other people for Christ. That is why we must say with E. M. Bounds that “men are God’s method.” Until we have such people imbued with his Spirit and committed to his plan, none of our methods will work. This is the new evangelism we need — not better methods, but better men and women who know their Redeemer from personal experience, who see his vision and feel his passion for the world.
Epilogue — The Master and Your Plan
What is the plan of your life? Everyone has to live by some plan. When you actually get right down to it and try to see your objective and how you are going about to achieve it, what you discover may not be very satisfying. But an honest appraisal should cause us all to be more concerned for our calling — at least for those who believe Jesus’ way is the rule by which every action should be tested.
The Master gives us an outline to follow, but he expects us to work out the details according to local circumstances and traditions. This demands every bit of resourcefulness that we have. New and bold approaches will need to be tried as situations change, and not everything tried will work. We must seek the people we are to train. We must win them. Above all, we must pray for them. What counts is that those to whom we do give priority in our life learn to give it away.
In this connection, it is not without great significance that the leading evangelist of his generation, Billy Graham, recognized the tremendous potential of this plan when used properly in the church. Asked what he would do as pastor of a large church in a principal city, Graham replied: “I think one of the first things I would do would be to get a small group of eight or ten or twelve people around me that would meet a few hours a week and pay the price! I would share with them everything I have, over a period of years. Then I would actually have twelve ministers among the laypeople who in turn could take eight or ten or twelve more and teach them. I know one or two churches that are doing that, and it is revolutionizing the church. Christ, I think, set the pattern. He spent most of his time with twelve men. He didn’t spend it with a great crowd.”
But it is not enough just to involve persons in some kind of group association. They must be given some way to express the things they have learned. Unless opportunity is provided for this outreach, the group can stagnate in self-contentment, and eventually fossilize into nothing more than a mutual admiration society. Everything should be leading these chosen men and women to the day when they will assume by themselves a ministry in their own sphere of influence. Christian service is demanding, and if people are going to be of any use for God, they must learn to seek first the Kingdom.
The world is desperately seeking someone to follow. That they will follow someone is certain, but will that person be one who knows the way of Christ, or will he or she be one like themselves, leading them on only into greater darkness?