I would like to start by reading through a number of different scriptures almost without comment. You may turn to these scriptures with me, and try to figure out where I am going. Luke 7:36-43 – “And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.”
Luke 11:37-42 – “And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”
Luke 14:1-6 – “And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? And they could not answer him again to these things.”
Luke 19:1-10 – “And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
John 4:1-7 – “When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee. And he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.” Now skip down to verse 39 – “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own word; And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”
Matthew 10:5-15 – “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye come into an house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.”
Matthew 26:6-13 – “Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.”
What are some of the things that all of these scriptures have in common? The one characteristic that I want you to notice is that in each of these references the Lord Jesus was dining with different people. And in almost every case, there were either lost people present or acting as hosts.
I’ve entitled my thoughts this evening “Messianic Evangelism.”
I don’t believe that there is any Biblically preferred “methodology” for the work of evangelism.
There are a lot of books on the subject, and I have quite a few of them. Many of them stress one way of evangelism over another way. For example there are hundreds of books which seem to say that the only Biblical method of evangelism is going door-to-door. And there are hundreds more which talk about the evangelism of gospel preaching. I have books which talk about something called “Life-style” evangelism. I have others which try to make evangelism like some sort of assembly-line factory process. There are probably more books on evangelism by noted Baptists than any other denomination. But one of the best known books on the subject was written by a Presbyterian. I own, and have read, that one – along with a couple dozen others. I had evangelism classes in Bible college, and I’ve been to seminars on the subject.
I am not going to criticize any of those books. But I think that it’s important to remember that as Baptists the Bible is our standard – not John R. Rice, Jack Hyles or James Kennedy, the Presbyterian. If the Lord Jesus, and the Apostle Paul are not among our highest examples, then we are looking too low.
I don’t think that there is anything inherently wrong with walking down a row of houses knocking on every door. I have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours doing exactly that. At times there has been an opportunity to speak to people about the Lord, but those times are rare. More often than not, about all that we can do is invite that person or that household to church. And somewhere in the area of one tenth of 1% actually accept invitations given out like this. And perhaps one tenth of 1% of those .01% have actually returned and been won to the Truth. But most often, the residents of those homes are not at home and all we do is leave a printed invitation. There is nothing wrong with this kind of labor for the Lord. And I’m not sure that we shouldn’t be doing this kind of work. But I’m also not sure that we ever see Paul or the Lord Jesus ever doing door-to-door evangelism. And, I’m not sure in this day of fear of crime and terror that this kind of work is very practical.
Years ago, we had a Bible Conference in our church at Calgary, and we had members of this mission visiting with us that week. We had the typical morning services and evening services. And one afternoon I urged all the men, which must have been about a dozen visitors, to go out into our neighborhood to knock on doors. Many of the men were teamed up with friends or preachers whom they admired. And there was some genuine excitement. But one of our visitors was himself visited as he walked between houses – by the police. It wasn’t that what he was doing was illegal. It was that some local people were worrying that he wasn’t really what he claimed to be. I have had people come to their door with hand guns as I visited outlaying areas of Post Falls. Door-to-door visitation is not the same today as it was in the 70s and 80s. Ours is not the only church which doesn’t have a regular door-knocking program. More and more churches are saying that people’s attitudes are making this kind of work more difficult, more expensive, more fruitless and more dangerous.
But again, I say that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with it.
On the other hand, perhaps we ought to think about the way that Lord Jesus did His evangelism.
We have just read several scriptural examples of Jesus’ evangelistic style. I admit that this was not the only way that Jesus did evangelism: For example, both He and Paul preached in the marketplace. This might be difficult for us today, if not actually illegal. In these verses, Jesus went “outside the box” as they say in the business world. In these verses, the Lord Jesus accepted meals with various people, and during those meals, He conducted spiritual business, including evangelism.
This is an avenue for evangelism which I think that we could utilize more than we do. But you and I are rarely going to be invited to the Pharisee’s house today. Your neighbors and co-workers are not often going to deliberately socialize with you on a personal level. There might be company picnics and group Christmas parties, but those are different. Rarely is there the opportunity for personal conversation in such a case. And only in exceptional situations are people going to invite you into their homes. Especially, when they know that you’ll refuse their liquor and that you’ll cough at their cigarettes. But let’s say that they do invite you to a company picnic – or perish the thought – a Christmas party. Should you go? What would Jesus do? I suggest that He would go, and that He would be as pleasant and neighborly, as possible. But He would never leave His Messiahship at home or at the door. In other words, if socializing like that is not really your cup-of-tea, then maybe you should work on it. If it was good enough for the Lord Jesus, should you and I be too good for it?
But, as I say, you are not going to be invited into your neighbor’s homes very often. Judy and I have never, not even once, been invited into any of our neighbor’s homes since moving to Post Falls more than twenty years ago. And that is in spite of helping people move in, sending cookies and cakes, and shoveling their snow. And I don’t see any reason to think that this is going to change in the near future. Neighborhoods are not as neighborly as they once were.
But I don’t see where it would be contrary to scripture for us to invite the neighbours into our homes. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that if Jesus had a home that He would have been inviting his lost neighbors to visit from time to time. In fact, don’t we kind of see that sort of thing? Even without a house, he was surrounded by hungry neighbors. And He prepared huge meals for several thousand on several occasions. And at those meals, He shared spiritual nourishment as well as bread and fish. Why can’t we invite an unsaved co-worker, neighbor or family for a friendly meal once in a while?
As I have been meditating and trying to think of ways to implement this idea in my life . . . .
I came up with some things which might be called ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS to this kind of work.
These are not necessarily in the order of their importance. First, remember who these people are: They are very likely secular, lost, spiritually ignorant people. And as such they will likely say or do things which you won’t like – even the religious neighbours. But don’t be quick to condemn – or even to criticize. I have met people who tried to test me by saying and doing really offensive or outrageous things. Some things cannot be ignored, but don’t lash out or retaliate at every thing they throw at you. If you invited a cute, little, lost dog into your house, he might do some things which really offend you. But you aren’t surprised at what he might do – because he is nothing but an untrained dog. Can’t you put up with him for a little while in order to help or help find his owner? Did Jesus’ dinner-mates ever offend Him? I am sure that they did. On some occasions He addressed the offense, but not always. Until we become christs ourselves, maybe we should lean away from initial criticism, as long as we can
And that is my second thought: try to be as positive as possible. What we are trying to do is evangelize these people. We’re not investigators for the District Attorney’s office or the FBI. If they don’t know already, we should let our guests know that we are Christians. Ask everybody to pause, as you ask the Lord’s blessing on the food. What a door-opener that little thing can be, especially in your own home. By that we can say that we recognize the blessing of the Lord and that we try to live by the precepts and principles of the Word of God. We are not trying to make our guests live by the same principles, but they are in our home. Be positive, be friendly, and be as interested in them as much as you are in your spiritual agenda. If we can’t earn these people’s friendship then it’s very unlikely that we’ll ever be able to talk to them about the Lord.
And that means that we need to be patient. It might be that your guest will be curious and open the door to a discussion about your Spiritual life. But it’ll be more likely that your neighbor isn’t at all interested in that right now and perhaps even a little fearful. For most people it will be something brand new to them. So show him that you can be a good neighbor without being a Bible-thumping fundamentalist, calling everyone from Barak Obama to Mother Teresa a heretical reprobate. Be patient. And that means – plan to make more invitations over a long period of time. You might make an impact on a hungry soul right away, but with all the secularism in the world today, it’s not very likely. It may take a long period of time, so be patient. And don’t expect that your invitations will be reciprocated. Remember that even though we’re trying to be friendly, it’s not our agenda to become close friends. And you can be sure that initially, it’s not their idea either. But if you are eventually invited to his place, depending on the circumstances, take it. The Lord Jesus did.
And of course, remember that your primary purpose, is to minister to that person spiritually. When the Holy Spirit opens the door to a spiritual discussion, go through that door. Your evening is not going to be a total failure if you can’t preach the gospel, but remember that ultimately that is where we want to go. It might be that you can invite him to church, and to another meal after church that day. It might be that the door opens for a real Bible study with him at a later time. Be ready for everything and available for anything. In other words make this invitation – a prayerful, Holy Spirit saturated ministry.
You and I may not be miracle-workers, like the Lord Jesus. We won’t be able to heal their sick children or to multiply their supply of food and gas. But we can and should do what we can to be a blessing to them. We can take them what we have when we know that they have a need. We can help them with heavy jobs around their place. And we can certainly be friendly and polite when we see them on the street.
As I say, for some of us this kind of ministry might be difficult. Those with large families and small dinning rooms may have a hard time. Some of us may have work-hours which make it difficult. But I think that nearly all of us could do something like this if we really purposed to do it. I admit that neither Judy nor I have personalities designed for this kind of ministry. But I would like our family to try to have something like this once in a while. And we are already working in that direction. And I’d like to encourage you to try to something similar.
This was a part of the Lord Jesus’ ministry of evangelism.