A Global Vision of the Gospel
By Greg Pritchard
The Power of a Bird’s Eye View
At the Pentagon, a staff worker spent two years researching the possible effect of a military
attack on the communication system of the United States. As a base of knowledge, he used
information that most people already know or could easily find out. When he submitted it to his
superiors, they immediately slapped a “Top Secret” label on it and destroyed other copies so that
only a handful of people in the world could read it. The author himself was not even allowed to
view it. He had taken a bird’s-eye view of the situation and had simply explained what he had
seen; in doing so, he had unwittingly created a dangerous tool.
In an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Ultimate
Secret: A Pentagon Report Its Author Can’t See,” a spokesman
for the U.S. government reported: “When you put things together
you sometimes get a whole that is more sensitive than any of its
parts.” In other words, a bird’s eye view is more insightful—and
consequently more powerful—than a close-up of any given
point. The better our understanding of the whole, the more
effective our strategy will be.
“When you put things
together, you sometimes
get a whole that is more
sensitive than any of its
parts.” – U.S.
government spokesman
Those of us who labor for Christ should take heed of this truth. As we set about creating plans to
strengthen the church and win the lost, we would do well to pause and consider a bird’s-eye view
of the Gospel in today’s world.
When considering the current state of Evangelical Christianity, the first question many
intuitively ask is, “Are people coming to Christ?” The answer to this question is a
resounding yes. Over the past 100 years, Evangelicalism has grown at an astounding rate.
1
It has grown faster than historic world religions…
2
2
…as well as other branches of global Christianity. This is largely due to the fact that Orthodoxy
focuses on the culture of its roots and Catholicism on internal authority. In contrast, Evangelicals
emphasize the Gospel (Evangel) with much of our energy going outward into evangelism and
missions.
3
Particularly amazing is the way Evangelical Christianity has grown in the Developing World
over the course of the twentieth century. In just 100 years, the number of Evangelicals as a
percentage of the population increased by 173 percent in Latin America, by 300 percent in
Africa, and by 372 percent in Asia.
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4
And yet, in the face of this amazing growth stands one disturbing statistic. Europe, the very
heart of historic Christendom, has experienced a hemorrhaging of the faithful. Volume I of
World Christian Encyclopedia notes in its opening the startling news of the devastating deChristianization of Europe in the 20th century: “No-one in 1900 expected the massive
defections from Christianity that subsequently took place in Western Europe due to
secularism…[and] in Russia and later Eastern Europe due to Communism.”5
The startling contrast between the vibrant, packed churches of the Developing World and the
moribund, empty cathedrals of Europe is widely known. Due to this disheartening trend, many
good-hearted people, who are eager to support the work of the Gospel, have asked me: “Why
should I care about Europe? Look at what is happening in Africa! Shouldn’t I invest my time
and resources in places where God is moving powerfully?” My response is always the same.
Those who care about the future of the Gospel in Bogota, Mombasa, or Beijing should care
very much about the fate of Europe.
Why Europe is Strategically Important
For 19 centuries, Europe was the primary home of
Christian life and mission. Because of Europe’s
historic and present-day influence throughout the
world, there are compelling reasons for us to invest our
time and resources into Europe for the Gospel, four of
which are outlined below.
1) Europe has powerfully influenced the world over the last 500 years.
For the last 500 years, most of the world’s leading movements came out of Europe. The
Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution, Industrial Revolution,
Higher Education (the university and all the new academic disciplines), Marxism, Nazism and
Post-modernism all have their roots in Europe. These have dominated modern cultures, caused
worldwide wars, framed ideologies for countries controlling hundreds of millions of
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individuals, and shaped generations of leaders. If the church is going to understand and know
how to respond appropriately to these and other new movements emerging from Europe, we
need to invest our time and energy in understanding them in Europe itself. This is especially
true because many of these movements are not neutral in their response to the Gospel.
To effectively communicate the Gospel to those who have been influenced by these movements,
we need to understand them and find ways to show them the Gospel’s truth and relevance.
2) Europe is the leading educator of the rest of the world.
Europe is not only the origin of the world’s most dominant intellectual movements, but it is also
the leading educator of the world’s leaders. Over twice as many international students are being
educated in Europe as in the U.S. 6
5
But even leading American universities are actually European universities with an American
accent. The academic disciplines studied at American universities were typically created by
Europeans. Each of these disciplines represents a set of lenses to see the world. One of the
strongest European cultural outposts in America, and increasingly in the Developing World, is
the university, and it is shaping students in its own image.
The ultimate status symbol in the Developing World is a degree from a
premier Western university. A friend who recently travelled across
Africa was struck by how often those in the most influential leadership
positions have such prestigious western degrees. He then commented,
“When a PhD from Cambridge speaks in Africa, the room gets quiet.”
The ladder to success in the Developing World is education, and the
means to such status is a respected degree. Europe’s influence in the
Developing World is growing because of the influx of Europeaneducated leaders.
“When a PhD
from Cambridge
speaks in Africa,
the room gets
quiet.”
3) The fastest-growing religion in the world comes from Europe.
Unbelief (atheism and agnosticism) is the fastest-growing religion in the 20th century. In 1900,
atheism had approximately 225,000 adherents worldwide, and 90 percent of them lived in
Europe. By 2000, this small group had grown to more than 150 million worldwide– but only 15
percent of these unbelievers live in Europe. The following graphs show atheism’s growth over
the 20th century. This is extraordinary. Atheism, which was born as a European belief system,
has now become a global movement where the vast majority of its adherents are outside of
Europe.
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These atheists influence a much larger group of agnostics toward unbelief. In 1900 there were
approximately three million agnostics in the world and by 2000 there were more than 750
million.
6
According to the World Christian Encyclopedia:
“Two immense quasi-religious systems have emerged at the expense of the world religions:
agnosticism and atheism. From a minuscule presence in 1900, a mere 0.2% of the globe, these
systems have mushroomed ... They are today increasing at the extraordinary rate of 8.5 million
new converts each year, and are likely to reach one billion adherents soon.”8
For atheism and agnosticism to grow from 0.2% of the globe to over 15% is a significant
increase. It is alarming to compare unbelief’s explosive overall growth with that of
Evangelicalism. As the graph below indicates, Evangelicalism only grew from 4.8% to 10.7% of
the world’s population over the same time period.
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Unbelief started as a uniquely European idea, but has now become a worldwide tsunami.
4) Europe is the place where the global battle for the Gospel is being fought.
The Gospel’s most dangerous opponent is not Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. The greatest
challenge to orthodox belief is the European unbelief (atheism &
The greatest
agnosticism) which is growing much faster than Evangelical faith.
If the church in Europe, and indeed the world, is to be helped,
challenge to
antidotes to Europe’s unbelief must be found in Europe and
orthodox belief is
dispersed around the world. Leaders from around the world must
the European
be equipped and mentored in order to understand and dismantle
unbelief (atheism
these modern objections to the Gospel. In other words, evangelicals
need to focus on Europe as the central battleground on which to
and agnosticism)
combat this problem and to train the next generation of global
that is growing
evangelical leaders.
much faster than
Evangelical faith.
What happens when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
determines that a dangerous virus has an outbreak somewhere in
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the world? The CDC immediately flies its team of investigators and scientists to that site in
order to isolate the earliest possible form of the virus and determine how to defeat it. In other
words, the CDC doesn’t just wait to begin treatment at the borders of the U.S.; it goes to the
disease-ridden area and tries to find a cure there. Once the treatment is effective there, various
immunization initiatives can be transplanted locally, regionally and internationally.
Similarly, a cure needs to be found in Europe for unbelief on that continent, rather than
delaying a response until it has already infected a new area.
A Historical Perspective on Evangelicalism Today
Imagine walking into a doctor’s office and, before he examines you or runs any tests, he
immediately says, “You need brain surgery. Lie down on this table and let me get my drill.”
Obviously, before a doctor can prescribe, he needs to carefully diagnose. The same is true in
the spiritual realm. The first step to solving any problem is to realize that you have a problem
and to understand it.
When attempting to make sense of the present, it is always wise to look at the past. What
period in church history faced challenges or opportunities that most parallel our own? A
review of John Wesley and the Great Awakening in England can be particularly instructive
for world Evangelicalism in the 21st century.
Today the situation of the Developing World’s Evangelical movement is startlingly similar to
that of British Evangelicalism in 1850.
John Wesley and the Great Awakening
God used John Wesley 275 years ago to start a spiritual awakening. The Great Awakening in
England, from 1740 to 1850, provides an uncanny historical parallel for the Developing
World’s Evangelicalism from 1900 to 2000, and it also helps us to understand Europe’s current
condition.
Wesley ministered during a time known as “the Gin Age,” in which drunkenness reached
epidemic proportion. Eighteenth-century England was characterized by aristocratic indulgence,
lower-class poverty, religious compromise and negligence, and a widespread immorality.
Sexual promiscuity was commonplace among all classes of English culture, as half of all babies
were born out of wedlock. Popular sports were characterized by cruelty, coarseness, and the
torture of animals such as cockfighting and bear-baiting.
It was to this culture and people that John Wesley communicated the truth and led a renewal
movement. Wesley’s message was a response of truth to the difficulties and problems he
faced. That message emphasized these points:


In response to the unrealistic optimism toward human nature, Wesley taught on
the sinfulness of humanity.
In response to the then-current view of salvation by works, Wesley taught
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


salvation by faith.
In response to the moral disorder of a gin-drinking, gambling and lewd society,
Wesley taught the importance and imperative of holiness.
In response to the social problems of materialism, slavery and exploitation of
workers, Wesley taught the biblical value of each person.
In response to a spiritual deadness in the church, Wesley taught and lived a reality
of an experience with God.
God used Wesley to lead an enormous expansion of the Gospel and
the changing of a culture. Just seven years after Wesley’s death,
there were more than 100,000 Wesleyans meeting regularly in small
groups for spiritual growth.10 Over the course of 100 years, this
Evangelical revival had changed the culture. Eventually slavery was
eliminated not only in England, but also the rest of the British
Empire. Laws to protect children and prevent cruelty to animals, as
well as dozens of other initiatives, were passed for the first time in
Parliament.
“Unless God has
raised you up for this
very thing, you will be
worn out by the
opposition of men
and devils. But if God
is before you, who
can be against you?”
John Wesley to
William Wilberforce
At the very end of Wesley’s life, William Wilberforce wrote a letter
to Wesley concerning God’s calling on his life to fight slavery.
Wesley responded, “Unless God has raised you up for this very
thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But
if God is before you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be
not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might.”11
Wilberforce fought against slavery over the next four decades. Three days before he died, slavery
was eliminated throughout the British Empire. Wilberforce and tens of thousands of other
Wesleyans reflected the character of Christ into the culture. The Gin Age, by means of the
Evangelical renewal, was transformed into the Victorian Age, in which many families had daily
devotions.
Modern-Day Wesleys in Today’s Developing World
Because of his impact in evangelism and reflecting the character of Christ into the culture,
Wesley is used as a model for ministry in modern times. God has raised up many contemporary
Wesleys in today’s Developing World. These people are:






Communicating the Gospel effectively
Planting churches by the hundreds
Leading thriving national movements
Developing lay-leadership training initiatives
Confronting cultural evils like sex trafficking, prostitution, etc.
Leading political initiatives to reflect Christ’s character
In short, we see local, national and regional movements in the Majority World that are
addressing the very issues that Wesley addressed in his day. Wesley is a valuable model
for the Developing World to study because of his great success.
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But Wesley is even more important to study because of his great failure.
As we know, this trend of growth didn’t last. The Great Awakening was followed by a
shocking decline of Christianity in England. According to a national census of religious
worship in 1851, 34.1% of the population of England attended church (of any
Christian denomination) on Sunday, March 30, 1851.12 However, average weekly
church attendance in England today has declined substantially to only 11.1% of the
population by 1979 and 6.3% by 2005 according to the English Church Censuses.13
What Happened to the Great Awakening?
Wesley did not prepare the church for the challenges that eventually destroyed it. His focus
was on popular evangelism, spiritual growth for believers, and cultural change – like most
evangelicals today.
Wesley’s goal was “to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”14 He was very effective in
this. Like spiritual ivy which spread quickly, the Gospel took root and grew widely in the
lower classes of English society.
What happened?
Three Intellectual Tornadoes Uprooted Evangelicalism
Three new developments were critical in undermining the foundation of the Evangelical church
in the latter half of the 19th century: Enlightenment philosophy, skeptical biblical criticism, and
Darwinian naturalism. Evangelical Christians lacked adequate answers for the new questions
that confronted them. As a result, today the Evangelical church in England is small and
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relatively weak.
1. Enlightenment Philosophy
In its early days, the Enlightenment was not a rebellion against theism, but was in many areas
inspired by the Christian faith. Many of the early members of the British Royal Society, which
led the first stage of the scientific revolution, were orthodox believers. Others like Isaac Newton
were convinced theists who sought to understand both “God’s book” (the Bible) and “the book
of nature.” Properly understood, Christianity was the mother of the scientific revolution.
But as the Enlightenment grew, it became more deistic and agnostic in outlook. Denis
Diderot, one of the leaders of the French Enlightenment, ends his book with an agnostic
prayer: “O God, I do not know if you exist… I ask nothing in this world, for the course of
events is determined by its own necessity.”15 According to this Enlightenment perspective,
God is probably not there, but if He is, He is irrelevant. Coming at the end of the
enlightenment, the philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that the very category of “knowledge”
was only possible with sensory objects. Viewed through the prism of the Enlightenment, the
Christian God was distant, unknowable, and irrelevant – if He existed at all. The idea that
someone could know Him or truth about Him was defined as impossible.
2. Skeptical Biblical Criticism
As the influence of the Enlightenment philosophy spread, other fields of thought began to
operate from these new philosophical presuppositions. One of the most significant fields
of influence of the Enlightenment was thought filtered through the prism of skeptical
biblical criticism. One scholar summarizes this influence:
“(B)iblical criticism has been a principal tool in the critique of classical theology by forces
of the Enlightenment. By subjecting the Bible to humanistic presuppositions and treating it
as a merely human text under the control of our superior techniques, we have seen the
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message relativized and debunked time and again.16
Skeptical biblical criticism, shaped by the Enlightenment’s presuppositions, treats the Bible as
one more human book and presupposes that God could not give revelation in the Scripture.
Perhaps more than any other single factor, skeptical biblical criticism has attacked the idea
that God has revealed His truth in the Bible. Like an axe that cuts the main root of a tree and
leaves the tree to slowly rot, skeptical biblical criticism undercut Christians’ faith. Instead of
the Bible being a respected, even authoritative, voice, it becomes one more object to be
scrutinized by an Enlightenment-based philosophical method.
3. Darwinian Naturalism
Darwin’s theory of evolution broke apart the last foundations of a Christian worldview in
England. By the time Darwin wrote On the Origin of the Species in 1859, the Enlightenment’s
ideas had already permeated the educated classes. Many found in Darwin the explanatory
mechanism for the naturalistic worldview that they already believed. Darwin argued that all
species of life have common ancestors and evolved by a process of natural selection. Within his
own lifetime, his ideas were widely accepted by the academic and educated elite. To this day,
Darwin’s ideas are pervasively influential in the scientific world. One modern leading advocate
of evolution correctly understands that Darwinian naturalism was a “universal acid”17 that
dissolved the Christian worldview. If people are only animals who are the result of an
evolutionary process of time and chance, there is no basis for belief in God or for objective
standards of right and wrong. Even to this day, many people across Europe believe that science
has buried Christianity.
The Crisis of Faith and Birth of Modern Unbelief
During the second half of the 19th century in England, an entire generation of Christians was
swept off its feet. The ideology of the
Many found in Darwin the
Enlightenment philosophy, skeptical biblical
explanatory mechanism for the
criticism, and Darwinian naturalism seemed
overpoweringly true. Enlightenment unbelief was
naturalistic worldview that they
simultaneously promoting an alternate worldview
already believed.
and destabilizing the established Christian
worldview. Enlightenment thinking pushed
Christian believers toward the untenable position of one foot in the rowboat of their Christian
worldview, and the other foot in a rowboat of their education which was shaped by
Enlightenment ideas – with the two being slowly pulled apart.
In this situation believers felt a cognitive dissonance between the Enlightenment and Christian
worldviews. Anomie is the word commonly used to describe the disorienting experience of a
lack of meaning in one’s life. Sociologist Peter Berger defines anomie as “a condition of
rootlessness, disorientation, of no longer feeling at home in the world.”18 The root of the
word anomie is nomos – the Greek word for law. To lose one’s worldview is to be left lawless
or without norms. One who experiences anomie feels disoriented and becomes
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correspondingly more open to considering a new worldview. As a result of this growing
tension of anomie, believers were tempted to accept one of these alternatives:
a) Convert to agnosticism.
b) Adopt much of the Enlightenment’s worldview, but seek to retain Christian terminology
in what came to be called “liberal theology”.
c) Retreat into a privatized faith and reject the idea that Christians are called to
persuasively communicate why the Gospel is true.
All three of these occurred. Many Christians became agnostics; others became liberals seeking
to keep the Christian language, but without its historic content; and those who remained
orthodox often withdrew from the world in pietistic huddles in their attempts to remain
faithful. As a result, all the English church denominations have been declining over the last 160
years.
The extent of this decline today was highlighted in the responses to the religious identification
question on the 2001 and 2011 Censuses in the England and Wales, depicted in the graph
below. Between 2001 and 2011, the percentage of the population reporting no religion increased
from 14.8% to 25.1%, more than a 60% growth in unbelief in only 10 years.19
What is the Lesson from the Failure of the Great Awakening?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”20 In other words, either
you learn from history, or you stumble into the same mistakes or failures of those who went
before you.
In 1850, the British Evangelical movement was on the verge of collapse, yet its members didn’t
know it. They had witnessed an amazing 110 years of evangelistic success and social renewal,
and they thought the movement would continue in a positive direction. The gales and tornadoes
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of the Enlightenment ripped up the Evangelical ivy, and England was left with a devastated
church.
Today’s Evangelical movement in the Developing World is vulnerable to the same attack that
hurt the British Evangelical movement after 1850. In fact, the Developing World has already
caught the deadly virus of unbelief. It is growing in the incubators of Developing World
universities and expanding across the world. The model of Great Awakening makes us more
aware of both the problems of Europe’s situation and of the current vulnerability of the
Developing World to Europe’s disease of unbelief.
The Evangelical church in the Developing World is like a ship
sailing blithely along without realizing that there’s an enormous
hole under the water, and it will soon sink. The Gospel has
grown enormously in the Majority World over the last 100
years. But the foundations of this worldwide church expansion
are weak. Like ivy, Evangelicalism spreads fast but has shallow
roots and can be quickly ripped up. To understand
Evangelicalism’s vulnerability to Europe’s unbelief, we need to
examine Evangelicalism’s strengths and weaknesses.
Evangelicalism’s Strengths and Weaknesses
I am tempted to respond to a friend who has lost a loved one by giving him the three best books
on the problem of evil, rather than to love him by weeping with him. Why? Every strength has a
corresponding weakness. My training as an educator is a strength, but it has the corresponding
weakness that I am too easily convinced that every problem requires an educational solution.
The same is true of Evangelicalism. Two of Evangelicalism’s fundamental strengths are:


Passionate commitment to communicate the Gospel
Entrepreneurial and results-oriented leadership
It is essential that we examine Evangelicalism’s strengths and its often unacknowledged
weaknesses to determine why it has been vulnerable to these threats and how we can move
forward.21
1) Evangelicals have a passionate commitment to communicate the Gospel
Evangelicalism is the most creative and powerful force for evangelism and
missions in the world today. In a speech in Germany in 2011, Pope Benedict
XVI said the following about Evangelicalism in the Developing World:
“The geography of Christianity has changed dramatically in recent times,
and is in the process of changing further. Faced with a new form of
Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism,
sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often
seem at a loss. …This worldwide phenomenon- that bishops from all over the
world are constantly telling me about- poses a question to us all: what is this
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new form of Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse?”22
The Pope and his bishops were scared. They have seen the Catholic flock moving in droves to
Evangelical churches in the Developing World. Latin American countries, strongholds for
Catholicism, have seen massive shifts to Evangelicalism. Whereas 94% of Latin America’s
population was Catholic in 1910, today only 69% of adults across the region identify as Catholic.
During the same time period, the percentage of Protestants increased from 1% to 19%. 23
24
While this graph shows the overall trend in Latin America, Evangelicalism has progressed even
further in some countries. For example, the graph below shows the dramatic shift between
Catholicism and Evangelicalism in Honduras.
25
15
We have already seen the amazing growth of Evangelicalism worldwide in contrast to the steep
decline of Orthodoxy and stagnation of Roman Catholicism. What we haven’t done is ask why?
Why are Evangelicals so much more effective at missions and evangelism?
Evangelicals have rightly emphasized the core biblical teaching of Jesus and the Gospel as
central. J. I. Packer and Thomas Oden26 summarize that Evangelicals:


Teach a cohesive account of the canonical scriptures,
Focus on the Christ-centered story of redemption which is internally consistent and
comprehensive
Evangelicals are willing, and often eager, to tell others the ‘evangel’ about Jesus: He is the Son
of God, gave his life as a sacrifice for the world’s sins, is the only Mediator between God and
man, and everyone needs to put their faith in Him to receive salvation. The extent to which
someone believes in the uniqueness of the Gospel, and is excited to tell others about his belief
and conversion, is a barometer of his Evangelical commitment. In short, Evangelicals wisely
emphasize the Scripture, the Gospel and Jesus, in contrast to the Orthodox marriage to culture or
the Catholic pre-occupation with authority.
Evangelicals are rightly passionate about the Gospel. We are convinced
that the biblical story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is the key event of
history, the hinge on which the whole of history turns. We know that we
are sinners in need of forgiveness and so is everyone else, whether they
understand it or not. We are willing to give our time, fortunes, and lives
to spread the Gospel. This commitment to the Gospel makes
Evangelicalism the most active Christian missions movement in the
world.
Evangelicals are also skilled in contextualizing the Gospel without unnecessary cultural baggage.
We understand that the Gospel needs to be relevant and use the audience’s language to
communicate effectively. We imitate Paul who became a Greek to the Greeks and a Jew to the
Jews. We seek to eliminate the cultural trappings that are not necessary for someone to
understand and respond to the Gospel.
Because of this passion and ability to communicate the Gospel and our creativity and
perseverance, Evangelicals are able to cross national and cultural borders to share the Gospel.
The last 200 years of missions is the story of Evangelicals bringing the Gospel across hundreds
of national and cultural borders: Evangelicals who love their Lord and are willing to endure
enormous difficulties in the pursuit of communicating the Gospel to every man, woman, and
child in the world.
What are the weaknesses of this commitment to evangelism?
Biblical evangelism is a central part of the whole council of God that the Bible teaches. But
evangelism (like any biblical truth) can be emphasized too much at the expense of other truths.
The priority of evangelism is found within the broader teaching of the Bible, and we cannot
allow it to be de-emphasized. But Evangelicalism is in danger of emphasizing evangelism at the
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expense of other biblical priorities: biblical teaching, discipleship, education, relationships and
the list goes on. Let me just touch on three aspects of
this overemphasis.
The process of cultivating disciples
a) We focus on evangelism at the expense of loving
to grow in maturity and love of
God and loving people
God and others is crucial to the
Is evangelism crucially important? Absolutely, but isn’t
task of the Great Commission.
loving God and loving others important? Jesus taught
us about the two great commandments that “in them all
the law and the prophets hold together” (Matt. 22:40). A focus on evangelism can come without
prioritizing what Jesus himself taught us is the summary of biblical teaching. If we emphasize
evangelism without balancing it with the rest of biblical teaching, we create a lopsided theology
like a plane with one wing.
The New Testament teaches again and again that the goal of Christian life is spiritual maturity.
Paul writes, “teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature
in Christ” (Col. 1:28) and “the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart” (I Tim. 1:5)
and exhorts believers to imitate him as he imitates Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). James even writes that
we should receive trials with joy, because they enable us to be “mature and complete, not
lacking anything” (James 1:4).
Some argue that the Great Commission means that we should put all of our energy toward
evangelism. However, this ignores the biblical text. Jesus teaches us to “make disciples of all
nations” (Matt. 28:19). The Great Commission includes evangelism, but it is not the whole of it.
The process of cultivating disciples to grow in maturity and love of God and others is crucial to
the task of the Great Commission.
By focusing on evangelism – at the expense of other priorities like worship, discipleship, good
Bible teaching, small groups, education, etc. – the risk is that we create weak and immature
churches. This is just what has happened. Many fast-growing Evangelical churches that focus
primarily on evangelism have been accurately described as a mile wide and ½ inch deep.
b) Our prioritization of evangelism without robust biblical teaching is vulnerable to the
emergence of false teaching.
What happens when you plant a crop in a fertile soil where
it has excellent weather conditions? It flourishes. But what
every farmer knows is that without precaution and hard
work, weeds will grow alongside the crop at an even more
furious pace. 27
This has always been true. Why are so many of the Apostle
Paul’s letters confronting various false teachings that were emerging in the fast-growing early
church? Because as the seed of the Gospel was spread and took root, various false teachings
emerged and grew quickly alongside the Gospel seed. The same is true to today. Many of the
challenges facing the fast-growing global Evangelical church are at root theological issues.
17
Paul’s list of required characteristics for leaders mentions only one non-spiritual or relational
characteristic -- the ability to teach truth and to confront false teaching (1 Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:69). Paul equates the two ideas of teaching truth and confronting false teaching. You can’t do one,
if you aren’t doing the other. J. I. Packer modernizes this vision by describing a theologian or
pastor’s task as a water treatment worker who skims away the theological garbage and delivers
pure water to God’s people.
The problem is that Evangelicals’ aggressive push for evangelism often creates a willingness to
use anything that pragmatically seems successful in getting an increased response to the Gospel.
Paul explains this temptation that is built into Gospel ministry in 2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time
will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires,
they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to
hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
Without an absolute commitment to consistently teach the whole council of God, there is no
protection against false teachings. This is why the second
century church was known as the “Age of Apologists.” Yes,
Without an absolute
they persuasively explained to nonbelievers (Greeks, Romans
commitment to
and Jews) why the Gospel is true, but they also confronted and
consistently teach the
refuted false heresies. Irenaeus’s “Against Heresies” is a rich
whole council of God,
theological apologetic that summarizes Gnosticism, analyzes it
and biblically critiques it, quoting almost every book of the
there is no protection
New Testament.
against false teachings.
Theologically critiquing false teaching is an essential part of
biblically faithful ministry in today’s Evangelical church. False teaching always springs up like
weeds alongside the wheat of Gospel truth. If Evangelical leaders do not follow the example of
the Apostle Paul, they are in danger of allowing the weeds of heresies choke out the seed of the
Gospel.
The goal of a Christian’s
life is faithfulness, not
fulfillment.
We can see a modern example of this sort of distortion of
Christian truth in the heresy of the health and wealth Gospel,
and its sister heresy of the idolatry of personal fulfillment.
Personal fulfillment is the dominant goal for many people in the
world. In this context, it is a great temptation for Evangelicals to argue that Christianity is a
means to a more fulfilling life. The Gospel becomes a means to fulfillment, and the church
becomes another place that promises to satisfy emotional desires.
But the Lord did not promise the sort of fulfillment in this world that many are looking for these
days. In the Garden of Gethsemane, even our Lord himself called out, “My soul is overwhelmed
with sorrow to the point of death” (Matt. 26:38). The goal of a Christian’s life is faithfulness, not
fulfillment. It is not wrong to desire happiness. But it is important to consider how this desire for
happiness affects our decision making. Does it shape how we present the Gospel to
nonbelievers? From a biblical perspective, fulfillment is a gift, not a goal.
c) Our method of evangelism often shapes our message
18
At different times in history, various ideas, methods, and tools were influential in separate
cultures. The Christian church has often adopted and used these ideas and tools in its work.
Augustine promoted certain philosophical ideas which were pervasive in his classical culture:
“If those who are philosophers… have said things which are indeed true and are well
accommodated to our faith, they should not be feared; rather what they have said should be
taken from them as from unjust possessors and converted to our use.” 28
Augustine compared this borrowing of cultural tools to Moses’ Israelites taking the gold and
silver from Egypt at God’s command. But the danger of this cultural accommodation is that the
Christian church and message has often been
Marketing makes the audience
profoundly shaped by using popular culture ideas and
methods. We see that today Evangelicals are often
sovereign as it shapes or creates
uncritically using cultural tools in their attempts to
products to satisfy the audience’s
communicate the Gospel. An example of this is how
felt needs and desires.
some Evangelicals use marketing to communicate the
Gospel.
Christian leaders who use marketing identify a target audience and research their felt needs, then
teach those portions of biblical ideas which address their target audience’s felt needs. Marketing
makes the audience sovereign as it shapes or creates products to satisfy the audience’s felt needs
and desires. The difficult or unpopular elements of the Christian message are eliminated by a
marketing method.
What gets filtered out? Anything, like the holiness of God, that does not immediately address the
audience’s felt needs. In a paradoxical way, by seeking to market the Gospel, the Gospel itself
has become distorted. The Gospel becomes spiritual Jello which is molded into the shape of the
marketer’s target audience’s felt needs.
An example of this marketing editing is the historic Evangelical
understanding of God’s law. Central to the Protestant Reformation
was the conviction that law precedes the Gospel. Classical
Protestant theologians have emphasized passages like Romans
3:20: “Through the law comes knowledge of sin.” The reformers
taught that one was not teaching the biblical Gospel if one did not
emphasize how God’s transcendent moral law calls one into
account.
Wesley, Luther, and Calvin argued that central to the biblical Gospel is the self-revelation that
comes from being confronted with God’s holy law.29 As J.I. Packer writes, “Nobody can see
what sin is till he has learned what God is.”30
The law provides this dual vision of God’s holiness and human
sinfulness. The law reveals the cellar of our souls and is designed
to show us that we cannot live according to its requirements. The
law shows our corrupt motives and selfishness and the
rationalizations of our reasoning.
19
The point behind this review of God’s moral law is that many Evangelicals’ Gospel is only about
how much God loves sinners. Without a vision of the holiness of God that we get from the moral
law, we don’t see ourselves clearly, and we have no reason to repent.
We must reject this picture of marketing the Gospel which views the apostles
as those who “opened ‘franchises’ (local churches) to further spread the
product.”31 The Gospel is not a Big Mac, and Jesus did not die as the first step
in a marketing plan. Lost in this marketing mindset is the compassion and love
of Jesus who wept over Jerusalem. God’s love and his holiness are obscured in
a global marketing plan. It is a modern distortion of the Gospel.
When we use marketing strategy in evangelism, we neglect other vital areas of the biblical faith,
such as discipleship, and we leave the door open to false teachings. This marketing slant to
evangelism ties into another of Evangelicalism’s strengths.
2) Evangelicals have entrepreneurial and results-oriented leadership
Evangelical leaders tend to be more entrepreneurial and more focused on the local or situational
context. We are able to quickly identify needs and to create new strategies and innovate
leadership best practices. Moving a top-heavy bureaucracy to respond to a need or opportunity is
usually not a quick or successful strategy in business or in ministry. Partly because Evangelicals
are not organized by any single organizational structure, we are able to quickly respond to
problems and to establish new strategies and even new organizations. Evangelical leaders value
results and prioritize stewardship and strategic thinking. Evangelicalism is also better equipped
to identify and quickly train young leaders and release them into an influential place of ministry.
What are the weaknesses of Evangelicals’ entrepreneurial and results-oriented leadership?
a) We measure our effectiveness by numbers
In a previous life, I was the Chief Operation Officer of an
Investment firm. To invest in anything, you need to be wise and
seek to be a good steward by being effective and strategic.
Both Evangelical leaders and donors are focused on evangelism
and counting conversions, baptisms and church plants as the
primary means they use to evaluate what they do and where they
give. Evangelical strategic and philanthropic thinking is
dominated by thinking about numbers and measurable outcomes.
Some seem to turn the
“Great Commission” to
extend the Gospel into
the “great equation,”
evaluating the
effectiveness of a
strategy only by the
number of conversions
or baptisms that take
place.
I think this is coming from good intentions. Evangelical funders I
know are sincere, gifted, and faithful. They want to be good
stewards and invest wisely the resources the Lord has given them.
Very importantly, they seek to objectively evaluate their giving decisions and not just
emotionally respond to the next charismatic leader or heart-wringing need.
What lies behind this thinking? Most Evangelical donors operate from their professional
experience as business leaders. In business, we are taught to evaluate the organization’s “bottom
line,” and that bottom line is numbers. We can learn much from a close analysis of an
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organization’s financial statements. Without reading these documents, one doesn’t understand
the organization’s actual efficiency or effectiveness or return on investment.
But there is a limit to the usefulness of numbers. In fact, you can’t measure the most important
things in life. You can’t quantify someone’s love. You can’t empirically measure spiritual
maturity. You can’t measure the value of someone’s discipleship of another person. Numbers are
valuable and important, but they are not the only thing that is important in life or ministry.
Another element of false thinking resulting from this fixation on numbers is the “Great
Commission” to extend the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Some seem to turn the Great
Commission into the “great equation,” evaluating the effectiveness of a strategy only by the
number of conversions or baptisms that take place.
But what was the Great Commission?
Jesus’ call was to “make disciples,” not to “make conversions.”
Yes, Jesus taught large groups and had a wider circle of disciples
that he spent time with, but Jesus invested three years primarily in
12 apostles. When Jesus called them to make disciples, He was
teaching them to do what He did with them – to invest the largest
amount of time in smaller circles of intense relationships. But
with Jesus’ strategy of primarily focusing on 12 individuals over
three years, would Jesus have produced numbers large enough to
secure a grant from a typical Evangelical foundation?
Don’t misunderstand me. Numbers are important and one of the tools we should use to evaluate
a ministry. But it is only one of the tools we should use.
We do need numbers to help us understand how to give and work, but we also need to use
qualitative research methods. In simple terms, we need to get to know people, build
relationships, ask questions, and see with our own
eyes.
In our emphasis on experiencing the
b) We undervalue the importance of Truth in
new birth, and a pietistic love for
leadership development.
the Lord, we Evangelicals have
A biblical worldview is ruthlessly honest. Scripture is
often not valued the importance of
a mirror which reveals our wrong motives and tears
truth, education, and knowledge.
apart the tissues of our rationalizations. One of the
ways it challenges us is to make us prioritize
teachability so we are willing (and even eager) to learn how to become Jesus’ disciples (learners)
in every area. We even need to learn from those who don’t agree with us concerning our core
convictions.
Evangelicals profoundly disagree with the Roman Catholic Church on two of the most important
Evangelical convictions – how are we saved (we know we are saved through faith alone) and
authority (we know that the Scriptures are the only source of revelation and truth). Some
Evangelicals are naïve about the gulf separating Evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism. But
even if we do understand how far biblical faith is from Catholicism, this doesn’t mean Catholics
21
are always wrong. In the same speech I quote above, Pope Benedict critiques the growing
Evangelical church which is supplanting Catholicism: “This is a form of Christianity with little
institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability.”32
He is correct. Evangelicalism is weak in its institutions, lacks the full development of its
theological thinking and is often unstable. Recently for example, there was a survey in the
United States, which documented that even atheists had a stronger religious knowledge than
Evangelicals.33
Much of world Evangelicalism emphasizes emotions at the expense of the mind. In our emphasis
on experiencing the new birth, and a pietistic love for the Lord, we Evangelicals have often not
valued the importance of truth, education, and knowledge. In particular we have not learned the
wisdom of Christian thought, the history of 2000 years of reflections on the Scripture.
But why did the Lord select Paul to be “my spokesman before the Gentiles and kings”? (Acts
9:15) At least in part Paul was chosen because he was well trained intellectually. Paul was so
educated that Festus exclaimed, “Paul, your great learning is driving you mad” (Acts 26:24).
Paul was able to communicate to Greeks as a Greek and as a Jew to the Jews because his training
was wide and deep.
In our attempt to quickly develop leadership and address needs,
we have often discouraged emerging leaders from pursuing a
robust theological education. Many Evangelicals understand
“academia” as dry, abstract, archaic, and useless and
antagonistic to pragmatic common sense, which is real, downto-earth, relevant, and practical.
(I should pause in this discussion, to underline that there is a
legitimate suspicion in many Evangelicals’ minds about the effect of graduate theological
education. Seminaries have acquired the reputation that eager, vibrant young Christians often
enter their front doors, only to exit prideful and ineffectual eggheads out the back door. The
Evangelical jest about preachers graduating from a cemetery has a biting truth.)
Yet Paul was no model of a dry orthodoxy learned in a classroom or an empty academic
approach. The best of Evangelicals have imitated Paul and combined a passionate love for God
and a love for truth. We are called to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
As we reviewed, the Great Awakening leaders’ priority was evangelism, but they failed to
intellectually train the Evangelical leaders. This led to the uprooting of English Evangelicalism
by the intellectual movements of the 19th century.
Like a business that delays long-term investment in order to show dividends in quarterly
statements, a pragmatic approach within Evangelicalism prizes immediate success. If we want to
raise up a new generation of Apostle Pauls to persuasively communicate the Gospel today and
defend it against various heresies, it will take intensive education and mentoring. The
development of solid, mature, Christ-imitating leaders who can lead our churches, organizations
and denominations is worth the investment of time.
c) Because we focus on entrepreneurial leadership, we are often not good in working in
partnership and sharing resources.
22
How often have we seen it? A new leader emerges to start a new ministry or strategy without
realizing (or at least caring) that the problem is already being addressed by a half dozen faithful
and effective ministries. This replication of Evangelical ministries has no vision for cooperation
or partnership. For all practical purposes, such a new ministry is a spiritual business in
competition with other ministries.
How does the typical Evangelical ministry establish a strategy? Following classical business
strategic thinking it clarifies a need, establishes a vision, and initiates a strategy to achieve the
vision. There is no place in a business model to share best practices and encourage and serve
others. Each business-shaped ministry is a separate silo, a fiefdom, blind to many of the
Kingdom’s needs and priorities.
We try to manage our churches and organizations with the best
of management principles and tools, and by default we don’t
follow the rich biblical model of leadership. What about all the
biblical teaching about “serving one another,” “encouraging
one another,” and “loving one another”? Our leadership
strategies and methods are often only a pale reflection of the
world’s management techniques, rather than a profoundly rich
biblical understanding of leadership.
For example, Evangelicals typically do not create strategies to foster partnerships, share best
practices, or form networks to serve and equip leaders with other organizations. But we should.
There is an enormous need for partnerships and coalitions.
What is the Way Forward?
What can we learn from this overview of Evangelicalism’s strengths and weaknesses?
Evangelicalism is a powerful mission movement across the globe because its leaders are
passionately committed to communicate the Gospel and are
Each business-shaped
innovatively leading dynamic and entrepreneurial organizations.
ministry is a separate
But like John Wesley leading the Great Awakening, the leaders of
silo, a fiefdom, blind
modern Evangelicalism are focusing on evangelism at the expense
to many of the
of other crucial biblical priorities. The result is an Evangelical
Kingdom’s needs and
church that is numerically growing quickly – but is not growing in
maturity. At the same time Evangelical leaders are not typically
priorities.
theologically well trained and do not have the biblical discernment
to identify and analyze the European unbelief that is infecting their
cultures nor to detect and confront false teaching or false models of ministry. Like the English
church in the Great Awakening, the Evangelical church in the Developing World is vulnerable to
the waves of unbelief that are infecting their cultures with a deadly spiritual virus.
But how should we respond to these global realities? What is the way forward for
Evangelicalism globally? As with most things, a good place to start is with Jesus.
Jesus responsively communicated the truth
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Jesus taught people the truth, rather than the truth to people. His message was not a canned
speech to be read to each new crowd that gathered. Rather we see in Jesus a flexibility that
articulated a distinct word of truth to each peculiar situation. When the scribes showed their lack
of sincerity, Jesus responded by telling a parable that illustrated their hard hearts: “They knew he
had spoken the parable against them” (Mark 12:12).
Jesus taught the truth to people where they lived. The truth did not change, but the particular
point of application did depending on the context or person that Jesus was addressing. To
communicate biblical truth relevantly, we need to understand the context we are addressing in
order to communicate in a way that speaks into the unique situation.
Relevance, understood in this way, starts with people – but not necessarily with their felt needs.
The ultimate goal of Jesus’ ministry was to glorify his Father in heaven. To glorify means in part
to reflect. Jesus reflected his Father’s character and concerns into every situation he encountered.
At times this meant he tenderly held the little children and gently healed a leper. In other words,
Jesus occasionally met an individual’s felt needs. But Jesus also had a ministry of confrontation
and regularly rebuked those he came into contact with, calling them “white washed sepulchers”
(Matt. 23:27) or using a whip to clear the temple of the money
We see in Jesus a
changers (John 2:13-22).
flexibility that
We see the same principle of relevance at work with the apostle Paul.
articulated a
The church at Philippi was experiencing internal conflict and discord
distinct word of
(4:2). When Paul writes the Philippians, he is seeking to reorient them
truth to each
as a church body. He gives them the foundational principles for how
God’s people are to work together. Paul first thanks God for them and
particular situation.
tells them how much he loves them (1:1-11) and focuses their attention
on the gospel (1:12-26). He then teaches them how to work together by being united (1:27-30),
humble (2:1-11), obedient (2:12-30), focused on truth (3:1-11), future oriented (3:12-4:1), and
thankful (4:2-23).
In other words, Paul communicates relevantly by starting at the point where the Philippians were.
In contrast, in response to the Galatians, Paul rebukes them for so “quickly deserting the one who
called you” (Gal. 1:6). We see in the Apostle Paul’s letters to the various churches a profound
understanding of each local situation and a relevant articulation of truth.34
Communication, if it is to be received, must take into account the situation of the hearer. Without
this focus, communication is either easily dismissed or completely ignored.
So how do we apply this principle to our discussion of a Global Vision of the Gospel? What is
our current situation in global Evangelicalism? What challenges are we facing?
To summarize the context to this point:
 Evangelicalism has seen startling growth in the Developing World, but significant decline
in Europe
 Europe has exercised enormous influence around the world over the past few centuries
 European unbelief has exploded and spread around the world and is the primary opponent
24



to the Gospel
Evangelicals have a passionate commitment to communicate the gospel and an
entrepreneurial and results-oriented leadership approach
Evangelicals have naively used cultural tools like marketing and management, which
have shaped their communication and leadership methods
Evangelicals are weak in confronting falsehood, cultivating deep discipleship, developing
intellectually well-grounded leaders, and partnering with one another
Based on the model of how Jesus responsively communicated the truth, how should we
respond to our situation?
From this perspective of relevance, there are several areas of the biblical worldview that need to
be understood, lived and taught today:
1) Persuasive Evangelism (Apologetics)
2) Biblical Model of Discipleship
3) Thinking Biblically
4) Developing Spiritual Oak Trees
1) Persuasive Evangelism (Apologetics)
Today’s Western-educated elite are profoundly and
The words apologist and apologetics
fundamentally antagonistic to the gospel. Pluralistic,
come from the Greek word apologia,
relativistic worldviews and virulent anti-Christian
philosophies rule the influential cultural centers, both
which means “defense.”
in Europe and America and increasingly in the
Developing World. The same was true in the first centuries of church history. Few Christians
commanded Roman legions, educated the Roman elite, or led Roman institutions.35
What should faithful believers do in such an antagonistic environment? We should imitate the
Apostle Paul and the early Christian leaders.
Evangelicalism today is in great need of gifted apologists / persuasive evangelists who, like Paul,
can explain why Christianity is true and reasonable. The words apologist and apologetics come
from the Greek word apologia, which means “defense.” So when Peter writes, “Always be
prepared to give a defense (apology) for the hope that is within you” (1 Peter 3:15), he is
teaching that Christians must be willing and able to communicate the gospel persuasively to their
neighbors.
A close reading of Acts reveals Paul’s extraordinary versatility as a communicator. Acts 17
records “as his custom was” Paul entered the Jewish synagogue and explained “why Jesus was
the Christ.” Paul “proves,” “shows,” “demonstrates,” and “argues” why the Christian Gospel is
the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. He started where the Jews
25
were and used their accepted authority of the Old Testament to persuasively present the
truthfulness of the Gospel.
View of the Areopagus
Later in Acts 17, Paul explains to the Greeks in Athens who their
“Unknown God” really is. He quotes Greek poets, refers to Greek
philosophical ideas and writers, and persuasively explains why the
Gospel is true to the Greeks using their categories and cultural
artifacts. Paul was a persuasive evangelist (which is what “apologist”
means) and was at home in any venue because he took the time to
understand the context and tailor his message accordingly. He could
meaningfully convey Gospel truth to those of any worldview, and he
was not afraid to engage in vigorous debate.
The early followers of Jesus did not place an appeal to faith in opposition to reason; they argued
that Christianity was true. Paul communicated in the language and cultural concepts of his
audiences why Jesus was the Christ (“the Word of Truth”) and why Christianity was true (“both
true and reasonable”) and asked them to trust him.
In today’s secular, pluralistic, and skeptical context, apologetics is vital for Christians to
personally build confidence in the truth of the Gospel and to engage with non-Christians in order
to persuasively communicate the Gospel. There is an enormous need for the
evangelical church globally to recapture the biblical vision of apologetics to
persuasively communicate the Gospel.
2) Biblical Model of Discipleship
Ravi Zacharias travels to the leading universities in the world to answer
tough questions from skeptics about the gospel. So when Ravi says he has a
question he can’t answer, we should listen to him. Zacharias has
insightfully written, “If there is one apologetic struggle I live with, it is this
question: Why is it that so many people who talk of a supernatural
transformation show so little of the transformed life?”36 37
I have also often closed the Bible perplexed. The depth of commitment,
the sense of confidence, the aura of integrity that permeates its pages is
often foreign to my experience with much of modern Christianity. I see
this spiritual reality in the descriptions of the apostles Peter and John:
“When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they
were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note
that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
We as Evangelicals have defined the gospel as “accepting Jesus into our
heart” (a phrase which is not in the New Testament), and we have
allowed people to think that a person can be a Christian without being a
disciple. I am convinced that Jesus did not give us this option. He
confronted those who claimed to follow him but did not obey him: “Why
“If there is one
apologetic struggle I
live with, it is this
question: Why is it
that so many people
who talk of a
supernatural
transformation show
so little of the
transformed life?”
Ravi Zacharias
26
do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say” (Luke 6:46). Our Lord teaches that anyone
who wants to follow him must count the cost. He tells us in the most simple terms that we must
give all that we have to receive this priceless pearl (Matt. 13:45-6). Jesus clearly teaches that on
the Day of Judgment he will say to many who think
they know him “I do not know you” (Matt. 7:23).
Somewhere along the way of
teaching the simple gospel, we
The word “Christian” is used three times in the New
have created a cheap grace where
Testament, while the term “disciple” for a follower of
Jesus is used 270 times. Somewhere along the way of
being Jesus’ disciple is optional.
teaching the simple gospel, we have created a cheap
grace where being Jesus’ disciple is optional.
As Evangelicals, we rightly believe that people only become Christians if they place their
faith in Jesus. In biblical language we are convinced “by grace you have been saved through
faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works” (Eph. 2:8-9). We are
justified by faith alone. But where does discipleship fit into this?
Jesus is very clear and teaches that anyone who is His disciple will be known by his love. We
are called to trust and obey Jesus and grow toward spiritual maturity. Jesus emphasized the
two greatest commandments: to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind and to love our
neighbor as ourselves.
Jesus loved and led his disciples toward this spiritual and relational maturity. In turn, the
apostles led new believers toward this same goal. The Apostle Paul wrote that the goal of his
pastoral work was to “present everyone fully mature in Christ.” (Col. 1:28) This is the heart
of discipleship and is also a picture of biblical leadership: to love God and to love others.
Thus biblical discipleship and leadership are not reserved only for pastors; they apply to all
Christians. Evangelical leaders must return to the Scriptural model of discipleship and live
and teach this vision to the global evangelical church.
3) Thinking Biblically
Why has the European church struggled the last 200 years? The short answer is that Christians
have allowed the categories and priorities of the Enlightenment (world) to infiltrate their
thinking. If the church is going to be renewed in Europe, if the Gospel is going to ring out with
power in Europe and indeed the world, it is crucial that God’s people profoundly understand, live
and teach God’s Word.
We first need to understand what the Bible teaches about itself. What should we truly believe
and feel in response to God’s Word? The Bible teaches us God’s narrative for the human race
and our story as well. It contains the story of how God brought about the salvation of the world
through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. How we understand and respond to the
scriptures profoundly shapes our lives. The fundamental difference between a blessed man and a
wicked man in Psalm 1 is how they relate to God’s Word: “His delight is in the law of the Lord
and on his law he meditates day and night.”
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So how do we do this?
The Church – At the heart of this renaissance of biblical thinking is the local church, the primary
location for the teaching and equipping of God’s people. As John Stott explains, “God wants his
church to grow up to maturity. The people of God grow through the Word of God. The Word of
God comes to people mainly (not exclusively) through biblical preaching.”38 The danger today is
that topical sermons have become increasingly popular in many Evangelical churches. When a
church is fed primarily with topical sermons, the pastor’s personality and fundamental
convictions disproportionately shape the church’s teaching. In contrast, teaching exegetically
allows the Bible’s categories and content to shape the church’s thinking and practice.
Personal Reading, Study and Memorizing – For
many Evangelicals, church has become an activity
in their week that involves listening to a sermon
and singing a few songs. Without dismissing the
importance of the previous point of rich biblical
preaching, the reality is that believers cannot live
the Christian life by only listening to a weekly
sermon. Without regular reading, study and
meditation of God’s word, people do not think in
the categories of scripture. Every believer needs
such daily habits as reading God’s Word and
praying to enable them to “not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of
your mind” (Romans 12:1-2).39
Just about every believer would agree with the last two paragraphs -- the Bible should be taught
in the local church, and believers need to read, study and memorize God’s Word. But affirming a
truth is different than living it. Pastors need to do the hard work of developing the skills and
abilities to faithfully and creatively teach God’s Word, and Christians need the disciplined
reading, study and memorization habits that allow them to “meditate day and night” on scripture.
The next two strategies are a bit more unfamiliar to many believers.
Thinking with a Christian Worldview – Loving God with the entire mind means believers can
be curious learners who pursue knowledge and wisdom in every sphere and field. The Bible
provides an amazingly rich and fertile framework to examine all of life, and its categories and
concepts need to structure our thinking about any topic, intellectual discipline, or vocational
field. Without a clear biblical framework, believers are naively thinking with the world’s
categories and priorities. To live faithfully, we need to first think Christianly, with the
framework of a biblical worldview.
Biblical Theology in Response – We also need rich biblical teaching that responds to the
challenges, idolatries and questions of our day. For example, as I mentioned in a previous article,
one of the greatest modern heresies is the health and wealth gospel and its twin, fulfillment
theology, which teaches that Jesus wants you to be happy. Rick Warren has written The Purpose
Driven Life, which challenges modern self-idolatry. The first line of the book, “It’s not about
28
you,”40 is a slap in the face to modern narcissists. The book has sold tens of millions of copies
because it is focused on where people are living and provides a biblical view of purpose. We
need biblically rich teaching that addresses the popular worldview assumptions and idolatries of
our age.
4) Developing Spiritual Oak Trees
As previously noted, John Wesley, during the Great Awakening,
focused his attention in the typical Evangelical direction of
evangelism, spiritual growth, and social concerns. In the process,
he did not develop solid leaders (the spiritual “oak trees”) who
could withstand the intellectual storms of the 19th century
(Skeptical Biblical Criticism, Enlightenment Philosophy, and
Darwinian Naturalism). These gales and tornadoes ripped up the
Evangelical ivy, and England was left with a devastated church.
In short, the English Evangelical Church failed in these critical areas:
 Developing an adequate apologetic response to these new intellectual challenges.
 Loving God by mentoring the most academically gifted younger believers to develop
their callings as faithful Christian researchers, teachers, and writers.
 Doing the difficult and time-consuming work of building the solid leaders (spiritual oak
trees) to protect the Evangelical laity (spiritual ivy) from the storm of unbelief. 41
One of the greatest needs of today’s global Evangelical Church is to develop spiritually mature
and intellectually strong leaders—spiritual oak trees. These leaders can provide shelter and
protection for younger and more vulnerable believers. All of the great leaders of our day were
once acorns into whom other leaders poured their time, energy and love to help them grow to
maturity. To understand and develop robustly biblical strategies, the global church has to pour an
enormous amount of its resources into developing the next generation of leaders.
The Model of the Early Church
The early church is a wonderful historical model that helps us to focus on this biblical
understanding of life. Why did the early church continue to grow for over 300 years, even when
the church was often under siege and persecuted? What was so distinctive about the early
church? T. R. Glover, former Cambridge University lecturer in ancient history and author of The
Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, explained that Christians “‘out-lived’ the
pagan, ‘out-died’ him, and ‘out-thought’ him.”42
1) The early Christians out-thought their contemporaries.
For the first 300 years of the early church, we see a commitment to persuasively communicating
the gospel’s truthfulness. When Christians communicated their newfound gospel to Jews, they
had to explain why the New Testament fulfilled the Old Testament prophesies and to answer
Jewish questions and objections. When talking to Greeks, Jesus’ followers had to confront the
Hellenistic worldview and explain the idea of one God in a world of thousands of gods. These
29
early Christians also had to explain to the Roman authorities why they did not offer worship to
the Emperor.
The believers talked about Jesus and his Gospel wherever and whenever they could. Christians
would go to shrines and talk to those coming to give a sacrifice. The unbeliever Lucian said that
sometimes warning signs would be posted inside shrines, stating “Christians Outside.”43
Christians were not afraid of the pagan religions and even challenged the pagans to curse them
with their demons.
The early Christians were also not afraid of thinking. Clement, an early Christian leader, wrote,
“The beautiful, wherever it is, is ours, because it came from our God.” Glover explains, “The
Christian read the best books, assimilated them, and lived the freest intellectual life that the
world had… There is no place for an ignorant Christian. From the very start every Christian had
to know and to understand, and he had to read the Gospels; he had to be able to give the reason
for his faith.”44
The early church communicated to nonbelievers why
Christianity was true. As Glover explains “Who did the
thinking in that ancient world? Again and again it was the
Christian.”45
2) The early Christians out-lived their contemporaries
T.R. Glover in the Dale Lectures at Oxford University
summarizes the astonishing way of life the early Christians
embodied.
“They were astonishingly upright, pure and honest; they
were serious; and they had in themselves inexplicable
reserves of moral force and a happiness far beyond
anything that the world knew.”46
“Atheism [Christianity] has
been specially advanced
through the loving service
rendered to strangers… It is a
scandal that there is not a
single Jew who is a beggar,
and that the godless Galileans
[Christians] care not only for
their own poor, but ours as
well; while those who belong
to us look in vain for the help
that we should render them.”
Roman Emperor Julian
Early Christian leaders explained that the truth of
Christianity was visible by how Jesus’ followers loved and cared for both fellow believers and
nonbelievers.
The author of the “Epistle [Letter] to Diognetus” wrote in the mid-2nd century to a Roman
Governor explaining who Christians were:
“They are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the
laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all.”47
There was a distinctive reality of Christians’ love for one another. A common accusation against
Christians throughout the Roman Empire was incest. Outsiders knew of the love that the
“brothers” and “sisters” had for each other, and they had no other way to explain this affection
and love.
30
Some of the strongest evidence of Christians’ love and care for others comes from the gospel’s
strongest opponents. The pagan Roman Emperor Julian in the 4th century complained that
Christianity was growing so fast because of the “loving service rendered to strangers” by
Christians who “care not only for their own poor but for ours as well.”48
3) The early Christians out-died their contemporaries
Many nonbelievers were amazed by Christians’ courage in the
face of death. Tertullian did not read the Gospels as a
nonbeliever, until he saw the courage of how Christians were
willing to die. 49 “Every man who sees it, is moved with some
misgiving, and is set on fire to learn the reason; he inquires
and is taught; and when he has learned the truth, he instantly
follows it himself as well.”50 Tertullian illustrates this
memorably: “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
church.”51 Without this spiritual reality, even correct doctrine
seems stale and artificial. But with the reality of changed lives and the persuasive
communication of the gospel, Christianity spread quickly across the Roman Empire.
What made the early church’s ministry so effective? They were able to analyze and critique rival
and alternative philosophies of life and explain why the Gospel was “true and reasonable.” They
demonstrated by their lives the power and truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Lastly, they
were willing to die for their faith.
A picture of all three of these is Ignatius who was martyred in Rome soon after the turn of the 1st
Century. He wrote a series of letters in which he confronted false teaching and called the
churches to faithfulness. What happened as the result of believers’ careful arguments, faithful
lives and sacrificial deaths? The Gospel spread widely as Jews, Romans and Greeks were
challenged by the truth, understood the truth and saw the truth lived out in front of them.
Nonbelievers are determining whether the gospel is true and whether Jesus is who He claimed to
be by the reality of our lives. Are we willing to sacrificially give ourselves to others? Do we live
in loving community with one another and serve others? Can others smell the sweet aroma of the
fragrance of Christ in our presence? Out of this context and reality our words gain credibility.
Orthopraxy and orthodoxy are two sides of the same coin or they are a counterfeit currency.
1
David B. Barret, George Thomas Kurian, and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian
Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 4. This graph represents the percent change in the adherents of
“Great Commission Christians” as a percentage of the global population from 1900 to 2000.
Barret et al define Great Commission Christians as synonymous with practicing Christians:
"Believers in Jesus Christ who are aware of the implications of Christ's Great Commission, who
have accepted its personal challenge in their lives and ministries, are attempting to obey his
commands and mandates, and who are seeking to influence the body of Christ to implement it.”
31
The indicator for evangelicals (with a lowercase “e”) is considered synonymous with Great
Commission Christians as “Church members of evangelical conviction, involved in Christ’s
mission on Earth.” For our purposes, the definition of the Great Commission Christian more
appropriately describes our quantification of evangelicals.
2
Barret, Kurian, and Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia, 4. This graph represents the
percent change in the adherents of the world’s major religions as a percentage of the global
population from 1900 to 2000.
3
Barret, Kurian, and Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia, 4. This graph represents the
percent change in the adherents of Great Commission Christians, Roman Catholicism, and
Orthodoxy as a percentage of the global population between 1900 and 2000.
4
Barret, Kurian, and Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia, 13, 14. This graph represents the
percent change in the global adherents of Great Commission Christians (see endnote 1) as a
percentage of the population of each continent from 1900 to 2000.
5
Barret, Kurian, and Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia, 3.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics. “Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students.” (May 05, 2014).
http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Pages/international-student-flow-viz.aspx
6
7
Barret, Kurian, and Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia, 4, 14.
8
Barret, Kurian, and Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia, 5.
9
Barret, Kurian, and Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia, 4.
10
Howard Snyder, The Radical Wesley (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1980), 54.
Wesley, John. “Letter from Wesley to Wilberforce” (Feb. 24, 1791) On Global Ministries,
United Methodist Church (2015). http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-WesleySermons/The-Wesleys-and-Their-Times/Letter-to-William-Wilberforce
11
Horace Mann and Great Britain Census Office. “Census of Great Britain, 1851. Religious
Worship in England and Wales.” (G. Routledge, 1854), .
https://archive.org/details/censusgreatbrit00manngoog
12
British Religion in Statistics. “Church Attendance in England 1980 – 2005.”
http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/church-attendance-in-england-1980-2005/
13
“Minutes of Several Conversations” Q.3, in The Works of John Wesley [vol. 8; ed. T. Jackson;
Baker, 1978] 299)
14
15
Hampson, Norman. The Enlightenment: An Evaluation of Its Assumptions, Attitudes and
Values. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991).
16
Clark H. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle: Reclaiming the Full Authority of the Bible
(Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2002), 130.
32
Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York:
Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1995), 63.
17
18
Peter Berger, Sociology Reinterpreted: An Essay on Method and Vocation (New York: Anchor
Press, 1981), 148.
“Religion in Wales and England 2011.” http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011census/key-statistics-for-local-authorities-in-england-and-wales/rpt-religion.html#tab-Changingpicture-of-religious-affiliation-over-last-decade
19
20
George Santayana, The Life of Reason: Or, The Phases of Human Progress. (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920), 284.
21
Some text in this article is taken directly or developed from my book Willow Creek Seeker
Services: Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996.
“Address of Pope Benedict XVI.” (Sept. 23, 2011). (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2011).
http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2011/september/documents/hf_benxvi_spe_20110923_evangelical-church-erfurt.html
22
Pew Research Center. “Religion in Latin America: Widespread Change in a Historically
Catholic Region,” (Nov. 13, 2014), 26. http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/11/Religion-inLatin-America-11-12-PM-full-PDF.pdf
23
Pew Research Center. “Share of Catholics Decreasing in Latin America; Protestants and
Religiously Unaffiliated Increasing” in “Religion in Latin America: Widespread Change in a
Historically Catholic Region,” (Nov. 13, 2014), 26.
http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/11/PR_14.11.13_latinAmerica-overview-18.png
24
Pew Research Center. “Religion in Latin America: Widespread Change in a Historically
Catholic Region” (Nov. 13, 2014), 14, 27. http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/11/Religion-inLatin-America-11-12-PM-full-PDF.pdf
25
J. I. Packer and TC Oden. One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus. (Downer’s Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity Press, 2004), 162-3.
26
John Walter. “Weeds won’t be gone.”(August 3, 2010). https://www.flickr.com
27
28
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Trans.by D. W. Robertson. (New York: The Free Press,
1958), 75.
29
This topic is covered more fully in my book Willow Creek Seeker Services, 261-5. See the
following for illustrations of this focus on the moral law of God:
Ewald M. Plass, comp., What Luther Says, vol. 2. (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1959), 757-8.
John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. ed. John T. McNeil, (Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1960), 369.
33
Albert C. Outler, ed., John Wesley. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 60.
30
J. I. Packer. A Quest for Godliness. (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1990), 169.
31
George Barna. Marketing the Church. (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1988), 33.
“Address of Pope Benedict XVI.” (Sept. 23, 2011). (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2011).
http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2011/september/documents/hf_benxvi_spe_20110923_evangelical-church-erfurt.html
32
Pew Research Center. “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey.” (Sept. 28, 2010).
http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/
33
34
Evangelical theology is typically biblical and systematic theology. Biblical theology looks at
the biblical text and tries to trace a theme throughout the Old and New Testaments or examines
the theology of a certain biblical author. Evangelical Systematic theology takes biblical
theology’s content and organizes it by topic. For example, justification: How does the whole of
Scripture teach how we are to be saved? I am suggesting that Jesus’s model of responsively
communicating the truth can complement biblical and systematic theology as it highlights areas
of need that we need to teach biblical truth about.
35
Some of this material has been taken directly or developed from the some of the writing of
European Apologetic Network (EAN) materials from more than 10 years ago.
Ravi Zacharias, “Lessons from War in a Battle of Ideas.” (Nov. 10, 2000) (Ravi Zacharias
International Ministries, 2005). http://rzim.org/just-thinking/lessons-from-war-in-a-battle-ofideas
36
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. “Ravi Zacharias.” October 31, 2009.
<www.flickr.com>
37
Langham Partnership International. “Vision and Mission.” http://us.langham.org/who-weare/vision-mission/
38
39
Ryk Neethling. “Open Bible with pen.” April 19, 2010. <www.flickr.com>.
40
Warren, Rick. The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for? (Grand Rapids, Mich:
Zondervan, 2002), 17.
41
Sue Bristo. “Strength and Endurance.” (June 8, 2014). <www.flickr.com>
42
T. R. Glover, The Jesus of History (New York: Association Press, 1917), Project Gutenberg
ebook, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13335/13335-8.txt, 71.
43
Glover, The Jesus of History, 203 .
44
Glover, The Jesus of History, 204.
34
45
Glover, The Jesus of History, 205.
46
T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire. (Washington: Cannon
Press, 1974), 142.
“Epistle to Diognetus” in Michael W. Holmes. The Apostolic Fathers: Greek texts and English
translations. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 2007), 695.
47
48
Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions, 2nd edition,(New York: NY, Penguin Books,
1990), 37-8.
49
Mafalda Pereira. “Coliseum | Rome.” May 3, 2013. www.flickr.com
50
Glover, The Conflict of Religions, 320. The unbeliever Lucian wrote disdainfully of the
Christians who believe “they are immortal for all time and will live forever, which explains why
they despise death and voluntarily give themselves up.” Glover, The Conflict of Religions, 162.
51
Tertullian. “Apologeticum.” http://www.tertullian.org/works/apologeticum.htm
Can we get a hard number for just Pentecostals from WCD (separated from charistmatics)? And
then have number for Evangelicals. Can we separate catholic and orthodox out of charismatics?
Conversation with guys at Gordon-Conwell and have questions clearly laid out. Need to have
really clear questions. Paid access to their database for a month or two?