Evangelism and gospel outlines – what is the gospel?

… and which gospel outlines should we use? I have just been reading an article on Christianity today by James Choung who challenges the traditional gospel outlines.

Gospel means good news. The word is used to sum up the plan of God from creation to new creation, centred on Jesus. But this plan is big, how should we communicate it?

But first – there are a number of gospel outlines that can be useful in our evangelism. There are many, and none of them are perfect. One of the favourites taught in America seems to be the four spiritual laws. This outline concentrates on the sinfulness of mankind separating us from God, and the cross providing the way back. In many ways this is similar to the bridge illustration developed in the UK – this is one I like to use occasionally.

These are both useful, and get over one of the central messages of Christianity, that sin separates us from God and that Jesus has dealt with our sin on the cross of open up the way back to him, and that each of us can now approach God by accepting this gift of grace from God through Jesus. It deals with reconciliation of man to God, and atonement. One of the problems, however, is that this is all these outlines deal with deals with – a very personal decision of deciding to accept Gods grace. They focus on heaven as the reward and they do not say much about how a Christian is to live until then – maybe apart from individually thing to be a better person. It is also individual – a personal response – neglecting the other further reaches of sin which affects relationships between people, creation, and ourselves.

Another very simple outline is Do vs Done, which challenges the misconception that all religions are about trying to get to God. Religion is spelled D-O – doing things (rituals, prayers etc) to try to get to God. Christianity is not like that. Christians realise that, because of sin, we cannot get ot God on our own. Christianity is spelled D-O-N-E, as God has come to earth in Jesus and done everything required to get to God.

But the thing I find most difficult about them is that they start with personal sin. Let me be clear, personal sin is definitely a part of the gospel, but does it have to be our starting point? I have spent many conversations in the pub or over lunch with atheist friends trying to convince them that they were sinful (in the nicest possible way!), only to realise that most non-Christians these days do not have a concept of personal sin. And the concept of heaven (of Christians and non-Christians) is often cloudy. With a cloudy concpet of heaven – will people actually want to go to heaven anyway? Is there a better place to start?

In the UK, students are taught Two Ways to Live. This approach has many advantages, such as it talks about God begin the rightful ruler and creator of the world and that everything comes under his Kingship (kingdom appears a lot in the gospels). So, people can either live under the kingship of God or live under their own authority. This second choice is descibed as ‘sin’. It also talks about death as the consequence of not living under the kingship of God. This is good as it gets away from sin being just about bad things that we do, and there is an expectation that once poeple decide to follow Jesus (i.e. live under his kingship), it will have consequenses on how they live. However, the illustration is still very individual, focusing on the personal, and I have always found the 6 steps a little difficult to remember.

So what is different about James Choungs outline. In the article he doesn’t paint out the outline exactly (you probably have to buy the book for that) he starts with a concept of sin that is more real and ends with an immediate hope as well as a heavenly one.

Evangelicals have traditionally assumed that we have to start every gospel message by helping people see they’re sinners. If we don’t, then we can’t move on to salvation or how Jesus gives them assurance that they will be in heaven when they die. It’s not that this message isn’t true, but the approach is jarring. We haven’t created any common experience or authority so that our message will have any weight. We just come out and say it’s the truth. And in a postmodern setting, that sounds arrogant. How do we know it’s the truth? Have we ever been to heaven?

So at the beginning of the Big Story, we instead talk about our common perception: the world is not the way it’s supposed to be. We all agree with that. And we all agree that it makes us sick to our stomachs when we think about it. No one thinks that our world is great as it is. We hunger for a better world. And up to this point, there is no disagreement. We all experience this.

So whilst he doesn’t outline the approach, I imagine it goes something like this (Im not quite sure how the circles will fit in…). We see troubles, hardships and difficulties all around us. There are wars and conflicts, relationships between nations and individuals are broken. The world is broken, sometimes creation seems to be playing against us (tsunamis , floods, famines). Many people are not even satisfied with themselves, they have a low self-confidence, or try to ‘fix’ their bodies or minds. We hope for better. Everyone can agree with this. This is not how it is supposed to be. The world is broken because creation (including us) is broken and separated from God (This is all in Genesis 1-3 – maybe explain the fall here).

The good news is that we were created for better. God has a plan to restore his creation to what it was supposed to be, and it is centred on Jesus. He came to show us how to better relate to each other through his teaching and life, to enable us to better relate to God through his death and resurrection, and to enable us to begin to become the people we were created to be (bringing confidence in self-identity). His resurrection also shows us that we are created for a better world. By following him we can have the hope that there is something better to come (heaven and a restored creation) and start living that hope now – bringing that promise for the future into the present (how we should live now). We are not to just  sit around waiting and hoping for what God might do next, but to actively participate in ‘kingdom’ actions.

This seems to have a much more rounded picture of the gospel in it, which begins in a place people can relate to, and has all the essential ingredients of the gospel in it.

It is always useful to have a gospel outline or two in our minds, to help us structure a conversation when someone asks. I like Choungs approach, but it seems to me that the best thing is for Christians to know the message of what God has done for us so well, and to continue learning and living it out, so that any response can be individually altered to the character of the speaker and the one who is listening.

Sermon illustrations

Wives get revenge.

Starbucks and Christians

First, a photo that I took in Seattle of the first ever Starbucks coffee shop. We didn’t go in – there’s better coffee at Top Pot and a host of independent places.

But here’s something I came across on the BBC news website.

A group of Christians want Starbucks to ditch their new logo on the left) because it looks too slutty. They think the two-tailed mermaid has is in a compromising position. Did I mention its a mermaid?

This is the sort of thing why Christians aren’t taken seriously – over-obsessing with pointless bugbears that bear no relevance to anything and that look like they’re spoiling other peoples fun, rather than truly engaging with culture in order to help people know God.

How does protesting about a coffee shop logo share the love of Jesus?

The poor in the gospel of Luke (iv)

This is the fourth part of a series looking at how Luke deals with the subjects of the poor and poverty.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:32-34)

The last sentence has been on my mind for a few days, but some general thoughts on the passage before I get to it.

The verse on the poor comes in the middle of a section of teaching by Jesus. He has been teaching about hypocrisy, remaining faithful to him in the midst of persecution, through words and actions. Jesus has also warned about greed (it comes just after Jesus was asked to arbitrate in a family argument over inheritance). His response it to think of heavenly security rather than earthly security. Therefore his hearers are not to worry about material security in this life as God will provide (they’ve already been promised the kingdom). Instead he says, sell your possessions and give to the poor. This is the ultimate sign of dependence and trust in God. Make your priorities the same as God’s, which includes caring for the poor. Priorities like this result in treasure that will not perish.

However, the emphasis in this passage seems to be on the attitudes of the giver, rather than the poor who will receive.

As I said, verse 34 has been on my mind for a few days (it is also in Matthew 6), even before it came up in my study notes – where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I have read it many times, but have read it in the way that if you look to see where your money/time/treasure is going, you can see where the true motives of your heart are. i.e. the location of your treasure explains where your heart is.

However, I think you can also read it the other way around. the verse says ‘where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. So, the action of putting your treasure in certain places influences the direction of you heart. I suppose an investment is going to be looked after and followed. So investing in places such as, say, the poor, or in Christian mission then means you are more likely to follow what is going on in those areas. The interest is sparked by the investment. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

So, I could argue that if you want to be more passionate about the poor, give (time or money) to charities that serve the poor. If you want to be more passionate about Christian mission, give to Christian mission, if you want to be more passionate about changing God’s church, give to it and get involved. Most people want to se a return on your investment. Your heart will be invested in it.

The poor in the gospel of Luke (iii)

Having called his disciples, healed some people, and having taught (and been thrown out of) the synagogue, Jesus comes down from a mountain where he was praying to the plain, where a crowd had gathered to hear him teach. This is Lukes version of the Sermon on the Mount – I guess we could call it the Preach on the Plain or something like that.

He begins with Luke’s version of the Beatitudes:

Looking at his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied. (Luke 6:20-21)

This differs a little from Matthew’s version in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:4) and “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (5:6). The differences reflect the emphasis for the poor shown in the gospel of Luke, but what else?

The beatitudes are not commands, but statements, and they come directly after Jesus has called the 12 disciples. Tom Wright (in Luke for Everyone) likens it to Jesus reminding his new team of followers of 4 or 5 things to remember as they start to follow him. They are reminders of what God’s kingdom looks like, which is upside down when compared to the kingdom of the world, then or now – reminders of who is to be valued – not just the people that current society values, but those who have no voice. It is similar, again, to what many of the OT prophets were saying.

Tom Wright says it well:

“Jesus is… fulfilling his promises at last, and this will mean good news for all the people who haven’t had any for a long time. The poor, the hungry, those who are hated, blessings on them! Not that there’s anything virtuous about being poor or hungry in itself. But when injustice is reigning, the world will have to be turned once more the right way up for God’s justice and kingdom to come to birth”

The poor are blessed because they stand to gain the most from God’s justice and kingdom coming, and they are most likely to look for it. By contrast, the rich, if they consider themselves rich and of no need “have already received their comfort” (6:24). It seems clear that Jesus is talking about the literal rich and poor not just the spiritual. God’s message is for everyone but the poor may be looking for satisfaction, fulfilment, and the kingdom of God more.

A puzzling bit of the Bible – Exodus 4

I’m following a Bible reading plan that helps you get through the Bible in a year – never done it before and I’m already a bit behind, bt I suppose the important thing is getting through it rather than the pace!

Anyway, I was reading Exodus a few days ago and came across the part of Exodus I’ve never really noticed before – God has just appeared to Moses in the burning bush – very dramatic – and commissioned him to go back to Egypt, to be God’s mouthpiece and to lead the Hebrews out of slavery. Moses is just on his way, when we get to 4:24-26.

“At a lodging place on the way, God met Moses and was about to kill him”. (Ex 4:24)

I guess God is holding Moses to the same standards that he was about to judge Pharaoh with, requiring him to dedicate his whole family to God through circumcision. Circumcision was the covenant sign, a symbol of putting away all that is pleasing to God. That said, the incident confuses me still… it certainly is another puzzling bit…

Bible-believing Christians – Velvet Elvis 2

Martin Luther, Wycliffe, Cranmer and other church reformers of the fifteenth and the sixteenth century were some of the first to suggest that the Bible should be available in the languages of the people – English for the English, German for the Germans etc. Previous to that, people generally didn’t own their own Bibles, the church would own one in Latin which the priest would read and interpret for them.

Everyone having access to the Bible was a wonderful thing. But it didn’t half cause problems. Almost as soon as the reformation caused a split in the church between Protestants and Catholics, the church split again into smaller denominations – lutherans, calvinists, anglicans, anabaptists, puritans and so on. They all read the same Bible, but came to different conclusions on what certain parts of it mean (not, I might add, on anything fundamental like the deity of Jesus, the Cross etc, but mostly on issues of practice.)

It is fantastic that now everyone can read the Bible for themselves. But doesn’t that lead to the possibility of everyone understanding it differently?

I am a Bible-believing Christian, but what does that mean?

It means I take the Bible seriously and I work to understand it and apply it to my life. I consider it inspired by God. There are no parts of the Bible that I can simply ignore, but I work to understand what it meant when it was written and what it might mean for us now. I don’t pretend to understand it all.

Having said that, there are many other people who also ‘believe the Bible’ who come to different conclusions from certain passages than I do. Rob Bell, in his book, Velvet Elvis, mentions a lady he met who said something like this “I just believe the Bible”. But at the same time, she describes her faith as ‘a personal relationship with Jesus’. The phrase ‘personal relationship’ is not found anywhere in the Bible. It’s not a bad phrase, it can describe what being a Christian is like so long as you define what it means, but the point was that someone had interpreted what it means to know got and summed it up in the phrase ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ So, Rob points out, that she obviously believes a lot more that just what is found in the Bible – she believes in the interpretation of the person who told her that phrase too. So, everything is interpreted.

Rob bell says:

“The idea that everybody else approaches the Bible with baggage and agendas and lenses and I don’t is the ultimate in arrogance. To think that I can just read the Bible without reading any of my own culture or background or issues into is and come out with a ‘pure’ or ‘exact’ meaning is not only untrue, bit it leads to a very destructive reading of the Bible that robs it of its life and energy”

How can we be sure we have the right interpretation?

This is his point. The Bible is inspired, and it’s words are ‘living and active’ because they came from a God who is ‘living and active’. This is why we shouldn’t just read the Bible alone, we should read it in the context of prayer, and of a community who prays, thinks, and supports each other. Point of the Bible is to point us to God, and the joy of reading the Bible comes from a desire to seek God and wrestle with the texts as we apply them.

Rob Bell again:

“The writers of the Bible are communicating in language their world will understand. They are using the symbols and pictures and images of the culture they are speaking to That’s why the Bible has authority – God has authority and is present in real space and time. The Bible is a collection of stories that teach us about what it looks like when God is at work through actual people. The Bible has the authority it does only because it contains stories about people interacting with the God who has all authority”

It has authority because God has authority, not because it fell from the sky as a holy book.

The poor in the gospel of Luke (ii)

OK, onto chapters 3 and 4 of Luke. Chapter 3 begins with a section on John the Baptist. He is preaching and baptising in the river Jordan and the crowds come out to see him. He preaches that people need to repent before God, and that being of the right lineage is not enough to avoid God’s judgement-

“I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (3:8-9)

Quite naturally, the crowd respond “What shall we do then?” John’s answer is revealing:

“The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same. Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do? “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” (3:11-14)

This is an answer that has social action right at the heart of it. Repentance is not just about saying sorry, but it is about turning one’s life around, away from the sinful behaviour. In this case, John’s listeners should turn towards God’s justice, making sure there is enough food and clothing to go around instead of storing it all up. This matches what some of the OT prophets, particularly Amos were saying. (In Amos’ time Israel was busy keeping all the religious festivals but ignoring the plight of the poor – Amos rebuked them for it). I wonder what John would make of the so-called ‘Christian’ West storing up treasures, food, clothing, wealth for themselves whilst there are so many in poverty worldwide.

Chapter 4- And Jesus has been through the temptations in the wilderness, and he goes back to his home town. He goes into the synagogue, opens the scriptures (at Isaiah 61:1-2), and reads:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (4:18-20)

This is a quite astounding statment about who Jesus is. He is saying about himself that he is the anointed leader (Note that both the word’Christ’ and ‘Messiah’ mean ‘Anointed One’) that God has sent to do extraordinary things. Firstly, to preach good news to the poor. Why to the poor? Well, it is good news for everyone but it was the poor that would feel it the most. They are the ones who were most likely to recognise that they needed help/a saviour in order to be right with God. Their life circumstances are more likely to be dramatically changed as they find purpose, identity, and community in the people of God. The gospel turns human structures upside down, and restores all people to dignity, so that there is “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28). Jesus spent most of his time with people on the edge of society who were shunned by the rest; they gained great dignity from that.

He also claims freedom for the prisoners and to release to oppressed. There were some then and now who have been literally released from oppression by the power of the Holy Spirit, whether physical oppression or the oppression of addictions. Prisoners who have discovered God’s love for them find that, even though their outward circumstances might not change, their are truly free and find a new lease of life within their spiritual freedom. But everyone gets to be released from the oppression that is slavery to power of sin, which captivates all of us (read Romans 5-8 in this light)

People who beleive in God are ‘happier’.

Some interesting thoughts from the university of Warwick, cited in this article on the BBC:

Religion ‘linked to happy life’

Belief may make us more contented

A belief in God could lead to a more contented life, research suggests. Religious people are better able to cope with shocks such as losing a job or divorce, claims the study presented to a Royal Economic Society conference.

Data from thousands of Europeans revealed higher levels of “life satisfaction” in believers.

However, researcher Professor Andrew Clark said other aspects of a religious upbringing unrelated to belief may influence future happiness.

What we found was that religious people were experiencing current day rewards, rather than storing them up for the future Professor Andrew Clark Paris School of Economics

This is not the first study to draw links between religion and happiness, with a belief among many psychologists that some factor in either belief, or its observance, offering benefits.

Professor Clark, from the Paris School of Economics, and co-author Dr Orsolya Lelkes from the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, used information from household surveys to analyse the attitudes of Christians – both Catholic and Protestant – not only to their own happiness, but also to issues such as unemployment.

Their findings, they said, suggested that religion could offer a “buffer” which protected from life’s disappointments.

Professor Clark said: “We originally started the research to work out why some European countries had more generous unemployment benefits than others, but our analysis suggested that religious people suffered less psychological harm from unemployment than the non-religious.

“They had higher levels of life satisfaction”.

Purpose of life

Even though churchgoers were unsurprisingly more likely to oppose divorce, they were both less psychologically affected by marital separation when it did happen, he said.

“What we found was that religious people were experiencing current day rewards, rather than storing them up for the future.”

However, he said that the nature of the surveys used meant that undetected factors, perhaps in the lifestyle or upbringing of religious people, such as stable family life and relationships, could be the cause of this increased satisfaction.

The precise contribution of religion to mental health remains controversial, although there is other evidence that it does directly improve happiness, said Professor Leslie Francis, from the University of Warwick.

He said that the benefit might stem from the increased “purpose of life” felt by believers.

He said: “These findings are consistent with other studies which suggest that religion does have a positive effect, although there are other views which say that religion can lead to self-doubt, and failure, and thereby have a negative effect.

“The belief that religion damages people is still in the minds of many.”

‘Meaningless’

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, which represents the interests of atheists and agnostics, said that studies purporting to show a link between happiness and religion were “all meaningless”.

“Non-believers can’t just turn on a faith in order to be happy. If you find religious claims incredible, then you won’t believe them, whatever the supposed rewards in terms of personal fulfilment.

“Happiness is an elusive concept, anyway – I find listening to classical music blissful and watching football repulsive.

“Other people feel exactly the opposite. In the end, it comes down to the individual and, to an extent, their genetic predispositions.”

But Justin Thacker, head of Theology for the Evangelical Alliance, said that there should now be no doubt about the connection between religious belief and happiness.

“There is more than one reason for this – part of it will be the sense of community and the relationships fostered, but that doesn’t account for all of it.

“A large part of it is due to the meaning, purpose and value which believing in God gives you, whereas not believing in God can leave you without those things.”

What I find interesting is the paragraph about divorce, saying that churchgoers were ‘less psycologically affected when it did happen’. I presume this is from the sense of community and support from each other, as well as from trusting in God in the difficult times. By looking outside of oneself it seems churchgoers are more able to cope through the distress.

The poor in the gospel of Luke

The gospel of Luke is known as the gospel for the poor. I’ve been thinking for ages about going through it and seeing what it says about the poor, and now that I’m up to Luke in my daily devotional, now seems like a good time to do it.

The first chapter goes through the angels revealing God’s will, first to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and then to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Elizabeth was thought to be pregnant about six months before Mary. When the pregnant Mary met her cousin Elizabeth, the baby John jumped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb (1:41). Elizabeht blesses Mary and Mary responds with a song of praise to God (often called the Magnificat – 1:46-55).

In this magnificat, Mary declares:

“[God] has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty. ” (1:53-54)

In this context of Mary is singing this song to God, praising the things he has done in the past. Some of this is to lift up the humble – those who are aware that they needed God wer lifted up by his strength. The next verse, then, could refer to the physically hungry, who are fed and provided for by God, as well as the spiritually hungry – i.e. the humble that Mary sang about in the previous verse.

Chapter 2 of Luke has an incident when the shepherd are being addressed by the angels, telling them the location of the Christ child. They say:

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” (2:10)

The good news of Jesus’ coming would be not just for the religious authorities, but for the poor and outcast, those on the edge of society. The shepherds themselves were such people – hired for a small fee to live and sleep outside with the sheep on the hillside looking after the flock. Indeed these were the people that Jesus spent a lot of his time with, so it is entirely appropriate that the shepherds were among the first to hear of his birth. They too are invited to worship and see the child. It is good news for them.