The Evangel before Evangelism

“Before there can be a mission, there has to be a message. Behind the sending of the church lies the Father’s sending of his Son and Spirit. Before we go, we must stop and hear—really hear—what has happened that we are to take to the world. The evangel comes before evangelism.”[1]

We often talk about mission, but we don’t talk much about the message. How much do we know about the wide and depth of the gospel? How long can we endure in the mission field if we don’t have a solid foundation in Scripture and theology? There is no guarantee that those who have thorough knowledge of Scripture and theology can endure and succeed in the field. But I can guarantee that none of us will survive without it. No matter where we are at, either at home or abroad, we are called to fulfill the Great Commission at a particular time and space. One of the ordained means to make disciples of all nations is through teaching: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.”

Those who teach must first become learners. Before they teach, they learn and study. In the early church, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). The early believers learned from the apostles who learned from Jesus while he was on earth. Jesus taught them. We must learn the message so that we can be effective in mission.

I think that it is very dangerous to mainly share the works of Christ in our lives in the mission field without systematically expounding the works of Christ to hearers. We don’t preach ourselves; we preach Christ crucified. What it means is that the story of Jesus precedes our stories. Our testimonies, which are real and yet only partially reflect the objective work of Christ, function as supporting materials to illustrate the wonderful grace of God in Christ through the Spirit in us. We are called to proclaim the gospel. “We need to hear the story, with Christ as the lead character. We need to have our character killed off again in this scene, raised with a new identity in Christ…We are transformed not by hearing more about ourselves and each other but by hearing more about God and his mighty acts of salvation throughout history.”[2] He is the beginning and the end (see Rev. 1:8, 17; 21:6; 22:13). We are only somewhere in between. He is the lead character in the Story. Somehow, we find our plots in this Story by grace through faith.

As Paul said, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ. If we don’t have a thorough understanding of the word of Christ, how can we preach the word of Christ? If we preach poorly due to our lack of understanding, we will lead people astray. We who want to serve must learn. Learning invites us to re-prioritize our life. Re-priority of life requires sacrifices. Those who want to do mission must take up their cross to really get to know the message: the spirituality of the evangel determines the quality of evangelism.

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[1] Michael Horton, The Gospel Commission: Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011), p. 21.

[2] Ibid., pp. 274-276.

The Gospel Commission

Michael Horton’s new book The Gospel Commission: Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011) is a very thorough exposition of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). If you want to know about the Great Commission in depth and what it practically means to the church, this is a must read. In one of the chapters, Horton deals with contextualization: “the attempt to situate particular beliefs and practices in their cultural environment.” (p. 115) In other words, in order to make the gospel relevant, we must understand our cultural contexts.  At one extreme, we totally ignore the context that we are in. Preaching the Word is what we care. We are passionate about the Word; however, we are not sensitive to the world. At the other extreme, we are so in tune with the world. As a result, we fail to offer an alternative. The prophetic nature of the Word is mute in the world.

An Excerpt:

Many evangelical seminaries today offer a panoply of elective courses on contextualized ministry (e.g., urban, youth, sports, sub-urban, emergent, African-American, Latino, men’s and women’s ministry). Obviously, something has to give—the seminary curriculum can only handle so many credit hours. Increasingly, at least from my conversations with friends, it seems that it is the core courses in biblical languages, systematic and historical theology, church history, and more traditional pastoral theology that are being pared down to make room. As a result, many American pastors, missionaries, and evangelists today may know more about their target market than they do about the “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism” that they share with the prophets and the apostles, the church fathers and reformers, or their brothers and sisters in China, Malawi, and Russia.

In the 1920s Princeton New Testament professor J. Gresham Machen was already issuing the complaint that the obsession with “applied Christianity” was so pervasive that soon there would be little Christianity left to apply. Are we seeing the effects even in evangelical and Reformed circles of a pragmatic interest in the methods of ministry that downplays interest in the actual message? Do our pastors coming out of three or four years of seminary education really know the Bible as pastor-scholars ready to proclaim, to teach, and to lead the sheep into the rich pastures of redemption? Or are they becoming specialists in pop culture and demographic marketing? Turning aspiring pastors into connoisseurs of their own consumer profile builds churches with a cultural hegemony (sameness) in spite of sometimes wild diversity in Christian doctrine, worship, and life. By contrast, the gospel creates spiritual unity rather than cultural uniformity. (p. 116)

What a critique!

Two by Two

Jesus calls the twelve so that they can be with Him in Mark 3. They stay with him without being sent out by Him until Mark 6: “And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two…” (6:7) Between choosing and sending, Jesus nurtures and prepares them before sending them out into the mission field. It is important to notice that Jesus sends them out two by two. Lone rangers are not welcome in Jesus’ plan.

In ministry, there has to be a person or a small group of friends who can keep us checked. A spiritual life needs to be nurtured by the spiritual life of others. Spiritual friendship functions as a visible agent of the invisible God in Christian journey. If a Christian does not have a visible agent in his/her Christian walk, he/she lacks of a means to grow to be like Him (cf. 1 John 3:2). People is always God’s Plan A.

In How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals about Personal Growth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), Henry Cloud and John Townsend note:

If you are going to help people grow, you must understand the necessity of relationship for growth. Often people in the church who are teaching others how to grow eliminate the role of the Body. In fact, sometimes these people teach that their students don’t need people at all, that Christ alone is sufficient or that his Word or prayer is enough. They actively and directly lead others to not depend on people at all. They think that is wrong.

But the Bible teaches that all these things are part of the process, including other people. So, as we talk about all the different aspects of how people grow, we want to emphasize loudly the role of the Body. Years of research and experience back up this biblical reality: You must have relationship to grow.

Independence from relationship is independence from God himself, for he is present in his Body; it is also independence from the way he designed for us to grow…If you are helping others grow and you become aware of an area of life in which a person needs something from God, think of other people as part of the solution. (pp. 121-122)

We need people to grow. In ministry, we need at least one companion to walk alongside us. It is Jesus’ design for all disciples to travel two by two. We are not independent; rather, we are interdependent.

Scrutinize the Obvious

In The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), Dallas Willard writes that it is God’s desire to invite all of us to participate in Himself. But such invitation is turned down by human overfamiliarity. He notes:

The major problem with the invitation now is precisely overfamiliarity. Familiarity breeds unfamiliarity—unsuspected unfamiliarity, and then contempt. People think they have heard the invitation. They think they have accepted it—or rejected it. But they have not. The difficulty today is to hear it at all. Genius, it is said, is the ability to scrutinize the obvious. Written everywhere, we may think, how could the invitation be subtle, or deep? It looks like the other graffiti and even shows up in the same places. But that is part of the divine conspiracy. (p. 11)

“Genius…is the ability to scrutinize the obvious.” I think this is an insightful statement. It is Willard’s observation over the years in the Christian industry. After being Christians for a few years, we know that we’ve learned just enough to say that Christian faith is very familiar. We may not be able to articulate our faith systematically. We may even admit that we don’t know much. But we rarely say, “I never heard of this sermon before. It’s entirely new to me.” We may say that some sermons are profound and deepen our faith. However, to a certain extent, they are familiar.

Christian growth is extremely difficult because it requires us to look beyond what is familiar. I believe that in the early years of Christian journey, our learning tends to be passive. In early stage of Christian faith, everything is new: the gospel is fresh; the Bible is interesting; most pastors and teachers are great; and we have a sense of expectancy in hearing and learning. Basic Christian faith can be grasped through regular services (e.g. Sunday worship, Sunday school, etc…) As long as we attend those services, we get something out of it. In terms of physical presence, we are active. In terms of intellectual learning, we are passive most of the time.

As time goes by, once we are familiar with the basic content of the Christian Faith, it is getting harder and harder to learn more new things about the Faith through this mode of learning. The more we attend, the more the Christian faith becomes familiar. However, just familiar! That is the problem. We are not going anywhere with our familiarity. In other words, we get stuck. We are stagnant.

The ability to “scrutinize the obvious” is not natural to us. We must put some efforts to develop this ability. To scrutinize requires a lot more attention and energy than seeing. To study, to analyze, to ask questions are parts of our scrutiny. We are familiar with Jesus. (Don’t be humble and say that we don’t know much about Him. We don’t know everything about Him. Maybe we don’t know Him. But we do know about him.) Why don’t we “scrutinize the obvious”? Why don’t we devote three to six months to study one Gospel (e.g. the Gospel of Mark) or one aspect of Jesus’ teachings (e.g. the miracles of Jesus)? We are familiar with Jesus in general, but most of us are not familiar with the Jesus in Mark’s gospel or in Matthew’s gospel. Both gospels are similar, but each offers a unique portrait of Jesus. What about incarnation? We are familiar with incarnation: God became flesh and dwelled among us. But what else do we know about incarnation? What are some implications of the doctrine of incarnation? Can we read two Christian books on this topic and “scrutinize the obvious”? 

We can’t just show up on Sunday worship or Sunday school and hope that we can deepen our faith by attending them. Yes, they do have their rightful place in Christian education, for a community of faith is a teaching and learning community. We need a community to sharpen one another. However, besides these corporate means, if we fail to “scrutinize the obvious” on our own, we just end up being familiar with our Faith for the rest of our lives. John Stott said that a Christian’s greatest responsibility is growth. Growth is an organic term. It is lively and ongoing. It never stops. A plant never stops growing. It stops; it withers. Breakthrough familiarity is our task on earth. “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Tim. 6:12a, ESV).

From my viewpoint, I think it is not so fair to blame our familiar stage of the Christian Faith on the church even though the church does have an educational role for our growth. It is our own problems more than the problems of the church (and others). I’ve noticed that people who tend to blame everything on the church do not usually fulfill their own greatest responsibility. It sounds like our stagnation has everything to do with the church. But the church is not in our control. Thus, there is nothing we can do about our growth. We feel better about our familiar faith with this kind of mentality. The view of the church as the scapegoat prevents us from seeing our conditions as they are and taking full ownership of our familiar stage of faith.

For sure, the church as a whole will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment in regard with her role and function on earth. But first and foremost, each redeemed individual will be rebuked or rewarded with no exception.

The Ministry of Absence

“And he [Jesus] said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.” (Mk. 6:31-32, ESV)

Jesus sends out the apostles (6:7-13), and they return with a report (6:30). After a glimpse of what ministry looks like, Jesus says to them to return to a desolate place where they can focus on the center and learn not to be seen and mentioned. The outer ministry is possible because of the spiritual formation of workers; the spiritual health of workers is sustained by the quiet center.

“For many were coming and going, they had no leisure even to eat.” It indicates the danger in ministry. We come to serve, not to be served. Serving is one of the characteristics of ministry. Without serving, we cease to be called servants. However, serving can easily lead to burn-out if we neglect the importance of the ministry of absence. Serving is the ministry of presence; retreat is the ministry of absence. “No leisure even to eat” implies that the outer needs of ministry are much greater and stronger than the inner capacity of workers. When the inner space is not in proportion to the outer demand, problems, such as pressure, stress, disorder, etc… start to sneak in. If we are unaware of the tension between them from time to time, we will be burn-out, rust-out, and die-out.

The ministry of presence has its danger because there is a temptation to be seen and needed all the time. The place of ministry can be an idol factory. “The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught” (6:30). We can feel the excitement of the apostles. Such an excitement can become the source of turning away from the Lord of the harvest. The ministry of presence is dangerous because we are living the life of omnipresence, which, however, only belongs to God. The fact that we are not omnipresent shows that we need to know our gifts and prioritize our time to serve according to our gifts. In some areas of ministry where we are not gifted, we can let others who are gifted in those areas to handle them. We exercise our gifts in the ministry of presence; we trust God who bestows gifts upon others to take care of His own business in the ministry of absence. The omnipresence of God is manifested through the body of Christ, not one or a few individuals in the body of Christ.

Jesus invites the apostles to retreat from the ministry of presence and learn to be content with the ministry of absence: get away and rest. Ministry is a tough business. It is supposed to be a means to promote the glory of God. Often time, it becomes the place for self-glorification. The ministry of absence is the clue to avoiding the snare of ministry. The ministry of absence confesses that Jesus is what people need, and He is irreplaceable in the church. The ministry of absence tells us a hard fact that things go on with or without us. The ministry of absence says that a healthy ministry does not depend on our presence, but the presence of the Spirit. The ministry of absence helps us understand our own limitations: we are the creatures; He is the Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, and Consummator.

Indeed, without the ministry of absence as the center of our ministerial core, we cannot serve the greater needs of the world. In the following narrative, it is about feeding the 5, 000 (6:35-44). In comparison with the apostles’ previous ministry experience, the feeding of the 5, 000 is more demanding. Jesus anticipates what is to come and cultivates the spiritual formation of the disciples in solitude and silence. The ministry of absence helps us stay healthy in ministry. It also creates more space in us so that we can cooperate with God for a larger purpose in God’s mission.

Jesus and Judas

“And Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him” (Mk. 3:19).

In the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee, Jesus chooses the twelve apostles and sets them apart for Himself as king and the kingdom work. They are chosen to share Jesus’ identity (to be with him) and mission (to preach and cast our demons). Among all the disciples, Judas is mentioned last on the list. He is identified as the betrayer. From a post-resurrection perspective, Mark explicitly lets readers know who Judas is: a chosen disciple and a faithless betrayer.

It is interesting to see that Mark (Matthew and Luke also) identifies Judas as the betrayer in the early narrative. Does it imply that Jesus does not really care who we are at the moment we are called as long as we will be formed and transformed into what He wants us to be? Does it mean that the choosing of Jesus has nothing to do with our perfection but everything to do with His boundless grace?

The primary purpose of choosing the twelve is to be with Jesus. The life of Jesus is the antidote to the lives of the twelve. The fact that Judas does betray Jesus at the end implies that Jesus Himself has no guarantee that He can spiritually form each disciple. I know that it sounds so not orthodox. But in any disciplining process, who can guarantee the end product, especially we are dealing with the life of people?

The choosing of the twelve is Jesus’ gracious invitation. It is gracious because no one deserves to be called. It is an invitation because we are too sinful to take the initiative to invite Jesus and see that Jesus is the Lord whom we want to follow wholeheartedly. By invitation only! We are invited to follow, repent, commit, re-commit… The calling of Judas is an invitation to repent. We don’t have to be perfect when we are called. We will never be perfect in the journey of being called. Jesus can accept our imperfection and bear with our iniquities. Nevertheless, He cannot tolerate with an unrepentant heart. God looks for a broken spirit and a contrite heart. God will not despise (Ps. 51:17); Jesus looks for the same condition among the disciples.

Once a betrayer; always a betrayer. Such a statement has no place in Jesus’ mindset, for there is always a new possibility in the kingdom of God. Judas, however, continues to live in the way in which he feels safe and comfortable. Judas stays with Jesus all the time but never allows Jesus to enter into his core being. Judas’ inner life has no Jesus—no Life. He comes to Jesus but never commits; he follows but never dedicates. From a spiritual standpoint, Judas stays where he is at. He is close to Jesus and yet far from Him. Because Judas is so close to Jesus, he succeeds to betray Him. However, he is too far from Jesus. He hangs himself after betraying Jesus. For me, his hanging indicates that he is too far from being redeemed. It is too late for Judas to repent.

In Singleness of Heart: Restoring the Divided Soul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), Clifford Williams notes:

The Christian heart is a strange paradox. Though it clings to God tenaciously, it forgets him and flees from him. Though it humbly receives God’s forgiveness, it feels that it does not need forgiveness. Sometimes it acts from motives that are alien to its God-commitment; sometimes it pretends, both to others and to itself, to be better than it knows itself to be.

On occasion it is acutely aware of these contradictions and struggles with them. More often, though, it has only a partial awareness or no awareness of them. (p. xi)

格外留神煩惱狗

某程度上，這種日本人的率性是基督徒缺少的。「煩惱之狗」成為我們不聞不問，避之側吉的課題。反過來說，因著基督徒的身分，我們對這種率性會特別格外留神。因為罪的原故，人的本性是敗壞的。所以，這種率性是為一種罪性，須要被規範和監管。基督徒有「這些東西」在住所是奇怪的，不正常的，不自然的，反創造的。但我們的本性夾雜「這些東西」是正常的，縱使我們在基督裡是新創造。在夾雜的「性」情中，嘗試讓基督在我們裏面的人（inner person）不斷創造和塑造。我們絕不否定「這些東西」的真實性及其破壞力。亦永不讓它支配我們。


(取自http://arnoldii.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/村上春樹的煩惱狗/）

村上春樹的煩惱狗

煩惱狗　19/10/2011　藍秀朗

【太陽】有個朋友是村上春樹書迷，看了他的散文集《村上朝日堂是如何鍛鍊的》，問我當中有篇文章的標題「抽屜裡的煩惱狗」是甚麼意思。

那篇散文提及到酒店職員按村上的要求，搬運一張較大的寫字桌到他房間讓他寫作。村上心血來潮拉開桌子的抽屜，發現內裡塞滿色情雜誌，他忍不住揭雜誌，心想：「竟敢出這樣的寫真，汪汪汪（狗吠聲）！」最終村上徹底分心，寫稿不成。

日本有句諺語，意譯是：「煩惱之狗，驅之不走。」意思是煩惱有如一隻有待餵飼的狗那麼纏人，不管怎麼驅趕，也擺脫不了這隻狗（意會煩惱）。當村上發現色情雜誌時，曾迫使自己撇下雜誌不理，執起筆桿工作，可是一下子擺脫不了引誘，那就是所謂的「煩惱狗」。有趣的是，村上直言不單是自己，即使換作森鷗外等日本近 代文學家發現抽屜中有色情雜誌，也同樣會喪失工作情緒，這是人之常情。

村上春樹是目前日本首屈一指的文學家，甚至被提名過諾貝爾文學獎，但他毫不忌諱地承認自己也受色情雜誌影響。

日本人比較率性，甚少假道學。以前聽一個日本女性朋友說：「我在男朋友的房間找到色情雜誌和AV，我更好奇地拿來看；男人的住所如果沒有這些東西，反而奇怪。」

日本人，是開放到這個程度的。

Jesus and the Four Men

“And they came, bringing to him [Jesus] a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘My son, your sins are forgiven.’” (Mk. 2:3-5, ESV)

Jesus sees their faith. The text doesn’t say the faith of the paralytic. The faith of the four men becomes the means for the paralytic to get healed. We don’t know whether the paralytic has faith or not. The text is silent about his spiritual condition. One of the key aspects of this story is their faith. In this context, Jesus responds to the communal faith. The small group of four presents this paralytic perfect in Christ (see Col. 1:28). The four unnamed men place the paralytic in front of Jesus so that he can get healed. Interestingly, rather than being healed physically, he first gets healed spiritually: “Your sins are forgiven.” Then Jesus says to him, “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” (2:11)

The first mention of faith (2:5) in Mark significantly links it with acting rather than with knowing or feeling. We know nothing of the beliefs of the four friends of the paralytic except that they take action, including circumventing crowds and removing roofs to ensure that their charge is brought to Jesus. Faith is first and foremost not knowledge about Jesus but active trust that Jesus is sufficient for one’s deepest and most heartfelt needs.[1]

The four friends take action together. This is biblical fellowship. First of all, they don’t just believe and talk about their faith. They put it into action. Their faith is action-oriented. Second, they don’t merely act out their faith individually. They execute their faith together. Third, when they can’t get near Jesus because of the crowd, they don’t complain or give up. I believe that they discuss about the situation and come up with a solution so that they can accomplish the mission. Fourth, it is not easy to move the paralytic up to the roof and let down the paralytic on his bed. It is hard work. They work hard.

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[1] James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark. The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leicester: Apollos, 2002), p. 76. This is one of the best commentaries on Mark’s gospel.

Jesus' Look

“And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me’” (Mk. 10:21, ESV).

In comparison with the same story in Matthew 19:16-30 and Luke 18:18-30, we can only find the phrase “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” in Mark’s gospel. This is Mark’s unique portrait of Jesus. Before commanding the rich young man to go, sell, give, come, and follow, Jesus looks at him and loves him. This is the gospel: grace precedes laws.

The rich young man doesn’t have to first go, sell, give, come, and follow. Jesus will then love him. Rather, the love of Jesus is there before he makes any change. We don’t have to change first to make Jesus love us. Rather, He first loves us just as who we are and where we are at. And because of His love, we change accordingly. The love of Jesus always comes before the demands of Jesus. We can’t do this and that to make Him love us more. “God shows his love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8, ESV). The cross of Christ is equal to the love of Jesus. There is no further love beyond the cross.

The word for look at can mean “to look at intently,” “to examine,” or “to scrutinize.”[1] Jesus scrutinizes this man’s heart and knows his condition. He still loves him. The dark side of this man does not block the love of Jesus. The love of Jesus is on the side of sinner. But His love does not give us a permit to continue to do whatever we want. Rather, His love entails laws, instructions, and demands: go and sell, come and follow.

The look of Jesus indicates pastoral observation. The love of Jesus embraces the whole person with empathy and compassion. The demands of Jesus provide pastoral counseling and instructions for the man to fix the problem.

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[1] See James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark. The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leicester: Apollos, 2002), pp. 311-312.

Jesus' Powerlessness

Jesus explicitly foretells His suffering, death, and resurrection three times on the way to Jerusalem in the Synoptic Gospels (Mk. 8:31; 9:30-31; 10:32-34). As I read through Mark’s gospel, I notice that after Jesus’ own predictions of His divine future the second and third times, disciples miss Jesus’ saying and argue the opposite of that saying : Who is the greatest? What Jesus describes is to be handed over to power authorities; the disciples promote power among themselves. The issue of power and leadership seems to be very important among the disciples. Otherwise, the issue won’t occur repeatedly. Jesus is their master and leader. Among the disciples, who is the leader?

In Capernaum, Jesus asks them, “What were you discussing on the way?” (Mk. 9:33) The disciples are silent (9:34). Are they silent because they are ashamed of getting involved with the issue? Or no one wants to be the first to answer Jesus’ question? Everyone wants to be the first to get the credit in leading, but no one wants to be the first to get blamed or be questioned.

In the light of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, the disciples argue about leadership. What they need is discipleship, not leadership. What they need is to follow, not to lead. In order to be a leader, we must first follow Jesus. The disciples totally miss the concept of following. They are fascinated with position, authority, and dominion. They are good at following the way of the world. The Jesus’ way is far from their system. What Jesus presents to the disciples is a powerless victim. What the disciples are concerned about is to become a powerful victor. Jesus says, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). The disciples say, “I can hide my weakness in power.”

The first will be last of all and servant of all (9:35). Jesus then puts a child in their midst and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me” (9:36, ESV). A child is powerless. When Jesus puts this child in his arms, he embraces powerlessness. Being powerless is Jesus’ way—the opposite way of human nature. The Jesus we follow is powerless in the sense that his power—resurrection— is manifested through powerlessness: suffering and death.

In Christian living, when we learn to disarm power and embrace powerless, we are in tune with the visible Christ. More than that, we are in tune with the invisible Father in heaven. The Father who sends the Son is an act of forsaking the Son for us—the powerless. The Father is the forsaken God in sending the Son into the world. As Jurgen Moltmann notes:

The Father forsakes the Son ‘for us’—that is to say, in order to become the God and Father of the forsaken. The Father ‘delivers up’ the Son in order through him to become the Father of those who have been delivered up (Rom. 1:18ff.). The Son is given over to his death in order that he may become the brother and savior of the condemned and the cursed.

The Son suffers death in this forsakenness. The Father suffers the death of the Son. So the pain of the Father corresponds to the death of the Son. And when in this descent into hell the Son loses the Father, then in this judgment the Father also loses the Son.[1]

Both the suffering of the Son (being sent) and the suffering of losing the Son (the sending) involve with being powerless. On the way to Jerusalem, it is the path of disarming power. It is a great reversal of the theology of sending and being sent when the disciples fight for power on the way.

[1] Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. 81.

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Jesus' Plan

Jesus’ plan of evangelism is not the type of evangelism that we have in mind. The way we understand evangelism is that we share the good news of Jesus Christ and invite people to accept Jesus as their personal Savior and Lord. It’s certainly part of Jesus’ plan of evangelism. But it fails to present the full picture.

“And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast our demons” (Mk. 3:13-15, ESV).

After going up and inquiring of the Father, Jesus calls the Twelve. In Mark 1:16-20, we know that when Jesus calls Simon, Andrew, John, and James, they immediately respond to his calling and follow him. Jesus calls; disciples convert. Thus, when Jesus calls and appoints them as apostles, some sort of converted experience is involved. They don’t just believe. They follow. In the calling of the Twelve, the purposes of calling are as follows: to be with Him, to preach, and to cast out demons with His authority. (In the West, can we replace “casting out demons” with healing?) In priority, the primary purpose of Jesus’ calling is to be with Jesus. Jesus’ plan of evangelism is more than mere conversion. It is an invitation to enter into a deep relationship with Him. In other words, being with Jesus is the primary purpose of being called. Being precedes doing (preaching, casting out demons, etc…).

In the 20^th century, the evangelical church in particular focused on the task of evangelism. Billy Graham and his crusades brought new credibility to evangelism as well as drawing large numbers of men and women to faith in Jesus. Furthermore, new methods of outreach were developed with an emphasis on finding ways to make it easy for people to come to faith. Commitment to Jesus became a matter of affirming belief in a few core doctrines and asking Jesus into one’s life. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence of this simplification was that while many converts were produced, far fewer disciples were made…It can be argued that the unlinking of evangelism from spiritual formation in the 20^th century resulted in a church with little depth. In the 21^st century, new attention has been given to evangelism that contains a call to discipleship.[1]

The deepness of faith draws deeply from the deep well of Jesus. Christians are not called to believe Jesus. We are called to be with Him so that we know what it means to follow Him by doing what he asks us to. Jesus’ plan of evangelism always entails solid, lifelong discipleship. Ministry or mission is the fruit of this discipling relationship.

In my previous discipleship group, a small group of us studied the book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2010) by N. T. Wright. He notes:

Jesus’ call to follow him, to discover in the present time the habits of life which point forward to the coming kingdom and already, in a measure, share in its life, only makes sense when it is couched in the terms made famous by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Come and die.” Jesus didn’t say, as do some modern evangelists, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Nor did he say, “I accept you as you are, so you can now happily do whatever comes naturally.” He said, “If you want to become my followers, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34). He spoke of losing one’s life in order to gain it, as opposed to clinging to it and so losing it. He spoke of this in direct relation to himself and his own forthcoming humiliation and death, followed by resurrection and exaltation. (p. 115)

Jesus’ plan of evangelism is about growing in number as well as caring for its spiritual maturity:  to believe Christ, to follow Christ, to grow in Christ, and to proclaim Christ.

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[1] Richard V. Peace, “Evangelism,” in Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Edited by Glen G. Scorgie (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), p. 435.