Featured Successful Evangelism

All right, I'll wait until tomorrow before pontificating.

 

Thanks for the input. I'll give my view tomorrow. I believe it's a simple interpretation, a very basic metaphor if you will.

 

Even an "amateur" evangelist is gifted by God and ought to see someone saved. You really must get on your knees before God for hours or as long as it takes until He begins to use you to see souls saved.

 

All right, brother. May God richly bless your efforts.

 

Um, no, that is not at all what I said.

An evangelist is an individual, not a church. An evangelist is a man who God has especially equipped and gifted to fire up the church about winning the lost to Christ and to bring revival. Read The Evangelist, by John R. Rice, the best (and one of the only) books in print on the subject.

Have you ever actually studied the Bible teaching about the evangelist--Philip and Eph. 4--oh you who call yourself one?

There you go with the "elect" once again. That has nothing to do with the OP.

 

Okay, I've requested evangelist6589 three times to tell me what the fruit in John 15:8 is, and all I've gotten is "I'll get back to you on that." Really, folks, it's not that hard. Either you know it or you don't. If he had an answer--that is if he had studied and meditated on the passage at all--he would have had an answer right then.

Here's the verse again: "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples." The word "fruit" occurs four other times in the chapter with the same meaning, vv. 2, 4, 5, 15.

Don't make it hard. It's simply a metaphor, not even a parable (which is an extended metaphor). A metaphor has a single meaning, so the fruit of the believer has a single meaning. Here's how I explain it: What is the fruit of an apple tree? Apples. What is the fruit of a pear tree? Pears. So what is the fruit of a Christian who is a tree? Christians.

For confirmation of this simple interpretation, look at this key phrase in v. 16: "and that your fruit should remain." The fruit has to be something permanent. When you win a soul to Christ (producing another Christian) through the power of God, that is a permanent result--fruit that remains.

So, if you are abiding in Christ, and thus receiving His power through the Holy Spirit, you will see people saved through your witness and personal evangelism. It's as simple as that. If you are not seeing God save people through you in the power of the Holy Spirit, you need to learn how to abide in Christ.

 

I never commented on this, but I think it deserves comment. Even when we are evangelizing while filled with the Spirit, we will not see everyone saved. People resist the Spirit (Acts 7:51), grieve Him (Eph. 4:30) and otherwise refuse to come to Christ as God desires them to (Luke 7:30). So, you cannot win everyone to Christ. However, as John R. Rice used to say, "You can't win everyone to Christ, but you can always win someone."

To say well, we're not seeing anyone saved but that's okay, because God will save the elect when He is good and ready, is to deny the Scripture which says, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest" (Matt. 9:37-38). So according to Jesus, the problem is not with the harvest, which is plenteous--people wanting to be saved--but with the reapers, those who evangelize.

 

Excellent post and a real blessing. Thank you!

 

John R. Rice wrote about John 15:8 in his commentary on John, The Son of God:

"So, people may not know all about the doctrine of Holy Spirit power, but if one is really abundantly absorbed in Jesus and with all the concern Jesus has for sinners, and all the power Jesus has is given to us, that is just another way of saying Holy Spirit power" (p. 299).

"If you are not inviting people to Heaven you are not a servant of Christ. If you do not win souls you are not bearing fruit in the sense of this Scripture and the thing so dear to God" (ibid).