Successful evangelism defined?

The whole purpose of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

This is true evangelism, when we present God for whom He is. If others see Him, we have been faithful to the so-called great commission.

Cheers,

Jim

 

If you do what He commanded you.

Yes.

Yes & no . . . the commandment is clear - make disciples . . . baptize them in the name of the Father. Wellllll, ya' shouldn't be baptizing someone that someone else led to the Lord very often.

Do we miss the point? All the time.

Can you get the point if you are not leading people to Jesus? I don't think so. We are to do what Jesus did - the work of the Father, which is leading people into the Kingdom.

I doubt, as did this seldom listened to prince of preachers, that you can glorify God without raising the dead.

Success? Letting God use me to raise the dead.

 

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God!!
2 Cor.5:11, 20

We are responsible to live a godly life as a witness to what God has done in our life, displaying the fruit of the Spirit.
Also, we clearly share the gospel as though God Himself was imploring them, through us, to be reconciled to Himself!
If we're faithful in this respect the rest is in God's Hands and dependent on His purpose.

 

I know of only one prophet that God EVER DID THAT TO.

If you know of a second prophet that God did that to, then be clear and give me his name.

Jonah fought and kicked all the way to Ninevah - and God brought in the harvest. The crops are white unto harvest, but the harvesters are few.

Pray for harvesters.

Sounds like a command to me.

 

I would rather use the words of a fool to lead a man to a saving knowledge of Christ (loosely borrowed from a divine) then to use the eloquence of a Shakespeare to lead a man to comfort on the highway to hell.

Comfort zone?

You and I - that is we - let some go to hell today. What will we do tomorrow? Argue about semantics and who is at fault?

Or listen to the words of God Himself as He commanded us through His divine, Ezekiel, to be watchmen and tell the world of their sin?

Guess which road I will follow?

 

The problem is that semantics are EXTREMELY important, becuase there is LIFE in every single word that was breathed by the Holy Spirit and given to us in the Bible.

Another problem is that people can't even agree on what salvation is and how one goes about being saved. So to say that we should drop all doctrinal discussions and go win people to Jesus . . . well some wouldn't even agree on how one goes about doing that.

It seems as though every denomination has its own set of terms and definitions, and sometimes churches vary within the denomination.

I have often struggled with defining success when it comes to evangelism and discipleship. And I'm not sure that we can no for certain how successful a ministry is until the day of judgment comes. And there's even a bit of pride in trying to determine.

I am not successful at all. I am a complete, utter, miserable failure 100% of the time. It is only when I successfully die to the failure that I am and allow the Spirit to work through me that success comes and it's not my success it is His. Granted He gives me credit out of His grace and mercy, but it is still His success.

 

Interesting example of evangelism noted this morning while reading in Numbers.
Numbers 10:29
Moses pleaded with his brother in law Hobab to go with them on their journey to the promised land. He was persistent, overiding his excuses and telling him he would share in all their promised blessings if he joined in with them on this journey!
Was this not an early demonstration of pleading with others to come go with us, that: "if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee." It doesnt say for sure if Hobab went along but they followed the ark of the covenant which went before them.

 

Evangelism is not the Christian life and the Christian life is not evangelism.

Non-Christians can tell about the good news of Jesus Christ. They can preach the gospel in churches week after week and not know Christ personally.

God's requirement is that the person be found faithful not just numbers. The Bible says to make disciples but it does not say how many.

 

True, but if one is truly regenerate they desperately want to bring more souls into the kingdom of God!

 

A couple of points:

God does not call us to be successful. He calls us to be faithful.

There's a difference between leading people to Christ and pointing them to Christ. To me, leading one to Christ implies a connection with the Roman Road and the sinner's prayer. In other words, the sales pitch and closing the sale.

Pointing one to Christ suggests to me the preaching of the gospel, which involves telling them the bad news as well as the good news--and leaving the results to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Or, to see it said better and more succinctly, read Jim1999's post #2.

The term "soul-winning" is misleading. It implies that we've done battle with Satan over the soul of a man or woman and beat him. Or that we've won the person over by the sheer brilliance of our persuasive talents.

"Witnessing" is a better term to use. Isn't that what Jesus described as our commission in Acts 1? He didn't say "you shall be my soul winners." He said, "you shall be my witnesses."

When it comes down to it, we ought to quite trying to gauge success in evangelism. Otherwise, it creates too much temptation to brag.

So see this said better and more succinctly, see Jim1999's post--#2

 

Well said!