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*This article was adapted from Dylan Kirkland, Starting Your Journey with Jesus: A 30-Day Devotional for New Christians.
Evangelism is a spiritual rhythm that every disciple of Jesus can and should practice, but many don’t know where to begin. What is evangelism, and how do we start practicing it?
The word evangelize comes from the same Greek root as the word for gospel; in other words, to evangelize is to “gospel-ize.” Simply put, it means sharing the good news about Jesus with the hope of persuading someone to put their faith in him as Savior and Lord, just like you have. While good deeds are crucial, evangelism involves articulating the gospel with words so that people can respond in faith. In the same way that someone else’s (or likely multiple people’s) evangelistic efforts were the vessel God used to help you understand and believe the gospel, he could use you to help someone else come to know him!
There are a lot of passages about evangelism, including several examples where Jesus or the apostles share the good news in the Gospels or Acts, but one of my favorite passages about evangelism is 2 Corinthians 5:11-20. From the very beginning, verse 11 explains our heart: because Jesus has changed our lives and we know the saving power of the cross, we want others to experience it as well. This desire for others to know Jesus doesn’t just sit in our minds; it leads us to try and persuade others to believe and respond to the gospel along with us.
“This desire for others to know Jesus doesn’t just sit in our minds; it leads us to try and persuade others to believe and respond to the gospel along with us.”
Paul says that the reason he shares the gospel is not to gain the approval of others (although the Christians in Corinth would still be proud of their brother in Christ being faithful to share the gospel). Instead, what motivates him (“compels,” even) to share the gospel is the love of Christ (5:14). He’s so convinced—and we should be as well—that Jesus died for the sins of the world that he cannot look at people the same anymore. The world looks at people’s outward appearance: Are they successful? Are they wealthy? Are they attractive? Are they intelligent? But disciples of Jesus follow God’s lead in looking at the heart: Are they a new creation, saved by the blood of Jesus and growing in him?
The remarkable thing about evangelism is that 2 Corinthians tells us that God’s mission of reconciling sinners to himself is something that he entrusts to us. Of course, our job is not dying for the sins of the world, but of telling people the good news that Jesus has already done it. What God has entrusted to us is not the saving, but the sharing. And what a privilege!
As a result, we’re ambassadors for Christ, and that metaphor means several things. First, it means we’re living in a foreign land. Our true citizenship is in heaven, and the fact that we as Christians are not at home in this world is normal. On the other hand, it means that we still interact with people around us who are far from God. While an ambassador in another country may not be completely like those around them, it doesn’t mean they disengage—they’d be failing at their job if they were a recluse.
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