Evangelism

Evangelism
RELATED TOPICS	Matthew 28:19
SERMONS, ESSAYS AND OPINIONS
CONTENTS

Evangelism is the process of spreading the good news about Jesus. All Christians are called to do this (see for example Matthew 28:19).

Etymology

The word is derived from the Koine Greek word evangelion, which means "good news".

Mandate

Passages such as Matthew 28:19-20 speak about the need for evangelism.

Means and Methods

The book of Acts describes the evangelism that took place in the early years of Christianity. How we are to evangelism is not specifically defined, although certain principles can be found. These principles include the believer being filled with the Holy Spirit and going out the world in love.

Quotes

• "If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country. I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy will reign without mitigation or end." — Daniel Webster

• “Awakenings resulted from revivals as the Church moved powerfully into the world in evangelism, social transformation, and mission…The two cannot be separated.” - Paul E. Pierson, Evangelical Dictionary of World missions

• "When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone" — J. Hudson Taylor

• “The only hope of missions lay in a revival of religion, wide-spread and deep-reaching.” - Arthur T. Pierson, The Crisis of Missions (1886)

• "And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives…and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." — Nate Saint

• "Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary." — C.T. Studd

• "Expect great things from God. Attempt great thing for God." — William Carey

• "God's part is to put forth power; our part is to put forth faith." — Andrew A. Bonar

• "I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done for China…I don't know who it was…It must have been a man…a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing…and God looked down…and saw Gladys Aylward…And God said - "Well, she's willing." — Gladys Aylward

• "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." — C.T. Studd

• "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." — Jim Elliot

• "Not called!" did you say? "Not heard the call," I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world. — William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

• "If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one GO there UNWARNED and UNPRAYED for." — Charles Spurgeon

• "Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell." — C.T. Studd

• "I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgments do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver." — Robert Murray M'Cheyne

• "Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned? — Leonard Ravenhill

• "A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story." — K.P. Yohannan

• "The hearers of the Word tend to look for it's interpretation by how the preachers of it translate it into their own lives." — Anon

Links

• Web Evangelism
• Evangelism links
• His-Net Evangelism links
• 9 minute video; "Interviews with Boston street evangelists"

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