Serving Bread

A few years ago, I sat in on an evangelism training program that included a mixture of discussions and videos to showcase this ministry’s methods of witness. I wasn’t too impressed by the training. I thought it focused too much on contact evangelism (which is necessary and valid) rather than relational witness. And it’s primary modus of operation is “as long as I tell the truth, it doesn’t matter what the hearer hears” (and most communication experts will tell you that the burden of communication is always on the communicator and not the hearer). But what has struck me most in the various video modules was the motivation by which the witness does witness. In nearly every scene, the witness communicates his faith and arguments through the lens of love.

It goes something like this, “I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but I love you. I don’t want you to go to hell because I love you.” And with that, the witness invites himself to share more to try to convince the hearer of the truths of God. I heard this line again recently and I’ve pondering what love has to do with witness if anything. Is love the primary motivator for witness? Can you love everyone, including strangers? And if I don’t love strangers in that way, does that mean I don’t have the heart of God?

Love is a powerful theme and emotion in scripture. Jesus summed up all the commandments into the phrase, “Love God and love neighbor.” Love is an incredibly important motivator that ought to influence and set the convictions for our faith. So I am convinced that those who follow Jesus should be people marked by a love for God and a love for neighbor. And when Jesus was challenged on defining what a neighbor is, he told the story known to us by the title of “the Good Samaritan.” It’s a powerful story of a man thought to be an enemy who goes beyond expectations to care for another.

What I take away from that teaching is a wider definition of neighbor to include people that we don’t necessarily see fitting in our community. In other words, I don’t see the Good Samaritan story as a call to love strangers, but more to expand our definition of neighbors and community–which is a central theme for the gospel writer Luke who writes this story.

Jesus certainly loved “strangers.” His ministry at Bethsaida with the feeding of the 5000 begins with his observation that the people were like sheep without a shepherd. And he was time and again convicted at the gut-level, extending compassion for the least. Jesus was certainly motivated by some sort of need and compassion for others, including strangers. But what stands out to me in Jesus’ ministry is not his motivation of love to tell people that they are going to hell, but a motivation for love to include people in the community and kingdom of God. Loving others is based on a desire for relationship not just truth-telling. And this is where I think the motivation to bring conviction to strangers and lead them to faith breaks down. If our primary motivation was to build community, love as a motivation has more integrity to both the communicator and the hearer.

The Apostle Paul certainly had his fair share of ‘contact’ evangelism in his ministry. But we never read that his motivation was because he loved others, but more because he saw himself as an apostle who declares the gospel. He interrupted people’s lives with his message primarily because he saw himself as one sent by God. And this I think is a more primary motivator for mission that through time increases our love for others. God sends us to people, communities, neighborhoods, cities, countries, etc… We minister because we are sent. We share the gospel because we see ourselves as ambassadors from God who is expanding his kingdom. When we see ourselves as God-sent people, our heart begins to expand more and more to the people that God sends us to.

My motivation for evangelism and witness (whether relational or contact) is not because I don’t want to see people end up in hell–though I do believe in the reality of eternal damnation for those who don’t place their trust in and allegiance in Jesus. My motivation is because I love God and God’s Kingdom and I want more and more people to experience God in their lives. So back to that quote from the video, I think it should have gone something like this, “I know you don’t know me, but I’m here praying for people and asking people whether they want to experience more of God in their lives.”

Having written all of this, I am careful to not extend judgment on how people do evangelism.I am struck by the humility and words of Paul in Philippians who writes of various methods of how the gospel is shared and finds that debate to be moot as long as Christ is proclaimed, and in that he rejoices (Philippians 1.18).