As discussed in earlier posts, I think that evangelism – proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God – is a key aspect of the Christian faith. It’s a vital part of the way we should live in this world, which is why Jesus pointed to it many times, trained and sent out disciples, focused the disciples on it in the beginning of Acts, and perhaps even why God has given us the book of Acts as the main picture of the early church.
Given the clear directive and the amount of effort put into evangelism, one would expect continual growth of the kingdom. However, this clearly isn’t happening, and it seems to many people that the world is getting spiritually darker every day. Whatever tactics are being used today to grow the kingdom, it’s clearly not working.
Trying to understand this led me to the letter to the Laodiceans in Revelations. In that letter, Jesus rebukes the church in Laodicea as being lukewarm, which in the context of the letter, likely meant that the church was ineffective and not fulfilling its purpose, just like both cool refreshing water and hot healing water became unpleasant, even useless, when piped from their sources to Laodicea, because the water was lukewarm.
One of the characteristics of the church that likely led to this state was reliance on themselves. This was reflected in the history of the town and seems to be one of the characteristics to which Jesus referred.
Based on these errors, Jesus gave them a set of metaphors that represented directions for change. It’s not unreasonable that the error of self-reliance could happen today, so the metaphors could also apply today. Pondering them regarding modern church activities seemed to suggest three (internal) challenges facing the church today with regards to evangelism.
The first is that we have become focussed on our own natural abilities for accomplishing the work. Jesus told the Laodicean church to get riches from Him, which in context often refers to wisdom and guidance. For us today, this might mean relying on something other than prepackaged tracts, memorized scripts of verses, canned testimonies, and so on, and rely more completely on the Lord. Obviously, prayer and being led by the Spirit need to be key components, just as it was for the early disciples (eg, Acts 4:23-31).
The second challenge is that we have become increasingly focused on individual’s behavior rather than their spiritual state, something that often shows up as legalism. Jesus told the Laodicean church to get white clothing from Him to cover their nakedness which, drawing on Biblical use of these metaphors, can illustrate the need to depend on His righteousness rather than human works. For us today, this might mean prioritizing evangelism above behavior correction when we consider people’s lives. In other words, we need to understand that offensive behaviors indicate spiritual sickness that needs to be addressed by the Great Physician, so our priority must be inviting them into His kingdom.
The third challenge is that of spiritual blindness or insensitivity. Jesus told the Laodicean church to get salve from Him for their eyes that they might see, a common Biblical metaphor for spiritual awareness. For us today, this might mean paying attention to the spiritual state of those around us in addition to their physical state – such as recognizing both the economically poor and rich as needing God and able to be reached by Him, and that people who are far from God are at the “ends of the Earth” spiritually even if they are right next to us.
The church today would look much different if it prioritized evangelism, relied on prayer and listening to the Spirit, sought to bring people to Christ before worrying about behavior, and saw people primarily by their relationship to God instead of to ourselves. It would look like the church in Acts and the early church that transformed the Roman empire.
Exploring Antioch 