Don’t Forget the Great Commission!
Over at the Christian Vision Project, Ajith Fernando pens a great reminder that evangelicals must not become so focused on doing good works that they forget to proclaim the good news of salvation. Here’s a sample:
I hear evangelicals talking a lot about justice and kingdom values but not proclaiming the gospel to those of other faiths and winning them for Christ. Of course, if someone asks them about Christianity, they will explain the gospel. Thus, some people will be converted to Christ through their witness.
But that is a woefully inadequate strategy. Most of the billions of people in the world who do not know Christ will not come and ask us. We need to take the initiative to go to them.
Earlier evangelicals emphasized proclamation, while liberals emphasized presence—living out our Christianity before the people among whom we live. I fear that the old "presence versus proclamation" battle has come back to the church, or will shortly. Some evangelicals are going down that same road, though they claim to believe in proclamation evangelism.
This is why I am calling for a fresh commitment to proactive evangelism. We can’t wait for people to come to us—we must urgently go to them. We must look for ways to make contact with them and use all our creativity and determination to communicate the gospel.
For my money, the best book-length treatment of this topic is Ron Sider’s Good News and Good Works.
