The redefinition of marriage didn’t necessarily happen all at once, with the passing of a single law. Rather, the redefinition of marriage happened slowly, almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t an act of parliament, but a change in our society’s general beliefs about the meaning and purpose of marriage. As I’ve been helped to see by a couple of recent articles, a very significant, if gradual, redefinition of marriage has occurred through the separation of the concept of marriage from the concept of parenthood / procreation. In the Bible, and for many of our forebears, marriage and parenthood are seen as two sides of the same coin. In the modern mind, however, marriage and parenthood are two separate things: two distinct states or activities which may or may not be associated with one another, depending on our own personal preferences.

Marriage, in other words, is now ultimately about our own individual rights and self-satisfaction. And this affects, in a profound way, our attitude to children. Rather than welcoming children as children, we have an unsettling tendency to speak about them and to treat them as commodities which are designed to contribute something special to our own self-gratification. That phrase, “husband/wife, house, 2.5 kids, dog” was once a jocular dig at bland middle-class aspirations. Now the phrase has a chillingly ironic undercurrent. The “kids” belong in the same list as the house and the dog. Children are expendable commodities which, like the house and the dog, only have value if they are “wanted.” And, like the house and the dog, children are optional accessories—but of course they are accessories that we should all have a right to own if we so desire.

This might help us to understand our society’s relatively apathetic reaction to all these political pressures to redefine marriage. After all, if marriage is ultimately about fulfilling our own personal potential through a relationship with another person, then why not extend this right to anybody who wants it (including the right to own children)?

If this analysis is at least partly true, then we need to do more than join in campaigns to oppose the legal redefinition of marriage, don’t we? Join in the campaigns, of course; but we need to do more. We need to keep grasping and loving the biblical vision for human life, in which both singleness and marriage are not means for self-fulfilment, but opportunities to engage in loving service. We need to believe that marriage is not about self-gratification, but about living for the good of others, which always includes the desire for welcoming children (a desire which remains real even when tragically unfulfilled). We need to promote this view of marriage—by speaking it, by repenting, and by living it out, sacrificially.

But even more importantly, we need to keep remembering that a far more fundamental redefinition of marriage occurred long before the twentieth century. When the first man and woman rebelled against God, their own relationship—and that of their children forevermore—was turned upside down, disordered and subject to frustration. That’s why the answer—for all of us—is not ultimately going to come from the law, but from humbly listening to the forgiving and transforming gospel of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

‘Jesus … said unto them: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”‘ (Mark 10:14, King James Version)

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!” (Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (2nd ed.; London: BCA, 1998), p. 1.)

All Christians should be like that little old lady. Not, of course, that we should insist on cosmic turtles. But there’s something that Christians should insist on, constantly, in every situation, to ourselves, and to everyone we see. It’s God’s grace. All the way down.

We’re saved by grace. When we were weak, when we were sinners, when we were God’s enemies, God showed his love for us. Christ died for us. Jesus’ death cancelled and satisfied God’s wrath against our sin. That’s what grace is, at its heart. But grace isn’t just a doctrine that we need to understand in order to become a Christian. Neither is grace just something that we have to “get right” so we can move on to other things. God’s grace shown to us in the Lord Jesus Christ is fundamental to everything else in our lives. We continue to live by God’s grace, day by day.

When we sin, we return to God’s grace for forgiveness. When we’re weak, we cry out to God, and so display God’s grace to ourselves and to the world. When we overcome sin, when we’re strong, when we’re tempted to be proud, we return to this great truth: we can’t boast. It’s all by God’s grace.

When we want to insist that God should do something for us in life, when we decide that God has to bring about this or that life situation or career or relationship, we come back to grace. We remember that we’re actually God’s petulant little children who really have no idea what’s good for us. But God knows what’s best for us. And he loves us. And he’ll listen to us. And he’ll give us what we need to live for him and to become like his Son, which is the best gift he could possibly give. So we pray, confidently and humbly, by grace.

When we’re disappointed because our expectations haven’t been met, again we return to grace. Grace reminds us of two fundamental truths: God doesn’t owe us anything, and God is infinitely good. Grace lifts our expectations beyond our tiny worldly dreams and fills us with hope. Grace changes our character and makes us rejoice, even in suffering.

When we’re complacent in our Christian lives, we remember that God’s grace has made us, saved us, seated us with Christ, and given us good works to do. When wish we could grow in our character, our perseverance, our love, our godliness, we remember that it all begins and continues and ends with God’s grace. When we despair that we aren’t growing, or persevering: we return to God’s grace, for forgiveness and strength.

Any ministry that we are given is a gift from God. It’s not “our ministry”. It’s grace. Our evangelism is full of grace. We’re just saved sinners. We don’t preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, the source of God’s grace.

When our hearts start to become proud because we think we’ve got our doctrine of grace “sorted out”; when we start to think we’re better than other people who haven’t properly understood God’s grace, then we come back to grace. There’s no room for pride here. Knowing about grace is a gift, not an achievement. We also need to remind ourselves that we can’t ultimately grasp it anyway. How could we? You can’t grasp grace. It’s grace. Grace grasps hold of us.

And when we start to feel guilty because we’re not properly taking God’s grace to heart; when we are overwhelmed by the realisation that our lives aren’t truly reflecting God’s grace: God’s grace is big enough to cover that guilt too, to cancel it and forgive it.

It really is grace all the way down.

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsfolk and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. (Rom 16:7)¹

There’s something in this verse that often catches the eye of the modern reader: a woman, Junia,² is said to be “of note among the apostles.” This means that she was either a person of note to the apostles, or that she was herself “among the apostles.” Either way, the Bible seems to be saying that there was a woman who had a ministry role that was important in the early church. Surely then, as many argue, the example of Junia means that women today, too, can and should have significant ministry roles? At this point, our own experiences can play a big part, particularly our experiences of Christian ministry.

It’s quite common today for ministry to be understood individualistically. That is, we often think in terms of ‘the minister’ or ‘the pastor,’ i.e. individuals entrusted with the sole care for a church. If you read Romans 16:7 with this individualistic kind of ministry model in mind, you might conclude that the verse is an excellent proof-text to show that women should be allowed (indeed, encouraged) to be individuals entrusted with the main responsibility for a mixed congregation (otherwise, how could they ever be “of note?”). On the other hand, if you don’t like this conclusion, you might consider this verse as a troubling little blip in Paul’s otherwise quite excellent letter to the Romans, and you might spend a great deal of time and energy proving that the verse doesn’t mean that women can be individual ministers/pastors of mixed congregations.

But what if you don’t read the verse in light of this individualistic ministry model at all?

By God’s grace, I’ve experienced churches where ‘women ministers/pastors’ are part of team ministries. I’ve rejoiced in the godliness and perseverance of women ministers/pastors, and I’ve seen the fruit of their work, and benefitted from it immensely: in fact, I became a Christian through the work of a woman who was part of a team of evangelists. The women I’m speaking about haven’t had the job of formally teaching men in mixed adult congregations (as per passages like 1 Timothy 2:8-15); but they have had prominent and important ministries. Women, in other words, have been “of note among the ministers/pastors.” I think this is a good thing, and I think it’s worth promoting (and, I have to admit, at times I’ve failed to promote this ministry to the full extent it deserves).

This experience of mine makes me read Romans 16:7 in way that’s different to the kind of reading that comes from the ‘individualistic’ model of ministry. I notice different aspects of the verse, beyond the simple fact that there is a woman in it. One thing I notice is the striking emphasis on team ministry. Paul is commending two people, together. What’s more, he’s talking about a group of apostles. In fact, there seems to be an intimate ministry partnership between Andronicus, Junia and Paul himself: Andronicus and Junia are involved in Paul’s experience of ministry, suffering alongside him, in some kind of ‘imprisonment.’ Furthermore, when I look at Romans 16 as a whole, I see that it’s all about team ministry and ministry partnerships and fellow workers and suffering together. In fact, when I look back over Paul’s letter to the Romans, I see team ministry in all sorts of places. For example, even though Paul introduces himself as a singular ‘apostle’ (Romans 1:1), in Romans 1:5, he says that he is among a plural group ‘we,’ who have received ‘apostleship.’³ In Romans 10:15, Paul implies that he himself is among a plural group of people who are ‘sent’ (a word that is directly related to the word ‘apostle’) to preach the gospel.⁴

So coming back to Romans 16:7: what’s Paul’s actual point here? Paul wants his readers in Rome to remember and greet two people in particular who are very significant in relation to the apostolic team ministry.⁵ Of course, this doesn’t necessarily imply that Junia and Andronicus have exactly the same role as the apostle Paul. We don’t have to assume, for example, that either Andronicus or Junia had a special revelation from God or that they each received a personal ‘apostolic’ commissioning (Gal 1:10). Furthermore, we don’t have to assume that either Andronicus or Junia founded a church, or were leading a church, or that Junia (or Andronicus for that matter) was preaching to mixed congregations. In fact, we don’t really know what Andronicus and Junia did. We don’t know about their relationship, either: maybe they were married to each other, or maybe they weren’t. But that’s not the point. The point is that whatever they did was important, and was connected closely with Paul’s (very non-individualistic) ‘apostolic’ ministry.

So what is the significance of this verse for us? On the one hand, we shouldn’t claim too much for this verse, as if it is some kind of blanket approval for women to be the sole ministers in charge of congregations or to formally preach to mixed adult congregations. On the other hand, let’s not be defensive about this verse, either. It’s not just a problem to be explained away. Among other things, it affirms the significance and prominence of the ministry of a woman in the context of team ministry. Junia (along with Andronicus) is “of note among the apostles.” How, then, might we ensure that we ‘note’ (promote, recognise, etc.) the ministry of women in our own contexts?

flickr: adrigu

If you insist to a friend that the ‘real meaning of Christmas’ is the birth of Jesus Christ, there are two kinds of response you’re likely to get.

If your friend is a traditionalist, they’ll probably agree with you. They might bemoan with you the fact that Christmas is becoming so commercial, and long for the good old days when the centre of nativity scenes was Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus rather than elves and Santa Claus. In that case, the traditions surrounding Christmas might give you a great opportunity to speak about the stunning implications of God becoming human in the person of Jesus.

But it’s also possible that your friend will disagree with you. They might tell you, for example, that what we now call ‘Christmas’ was originally a pagan midwinter festival which was ‘Christianised’ by the medieval catholic church. Or they might reply that they prefer to think of Christmas as a time of celebration, family, generosity and peace, and they don’t particularly need the religious element. If this is your friend’s response, then your claim that Christ is the ‘real meaning of Christmas’ might just seem to them like an out-of-touch religious traditionalism from a bygone era. Should you keep insisting on it?

Well, you’ve got to admit that the Bible won’t back you up. There’s no commandment in the Bible, “Thou shalt celebrate the incarnation on December 25th.” Nor does the Bible tell us the date of Jesus’ birthday; some people have even cheekily pointed out that midwinter is the least likely time for Jesus to be born, because there were shepherds in the fields at night. Anyway, the Bible warns us against making a big deal about festivals and seasons. An unhealthy obsession with seasons is, in fact, a sign that we’ve moved away from Christ himself (e.g. Gal 4:9-10, Col 2:16-17).

It’s also a bit hypocritical to argue that the word ‘Christmas’ is derived from ‘Christ’. After all, the word ‘Easter’ is derived from the pagan fertility goddess Ēostre, but we don’t insist that the ‘real meaning of Easter’ is an idolatrous fertility cult.

It’s not very easy to argue from history, either. Christmas has meant different things to different people at different times in history. In 17th century Cromwellian England, for example, Christmas was generally regarded as an excuse for drunkenness, greed and sexual abandon. This was one of the reasons that the ‘godly’ parliament of the time tried to clamp down on Christmas! In fact, historians point out that the modern Anglo-American obsession with Christmas as the most celebrated holiday festival of the year probably owes more to the likes of Charles Dickens and Prince Albert than to a long-standing church tradition.

So if you ever feel that you have to argue that Christ is the ‘real meaning of Christmas’, you’ve already lost the argument. Why not, instead, concentrate on Christ himself? Invite your friend to consider why, from your point of view, the birth of Jesus Christ is stupendously amazing, and why Christians continue to take the time each year to celebrate it. Christ’s coming into the world actually changes things for the better. When we take an honest look at the world around us, we can see that Christmas isn’t actually a time of celebration, family, generosity and peace. Without Christ, these are just hollow ideals. In reality, Christmas without Christ is a time of drunken office parties, stress, family bickering and rampant consumerism. What better time of the year, then, to celebrate the coming of God into our world? Jesus’ birth tells us that God has not abandoned us to our crazy messed-up lives. God himself has come to us. Through Jesus’ life and death, God has brought forgiveness, a relationship with God himself, transformation of our relationships with one another, and the hope of everlasting life and peace.

After all, we don’t just want to win people for Christmas. We want to win them for Christ.

I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:22-23)

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

This verse doesn’t quite say what we expect it should, does it? When it urges us to avoid revenge, it’s not telling us to be like God at all. It doesn’t say, “Don’t avenge yourself, because God doesn’t avenge, and neither should you.” Rather, it says (to paraphrase), “Because God is a wrathful, avenging God, don’t try to do God’s job.” In other words, retributive justice isn’t our responsibility. We should leave that up to God, who is powerful and just.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that you should always be silent about wrongs that have been done to you. It may be that God brings about his justice using the appropriate state authority, whom the Bible describes—just seven verses later—as “the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:4). So it might be right and proper for you to appeal to the state justice system, which (in whatever imperfect way) is part of God’s process of retributive justice. On the other hand, it’s possible that you will never see final justice done until the last day, when God judges the secrets of all people through Jesus Christ. On that day, you may even find that the person who did the wrong to you is found ‘in Christ.’ In that case, you will see that the God of perfect justice has taken the evil done to you so seriously and personally that he has taken it upon himself and dealt with it in the horror of the cross of Jesus Christ. In all of these scenarios, God’s justice wins.

“Never avenge yourselves… Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” This is a wonderfully liberating teaching, especially if you’ve suffered some great hurt from someone. It frees you from the burden of seeking to make everything right all by yourself. It gives you the space and the strength to get on with the tasks that are ahead of you, which can sometimes be long and drawn out and painful. You can acknowledge the hurt that was done to you and feel rightly angry without needing to strike back. You can pursue a process of emotional and spiritual healing for yourself, even if the other person is unrepentant, because you can rest assured that God sees and cares and will not let the guilty go unpunished. You can even seek to forgive, knowing that your forgiveness will always be muddled and mixed and imperfect, because God can sort it all out. God is just. Even God’s forgiveness, grounded in the cross, is always perfectly just because it takes sin perfectly seriously. Hold on to that, but don’t worry about the mechanics of how that will work in every case. That’s God’s job, not yours.

God is God. You aren’t. And sometimes, in your Christian life, you need to seek to be as unlike God as possible.

On my previous article about gospel speech, Craig made some comments and suggestions that I thought were so good they were worth a whole new post.

Craig was responding to my suggestion about gifted gospel speakers:

Secondly, treat them as role-models. Learn to imitiate specially gifted gospel speakers wherever you can.

Craig raised the issue that often the most encouraging gospel-speaking role models are the ‘lay’ people, not the full-time ministers:

As a layman, what encourages me in evangelism, more than anything else, is hearing about other laymen doing it. For example, a while ago I heard a mate at church describe how he was planning to witness to the bloke in the next cubicle. That did more to encourage me than 10 sermons on evangelism would have done.

But there’s a problem: we don’t always get many opportunities to hear stories like this or to be encouraged by particularly gifted ‘evangelists’ in the congregation. So Craig had a suggestion for what pastors could do about this:

My completely untested suggestion would be for you to find the 2 or 3 laypeople in your church who are naturally good at gospelling and give them many opportunities to share their stories, either from the the front or through the chuch newspaper, or whatever. Real people, really doing it.

The other thing I’d do is get those 2 or 3 people together into some kind of lay evangelists society, and make it a priority to meet up with that group every month, and coach and develop it. I reckon you’d see that group grow, and it would leaven the whole church.

This kind of structure is a great idea. As Craig suggested, we might have a very ‘flat’ model of evangelism, where we simply assume that everybody is an ‘evangelist’ and so we pitch all of our encouragement to the people who aren’t doing any evangelism at all. On the other hand, we might have a very ‘static’ model of evangelism, where we assume that some people are gifted evangelists and others simply aren’t gifted at evangelism and so there’s not much point encouraging people to do something they’re not very good at. Craig’s suggested structure, on the other hand, is a way of getting a more dynamic thing happening. The idea is that pastors identify people who are particularly gifted ‘evangelists’, encourage them personally, and ask them to encourage other people in the congregation who aren’t so gifted.

As I was reflecting on Craig’s ‘untested’ suggestion, I realised that I have actually had a go at testing something like this in the past. Unfortunately, my test failed. I reflected on the reasons why the idea didn’t get off the ground in my own case. Here are two hurdles that I encountered:

1. True evangelists are often the kind of people who are so busy speaking the gospel that they see structured meetings as an annoying distraction from the real task of personal evangelism. So they said they didn’t have time to meet.
2. True evangelists often can’t understand why other people find evangelism hard. They reckon the task is straightforward, and so everybody should just be ‘getting on with it’. So they didn’t see the point.

I didn’t really deal with these hurdles myself. But I reckon I could have done it better. Here are two things I think I should have done:

1. I should have spent more time showing the ‘evangelists’ why they are different from other people, and how they can use their special gifts for the good of the whole congregation. I was thinking about this kind of thing when I wrote Jedi Masters and the Body of Christ and compared specially gifted people to Star Wars Jedis:
   

   In other words, we needed the Jedis to become Yodas. Yoda was more than just a Jedi. He was a Jedi master. He knew that other people didn’t share his natural intuition. He reflected long and hard about his own innate Jedi skills. He was patient and kind. He shared his Jedi powers with Luke, in simple steps, so that Luke could understand and learn.

2. I should have spent more time personally with the evangelists. Instead, I delegated the task of organising the group to our ministry apprentice. The ministry apprentice in question was a godly, faithful, gifted evangelist himself, and he did a brilliant job. But what the evangelists really needed was some encouragement from a more ‘senior’ person, to make them realise how important this whole thing was. As Craig says:
   

   My leadership texts tell me that the most valuable thing I can give my subordinates at work is my time. Same is true for a pastor. As soon as you are in a position of authority, people will value your time. Investing your time in the lay evangelists group every month (fortnight?) sends a very powerful message.

Pastors and others, what do you reckon? Have you tried something like this? Is it worth it? Are there other hurdles you’ve encountered? Do you have any other ideas about how to overcome these hurdles?

“I can’t do what they’re doing.”

Maybe you’re convinced that gospel-speech is at the very core of what it means to be a Christian. Maybe you’re convinced that the world needs to hear the gospel. But you look around, and you see real live gospel speakers. You watch them closely, and listen to the way they talk. Then you look at yourself, your own speaking abilities, your own background, your own life situation. And you realise, with a mixture of bewilderment, disappointment, and maybe even a twinge of jealousy, that you’re not like those gospel speakers. You don’t have their gift. How could you ever do evangelism like they do it?

Oops, there’s that word again: ‘evangelism’; the word I said was going to avoid. Now that I’ve said it again, I might ask well ask you what images it conjures up in your head. Who do you think of as ‘evangelists’?

• The crazy street preacher on a soap box?
• The smart guy who’s memorised a gospel outline and knows how to use it in a variety of contexts, even backwards if required?
• The stadium speaker who preaches his heart out and gets thousands coming forward to know more?
• The Christian supermum who not only looks after her husband and 5 kids but also writes evangelistic books, speaks at evangelistic coffee and chocolate nights and updates her trendy yet tastefully decorated blog twice a day?
• The person who effortlessly strikes up conversations in supermarkets, bus queues and taxis, and invariably turns them into conversations which are all about Jesus but at the same time aren’t weird? (How do they do it?)
• The serial inviter? At every evangelistic coffee and chocolate night, she invites fifteen friends, and all of the friends come.
• The “full time” ministers?

Most of what we learn in life comes from following the example of others. Children copy their parents; younger kids look up to older kids; students are inspired by passionate teachers. It’s the same with speaking the gospel. In this area, like many areas in life, role-models are a gift from God (check out 1 Cor 11:1, Phil 3:17, 1 Thess 1:6, Heb 13:7). We need real-life flesh-and-blood examples of gospel-speech in operation. But if you focus too closely on these role-models, you end up with a problem. You think that you have to speak the gospel exactly like they do. And you’re afraid that if you can’t speak the gospel like they speak the gospel, you’re not a gospel-speaker at all. Sometimes, specially gifted gospel-speakers can make the problem worse. They can be so passionately committed to their own way of doing evangelism that they end up faithfully reproducing their own methods, instead of faithfully reproducing the gospel itself.

Given this problem, what should you do?

Firstly, keep remembering to rejoice in specially gifted gospel speakers. They are members of Christ’s body, and therefore they are united with us in faith and love. Don’t envy them. Acknowledge that they are God’s gifts to his people. Listen to them, encourage them, love them and support them. Express your fellowship in the gospel with them, both prayerfully and, if they need it, financially, so the gospel can go forward. If you think other people in the world need them, send them out!

Secondly, treat them as role-models. Learn to imitiate specially gifted gospel speakers wherever you can. They’re there to enable the whole body to grow and change and speak the gospel more and more (Eph 4:11-16). Remember that no matter what ‘body part’ you may be now, your role isn’t fixed for life. Just because you can’t do something today doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to. As I think back over the 25 years I’ve been a Christian, I realise how grateful I am to various gospel-speaking role models who pushed me beyond my comfort zone. Sometimes they did it simply by their own example; sometimes they explicitly urged me to try new things. Either way, they spurred me on to speak the gospel in ways that were unfamiliar, scary, and highly worthwhile. Growth can be painful. But at least when you’re growing, you know you’re alive.

Thirdly, and most importantly, keep focussing on and delighting in the gospel of Jesus Christ himself, not in particular gospel-speakers. Keep growing in your knowledge and love of the gospel. Don’t ever say that you’ve got the gospel sorted out; never claim that you understand everything there is to know about the gospel. You can never master God’s word. God is too powerful for that. Through his word and Spirit, God judges you, transforms you, changes you, and moulds you into his child. And he keeps doing it, every day. It’s living and active. That’s why is so important to keep soaking yourself in the Bible. ”Jesus is Lord” is the gospel. But it’s a very short sentence. The Bible is the extended version. The Bible will give you the breadth and depth of insight you need to understand how you might speak the gospel into your own particular situation.

Finally, learn to understand yourself in the light of the gospel. God speaks to each one of us where’s we’re at. We have different life circumstances, different webs of relationships, different personalities, different skills, different knowledge, different motivations. We love different things and we know different people. So everybody speaks the gospel differently. I’ve enjoyed reading Tony and Col’s book, the Trellis and the Vine, because it makes this precise point. All Christians are supposed to be speaking Christians. But there are an infinite number of different ways for Christians to speak (check out, for example, the various ideas on pages 54-55).

How many different ways can you think of for Christians to speak the gospel? Here are just a few ways I’ve been personally encouraged by great gospel speakers:

• There’s a bloke I know on disability benefits, who lives in a share home. His housemates know he’s a Christian, and give him flak for it. He writes letters to me regularly about his struggles and failures and joys in knowing and living for Jesus, and tells me he’s praying for me.
• Jean, once a month, gets together with a group of other school mums to pray for families at the school. Together, they use the opportunities that God gives them to build relationships that will lead to meaningful conversations about Jesus.
• There’s a retired gentleman I know, who sings songs in church very loudly and completely out of tune with obvious joy in his heart. It’s fantastic.
• There’s a student I know who gets barraged with questions and objections to the gospel by her coursemates. She tells them how Jesus makes a difference in her own life, answers their questions when she can, tries to find out more so she can be better equipped, and invites her coursemates and Christian friends to share meals and talk further about the issues.
• There’s a kid I know who was asked to do a school project on rainbows and wrote about God’s promise to Noah not to flood the world again.

“Are all Christians commanded to evangelise”? I hope I’ve convinced you by now on how many levels that question is wrong. The real question is this: what is the gospel? And the second question is: how can I speak it in my particular circumstances? This is a question that I hope you’ll spend a lifetime answering.

“I’m more comfortable speaking the gospel to insiders rather than outsiders.”

Maybe you think that you’re not the kind of person to speak the gospel to outsiders because you’re more comfortable speaking to insiders. But gospel-speech doesn’t work that way. The gospel, by its very nature, breaks through distinctions between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. And so does gospel speech.

This is a staggering truth. Even the great apostle Peter had problems grasping its implications. Peter, like Paul, was Jewish; that means he had the great privilege of growing up knowing God’s law. The law revealed God’s will to his people. The job of lawkeepers was to honour God by obeying him and to remain pure by avoiding evil influences. So they did what was right, and avoided the ‘sinners’ all around them, who threatened to corrupt them and move them away from pure devotion to God. Classic lawkeepers, therefore, made a big deal out of the distinction between ‘insiders’ (lawkeepers) and ‘outsiders’ (sinners). Peter had previously come to know and trust Jesus, and had stopped insisting on this distinction. But later, he reverted to his former way of life because he was afraid of other classic law-keepers:

For before certain men came from James, he [Peter] was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. (Galatians 2:12)

The probem with Peter’s behaviour wasn’t simply that it was cowardly, exclusivist, elitist, racist, or anything-in-particular-ist. The problem went much deeper. When Peter separated from outsiders so publically, he undermined the truth of the gospel itself (Gal 2:14). The gospel declares that everybody, whether insider or outsider, has the same problem and needs exactly the same solution. We’re all sinners, and we all need to be justified by God through trusting in Jesus. Whether we’re an insider or an outsider, whatever our history or status or reputation, makes no difference. When the gospel is spoken and believed, lawkeepers are shown to be sinners, and ‘sinners’ are given access to salvation through trusting Christ Jesus (Gal 2:15-17). At its core, the gospel says the same thing to the people sitting in your church as it does to the people walking down your street.

Of course, there will be differences about the way we speak the gospel to different people. When we speak the gospel to outsiders, it’s usually harder. It takes longer to speak with outsiders, because they don’t have our shared experiences which make communication easy and efficient. We have to try to avoid or explain jargon that only makes sense to insiders; we need to be more aware of the possibility of being misunderstood. More significantly, the risks of rejection are much higher when we speak the gospel to outsiders. They don’t necessarily agree with us, and they might be very upset. Speaking the gospel to outsiders isn’t necessarily going to be comfortable. But our comfort isn’t a factor, according to the Bible. In fact, the places where the Bible talks most explicitly about speaking up for Jesus are places where opposition is clearly in view (e.g. Phil 1:27-30; Col 4:2-6; 1 Pet 3:14-16). Speaking the gospel to outsiders is more important than our individual comfort levels.

The gospel is the great equaliser; it breaks down distinctions between insiders and outsiders. The gospel message is ultimately the same for everybody. If you can speak the gospel to insiders, you can speak the gospel to outsiders too.

This is the seventh post in a series about gospel speech. In the next post,
we’ll think about a final objection: “I can’t do what they’re doing.”

“I’m not the mouth in Christ’s body.”

Paul talks about the church as Christ’s body. The body is made up of many members (e.g. 1 Cor 12:12). All of these members are equally important, but they’re not all the same. Some people are feet, others are ears, others are eyes, and noses, and hands (1 Cor 12:15-26). We all do different things, but we all belong to each other. “So,” you might say, “I’m not a mouth. Speaking is not my thing. I have other, equally important, roles in Christ’s body.” That is, maybe you think that you’re not the kind of person to speak the gospel to others because you’re not that kind of body part.

But there’s a problem with this line of reasoning. When Paul talks about the church as Christ’s body, he never limits gospel-speech to individual body parts. In fact, Paul makes it crystal clear that gospel-speech is something that infuses the whole body.

Let’s look at how Paul begins his discussion of the body:

You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:2-3)

What the key thing Paul says about the work of God in individual Christians? God’s Spirit creates gospel-speech. The Spirit of God is the Spirit who makes us say, “Jesus is Lord”! That phrase, “Jesus is Lord”, is the heart of the message of salvation. It’s exactly the same phrase Paul used in Romans 10:9 (see my previous post, Saved by the mouth). A Christian is, in essence, somebody who speaks the right way. By contrast, the definition of idolatry is worshipping things that don’t speak (1 Cor 12:2).

So when Paul talks about the church as the body of Christ, he begins with gospel-speech. The body is is a great illustration of unity in diversity. But it’s important to understand what belongs on the ’unity’ side of this metaphor, and what belongs on the ‘diversity’ side. Gospel-speech isn’t just one of the body parts. At its core, gospel-speech is part of the ‘unity’ side. Gospel-speech is fundamental to the body.

When it comes to the body, you have to think about gospel-speech in the same way you think about love. ‘Love’ isn’t an optional extra for Christians. Love is a non-negotiable for everyone in the body (check out 1 Cor 13). Of course, we’ll all love each other in different ways, according to different needs and different circumstances. But it would be crazy, wouldn’t it, to divide up Christ’s body and assume you can identify people who have the job of being ‘loving’ and other people who don’t have the job of loving others. Love is something for everyone. The same is true of gospel-speech. Different people will speak the gospel in different ways. But gospel-speech is a non-negotiable factor for each individual in the body. There’s no such thing as ‘speaking’ and ‘non-speaking’ parts in Christ’s body. That why Paul goes on in 1 Cor 14 to urge all the Corinthians to work hard at the right kind of speech; speech that builds the body in love.

You find the same pattern in Ephesians 4:11-16, which another key passage about the church as the body of Christ. Paul begins by acknowledging that there are some people who have special speaking roles (Eph 4:11):

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, (Ephesians 4:11)

But speech is not limited to these special speakers. The purpose of these special speakers is to help the whole body to speak the truth. Whole-body gospel-speech is the ultimate vision for the church:

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16)

The ‘truth’ that builds the body is the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is a spoken message (cf. Eph 1:13, 4:21). When it comes to the body of Christ, gospel-speech isn’t restricted to any one body part. Gospel-speech and love are the basis and the means by which all the other parts of the body grow.

Gospel-speech (along with love) isn’t just one of the body parts. It’s really more like DNA. DNA is the basic molecular code that sits in the nucleus of every individual cell in our bodies. Different cells grow in different ways and make up different body parts. But they are united by same basic code: the DNA. In the same way, gospel-speech is part of the basic reality that informs all of our other actions and relationships in Christ’s body. Different members of Christ’s body will speak (and live out) the gospel in different ways. But gospel-speech permeates everything.

But hang on, you might say, this whole “speaking the truth in love” thing is about how I relate to insiders, isn’t it? What does it have to do with speaking to outsiders? In the next post, we’ll look at that very issue. Is there a difference between speaking the gospel to insiders and speaking the gospel to outsiders?

This is the sixth post in a series about gospel speech. In the next post, we’ll think about another objection: “I’m more comfortable speaking the gospel to insiders rather than
outsiders.”

“I can promote the gospel better by my good works.”

Maybe you think that you’re not the kind of person to speak the gospel to others because your particular role in gospel proclamation is to do good works.

Good works, of course, are something that all Christians are called to do. Doing good works is a responsibility, a privilege, a joy, a struggle, and a way of life (e.g. Ephesians 2:10, Titus 2:14, Hebrews 10:24). Good works are the fruit of the gospel, they accompany the gospel, and they adorn the gospel. This is true for every individual Christian person and every Christian group. The Bible never phrases the command “love your neighbour” as if it’s an optional role for a select group of specially gifted Christians. We all have different means and opportunities to do good works, but we’re all supposed to do good works.

Maybe you’ve discovered that you’re much better at doing good works than you are at speaking the gospel. And maybe you’ve also noticed how doing good works can be a great advertisement for God’s power to transform lives and communities. You’ve seen that when individual Christians or Christian groups devote themselves to performing good works, the world often sits up and takes notice. The world begins to see that it’s good to be one of God’s people, because God’s people are good people.

So why not, you may ask, let other people do the talking? Don’t your works contribute something important to the proclamation of the gospel all by themselves? People can learn by your good works that God’s people are good people; and then somebody else can come along later and fill in the key detail: it’s all because of Jesus. And then they’ll want to be one of God’s people too.

But that is the precise problem. Good works without gospel-speech do indeed send a message to the world, all by themselves. They tell the world that God’s people are good people. Unfortunately, however, that particular message is the precise opposite of the gospel.

In the previous post, we looked at the first half of Romans 10. We saw that there’s a huge difference between salvation by works of law and salvation by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’re not saved by ‘doing’ the works of the law. Instead, we’re saved by believing and speaking: believing in a specific person, Jesus, and confessing that he is the Lord, and calling on his name (Rom 10:9, 13). This is why gospel-speech is at the core of what it means to be a Christian.

But of course, this isn’t just true for you and me. It’s true for everyone. Paul is emphatic about this:

For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 10:11)

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

And that means: everyone needs to hear, explicitly, the name of the Lord:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:14-15)

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

I’m convinced that Paul is talking here about his own gentile mission.¹ Paul is a ‘preacher’ (see Rom 10:8) and a ‘sent one’ (this is what the word ‘apostle’ means, see Rom 1:1, 5; 11:13)—that’s why he talks about the need for ‘preachers’ who are ‘sent’.

Paul’s gospel shapes Paul’s mission. Since people are saved by responding to a message, they need to hear this message. Paul had been sent to preach this very message. That was his mission. Other people in Paul’s day believed that their mission was to promote God’s law (see Romans 2:17-24; 10:2-5). Since works are at the core of God’s law, doing good works was at the heart of promoting the law. Paul did, of course, believe that doing good works was incredibly important, for a wide variety of reasons (see e.g. Romans 12-13). But doing good works wasn’t his mission. Paul’s mission was to promote the gospel, not the law. That meant that speech, not works, was the essential, non-negotiable factor at the heart of gospel proclamation.

It’s true that Paul’s speaking role was special. Not everybody is Paul. Not everybody is an apostle. Not everybody is sent to preach, either. Different people speak the gospel in different ways (more of that later). On the other hand, the basic logic of Romans 10 is something we all need to hear, again and again. People aren’t saved by doing good works. People aren’t saved by seeing good works, either. People are saved by hearing and speaking a message: “Jesus is Lord”. If people were saved by doing good works, then your good works would be an excellent way to directly illustrate and promote what salvation is all about. But because people are saved by hearing and speaking a message, then the only way to proclaim what salvation is all about is by speaking the message.

Do you, like me, believe that good works are not an optional extra for our Christian lives? Do you, like me, believe that every individual Christian should do acts of loving service? Then do them. You don’t have to justify your loving actions by using the words ‘gospel proclamation’ or ‘mission’. Just love people, deeply and sacrificially.

But do you also, like me, feel the need for speech? Do you believe that you have been saved, not by doing good works, but by hearing and speaking a message: “Jesus is Lord”? Do you believe that others are also saved by hearing and speaking that message? Then keep going the way you started. Keep saying “Jesus is Lord”, to yourself and to others.

Do good. But don’t stop speaking the gospel.

This is the fifth post in a series about gospel speech. In the next post, we’ll think about another objection: “I’m not the mouth in Christ’s body.”

¹ If you need to be convinced further about the fact that Romans 10:14-18 is all about the gentile mission, check out the arguments in:

• N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes (NIB; ed. Leander E. Keck; 12 vols.; vol. 10; Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), p. 667.
• Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective (Rev. and expanded ed.; Grand Rapids / Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007), p. 331.
• See also John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (trans. John Owen; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, c. 1847), pp. 396, 404.