Witnessing; DVP Methods vs HVP Methods; 1 Corinthians 2:3-5
1 Corinthians
chapters one and two deal with the underlying issue in the church at Corinth
which had to do with the fact that they were still thinking about life primarily
from the framework of their own cultural background as Greeks. Therefore Paul
is juxtaposing this conflict between the way man
thinks, human wisdom (what we call human viewpoint) vs. divine viewpoint. What
Paul is saying if you boil all of this down is that divine viewpoint is the
only way for the believer to look at life, and if you don’t understand divine
viewpoint and have the thinking in your soul transformed by the Word of God, so
that you think about life as God has defined it in His creation, then there
will always be problems; and that ultimately what we do is the result of what
we think.
Witnessing has
been seriously affected by our cultural concept of pragmatism. What works must
be right, therefore if you go out and have an evangelistic crusade and you have
20,000 people show up and 5,000 people walk the aisle, come down front and make
a profession of faith, then that must be the way to do it. In other word, it
works, it produces some level of visible result and therefore it must be the correct
methodology or a valid one. That is, rather than looking at the underlying
presupposition and the underlying theological assumptions that gave rise
historically to this whole concept of having people walk the aisle, come
forward, and making a profession of faith. That didn’t come out of any other
country, it is something that ism uniquely American, born and bred here, and
has its roots really in the pagan thinking of a Christian evangelist—that
sounds like an oxymoron, nevertheless it is true—by the name of Charles Finney
who was an evangelist in what was called the second grade awakening which took
place in the 1800s. He rejected the doctrine of the total depravity of man, the
substitutionary atonement, and was a post-Millennialist
and believed that somehow man on his own efforts after a moral reformation….he
equated spirituality with morality, therefore Finneyism gave birth to such deep and profound legalism in
the church that it is still with us today.
In fact, a lot of what people identify as Puritan legalism really isn’t
Puritan legalism, it is the legalism in this country that has its roots in the
second great awakening, not in the Puritans. If your starting point is that man
is not totally depraved, that man is basically good, and that man can reform
himself and be good and that the issue is not a substitutionary atonement but
simply following the example of Christ, then of course, man can improve
himself. And that is the root of legalism, and it dominated the thinking of
what was called the second great awakening.
The point is that
what you do is ultimately the result of what you think, and if you just get
involved in methodology because it appears to work, without looking at the
under girding theology, you are going to end up in some sort of problem
eventually. Human viewpoint is always grounded in arrogance because it believes
that man on his own apart from God can come to an understanding of truth. And
nothing is more arrogant than for the creature to think that he can outthink
the creator. So arrogance always results in some level of distortion and some
level of implosion and fragmentation. The whole concept of revivalism and
revival in this country came out of this country and came out of the second
great awakening, and it was all based on the idea that if you had the right
technique, the right methodology, did the right thing, then you could get the
people to convert to Christianity; because the problem wasn’t that they had an
evil heart, the problem wasn’t that man was basically a sinner in rebellion
against God, the problem was that he just wasn’t correctly motivated. So Finney
developed things like the walking-the-aisle invitation, and all kinds of
psychological manipulative techniques, in order to get people to convert to
Christianity. But the Christianity, the gospel, that
they were being converted to wasn’t a biblical gospel; it was a gospel of works
salvation and a gospel that was ultimately legalistic. So whether we are
talking about 1st century Corinth and the horrible consequences of
pagan philosophy from Aristotle and Plato on their thinking, or whether we are
talking about 21st century American and the impact of secular
philosophical concepts and what the Bible calls worldliness on our thinking, it
is pretty much the same thing and has resulted in the same problems, i.e. a
fragmented church, a church that has diluted biblical truth to the point that
it has very little impact on people’s lives. We have watered it down and mixed
it with so much human viewpoint that we no longer recognize pure, radical
divine viewpoint. Divine viewpoint is always based on the concept of grace, and
that just flies in the face of all of man’s legalistic efforts to somehow
improve upon God’s way of doing things.
Paul is
addressing this because he recognizes in Corinth that the root problem is that
as these people were saved, coming out of the pagan culture of Corinthians
Greece, that they were coming in to the church this philosophical baggage,
cultural baggage, cultural value systems, cultural way of thinking and approach
to live and problem-solving. While they were changing a few things
superficially in their lives there is really no change on the inside and they
are still thinking like they were before they were saved. Sooner or later under
the pressure of life that house of cards will collapse because what the
Scripture teaches is that if we don’t change the way we think and begin to
think biblically about life then ultimately we will come under a testing or a
certain amount of pressure and we are going to wonder where God is, and the
next thing is people are going to say well Christianity really doesn’t work,
and they throw it out. It is simply because they never understood the Word,
even though they may have doctrinal notebooks three inches thick. It never
really transformed the way they thought about life. Doctrine did not become a
way of life for them, whereas attendance at Bible class might have become a way
of life for them. Don’t confuse the two. Just because you are at Bible class
two or three times a week it doesn’t mean doctrine is a way of life for you.
What you do with the doctrine you learn the rest of the week is what determines
whether or not doctrine is your life or not.
Before Paul can
address the key issues, the real problems that are facing this congregation, he
has to address the underlying problem. The underlying issue is always how you
think. The end result of how you do what you do is your methodology. In
witnessing there is a certain amount of methodology. Methodology doesn’t just pop
up in a vacuum, it always has its roots in knowledge, what philosophers call
epistemology. What Paul focuses on here is the term “wisdom.” Wisdom is a key
word in 1 Corinthians chapter two. What Paul is showing here is how he
proclaimed the gospel and how he taught the Word in
Think about this.
You have a theory of personality. Any theory of personality is going to involve
a certain amount of thinking about thought, about thinking, about the entire process
of intellection, the entire process, therefore, of learning. If you have a
theory of personality that is predicated upon a Darwinian concept of reality,
from pure matter that somehow developed into a personality, then your concept
of how people think, how they learn, how they reason, is going to (if you are
logically consistent) be logically related to that ultimate view of reality. So you have moved from an ultimate view of reality to a view of
epistemology, how you think, how you learn. That is going to affect
certain things like education theory. You are going to develop entire theory of
education that is going to be based on how you understand human personality.
How you understand human personality is going to based
on how you understand the ultimate reality of the universe. So what we are
developing here is that if your ultimate view of reality is nothing more than a
mass of atoms and pure matter, then you are going to end up with an education
theory that is related to that. However, if your view of
ultimate reality is a supreme deity that is going to change your view of
personality. If your view of that supreme deity isn’t just some sort of
formless deity, some sort of vague concept of a god but is a Trinitarian God as
we have in the Scriptures, that has created man according to His image and in
His likeness, then that is going to change your view and affect your view of
human personality and the makeup of human personality. That personality is
immaterial and not material, and there is a soul, and that soul is created in
the image and likeness of God and therefore has value and significance because
it is in the image and likeness of God. Furthermore, as a believer you know
that there was something called a fall and that when Adam sinned it affected every
aspect of his person, including his soul, and that his mentality, his emotions,
his conscience were all affected by sin. So that there is now a warped image of
God, a distorted image of God, but nevertheless it still has value because a
human being was originally created in the image and likeness of God, and that God has solved that problem. But because you
have a theory that is radically different from the evolutionary theory of
personality it is going to change your view of learning, and how a person
learns, and why a person is supposed to learn. Because in a purely material
universe the only reason you ultimate have to learn, the ultimate reason you
have to develop any kind of skills in life, is for some sort of finite
self-improvement, ultimately a deterioration into pure materialism—that I’m
just here to get all the toys I can get, and like the bumper sticker says,
Whoever dies with the most money or most toys wins. And there is nothing beyond
that. But with a theory of personality derived from the Scriptures and an
understanding of the fall you understand that there is much more to life than
simply material gain, material possessions, or even success in this life. It
has to do with this impact on eternity and what we call the spiritual life
which is the development of that human spirit which we acquire at the instant
of salvation, and developing in our relationship to God who has communicated
Himself to us and informed us about the nature of reality.
So on the one
hand you have a view of intellection and learning that grows out of a pagan
system of evolution that is pure human viewpoint, and that is going to always
be contrasted to a biblical view of learning, divine viewpoint that is
hopefully developed by thinking through the implications of the biblical view
of the soul and biblical view of personality so you develop a biblical view of
teaching and learning. As a believer, if you have thought these things through,
your concept of education and the purpose of education is going to be different
from the concept of education from the person who operates on a purely human
viewpoint pagan concept of education. Therefore because your epistemology is
different, your methodology is going to be different, and how you educate people, and the view of education is going to also differ.
This is one of the things that Paul is getting at here. He is not going to come
to the Greeks emphasizing rhetoric, emphasizing oratorical skills, as they did.
That was the entertainment of their day. The emphasis was on the skill, not the
content. It didn’t matter what they were debating for as long as they did it
well. That had its impact in the church so they began to emphasize personality
and methodology, and they would look at Paul and say, well Paul wasn’t really
that good as a teacher. Cf. 2 Cor. 10:10. Apparently he didn’t have a dynamic
charismatic personality. This is one of the things people look for as they go
to church. They want a pastor who has a certain kind of personality, speaks a
certain way, has a certain type of style, and if they don’t have that they will
go on down and look for something else. As Paul prophesied in
1 Timothy, what is going to happen in the church age is that people will
eventually get to the point where they reject the content and would rather just
be entertained. Yet the Scriptures says that the
purpose for the communication gifts of the Spirit—teaching and evangelism,
which are operational today—was to teach. Romans 12:2 states it so clearly,
that the purpose is to renew the thinking, to renovate the thought, exchanging
the thinking that is cultural, the kind of thinking that comes out of the
surrounding environment for the kind of thinking that God reveals to us in His
Word. It means to reconstruct the entire framework of thinking on that principle,
which ultimately is a grace principle.
We have to
understand that, and that there are different ways of doing things, but God has
a way that is consistent with grace and that impacts evangelism and witnessing.
Witnessing is not a matter of developing certain techniques or skills. Paul’s
point in the first part of chapter two is that he is not approaching the gospel
ministry from the framework of human viewpoint techniques methodology or
wisdom.
Paul says in 2:1,
“I did not come with superiority of
speech or of wisdom,” and by those two words he is emphasizing the methodology
of the Greek culture. The emphasis in oratory was on excellence of speech, the
turn of a phrase, and wisdom in terms of philosophical wisdom. Remember he is
answering the three questions that he raised in
1 Corinthians 2:2 NASB
“For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him
crucified.” That is the key principle in evangelism, i.e. keep the issue on the
cross. People raise other questions, but don’t become distracted. Many of those
questions cannot be answered at that time and they won’t understand the answers
until they have the frame of reference from the Scriptures. Keep the issue on
the gospel.
1 Corinthians 2:3 NASB
“I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.” Even Paul at
times, when he is in the midst of an environment where there is a lot of
hostility such as he faced in
1 Corinthians 2:4 NASB
“and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” Paul is saying he made it a point
that he was not going to go to them and communicate to them using the forms and
the methodology that they were used to from orators and from teachers, because
that form becomes the issue rather than the content, and the issue is not human
technique of human skill, the issue is God the Holy Spirit. He is the sovereign
executor in evangelism.
1
Corinthians 2:5 NASB “so that your faith would not rest on the
wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” So in evangelism the issue is not us, not our skills, not our power or
ability, it is the power and ability of the gospel itself and the power of God
the Holy Spirit.
The doctrine of witnessing
1)
Every believer in
Jesus Christ is in full time Christian service from the moment of faith in
Christ. It is the responsibility of every believer to communicate the gospel to
anyone and everyone that they can.
2)
Full time
Christian service relates to our royal priesthood and our royal ambassadorship.
At salvation every believer immediately becomes a royal priest and a royal
ambassador.
3)
A priest is a
member of the human race who represents the human race, or some portion of it,
before God. In the church age every believer is a royal priest and represents
himself before God. It is God-directed. 1 Peter 2:5 NASB “you also,
as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ.” Revelation 1:6 NASB “and He has made us {to be} a kingdom,
priests to His God and Father—to Him {be} the glory and the dominion forever
and ever. Amen.” See also Revelation 5:10. There are three areas of Christian
service that relate to our priesthood.: a) to learn
Bible doctrine, because doctrine teaches how to function as a priest; b)
prayer. We have immediate access to God as believer-priests; c) giving, to
support the local church, to support missions. A
fourth area is described in 1 Peter 2:9. “…that you may proclaim the
excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”—proclaiming and explaining the gospel to
those you come in contact with.
4)
The second area
related to witnessing goes from priesthood to our royal ambassadorship.
Witnessing is a function of Christian service in relationship to being a royal
ambassador. a) An ambassador is a high-ranking minister of state or royalty
sent from one country to another country to represent his sovereign or his
country or his government. By analogy, we as believers are spiritual
aristocracy as members of the royal family of God, our citizenship is in
heaven, not on earth, and Christ is the king who has sent us into a foreign
country (the world) in order to communicate the message of how to become a
Christian and how to have citizenship in heaven; b) At salvation every believer
is a member of the royal family of God through the baptism of God the Holy
Spirit, and at that same instant he becomes a representative of the Lord Jesus
Christ on the earth. So ambassadorship stems from being in union with Christ;
c) Each church age believer is a member of the royal family of God representing
the King of kings and the Lord of lords during his life on the earth; d)
Ambassadorship emphasizes that every believer is in full time Christian
service; e) That will differ to some degree because of one’s spiritual gift,
but certain things apply to every ambassador and one of those is witnessing; f)
Christian service relate do our royal ambassadorship includes witnessing,
missionary operation, the use of our spiritual gifts, and it may involve
administration work in many areas of responsibility in Christian organisations
and groups; g) A nation’s ambassador does not support himself. Likewise, we as
ambassadors in Satan’s domain are supported by God’s logistical grace; h) The recall of an ambassador is tantamount to a declaration
of war. At the end of the church age all believers are going to be recalled to heaven, and that is virtually God’s declaration of war and
the outpouring of the wrath of God on the earth during the Tribulation. There
is a contrast between priests and ambassadors. The priest is invisible but an
ambassador is visible. As a priest the believer is involved in giving, but that
is invisible. As an ambassador the believer is more involved in witnessing and
that may be more visible. A priest emphasizes relationship with God, whereas
ambassadorship emphasizes relationship with men. The priesthood functions in
private whereas an ambassadorship functions in public. The priest is involved
in learning doctrine; the ambassador is going to be involved in relating
doctrine to people. The priest is focussing on his own spiritual advance and
spiritual growth whereas ambassadorship is going to focus on spiritual service.
5)
Witnessing, then,
is the operation of your responsibility as a royal ambassador; we are all
required to be involved in witnessing. How do we become an effective witness?
It begins by understanding some basic Scripture. For example, 2 Cor.
6)
The church age believer
has two areas of responsibility. The first area is the witness of the life. We
are to live a life that manifests the grace of God. Secondly, there is the witness
of words. This is the verbal witness of our life where we are communicating the
gospel. You can’t explain the gospel to anybody by simply living a good life, a
Christian life. Just because you have a non-verbal witness doesn’t means
anybody is going to understand that Christ is the only way of salvation.
7)
Always remember that
God the Holy Spirit is the sovereign executive of witnessing.
8)
Don’t get side
tracked by false issues. First of all, sin is not an issue in salvation. Christ
paid the penalty for all sins, the issue is Jesus Christ. Don’t be distracted
by trying to prove the Bible is the Word of God.
9)
Memorize five or
six key verses for salvation. E.g. Romans 3:23; 5:8; John
10)
Avoid
subjectivity. Don’t get involved in emotionalism, don’t try to get people to
trust Christ in the basis of guilt, on the basis of fear of eternal damnation;
focus on the biblical evidence that Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be and
that He died on the cross for our sins. Our own attitude should be that of Paul
in Romans 1:14-16, recognizing that we are under obligation to communicate the
gospel and that we should not be ashamed of the gospel.