The Institute of Evangelism

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Relational Evangelism

Spiritual Conversations in Unlikely Places

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As a priest, I have had several conversations about The Da Vinci Code. None have been as memorable as the one I enjoyed, not as a priest, but as a rock climber and a friend. On a winter evening in 2004, between runs up the wall at the climbing gym, one of the guys asked if I’d read the popular bestseller. I admitted I had not, and after asking for his impressions, promised that I would read it and get back to him. That simple question, and an honest reponse, initiated a spiritual conversation as thrilling as the climbing itself.

So it is with most spiritual conversations. We enter them unprepared, in the midst of other, seemingly irreligious activities. My most fruitful spiritual conversations have taken place in living rooms, coffee shops, ambulances and climbing gyms. They are the conversations I relish most as a priest, and yet they arise regularly in my personal, everyday relationships, the ones that all Christians share. It is through these spiritual conversations with everyday Christians in everyday situations that people reguarly come to faith in Christ.

If you are like most Christians, I imagine such spiritual questions have been asked of you by friends or family, and you have been equally unprepared. Why do you go to church? What is it like? What do you believe about this, or that? These conversations can provoke fear and anxiety for the average Christian. I belive this likely comes from an impression that we need to be Billy Graham, that a spiritual conversation only succeeds if it leads someone from spiritual nothingness to full-fledged discipleship. This is seldom true. Good spiritual conversations are seldom one-time encounters, but usually just another chapter in a long spiritual journey shared by two or more friends, in the venerable tradition of the Emmaus Road. 

In my case, I was unprepared to answer my friend’s questions, being unfamiliar with the book he had read and the challenges to Christianity that it posed. A knee-jerk reaction would have ended the conversation, but with my offer to read the book and respond, we entered into a spiritual conversation that lasted months and led us to much deeper questions.

The Gospels record the spiritual conversations Jesus had with people in the midst of everyday life, such as the woman at the well. His followers, like Philip, carried on the tradition, and we as his disciples today are called, in fact commanded, to keep sharing the story. 

Building a Musical Bridge

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My wife Marci and I were sitting at a table in a crowded restaurant in our city of Edmonton. It was a Sunday evening, and we were attending a regular Sunday night ‘open mike’ – an opportunity for local musicians to get up in front of a microphone, sing their three songs, and then sit down again and listen to the efforts of their fellow musicians. We had been attending this particular open mike for a couple of years, and had gotten to know quite a few of the musicians, including the host, a bubbly and gregarious aging hippy who, I had discovered, was also a recovering alcoholic. She had come to sit at our table while one of the musicians was playing, and we were chatting about another musician who was causing her some grief at the open stage. “What do you think I should do?” she asked. And then she surprised me; “I guess what I’m really asking”, she continued, “is, ‘What would Jesus do?’”

Reflecting on this conversation later on, I couldn’t help remembering how flabbergasted this woman had been when she had first discovered that I was a pastor. A friend and I were helping her set up the PA system one night, and my friend made some comment about me being a man of the cloth. “Cloth?” the host exclaimed; “What cloth is that – a tablecloth?” And then, as it gradually dawned on her that my friend was serious, I saw a look of absolute horror flash across her face. Her attempts to backpedal were so funny, I wished I’d had a camcorder with me.

I’ve been playing folk music all my life, but in the last three years, for the first time, I’ve stepped out of my Christian bubble into the live music community here in Edmonton. I started playing at a Monday night open stage run by Chris Wynters (of the Edmonton band ‘Captain Tractor’); from there I discovered other events, in pubs and coffee shops, and I began to make a whole new community of friends. I was not doing this out of any overt evangelizing agenda; I simply wanted to find a way to relax in the city, and music seemed like a good way to do it. But it has been interesting, as I’ve gotten to know people in the music community, to see how many opportunities I’ve had to be a witness, or simply a caring Christian presence.

A local songwriter hosts a monthly songwriter circle at his house; I’ve participated in it fairly regularly for a couple of years, and we’ve become good friends. He says he is an agnostic, but I often kid him that he seems to write a lot of songs about the God he’s not sure is there! Sometimes he asks me for my thoughts on lyrics he’s writing – usually when the lyrics have references to God in them. These conversations lead in some really interesting directions. Last year this friend agreed to participate in a fundraising concert for Habitat for Humanity which was held at our church. This was very good for our concert – it brought in a few people who wouldn’t have been there otherwise. But I think it was also good for my songwriting friend; he has a pretty low opinion of organized religion in general and clergy in particular, and I think his participation in the concert gave him an alternative view.

Another new friend and I have started playing gigs together; he is a very fine lead guitarist and has also helped me record some of my songs at his home studio. I asked him to help out this past December with a special musical number we were doing at our Nine Lessons and Carols service at St. Margaret’s Church; he and his girlfriend came to the service, and afterwards she commented on how much she enjoyed it and how she was hoping to be able to drop by on an ordinary Sunday sometime, when we weren’t doing a ‘special’ service. Last time my wife spoke to her, she had bought a daily devotional book and was finding real inspiration in reading it every day.

What’s the secret? I don’t think it’s especially complicated. I think you need to find something that you are really interested in doing, and then find some non-Christian people to do it with. And the objective, at the beginning, can’t be overtly evangelistic; people seem to sense instinctively when you are only there to convert them, and they don’t tend to respond well to that approach! I didn’t begin to attend open mikes to evangelize; I went because I wanted to play music. But, once I was there, I decided to be myself: not just a musician, but also a follower of Jesus. And because I’d earned the right to be heard – both in terms of being a credible musician, and also in being genuinely interested in other people’s lives and willing to listen to their stories – well, then the opportunities for witness gradually began to come my way.

One thing I have resisted is the temptation to sing ‘evangelistic’ songs. I’ve been at the open mics when others have done that, and I can almost feel the audience’s resistance rising. To me, the songs I sing are simply a bridge I build into the lives of the people who are listening. Afterwards, when we’ve become friends over a few months’ worth of coffees and hours of listening to music together, I can use that bridge to speak a word of witness at the right time.

I don’t think I’ve got it quite right yet; I can’t report any spectacular conversions, and I suspect that at times I’m still a bit too backward about speaking about my faith. But for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m really engaging in regular relational evangelism. And I’m excited to see what the Holy Spirit is going to do with it.

How to Invite a Friend to Church

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You’re thinking of inviting a friend to church? My first piece of advice: Don’t.

At least, don’t do it on an average Sunday. Unless, of course, your friend has said, “You know what? I would just love to see how an Anglican church operates on a typical Sunday when you’re not making special allowances for visitors. That would really be my idea of a good time.” That would be different.

In general, however, that is not the attitude of the Canadian non-church-going public. To the majority, the idea of going to church is not high on their checklist of goals to fulfill before they die. So there needs to be some reason why, if you were bold enough to invite them, they might be bold enough to say yes. What kind of reason might that be? Let me suggest two:

1. There is something special going on at church which they might be interested in:

• Carol Services are great for this. Everybody loves a carol service. The tunes are familiar—if only because we’ve been hearing them at Shopper’s since the day after Halloween.
• The Blessing of the Animals, liturgical challenge though it may be, is intriguing to someone who doesn’t normally come to church.
• In St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, Dean Kevin Martin does an annual service to thank workers in the food industry in the city. They come in their droves. They have never been thanked publicly like that—let alone by the church.
• A sermon series can be of interest to people. At the local street festival a year ago, my own church invited passers-by to write on a flip chart the questions they would most like to ask God, promising that the sermons in the following months would address those questions.

2. If our hope is that our friends will find something attractive about the expression of Christian faith they find at church—might there be other settings where they could experience that more easily than in the unfamiliar setting of a church service?

What about “half-way house” events, where the spiritually curious can encounter Christians and their spirituality outside the context of as Sunday service? Jenny Andison, in her helpful booklet, Doors into Faith: Inviting Friends the Join the Big Game (Wycliffe Booklet on Evangelism #4), has great suggestions. Here is a sampling of some possibilities churches have tried:

• What about forming a group of friends—Christians and others—who meet to watch movies with spiritual themes and discuss them?
• How about a nice dinner to which you invite a Christian speaker known in the community—an athlete, perhaps, or a local MP—to talk about their work and their faith?
• Many Canadians would like to make a difference to this country’s problems. I heard recently of a man who had first encountered followers of Jesus when he offered to help with the food bank at their church, and then gradually found his own way to faith.

Having said we need suitable events, of course, we want to be sure that if we take the risk of inviting someone, they will be well-received. To be honest, I’m simply not going to risk their feeling alienated and my being embarrassed unless the greeting system is warm, competent and genuine. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen, and the horror stories are legion. (I have written more about the art of welcoming in the Wycliffe Booklet #6, From Visitor to Disciple: Eight Ways Your Church Can Help.)

Let’s assume then that (a) there is a suitable event that our neighbour might actually be interested in and that (b) as far as we can tell, it will be a positive experience. What then?

Here are three practical things I find helpful myself:

• I like to have an official invitation card or flyer about the event to give. Apart from anything else, it saves me explaining every single detail, and provides a reminder after the conversation is over.
• I want to be fairly sure there really is a natural connection between my friend and the event. My neighbour’s 10-year old bought a goldfish bowl from us during the local garage sale in the summer. In September his mother told me he had now bought a goldfish to live in the bowl. So I said, “I wonder if he’d like it to bring it to church for St. Francis’ Day when we bless people’s pets?” “Wow, that sounds neat!” she replied. Without the goldfish connection, the invitation would have sounded a little forced. With the goldfish, it was the most natural thing in the world.
• I always try to give people an out—“Of course, I know that’s a busy time of year” is a fairly safe one—which makes it easy for them say no. I might even say, “Personally, I hate pushy religious people, so I’m a bit nervous to suggest this . . .” Usually that reassures people, because you’ve shown consideration for their feelings—and clearly you’re not pushy!

Will it still be scary? Probably. Hey, I’m a Professor of Evangelism, and I certainly find my heart beats a bit faster when I’m inviting someone to a church event. But fear is not the worst thing that could happen. Some of the most rewarding things we ever do were scary once. I find I am encouraged by that book title which says, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. It’s not bad advice.

(This article first appeared in The Anglican, newspaper of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, in February 2008.)

The Difficult Journey to Faith: How the Church can Provide Stepping Stones

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Moving toward Christian faith is seldom easy. There are intellectual, ethical and relational issues to be worked through, to name but three. Churches which seek to practice evangelism will try to offer help at every step for those who wish it. There are many such “stepping stones” churches can offer: classical music is one of them.

Coming to Christian faith is often a long and complex process involving many steps.

Take Dave, for instance. Though his parents never went to church, his grandmother had a reputation for being “religious” and told him stories of Jesus. At university, he had been intrigued to discover in a history of science course how many of the great scientists were also thoughtful and articulate Christians-Kepler, Newton, Boyle, and Maxwell, for example. When he got a job with an innovative high tech firm, he found that one of his colleagues was a person of quiet but firm Christian faith. They talked sometimes about the historic connection between science and faith, and Sam invited Dave to a lecture by a leading physicist on “Why I am a Christian.” Dave found it thought-provoking.

Dave and Sam hung out together sometimes on the weekends. Dave was impressed by Sam’s integrity and enjoyed his sense of humour. So after six months or so, when Sam invited him to a Sunday afternoon discussion group about the Bible for young singles who were figuring out their spirituality, Dave was interested to go. Then he checked out Sam’s church, to which some of the group also went, on a Sunday when they were doing a jazz mass, and, to his surprise, he liked it. A year later, he decided to be baptized.

Dave, as you may have guessed, is a composite of many people, but I have heard enough stories of this kind to know it is a pattern: a long-term friendship with someone who is genuine in their faith, plus a special event or two, plus plenty of time for reflection and asking questions, some experimentation with church, and then a thoughtful commitment.

This edition of good idea! looks at one place where churches often fail to help people who are taking that kind of step towards Christian faith: the special event. We often assume that if we make our churches friendly enough, and the liturgy contemporary enough, new people will flock in. Well, that may be true for some.

But there are many for whom a regular Sunday service is unlikely to be an accessible door through which they can move towards faith. For Dave, the lecture by the physicist was on a Thursday evening on a local university campus. The Bible study was on a Sunday afternoon, over a glass of wine in a young couple’s apartment. And his first Sunday service was a little out of the ordinary. Each event was a stepping stone on the way, and each was more user-friendly than a “regular” Sunday for a non-churchgoer like Dave.

There are many forms this kind of bridging event can take.

  • I know one family who every summer invite their neighbours to watch a thought-provoking current movie on a wide-screen TV in their back yard. Significant conversation about big issues of life and death always follows over hot chocolate.
  • Many churches in the past thirty years have invited hockey legend Paul Henderson to be an after-dinner speaker, to talk about his hockey, his life and his faith.
  • I recently heard of two clergy in England who have begun running regular discussions about spiritual issues in their local pub: the program is called “Pints of View.”
  • And Jenny Andison, in a recent Wycliffe Booklet on Evangelism, Doors into Faith: Inviting Friends to Join the Big Game, gives more examples to stimulate our creativity.

Future editions of good idea! may feature some of these events. This edition, however, examines two churches, one in Eastern Canada and one in the West, who have made classical music just such a stepping stone towards faith. As it happens, both have run their programs in the church and on a Sunday. But in neither case is it in the form of a regular Sunday service. St. John’s Shaughnessy, Vancouver, has experimented with performances of Bach Cantatas, which were originally composed to be performed in the context of a church service, with a sermon on the relevant texts. And Stone Church in Fredericton NB has offered evening concerts of sacred music entitled The Great Composers Tell a Great Story, highlighting the Christian narrative that underlies much classical music.

If evangelism is helping people take steps towards faith in Jesus, and if those steps can take several years, we need to be sensitised to how we can help. A lively and welcoming church is often a piece of the puzzle. A friendship with a Christian is usually a key part of the process. But between the friendship and the normal life of the church there is often a great gulf fixed. Probably the journey to faith will never be an easy one, but the church can at least remove some of the unnecessary difficulties. One way to do that is by creating the sort of stepping stones which special events provide along the way.

Evangelism as Dance

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This is available for sale in Audio CD format.
Purchase a copy for $15 Plus GST and $1 Shipping: Email sales@institute.wycliffecollege.ca to order

McLaren tells the story of his friend April, as she moved gradually towards Christian faith through an email conversation with him. Essential insights for evangelizing postmodern people.

Adam was a Gardener

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What do you think of garbage collectors? Or architects? Or farmers? Not whether they are nice or nasty (though that might be important): but what do you think of them theologically?

The reason I ask is this: I find that in seminaries we do not always place a high value on the career theology students followed before they began to train for ordination. In fact, we sometimes talk as if it is fairly irrelevant, even inferior, to what they are doing now, and what they are going to do.

I see three problems with this attitude.

1. People coming to Wycliffe have often had the most impressive careers, in teaching, engineering, the arts, home-making, the law-you name it. Whatever we have been doing during that time, God has been at work, shaping us, developing our gifts, chipping away at our character, preparing us for the next phase.

Thus there is a very direct line connecting our previous work and our future work. If you were a manager, doesn’t a priest need to know how to manage people? If you were an educator, isn’t education central to congregational leadership? If you started your own business, might God not have prepared you to plant a new church? And so on.

2. More significant is the fact that this attitude to “secular” careers will likely rub off on the way we lead parish ministry. Who will you think of as the most spiritually mature Christians in your congregation? For many clergy, it is those who spend most time in the four walls of the church, serving on committees, singing in the choir, maintaining the building. Isn’t that the best way to measure their commitment to Christ and his church?

Exhibit A: Don Page was a senior civil servant in Ottawa. During his twenty years or so in that job, he started the Public Service Christian Fellowship, which eventually sponsored around a hundred Bible study groups scattered throughout government buildings in Ottawa. Through those groups over the years, he told me, about a hundred people became Christians.

How much did Don Page do in his church? Very little. The elders (it was a Fellowship Baptist church) said, “Don, that is clearly your ministry. We will support you and pray for you, but we will not ask you to take on any internal jobs at the church.”

Exhibit B: When Don left, to become Vice-President of Trinity Western University, he asked his VP to take over the PSCF. The man replied, “Sorry, I can’t do that: I’ve got too many responsibilities in my church.”

One of the chief reasons the church exists, surely, is to equip its members so that they can go out in witness to the world. If you like, Christ is centrifugal, inviting us to follow him into the “secular” world where he is already at work. Often, however, we work against this by making church centripetal, drawing our most energetic members away from “the world” they are supposed to inhabit into the running of the church’s infrastructure. Those who don’t serve on committees or running pancake suppers or planning the annual bazaar are regarded as second class Christians. Is there not something wrong with this picture?

3. But we do not witness simply by starting Bible study groups and seeking to bring others to Christ, important though those are. We witness simply by living as God’s people in God’s world in God’s way. The Christian architect shows by her work that God is concerned for the beauty and usefulness of where people live. The Christian scientist demonstrates his love of God by his delight in the intricacies of God’s amazing world. The Christian accountant shows by her efficiency and love of people something of the character of God. The Christian garbage collector mirrors the love of Christ, who dealt (and continues to deal) with the garbage in our lives. And the “call” of God to such jobs should be just as clear and compelling as the “call” to an ordained job in the church. Both are part of the work of God.

Thus the good pastor will affirm her people in their “secular” jobs and teach about the value of those jobs in the work of God. I know one pastor who visited as many as possible of his church members in their place of work, so that he could appreciate the opportunities and the challenges of the context in which they spent so much of their lives. As a result, his preaching became far more connected, and he stopped acting as if church activities were the most important thing his members were involved in.

As Luther said, “Every shoemaker can be a priest of God.” And, after all, Adam was a gardener.

Originally published in Morning Star 

Process Evangelism and The Significance of Questions in The Gospel of John

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It has become commonplace in discourse about evangelism to say that evangelism is a process. That is, people come to Christian faith gradually, through a series of influences, and over a period of time which may take months or years. Jesus’ own frequent use of the imagery of sowing and reaping is sufficient testimony to the accuracy and usefulness of the concept of process evangelism. 

The idea of process evangelism has, in my estimation, been a useful corrective to the church’s practice of evangelism in several ways. It has forced us to reconsider the adequacy of once-off evangelistic events (also known as “drive-by evangelism”). It has returned the onus for evangelism back where it belongs: on the whole body of Christ, since any Christian can have a part to play in the process, not just the evangelistic preacher. And it has encouraged a fresh appreciation for consecutive evangelistic teaching, of the kind Paul practiced daily for two years in the Hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus: Alpha and its imitators exemplify the benefits of this approach.

If evangelism is a process, however, fresh questions arise. One is this: when may we say that someone has “become a Christian”? When they are baptized? When they pray “the sinner’s prayer”? When they make public profession of faith? Should we even be asking the question at all? When we thought that the move from darkness to light was like flipping a light switch, we knew which was which. If the move to darkness to light is more like a sunrise, however, we may know when it is really dark and when the sun has fully risen, but when we may say sunrise actually happens? And, of course, does it really matter as long as the sun does rise?

The Gospel of John has some helpful and provocative light to shed on this subject, not least in the role John gives to the asking of questions in the process of evangelism. Let me begin, however, somewhere other than John. How does one recognize when someone has become a disciple of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels? For these writers, it is often simply a matter of Jesus saying “Follow me!” and the person responding. This is how the calling of Simon and Andrew, James and John, and Levi is described. The rich ruler is also invited to “follow me” but refuses (Mark 10:21). Peter then points out that he and the others have “followed” Jesus, and they are affirmed for it (10:28). That seems to be the general pattern: a disciple is one who is called to follow and who responds by following.

For the Synoptics, the primary issue in not one of “Do you believe?” although that element is clearly present. (Indeed, following implies faith.) John’s Gospel, on the other hand, does not stress “following” as the key to discipleship with the same regularity as the Synoptics do. In fact, only Philip has the classic Synoptic experience of beginning his discipleship by hearing Jesus say, “Follow me!” and obeying (John 1:43). Even then, we only presume that Philip does so, because John does not explicitly say, “And he got up and followed” as the Synoptics might do.

So how does John understand the beginning of discipleship? John prefers to understand it in terms of belief. An indicator of this is that, while the Synoptics have a total of perhaps thirty references to belief and believing between them, John uses the term almost a hundred times. But what then does John mean by believing? My argument is that when John speaks of someone as “believing” he does not mean a sudden, once and for all, translation from darkness into light, as Paul might characterise it. For John, belief means rather that someone is engaged in a movement away from darkness and towards light. They are in what we might call an evangelistic process. “Believing” for John is simply an indication of direction. 

I will attempt to demonstrate that, in John, people often signal their movement towards discipleship by asking a question. More, these are normally questions which express uncertainty, doubt, and tentativeness. In John’s book, such questions mean that people should be considered disciples and not just “seekers” on the way to discipleship. I will offer five case studies to illustrate this contention.

1. The woman at the well, John 4

The woman in John 4 is a classic example of process evangelism in action. Jesus himself reflects that, at Sychar, “one sows and another reaps.” (37) Even within the chapter, a sequence of steps towards faith is visible. It is beautifully summed up by the 4th century commentator, Ephraem the Syrian:
First she caught sight of a thirsty man, then a Jew, then a Rabbi, afterwards a prophet, last of all the Messiah. She tried to get the better of the thirsty man, she showed dislike of the Jew, she heckled the Rabbi, she was swept off her feet by the prophet, and she adored the Christ.

So, at the end of Jesus’ conversation, when he finally reveals himself as the Messiah and the harvest in her soul is presumably ready for reaping, what happens? She says nothing to Jesus, but returns to the city to announce, “Come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. He can’t be the Messiah, can he?” (29)

Can such an indecisive question (introduced by meti) be considered a true confession of faith? The rest of the story clarifies John’s intention: “Many Samaritans . . . believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, He told me everything I have ever done” (39). The word testimony is marturion, the same word used earlier of John the Baptist’s witness to Christ (1:7). As in the case of the Baptist, the effect of the woman’s testimony is to point others to Christ. Her faith, it seems, is as real as that of John. 

If we have any doubt, it is resolved by the gratuitous detail John provides: the woman leaves her waterpot behind (28), presumably a clue that she has found the living water and no longer needs to carry water. Evidently, in John’s estimation, the woman has come to believe, and her question, though the tentative nature of the wording might imply doubt, is sufficient to indicate that.

2. “Many in the crowd”, John 7:31

A similar construction is found in chapter 7. The context is the controversy Jesus causes at the Feast of Booths. His teaching prompts a number of questions: “Is this not the man they are trying to kill?” (25) “Can it be that the authorities really known that this is the Messiah?” (26) “Where does this man intend to go?” (35) “What does he mean?” (36) “Has not the scripture said . . ?” (42) But the one most relevant for our purposes is in verse 31: “When the Messiah comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?” What makes this question different is that John signals its importance by introducing it with the crucial term “believe”: “Many in the crowd believed in him, and were saying . . .”

Again, this appears to be a tentative question (introduced once again by me). The speakers are still uncertain about Jesus’ identity: they cannot say more than that, on balance, it seems that Jesus is the best contender they have yet seen for the title of Messiah. This hardly seems like a clear-cut declaration or faith, compared particularly with Thomas’ definitive statement of faith: “My Lord and my God.” (20:28) Nevertheless, in John’s understanding of faith this response seems to be quite adequate, since he classifies it as believing.

I want now to return to an earlier example of this same phenomenon. At first sight, it might not strike the casual reader as anything out of the ordinary, but in light of these two clear indications that a tentative question can indicate true faith, I want to argue that it actually has great significance in John’s understanding of faith.

3. The call of the first disciples John 1:35-51

The first contact between Jesus and his inner circle, according to John, comes not with Jesus’ invitation to “follow me,” but with an exchange of questions. Jesus asks Andrew and (presumably) John, “What are you looking for?” They reply, “Where are you staying?” He says, “Come and see.” (1:38-39). The following day, Andrew finds Peter and says, “We have found the Messiah” (1:41). The first thing to note is that, like the woman in chapter 4, after asking his question, Andrew at once bears witness to what he has discovered about Jesus.

The next day, Jesus says to Philip, “Follow me!” (1:43), the classic Synoptic call to discipleship. Philip then finds Nathanael and says, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law . . . wrote”(45). This testimony is directly parallel to that borne the previous day by Andrew (“We have found the Messiah”). The parallel may be represented thus:

Andrew Philip
“Where are you staying?” “Follow me.”
Spends the day with Jesus. [Implied: Philip follows.]
Finds Simon. Finds Nathanael.
“We have found the Messiah.” “We have found him of whom Moses . . . wrote.”
Andrew brings Simon. Philip says “Come and see.” Nathanael does.
Jesus accepts Simon. Jesus accepts Nathanael.

John thus makes the exchange, “where are you staying/come and see”, and the response of Andrew and John, precisely equivalent to the command to “Follow me!” and Philip’s response, in spite of the fact that the former is far more casual, tentative and informal than the latter. And, in both cases (as with the woman in chapter 4), the genuineness of the discipleship is indicated by the willingness to testify to Jesus’ identity.

The fourth example is one which has puzzled commentators over the years. Does Nicodemus become a disciple, a believer, or not? From the few actual references to Nicodemus, the evidence is ambiguous. In light of this emerging pattern of significant questions, however, I believe the answer is clearer.

4. Nicodemus, chapter 3

Nicodemus is another person who asks questions: “How can a man be born again?” (3:4) and “How can these things be?” (3:9) Commentators often understand these questions as indicating Nicodemus’ lack of faith and understanding, and, indeed, there is no indication in the conversation that Nicodemus makes any move towards discipleship.

Nicodemus hardly appears again (except for 7:51-52—also a question, though not to Jesus) until after the crucifixion, when he collaborates with Joseph of Arimathea in caring for the body of Jesus (19:38-39). In that context, John explains that Joseph “was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one.” Though the same is not said explicitly of Nicodemus, the implication seems to be that he too is a secret disciple. Yet at what point between chapter 3 and chapter 19 did Nicodemus become a believer? If it is true that even tentative questions can indicate a sincere desire to “believe,” maybe Nicodemus’ questions in chapter 3 are actually intended by John to be indicative of a genuine moving towards faith.

5. The man born blind, John 9

Like the woman at the well, the man born blind (chapter 9) illustrates that there are stages of faith, stages in the process of moving from darkness towards the light of Christ. After his sight is restored and the man is first asked about the miracle, he can say no more than that “the man called Jesus” did it (11). Under questioning from the Pharisees, however, he goes further, and suggests that Jesus “is a prophet.” (17) Does this make him a disciple, then? Certainly he asks the Pharisees, “Do you also want to become his disciple?” which might imply, “I am already: what about you?” though it could logically refer to others who are already Jesus’ disciples.

The next step is that the man states: “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” (33) This echoes Nicodemus’ statement, “We know that you are a teacher come from God, for no-one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God” (3:2). For Nicodemus and the man born blind, such a statement seems to indicate that they are well on the way to discipleship. (After all, Jesus’ opponents are characterised by their not accepting that what he does is from God.)

In the case of the man born blind, unlike that of Nicodemus, the next step towards faith is recorded. Jesus seeks the man out. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” he asks. The man replies, “Who is he, sir? Tell me, so I may believe in him” (9:35-36). Here once again is the key tentative question, the one which indicates on the one hand how little the person knows, but on the other hand, and more importantly, their desire to believe. The man is perfectly willing to believe, if Jesus will only identify the object of his belief. Jesus identifies himself in similar language to that he uses with the Samaritan woman: “The one speaking with you is he” (37, cf. “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” 4:26), and the man responds more unambiguously than does the woman: “Lord, I believe.” John comments, “And he worshipped him”–the only occasion in John when someone is said to worship Jesus.

The man thus moves in the course of the chapter from referring to Jesus as a man to calling Jesus a prophet, to acknowledging him as Son of Man (whatever he understood by that), to worship. He seems to be moving in the direction of faith from at least the time of the miracle, and merely needs more information for his response to become fuller and more appropriate. There is a sense that the light dawns on him slowly, stage by stage, and that his pursuit of truth is rewarded with more truth.

Conclusion

The theme of light and darkness runs right through John’s Gospel, from chapter 1, where “the light shines in the darkness” (1:5) to Jesus’ final conversation with the disciples “just after daybreak” (21:4). A key to understanding the role of this light is in chapter 3, where John writes:

All who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light . . . But those who do what is true come to the light, that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. (3:20-21)

Since the Greek verbs are present indicative and thus linear rather than punctiliar, as the English implies, it might be helpful to translate this:

All whose way of life is to do evil habitually hate the light and do not move towards it . . . But those who habitually do what is true move towards the light.

This clarifies the sense of process which underlies the five stories discussed above. Those who respond to the light of Jesus are those who are already turned (or turning) towards the light of God which was present before they ever encountered Jesus, enlightening all people. (1:9) What they see in Jesus is the fullest expression of that light to which they were already responding in some way. Conversely, those who turn away from Jesus (although not the focus of this paper) are those who are bent on avoiding the light in whatever form it shows itself, and who therefore have particular hatred for the fullness of light they see in him. Hence Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees: “I have come into this world . . . that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” 

What does this feature of John’s Gospel mean for mission and evangelism? It certainly underscores the contemporary insistence that evangelism is a process. In John’s imagery, the process is one in which people move towards light and recognize Jesus as the fullness of God’s light. But I believe John’s use of tentative questions to signal a true disciple pushes us a step further. Recently I spent time with a young man who was asking questions about Christianity. At our first meeting, over coffee, his first question was, “If I become a Christian, will I have to give up my leftwing politics and become a conservative?” It took another six weeks or so before he “opened his life to God” (his words, not mine). Nevertheless, it seems to me in retrospect that that first question, though tentative, was in fact a clear indicator of someone moving towards the light. Should I have thought of him as a disciple from that moment on? It is difficult to say. Unlike Andrew and the woman at the well, he did not immediately go and talk to others about Jesus. Unlike the man born blind, he did not immediately worship Jesus. But then, neither Nicodemus nor the believing crowd did these things either. So had the sun actually risen or was this question just the first rays beginning to show above the horizon? In a sense, it hardly matters. What mattered was the direction in which Justin was moving. My job (before and after his “opening his life to God”) was to point him to the light I had received from Jesus, so that he could pursue it more closely if he chose. And he did.

I find that, if nothing else, this strand of John’s Gospel helps to sensitize me to the slightest movement towards the light of Christ in an unbeliever. Even a tentative question, full of uncertainty and doubt, even scepticism, may indicate a disciple in the making. It seems to me that this is the right posture for those of us who follow a teacher who is himself “gentle and humble in heart.” (Matthew 11:30) After all, he is also the Servant of the Lord, of whom it is said, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.” (Isaiah 43:3) Thanks be to God.

Sources

Beasley-Murray, George R. Word Biblical Commentary: John. Vancouver BC: Word Publishing 1987
Brow, Robert. “Go Make Learners”: A New Model for Discipleship in the Church. Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers 1981.
Lindars, Barnabas. New Century Bible Commentary: The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1982.
Morris, Leon. The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1971.
Newbigin, Lesslie The Light Has Come: An Exposition of the Fourth Gospel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1982.
Temple, William. Readings in John’s Gospel (First and Second Series). London: Macmillan and Co., 1945.
Anvil: an Anglican Evangelical Journal for Theology and Mission 19:4, 2002.

Notes:

  1. A superficial survey reveals that this is a theme for a wide range of writers including William J. Abraham, The Logic of Evangelism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1989), Becky Manley Pippert Out of the Saltshaker (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2nd edition, 1999), George G. Hunter, The Celtic Way of Evangelism (Nashville: Abingdon 1999), Richard V. Peace Conversion in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1999) and John P. Bowen, Evangelism for ‘Normal’ People (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress 2002).
  2. John also has Jesus say (twice) to Peter at the end of his Gospel, “Follow me” (21:19, 22), but this is obviously a call to continue in discipleship, not to begin it.
  3. E.G. Colossians 1:13. Of course, Paul’s own experience of conversion was just that kind of sudden darkness-to-light experience.
  4. Quoted by Beasley-Murray 66.
  5. Lindars says of the use of meti, “John means it to be an expression of cautious faith.” (193)
    “As Barrett points out, [testimony] is the task of a disciple. She joined with John the Baptist as a witness to Jesus before the disciples bore any witness to her people.”
  6. Beasley-Murray 64.
  7. Morris agrees: “The reason for their faith was not a profound one. . . . But throughout this Gospel it is better to believe on the basis of miracles than not to believe at all. So there is no condemnation of this faith as inadequate.” (415) Newbigin, however, is not convinced: “their belief rests on the great number of his miracles and not upon a true understanding of his person and his origin. A true understanding of one of his ‘signs’ would have been enough to lead them to the secret of his person and his origin and so to a true and life-giving faith.” (98) If the bar is set this high, however, who in the Gospels can be counted a believer?
  8. Newbigin draws attention to the fact that the verb “stay” or “remain” (meno) is the same as that which is the theme of chapter 15: “abide in me.” (19-20) This reinforces the suggestion that when Andrew and John “stay” with Jesus for the day, they have become disciples.
  9. Raymond Brown, for example, suggests that, after this conversation, Nicodemus “fades back into the darkness whence he came.” (Quoted by Newbigin.) Newbigin himself is somewhat positive: “’How can this be?’ might be a mere expression of bewilderment, or it might be (and the ensuing discourse suggests this) the serious question of a man who wants to know what has to happen in order to make this new birth possible.” (40)
  10. Lindars remarks that they make “an obvious pair . . . both are public men and both are secret disciples.” (592)
  11. Newbigin calls him someone who is “coming to the light.” (44) Morris’ comments are worth repeating: “We may, I think, fairly infer that he had a love for the truth, but that he was rather a timid soul. In the end he came right out for Jesus, and that at a time when the disciples forsook Him. Which is saying a lot for a timid man.” (210)
  12. Beasley-Murray says: “His eyes were opening wider!” (157) “The man has moved on from his first position. . . . He still has a long way to go, but he is moving towards the light.” Newbigin 122. The woman at the well also realised that Jesus was a prophet before she realised that he was the messiah. (4:19)
  13. Lindars says of Nicodemus’ final appearance in the Gospel that it shows him as “virtually a full believer.” (304)
  14. “[H]e trusts Jesus enough to put his trust where Jesus shall point him. Then Jesus points to Himself.” Temple 160.
  15. The use of the word lord, kurios, is significant, at least for John and his readers. Morris overstates the case when he says that “there is little reason for thinking that ‘Lord’ has less than the maximum content.” (495)
  16. Beasley-Murray also observes this sequence: the blind man “gains his first sight, and then increasing insight as he progresses from referring to ‘the man called Jesus’ . . . to declaring him to be a prophet . . . then one sent by God . . . and finally confessing him as Son of Man and kurios.” (161)
  17. cf. “In your light we see light.” Psalm 36:9
  18. It seems appropriate for Newbigin’s commentary to be called, The Light Has Come.
  19. “Just as plants are light-loving, and instinctively turn towards the light, so believers love and turn towards the light of God. . . . Since Jesus is the light made flesh . . .all light-lovers will love him.” Brow, 78-79.
  20. It would be a subject for further conversation to consider in what sense the woman at the well, say, was already turning towards the light of God. Some would argue that she makes at least one attempt to avoid the light. (verse 4:16-20)

A Beer and a Chat about Life

by .

The path by which people with no church background find their way to Christian faith is particularly varied. Normally, however, it seems to involve a partnership of divine and human agencies.

Looking back, I can see how God has been calling me for a very long time. Although I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, my best friend’s family were Christians and I used to attend Sunday School at their church for three years as a child. I enjoyed going, but whenever they talked about “asking Jesus into your heart” I would become nervous.

After high school, I went off to university and lived as many do, seeking happiness as my ultimate goal and living selfishly. I thought money, girlfriends, travel, and a good career would fulfill all of my desires. However, I couldn’t deny that in my heart all was not well. There were broken relationships in my life and I was a pretty unhappy young man, desperately seeking direction and the answers to life.

In my mid 20’s, I began work in the restaurant business and became friends with a Christian. After work, we would occasionally have a beer and chat about life. Inevitably, we would talk about religion and the human condition. Those discussions took place over about three years. Though I did not know it at the time, through this time my roommate’s mother, who was a Christian, was praying every day for me to come to faith, though she had never met me.

One day, I was having lunch with my friend and I was asking him about Jesus. This time, he looked at me and said that while he had always been glad to answer my questions, it was now time for me to go to the Source and ask God in prayer if he really existed. I went home, and I remember praying to God, saying that I needed to know if he was real and that, if he was, I was prepared to surrender.

After about 3 months, one hot summer’s night after work, I went home and lay down on my bed with the window open. I didn’t plan on praying, but it seems that the Holy Spirit led me. I prayed to God, confessing my sins and asking for his forgiveness, asking Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Saviour, and giving myself to God. I remember weeping for a long time out of sadness for my past life, but also for the joy that was now deep inside me which nothing could take away. I was so thankful to God for what he had done that I told him I wanted to be his servant and to do whatever he wanted me to do.

I was baptized on Holy Saturday at St. John’s on my first Easter as a Christian. It was a very significant moment as I was able to make a statement to the community that I was part of Christ’s family. I was overwhelmed by God’s love for me when I was baptized and I remember being moved to tears. I also felt grateful that I was baptized on Holy Saturday evening as I felt that it had significance with regards to the spiritual reality that I had died with Christ and I will be raised with Him also. Afterwards, I had a party with friends to celebrate.

The next day I told my friend what had happened and he was overwhelmed with joy, and we prayed together. That Sunday I went to his church. I joined a small group for seekers and new Christians who wished to learn the basics of Christianity. It was in such Bible study groups that I realized how much I loved being involved in ministry.

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