Evangelism in the Sunday school

Front matter

Resieses a

DEENG. his nineteen years of service as one of the official leaders in the Sunday school work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Dr.

Chappell has ‘sought unceasingly to awaken Sunday school ‘workers to an adequate realization of their evangelistic opportunity and_ responsibility and to make the Sunday schools of the Church really effective evangelistic agencies. To this end he has madea careful study of the whole problem of evangelism through the Sunday school and has taught courses in evangelism in many of the Standard Training Schools.

Dedication

TO MY DEAR FRIENDS AND LONG-TIME FELLOW WORKERS

DR. CHARLES D, BULLA

AND

Chapter I What Is Evangelism?

THE first requisite for the successful prosecution of any task is that the worker shall have a clear understanding of what he is seeking to accomplish. One is not likely to land at a given destination who simply starts out traveling without any definite idea as to the locality of the place to which he wishes to go or the way by which he is to reach it. And the Sunday school teacher is not likely to prove an effective evangelist who has hazy or erroneous notions as to what evangelism is. Let us, therefore, begin our studies by endeavoring to come to an understanding as to what we mean by evangelism.

I. ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE WorD ‘‘EVANGELISM’”’

No Greek equivalent of the word ‘‘evangelism”’ is found in the New Testament. Three kindred words are found, however, which it may be worth while for us to study. These kindred words are:

1. The noun evangelion, the original meaning of which was simply ‘‘good news.’’ In the New Testament it meant at first the good news that in the person of Jesus of Nazareth the long-expected Messiah had at last appeared and was about to establish his kingdom on the earth. Later it came to comprehend all that the Christ meant for the individual and for the world. The English word by which it is translated in the King

James Version is “‘gospel,’’ derived from two Anglo- Saxon words, one meaning ‘‘good”’ and the other “a story.”

2. The verb evangelizein, generally used asa deponent middle either with or without an object. Used in the former way it means to proclaim something as good news, as when Jesus says, ‘‘I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also’’ (Luke 4: 43), and when it is said of the early disciples at Jerusalem, ‘‘They ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ’’ (Acts 5: 42). Literally the former means ‘I must proclaim as good news the kingdom of God to other cities also,” and the latter ‘‘they ceased not to proclaim as good news Jesus as the Christ.”

Used without an object, the word simply means to proclaim the good news as interpreted in the preceding paragraph.

3. The noun evangelistes, which in our common English versions is not translated at all, but is simply brought over in Anglicized form. It means literally ‘fa bringer of good tidings.”” The word is used three times in the New Testament: In Acts 21: 8, where Philip is spoken of as ‘‘the evangelist’’; in Ephesians 4: 11, where evangelists are included among the recognized officials of the apostolic Church and are distinguished from apostles, prophets, and pastor-teachers; and in Second Timothy 4: 5, where St. Paul exhorts Timothy to ‘do the work of an evangelist.”’

Our information in regard to the mission of the New Testament evangelist is derived mainly from what we know about the work of Philip and of Timothy. The little that is told us about the work of Philip (see Acts 8: 5-40) reminds us rather strikingly of the work of the modern evangelist. Indeed, it is often assumed that he conducted a series of religious services in Samaria and perhaps in other places very closely resembling the ‘‘revival’’ meetings conducted by modern evangelists. The assumption, however, is only partially correct. Perhaps the main features of resemblance between the work of Philip and that of the man whom we speak of as an evangelist are that Philip had no fixed field of labor and that his primary aim was to win unbelievers to faith in Christ rather than to instruct and edify believers. It is quite clear, however, that the missions of both Philip and Timothy were primarily to those who had not heard the gospel before. In other words, they were missionaries rather than evangelists as we now understand the term.

It is evident from this study that the derivation of the word ‘‘evangelism”’ furnishes only a slight clue as to its significance in current usage. Literally it means the act of proclaiming the good news, and it is sometimes used in this sense, as, for instance, when we speak of evangelizing the world in a single generation. Such an expression cannot, of course, mean that we expect really to make the world Christian in a single generation. Indeed, we have never yet succeeded in making any single nation on the face of the earth more than partially Christian. All we can possibly intend, therefore, when we use the words “‘evangelism”’ and ‘“‘evangelize’’ in this way, is to call the Church seriously to undertake the task of immediately proclaiming the

sgl good news throughout all the world and of establishing Christianity as a vital working force in every nation. When, however, we speak of evangelism in the Sunday school, it is clear that we have in mind something much deeper and more far-reaching than merely telling people about Christ. Evangelism, in other words, as the term is here employed, implies very much more than the term itself, considered in the light of its derivation, would suggest.

II. THe MIssION OF THE CHURCH

Perhaps a better way of approach is to begin with a brief study of the mission of the Church and how it is to be accomplished.

1. The mission of the Church is to build up the kingdom of God until it shall attain final and complete triumph. ‘After this manner therefore pray ye: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.”” In these words our Lord reveals to us the ultimate purpose of his Church, and in praying this prayer we commit ourselves to his program and pledge ourselves to become coworkers with him in carrying it out.

2. The kingdom of God is a social order, a great brotherhood over which God is recognized as Father King and in which social relations are regulated by the law of love. But no program of social reconstruction can succeed that does not begin with the individual. A brotherhood must be composed of brotherly men. A society in which the will of God is done must be made up of people whose inner lives are in harmony with.God

t2 and who seek increasingly to understand what the will of God is. No social covenants or legal arrangements, either national or international, can secure peace, justice, and codperation so long as men are selfish and unbrotherly.

3. Hence, while the ultimate aim of the Church is the establishment of a world-wide Christian social order, its immediate and fundamental task is the making of Christlike men and women.

In our insistence upon the social aspect of the mission of Jesus we must not overlook the fact that it was also a mission to individuals. ‘‘I came,” he said, ‘‘that they may have life and may have it abundantly”’ (John 10: 10). A fine commentary on what the abundant life of which our Lord speaks is may be found in one of St. Paul’s great prayers:

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and heighth and and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3: 14-19.)

Another passage from the writings of the same apostle furnishes a striking picture of the way in which this inner spiritual life may be expected to express itself in social relations. Indeed, a fitting title for the paragraph would be “The Christian in His Social Relations.”

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another; in honor preferring one another; in diligence not slothful; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing steadfastly in prayer; communicating to the necessities of the saints; given to hospitality. Bless them that persecute you; bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Set not your mind on high things, but condescend to things that are lowly. Be not wise in your own conceits. Render to no man evil for evil. Take thought for things honorable in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men. Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God; for it is written, Vengeance belongeth to me; I will recompense, saith the Lord. But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom. 12: 9-21.)

A society composed of men and women possessing the qualities of life which these passages describe would speedily find ways of solving all the more serious of its perplexing social problems. To raise up such men and women, therefore, is the primary business of the Church. .

III]. MaTeRIAL Out of WuicH THE Kincpom Is To BE BUILT

The material out of which citizens of the kingdom are to be made is that which is found in our common human nature with its mingled assortment of capacities and limitations.

1. That man is endowed with moral and religious capacity there can be no question,

(1) So he is represented throughout the Bible. We are told that in the beginning he was created in the image of God, and this evidently refers not to his body, but to his real self, the self that thinks and loves and recognizes the supremacy of moral law. That this likeness, though marred, has not been destroyed by the fact of sin is witnessed by the oft-repeated moral and religious appeals which God makes to men in the Bible. For these appeals are without meaning except upon the assumption that there is something in man answering to the divine call to worship and to obedience to the moral law. Take, by way of illustration, the oftquoted invitation found in Revelation 22: 17: ‘‘The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Such words would be mere mockery if addressed to a being destitute of moral and spiritual capacity or of ability to respond to the gracious invitation.

(2) And this teaching of the Bible is confirmed by the whole course of human history. For the pages which record the story of man are not altogether black. On the contrary, gleams of light as if from heaven often irradiate them; for they tell of a ceaseless search for truth, for God, for spiritual emancipation, and of unnumbered deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice for love’s sake and for conscience’ sake. The Psalmist gives utterance to a yearning that is as old as the human heart when he says:

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God. 15

And Tennyson puts into words what millions of souls of all lands and ages have felt when he makes Sir Galahad sing:

I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here.

I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams,

Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odors haunt my dreams.

Such longings after God and such visions of spiritual beauty are perhaps far from being universal, but that they have been felt by multitudes of elect men and women in all lands and all ages there can be no question.

2. This, however, is only one side of the story. There is another side that is dark and sinister of aspect.

(1) The Bible opens with the majestic account of man’s creation in the likeness of God. But after this comes the story of his disobedience and fall, and then follows an endless record of selfishness and greed and lust and cruelty, of moral struggles ending in defeat and longings after moral triumph ending in disappointment. Perhaps the most striking picture of the inner aspect of this age-long conflict is found in St. Paul’s account of his own experience in Romans 7: 15—25a.

For the sake of vividness I use Weymouth’s translation:

For what I do, I do not recognize as my own action. What I desire to do is not what I do, but what I am averse to is what I do. But if I do that which I do not desire to do, I admit the excellence of the law, and now it is no longer I that do these things, but the sin which has its home within me does them. For I know that in me, that is, in my lower self, nothing good has its home; for while the will to do right is present with me, the power to carry it out is not. For what I do is not the good thing that I desire to do; but the evil thing that I desire not to do is what I constantly do. But if I do that which I desire not to do, it can no longer be said that it is I who do it, but the sin which has its home within me does it. I find therefore the law of my nature to be that when I desire to do what is right evil is lying in ambush for me. For in my inmost self all my sympathy is with the law of God; but I discover within me a different law at war with the law of my understanding, and leading me captive to the law which is everywhere at work in my body—the law of sin. (Unhappy man that I am! who will rescue me from this deathburdened body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!). .

(2) This pathetic description of the futile inner struggle of the great apostle is typical of universal human experience. The literature of the world is full of it— moral aspiration on the one side and on the other the humiliating sense of sin and failure. Tennyson makes cne of his characters cry out in passionate longing:

And O for a man to arise in me, That the man I am may cease to be!

And Whittier makes his sad confession in stanzas that find an echo in every earnest heart:

More than your schoolmen teach, within Myself, alas! I know, Too deep ye cannot paint the sin, Too small the merit show.

I bow my forehead in the dust, I veil mine eyes with shame, And urge, in trembling self-distrust, A prayer without a claim.

The Biblical explanation of all this is that man is the victim of an evil inheritance, and that, as a consequence, the tendency in every one of us to go astray is so strong that he finds himself constantly unable to do the good which he would and constantly practicing the evil which he would not.

IV. THe SECRET OF SPIRITUAL TRIUMPH

The Bible is at one with universal human experience in its teaching in regard to man’s evil inheritance and moral impotence. It is unique, however, in the fact that it offers a remedy and points out a way of escape. It will be observed that St. Paul’s account of his own ineffectual struggle quoted above ends with an exclamation of thanksgiving for deliverance. He had at length found the secret of victory over his lower self which he had hitherto sought in vain.

1. When we come to inquire what was the secret of this marvelous emancipation, we find that the apostle attributes it to the power of the indwelling Christ. ‘‘It is no longer I that live,’’ he declares, ‘but Christ liveth in me”’ (Gal. 2:20). To the Roman he writes, “If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10), and in his message to the Colossian Christians he uses the significant expression, ‘‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’’ (Col. 1: 27). The same thought appears in Hebrew 3: 14 (‘‘ For we are become partakers of Christ’’) and in Second Peter 1: 4 (‘‘He hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises, that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature’). And Jesus himself had already revealed the possibility of such an experience. In ‘John 17: 23 he speaks of being zm his disciples, and in John 6: 54 he says, ‘“‘He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life.’ ‘Flesh’? and ‘“‘blood,”’ as the words are here used, are the symbols of life. To eat his flesh and drink his blood, therefore, is to become a partaker of his life. Hence he immediately adds, ‘‘He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him.”’ (John 6: 56.) The entire passage is to be interpreted, not literally, but mystically and spiritually.

For an individual to become a partaker of the life of Christ so that he can say “Christ liveth in me”’ is to be ‘born anew”’ in accordance with the word of Jesus to Nicodemus in John 3:3. The fact that Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as the agent in this process of spiritual quickening need not trouble us. The Godhead is not divided either in essence or action. Where the Father is there the Son is, and where the Son is there the Holy Spirit is, and where the Holy Spirit is there the Father and the Son are. When Jesus was about to go away he said to his bewildered disciples: ‘‘I will not leave you desolate; I will come unto you.”’ (John 14:18.) But a little farther on in the same conversation he speaks of sending the Holy Spirit to bear witness of him. That is, in the person of the Holy Spirit he would come unto them and ‘‘abide with them always.” Indeed, so absolute is the divine unity that we find St. Paul declaring that ‘‘The Lord is the Spirit”’ (2 Cor. 3:17), and in Romans 8: 8-10 he speaks almost in the same breath of the indwelling Spirit and the indwelling Christ as if they amounted to the same thing: “‘And they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.”

2. The sum of it all is that through the indwelling life of God our higher natures may be so quickened and recruited that we become new creatures in Christ Jesus, walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit. All deeply spiritual men have testified to the reality of this mystical experience and have found purification and emancipation through the incoming and indwelling of the divine Spirit. ‘‘All the glory and beauty of Christ,” says Thomas a Kempis, ‘‘are manifested within, and there he delights to dwell.”’” John Wesley defines religion as ‘‘the life of God in the soul of man.”” The best possession of the human soul,”’ declares Bishop Warren A. Candler, “is the indwelling Christ.’

1. What light do the derivation and literal meaning of the word “‘evangelism’’ throw on its meaning in present usage?

2. What further light do we get from a study of the mission of the Church?

3. Show that the gospel message is both individual and social and explain why it is so.

4. Wherein lies the secret of spiritual triumph?

Chapter II What Is Evangelism (continued)?

THE discussion in the preceding chapter ended with the statement that the power by which we are cleansed and quickened and enabled to live the triumphant life is the power of the indwelling Christ. This at once suggests the inquiry as to how we are to come into the possession of this transforming power.

I. SACRAMENTARIANISM, LEGALISM, AND INTELLEC- TUALISM

1. There are many who hold that it is communicated by a process that is akin to magic. This is the fundamental implication of all theories that make regeneration dependent upon some rite performed in some particular way by a properly accredited ecclesiastical agent. The priest administers the sacramental ordinance in the manner prescribed and pronounces the sacred formula in the name of the Holy Trinity, and forthwith the miracle is accomplished, the soul of the subject is cleansed from sin and he passes out of death into life. Such an assumption is contrary to reason as well as to the cardinal teachings of the New Testament and has no rightful place in Christianity.

2. There are others who think of spiritual life as mechanically imparted as a result of conformity with certain legalistic requirements or of the intellectual acceptance of certain credal statements. There are wide divergencies of opinion among those maintaining these views as to what observances and beliefs are required, but they agree in interpreting religion in terms either of legalism or intellectualism; and the positions which they hold, whether they realize it or not, necessarily involve the assumption that spiritual life may be arbitrarily and mechanically communicated.

These are precisely the errors into which the Pharisees of our Lord’s day had fallen. They were literalists and legalists, putting the main emphasis in their religion upon the correctness of their opinions and their strict conformity to the letter of the ceremonial law. But Jesus pronounced them mere actors, and compared them to ‘“whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.”’ (Matt. 23: 27.) And there is a negative as well as a positive lesson in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which clearly implies that there is no essential connection between credal affirmations and legalistic observances and the purification of the inner life.

The first serious controversy in the Christian Church, as we learn from a study of the Acts and the Epistle to the Galatians, was over this very matter. (See Acts 15: 1-29 and Galatians 2.) An influential faction of Jewish Christians maintained that, in order to be saved, one must observe the entire Mosaic ritual, and insisted, therefore, that it was necessary that Gentile converts should be circumcised. This contention St. Paul opposed with all the might of his inspired genius, and it was through his influence that the Church was saved from becoming a Jewish sect, bound in the fetters of a mere mechanical legalism.

We escape all the errors mentioned above when we come to think of salvation in terms of positive moral and spiritual attainment by free personal agents and of religion as a means through which free agents are enabled to achieve Christlike character and fit themselves for Christlike service. There is a deep sense in which salvation is the free gift of God. He gave his only-begotten Son for our redemption, and the benefits of his sacrificial death and his triumphant life are offered to all without money and without price. But these benefits cannot be arbitrarily bestowed. Spiritual life is not a semimaterial something which exists apart from personality; it is rather a quality of personality and can be communicated and received only by vital processes that are in accord with the laws which condition the life of free personal agents. God is a person, and we are persons created in his likeness, and all of his dealings with us must be in harmony with the laws governing the relations of free personal beings.

II. RELIGION AS A PERSONAL RELATION

These considerations suggest the secret of all spiritual attainment. The soul is cleansed and quickened by the birth from above, the gift of divine life through the Holy Spirit, and we come into the possession of this gift through an immediate personal relation with God.

1. That such a relation is possible is one of the most precious assurances given to us in the Bible. ‘‘ Enoch walked with God.’’ Abraham ‘‘was called the friend

a3 of God.” ‘‘Jehovah spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.”” The prophets communed with God and reported to the world the messages they had received in fellowship with him. In his last conversation with his disciples before his crucifixion Jesus said unto them, ‘‘No longer do I call you servants, . . . but I have called you friends.” (John 15: 15.) In the apostolic benediction which we so often hear St. Paul teaches us to pray for ‘the communion of the Holy Spirit’’—that is, that the conscious presence of the Holy Spirit may be shared by all. And St. John, in his First Epistle, says: ‘“‘Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Nor is this a privilege which was granted only to a few rare souls selected out of the Hebrew race, but a privilege offered freely to every member of the human family who will fulfill the conditions of friendship. In a strikingly beautiful passage found in Revelation 3: 20 Jesus is represented as saying: ‘‘ Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”’ Supping together in the ancient oriental home was a sign and pledge of friendship. What our Lord is here saying in substance, therefore, is: ‘I am always seeking to establish relations of personal fellowship and friendship with every man and woman and child, always seeking access to every human heart.”” Those who seek to become his friends cannot fail, since he is ceaselessly seeking to become the Friend of every one.

2. It is through such a personal relation as is implied in real friendship that God is enabled to impart his life unto us. Jesus said to his disciples, ‘‘I am the vine, ye are the branches.’”’ (John 15:5.) The connection between the branch and the vine is not mechanical, but vital, and through this vital connection the life of the vine flows into the branch. So is the life of Christ communicated unto us when we come into a vital relation with him. Hence he tells his disciples that if they abide in him he will abide in them, and that, as a consequence of this union, they will bear much fruit.

3. The only thing that can vitally unite person with person is faith, a twofold bond of trust and love. St. Paul speaks of it as ‘faith working through love.” There are persons whom we pass frequently without being in the least influenced by them, because our relation to them is purely external. We never come in contact with their souls, their real selves. So we are always in the presence of God. ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’’ And yet God cannot in the richest and fullest sense communicate his life unto us until through faith we come into a relation of vital personal fellowship with him. Faith, therefore, is not an arbitrarily established condition of salvation, but a condition that grows out of the fundamental nature of personality. It is God’s only way of vital access to free moral agents and therefore the only medium through which his saving grace may become efficacious for them. (Eph. 2: 8.)

4. It.should be observed, however, that the faith that saves is not the intellectual acceptance of a creed, but loving trust in and self-committal to a Person.

It is the duty of the Christian to seek by prayerful study, by fellowship with the risen Lord, and by fidelity in doing the will of the Father in heaven to rid himself of erroneous opinions and to widen and deepen his understanding of all that is involved in the personality and teaching and work of Christ. But one who is not a Christian cannot afford to postpone beginning the Christian life until one has worked out what one regards as an adequate system of theological beliefs. The correct order is precisely the reverse of this— namely, for the seeker to begin by submitting himself to God as he is revealed in Jesus and then by the process suggested above to develop a rich and vital Christian creed. Of course one must know something about Christ before any intelligent committal to him can take place, but, as a rule, the beginning of the new life is the spontaneous emotional response of the soul to the appeal of Christ’s personality, rather than the acceptance of a system of doctrine as the result of an elaborate process of investigation and reasoning.

When Saul surrendered to Christ on the Damascus road it is probable that all he knew about the earthly life of Christ was what he had picked up from current rumor and what he had learned through contact with Stephen and from hearing Stephen’s dying message. He had before him, therefore, only a mere outline of the Master’s work and personality, but that was enough to destroy his Pharisaic complacency and fill his soul with profound unrest and unutterable longings. And “‘when it pleased God to reveal his Son in him” through the light that shone upon him out of the heavens and the voice of yearning compassion that spoke to him, forthwith his heart surrendered, and he became at once and forever the bondslave of Christ. ‘‘The heart,” says Pascal, ‘‘has reasons of its own.’’ In the realm of the spiritual it goes before the natural reason and shows it the way. So it was in St. Paul’s case. It was after his conversion that he went into retirement in Arabia to think out the meaning of this new and marvelous experience.