In Paul’s message to the Ephesian elders recorded in Acts 20:17ff, he said nothing about evangelism. His focus was on the protection and purity (growth) of the disciples.
The Pauline paradigm was embraced by both the early church (first five hundred years after the advent of Christ) and early reformers (first 250 years after the sixteenth-century Reformation). However, since the Great Awakening (the past three hundred years), a major focus of Christianity has been evangelism with little concern about the protection and purity of disciples. Consequently, the fruit of the modern evangelistic effort has been, as noted by one of the world’s leading missiologists, much less than expected. In a private conversation, I asked this mission leader why the fruit of the massive mission effort of the past three centuries was anemic. His explanation was that he doesn’t think the Christian leaders today understand discipleship as Paul did. In other words, the popular paradigm today of evangelism without discipleship is contrary to Jesus’ teaching (Matthew 28:18−20).
If the apostle Paul were to provide his perspective today, perhaps he would encourage us to follow his pattern in Ephesus: evangelism through discipleship. In other words, the predicate for fruitful evangelism is disciples who live the faith and are, consequently, the light of Jesus to the world (Matthew 5:14−16). Paul’s methodology in Ephesus was that the quality of disciples precedes the quantity of disciples.
So perhaps the way forward is to return to the Pauline method of evangelism through discipleship. This means that the protection and purity of disciples is the predicate for building them up so they can do the good works they are called to do. And a byproduct is that sound discipleship will produce fruitful evangelism.
Acts 19 is not the only text that implies the methodology of evangelism through alignment with Christ−the essence of discipleship. Evangelism through discipleship is also seen in Acts 6:1−7 when the C4 principle was used to bring order out of chaos in the first local church (ἐκκλησία). This led to accelerated growth of the church and the conversion of some of the most difficult people: the Jewish priests.
If we embrace evangelism through discipleship as a biblical methodology, perhaps then we would begin to see the fruit of
Acts 6 and Acts 19, effective evangelism.
God is continuing the metanarrative that will lead to the restoration of his uncontested rule over creation. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord (Romans 14:11). And God is building his church (ἐκκλησία) (Matthew 16:18). In the process of building the church, Paul modeled the building methodology of evangelism through discipleship.
If evangelism through discipleship is the best way, shouldn’t we follow Paul? If so, our focus will be on protecting and purifying the saints. The question is, will we follow Paul, or will we continue in the flawed popular model of the Great Awakening that seeks to evangelize void of discipleship?
Perhaps what God is doing today is revealing our flawed missions methodology and inviting us to return to evangelism through discipleship.
Resolve to imitate Paul. That would be a good New Year’s resolution!
Happy New Year!
