Editorials -- By: Anonymous
Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 101:404 (Oct 1944)
Article: Editorials
Author: Anonymous
BSac 101:404 (Oct 44) p. 385
Editorials
Salient Facts Regarding Evangelism
The New Testament indicates and prescribes a definite form of evangelism which is far removed in character from the program pursued by some modern evangelists. The evangelist mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 is the pioneer missionary to the unevangelized fields. Thus he is recognized; but soul-winning responsibility, both directly and indirectly, falls upon the pastor and teacher as the instructor of the whole company of believers upon whom rests the work of the ministry. Under the tutelage of the pastor and teacher, they are to be disciplined unto an effective Gospel ministry. A ceaseless, well-directed, all-out functioning of the believers is the New Testament evangelism. Should occasion arise when the ingathering promoted by the whole church extends beyond the ability of the pastor and teacher to conserve, it is reasonable that help should be called to assist. The efforts of a high-powered specialist to revive a dead church have no Biblical recognition, especially when the church has the habit of sinking back at once into its former dead estate as soon as the revivalist’s effort has ceased.
The Gospel is to be preached to groups as well as to individuals; but certain problems arise in connection with mass evangelism which need clarifying. The very obvious desirability of soul-winning work and the evident importance of it has given opportunity for self-promoting men to turn this work of God into a racket and a graft.
Among young people today there are three potent efforts in evangelism being made-that of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship for college men, that of the Young Life Campaign for high school ages, and that of the Child Evangelism Fellowship for younger children. Incidentally, these conspicuous efforts are each directed in this country by men who have received their training and graduated from the
BSac 101:404 (Oct 44) p. 386
Dallas Theological Seminary. The effective work of these directors serves to indicate the emphasis which this school of the prophets places on soul-winning work and indicates the devotion and energy which is assigned to evangelism by the faculty and alumni of this institution.
The Dallas Theological Seminary, being Calvinistic in doctrine, does not encourage those practices which are founded on an Arminian error. That aggressive high pressure which characterizes much modern evangelism was born in Arminian circles and pursued by them until modernism deprived them of any Gospel to preach. This form of evangelism is based on the unscriptural theory of an enabling grace which theory contends that all men, though born in total depravity, are at birth endowed with ability to ...
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