Journal: Puritan Reformed Journal
Volume: PRJ 06:2 (Jul 2014)
Article: Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s Principles Of Evangelism With Application For Producing Evangelistic Church Members
Author: Simon J. Green

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PRJ 6:2 (July 2014) p. 258

Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s Principles Of Evangelism With Application For Producing Evangelistic Church Members

Simon J. Green

From his published sermons, Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) has become known in the Reformed and wider evangelical world as someone who was an expositor par excellence. Many Christians continue to profit from his sermons preached during a thirty-year ministry at Westminster Chapel—sermons designed to instruct and edify believers. What remains less appreciated is his evangelistic ministry, which comfortably comprised over half of his total preaching engagements.1 As his wife Bethan Lloyd-Jones so memorably expressed, “No one will ever understand my husband until they realise that he is first of all a man of prayer and then, an evangelist.”2 Many of these evangelistic sermons were remarkably owned of God and it is believed that he saw people converted under his ministry every week.3

This evangelistic success arose out of deep convictions regarding the work of preaching and evangelism more generally. The definitive views he maintained rendered him unable to support the Billy Graham campaigns in London despite his appreciation of the man leading them.4 This was not without a loss in popularity in the evangelical landscape at that time, especially in the United Kingdom. Dr. Lloyd-Jones was concerned that when evangelistic practices were separated from biblical teaching, the moral and spiritual condition

PRJ 6:2 (July 2014) p. 259

of the country would go from bad to worse. History has clearly vindicated his assessment of the situation. This paper will therefore examine the teaching of Dr. Lloyd-Jones (ML-J) on the right approach to evangelism for the individual believer. In other words, how are ordinary Christians to engage in evangelism, and how can their witness be made more effective? To answer these questions it will be necessary first of all to summarize the principles undergirding ML-J’s understanding of what true evangelism is, before showing the implications that he drew from those principles.

The Importance Of Evangelism

ML-J was the very antithesis of a pragmatist. Everything he sought to prescribe for Christian living and church practice was derived directly from Scripture, especially the book of Acts and the Epistles. Though many may have differed with him on his conclusions, none could fail to recognize his desire to root evangelism in biblical theology and practice.5 For him this w...

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