If there was ever a point in my lifetime where I felt the gospel of Christ misconstrued and under attack it is now!
Every day anti-Christian rhetoric is posted on social media. And every day, we witness a false gospel coming from false teachers. Some in high places of influence. Years ago, people were writing one book after another on evangelism. I know because my library has an entire bookshelf on the subject. Now when I hear or read the word evangelism, it usually carries negative overtones. How can we restore our witness to a world still in need of a Savior?
For the gospel of Christ to spread beyond the day of resurrection, God would use his people. From the nascent beginning of the church, we witnessed a phenomenal spread of the Gospel. Every generation forward, the Holy Spirit confirmed in the hearts of believers the mission to “Go and make disciples!” Before the word evangelism even existed, or its defining elements discussed or debated, God established key essentials for the continuation of the Good News. Evangelistic methods would vary in each generation and culture, but God’s core requirements would transcend all. What were these indispensable requisites?
Jesus answers, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). Our role in evangelism would first pour out from love! These life-altering commandments, central to the advancement of the gospel, would rule in the hearts of men and women who obeyed them. Nothing has changed; the call to make disciples continues. When we embrace God’s two greatest commandments and the divine power of his Holy Spirit, then love for our neighbors will ignite our hearts in evangelism.
Today, too many believers lack an understanding of and obedience to God’s two greatest commandments.
As others stood by, a Pharisee posed another test question to Jesus: “Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:36). Jesus answers him but then adds more. Matthew 22:37-40. The Pharisee, a lawyer familiar with the many commandments created by the Jewish priesthood, felt confident to see just how much Jesus knew. Was he attempting to stir up an argument with Jesus?
In the Mark 12:28-34 account, however, we see Jesus pleased with the follow-up response of the Pharisee versed in the law. Jesus not only considers him as having “answered thoughtfully,” but comments to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34). The different accounts show the Pharisees were either silenced by Jesus’s statements or drawn closer to him.
A picture of great magnitude and importance has now captured our attention! Jesus unrolls his scroll before us and declares, the whole Word of God, including the New Testament, the Law and Prophets, depends on these two greatest commandments. The very heart of God and his purpose for our lives finds its deepest significance within these commandments.
The Scriptures provide us the opportunity to explore truth and understanding of love, along with the originator of love—God. Though the connection of love to developing our evangelistic lives is not always obvious. J. I. Packer writes in Knowing God, “The statement ‘God is love’ means that his love finds expression in everything that he says and does.” Through our relationship with Christ, we understand his love for us. “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the lifeI now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). In the same manner that we receive from God, we can now respond to our neighbor.
But why is this so challenging for us?
Jesus starts by recognizing our self-love as an ingrained part of our humanity. Initially, our self-love sought after all that God declared as good, our needs and desire to walk with God, until the Fall. When Adam and Eve disobeyed, their God-focused world immediately became a self-focused one. We became people who love ourselves more than we love God.
How, then, do we understand the idea of loving others as we love ourselves? We certainly don’t want to convey a self-centered love to our neighbors.
The answer lies in understanding that the two commandments intertwine. They are one verse in how they respond one to another, each bringing clarification to the other. The first commandment instructs us to fill all our heart, soul, and mind to the maximum with the pursuit of God. All those self-pursuits feed our self-love. That is why we transfer our attention to God to satisfy our every desire. Jesus wants us to experience his joy, a complete joy. John 15:11.
We are in desperate need to learn to love ourselves from a Christ perspective; any other means leaves the world, and us in it, empty. When we truly capture and live in this understanding, we are not just “ready” to love others; we become eager to love our neighbor without a sense of burden. With all our new, God-enriched, “heart, soul, and mind” we earnestly desire to infect others with our also new, God-transformed, self-love!
Richard Stearns writes in his book, The Hole in the Gospel, “Loving God with heart, soul, and mind requires our whole being—totally and completely. It sits above the many detailed requirements of the Old Testament Law, because it recognizes that all forms of obedience to God must foremost flow out of our love for Him.” This means for the believer it is his love manifested within us, and not our own. For only his love in us makes us capable of loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us. Matthew 5:44.
I fear Matthew 22:34-40 is such a familiar passage that we have stripped it of its majesty and significance. As a result, it’s why we often fall short in evangelism! The weightiness of these two commandments we cannot ignore. Christ asks, no commands, us to move towards a dramatic change in how we love God and others!