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It's Always Necessary To Use Words
- 05/03/04
- 22
There is a popular quote which is attributed to Francis of Assisi that reads Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. These words have inspired many Christians to live lives that glorify God, remembering at all times that our actions are a powerful testimony to the One we claim to serve. The book of James tells us that faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:17) The next verse reads Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. Truly our actions speak volumes about the state of our hearts and serve to validate our faith.
However, I wonder at the Biblical justification for placing the primacy on actions rather than words. Where does the Bible tell us that our primary means of spreading the gospel message is through our lives rather than through speech? Where is the Biblical justification for this verse?
As I read through the book of Acts I see example after example of the apostles preaching the gospel. They do so not by their actions, but by their words. They speak words that are offensive to their audience, preaching about sin, wrath and judgment. They are continually punished for the words they speak, often being beaten and imprisoned. In the end most of them are martyred for faithfully preaching the good news.
Reading through the gospels presents a similar picture of Jesus. Though his miraculous actions caused crowds to be drawn to Him, it was His words that brought people to repentance. Christ performed miracles to testify to His divinity. He did not do them to draw crowds or to make the Pharisees angry. He performed miracles to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that He was God. Anyone who saw Him transform water into wine or raise Lazarus from the dead was without excuse, for that person would have known in his heart that He had seen God in human form. But when Christ preached, He did so with powerful and insightful words that cut people to the very core of their being.
The verses from James that were quoted earlier speak of the value of doing good works. Do these verses tell us that works are to be used to preach the gospel? No! They tell us that works are to be used to prove what we believe. I may say that I have become a Christian and that God is changing my character, but it is my life, my actions, that will prove it. My actions are incapable of preaching the gospel. They can provide proof of what I claim to believe, but in and of themselves cannot speak of sin, repentance or forgiveness.
To emphasize actions in preaching the gospel is to de-emphasize words. God has ordained that the good news of Jesus Christ should go out to the world through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. (1 Corinthians 21) Paul speaks here of not only the message, but the means. God chooses to use a foolish means to preach a foolish message. The foolish means is preaching carefully and logically expositing Gods Word to the world. Every Christian is responsible for doing this; we are all called to share the Good News with those around us. Though people may be drawn to us by our actions or by our lives, we must ensure that we are able to give an account of our faith.
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Comments (22)
I agree that our words have a lasting effect on the kingdom. We also need to realize how very fortunate we are that we have a personal copy of the scriptures that we can study and use in our preaching of the gospel.
The words from the mouths of the apostles, surely used the scriptures they were familiar with, but largely their words were given by the impetus of the Holy Spirit. God-breathed in a most literal sense. As should our words be… the scriptures say that the Spirit will give you the words to say.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. (Matt 4:4)
This is a truth that is disappearing in much of evangelical church life. I have been in churches where it is assumed that visitors to the service can fall “under conviction” before any preaching is done, and this will be the result of the atmosphere created by the praise and worship time, or possibly simply from the presence of the Lord, as taught by Charles Finney and Tommy Tenney.
Tim
I agree with your views on James and the purpose of works. Is it construed that james is refering to preaching?
I personally have the view that he is speaking specifically about personal faith. Faith without works or action is hypocrisy. It is impossible to be faithful to the teaching of christ without carrying out actions of faith; repentance, humility, love, forgiveness are all the external manifestations of our faith in christianity. Without those acts (or works) there is no faith, only words.
I hope my inexperienced view is not a gross misinterpretation of the word.
CheersDuncan
That should say “Proclaiming to have faith without works or action is hypocrisy?”
Duncan - You are spot-on. If someone claims to have faith but has no works to prove that faith, he has no faith. Faith without works is dead (or does not exist).
So James is no advocating works as being the means of justification but the fruit of justification by faith.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by “Is it construed that james is refering to preaching?”
This post hits on something I have been struggling with for a long time. Is it enough just to serve and live for God without speaking and proclaiming it? Times have changed since 2000 years ago… they HAD to proclaim as Christianity was new. Christianity is not new to America, so do we still have to proclaim? Or should the focus be on living? In countries where Christianity IS new… Yes I think proclaiming and voicing it is necessary. In America, With a church on every street corner, and “82% of American’s saying they are Christians” I’m not so sure we need to be so focused on proclaiming, as a majority of people know who Christ is and what he did, they just don’t live for it. I think we should be concentrated on living it instead.
Reid - I would say that it is still just as important to use words. Though a large percentage of Americans may claim to be Christians America does not show evidence that even close to that number are. Evidently a HUGE percentage of them have never understood what it means to truly be a believer. As a matter of fact, they probably think that *living* as a Christian is all it takes. They need people to explain what is truly involved. They need to more fully understand God’s Word.
Tim, I used an example not long ago at a small group Bible study, my wife and I lead. I train all our new distributor’s sales people on product use, but also on selling the product.
Our distributors often have 100’s of items that they sell and are therefore more prone to be less aggressive. The attitude is, I may not get the plywood business, but I am selling him sandpaper and veneer, so why push things?
I am now trying to get these people to sell a product that while superior, requires some demonstration. The biggest fault I see with these guys when working with them in the field is that they don’t ask for the sale.
They list off features, cost savings, benefits etc… etc… The problem is, the customer doesn’t always just say, “Send me 5 drums!” They need to ask the customer for the sale.
I see this attitude with Christians too. (Yes in myself too) We go around living good lives… even telling people about the Gospel. Where we often stop and where we need to go forward is, asking for the sale. Asking if people would like to accept Christ’s gift and become a part of the body.
People will not always ask, “What must I do to be saved?” If we don’t ask them, how will we know they are ready to accept Christ?
Tim, I used an example not long ago at a small group Bible study, my wife and I lead. I train all our new distributor’s sales people on product use, but also on selling the product.
Our distributors often have 100’s of items that they sell and are therefore more prone to be less aggressive. The attitude is, I may not get the plywood business, but I am selling him sandpaper and veneer, so why push things?
I am now trying to get these people to sell a product that while superior, requires some demonstration. The biggest fault I see with these guys when working with them in the field is that they don’t ask for the sale.
They list off features, cost savings, benefits etc… etc… The problem is, the customer doesn’t always just say, “Send me 5 drums!” They need to ask the customer for the sale.
I see this attitude with Christians too. (Yes in myself too) We go around living good lives… even telling people about the Gospel. Where we often stop and where we need to go forward is, asking for the sale. Asking if people would like to accept Christ’s gift and become a part of the body.
People will not always ask, “What must I do to be saved?” If we don’t ask them, how will we know they are ready to accept Christ?
Oooops. It showed an error the first time. Double post… reminds me of GG. :P
That’s a great example. I know the first rule of sales (ok, not the first, but one of the first) is to always try to close the sale. I wonder how many people would love to make a committment but do not because we don’t take the opportunity to ask them.
It reminds me of the statistic we often read that something like 60% of people would go to a church if they were asked by a friend or relative. All that is holding them back is that we do not ask…
Personally, I really don’t like a sales analogy one bit and I think it is a bad example. We are not trying to sell people on Christ and his gift, Do we really need a sales pitch for Christianity? I dont understand? Comparing trying to “Close a sale” and to bring someone to Christ is so much of what people hate. Why would you want to do that>? It’s so minimal, so impersonal, so ahhhhhh. Sounds like people almost try and tally up how many they get each day, that they have a personal check list on how many people they’ve sold Christianity to… i don’t like it. Do you think Jesus wants it to be a sales pitch? I dont know.
Reid - I don’t mean to imply that we are supposed to “sell” Jesus. All I mean is that when we speak to people about God we should always be on the lookout for opportunities to say something like “would you like to pray” or “are you ready to commit your life to Him?” I think we are often too scared to make an attempt to ask the people to take that final step.
I use sales terminology just because salesmen often miss opportunities to sell a product because they do not close the deal. It works as a metaphor…
Reid, does the parable of the persistant widow imply that God is a cruel unjust judge? Look for the big point… not all the details.
Above posted be me… sorry for the anon. ;)
I think Reid is correct in being uncomfortable of the language of sales when speaking of Christian mission. This sort of analogy has been around in evangelical circles for decades, but it is part of the problem - when the proclamation of the Gospel is relegated to “Would you like to pray and ask Jesus to come in to your heart?” it deflates the message of its very heart. We run the risk of giving people a false assurance when we point to “Did you pray THE prayer?” as the indicator of whether or not that are saved. A biblical assurance is to come from faith in God’s covenant promises and the evidence of the work of the Spirit in our lives. Better for us to ask of sinners “Are you trusting in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life?” If the answer is anything but yes, we are obligated to present them with either life or death - “Repent and believe - and you will be saved.”
As I was writing today’s entry I started thinking about the Biblical terminology of harvest. The Bible speaks several times about converting people being akin to a harvest.
Is this not the economic terminology of New Testament times?
Sorry a couple people missed the point.
What my point was NOT: Selling Chirst or pushing Him on people.
Back to the original topic… The right to say extraordinary things is earned by the performance of extraordinary deeds. Jesus and the disciples did miracles, Jesus demonstrated His love in the most powerful way. If you don’t do miracles and don’t demonstrate sacrificial love then your words seem empty to those you’re trying to reach. Although nothing can stop the Holy Sprit from drawing whomever He pleases, our actions must show our love if we want to maximize our effectiveness. I recently saw 2 people proclaiming sin, righteousness and judgement on a busy street corner. They were trying to do what they thought was life giving, but their actions demonstrated a distant, cold god (not the true God) unconcerned with the struggles of daily life. Jesus never acted like that toward the average person. He met their needs - demonstrated His love - then spoke to them. Peter was well known for doing miracles in Jerusalem so when he spoke, people listened.
Those looking for an out will justify themselves however they may. The point of Francis of Assisi’s dictum is not that we should never proclaim the gospel with words, but that we should use words when needed instead of relying on words alone. The world has had enough of hypocrisy: the gospel robbed of its power by those who profess it without living it. Anyone who lives according to the truth that is in Jesus Christ will not keep mum about it. He or she will, if necessary, shout it from the rooftops. The point to remember is not to use words unnecessarily. For one thing, unneeded words are nearly always deceptive, either outright lies or a cover-up.
You need to become Catholic.
Yes, the disciples did preach with words, but they also lived out their faith everyday. I know many Christians at school who speak the gospel, then an hour later I hear they got in a fight. They speak with words of love, but don’t live it out. I started living by this quote last fall, when I truly started growing in my faith. I’ve always been very shy, even about being noticed at school, so this was very hard for me. God’s taught me to pray during the moment of silence and over my lunch. He’s taught me to smile at everyone I see. He’s taught me to love everyone, even those who are so cruel to me. By doing this, I’ve shown those around me at school what I believe and who I live for. Everyone knows, and God has blessed that. He took me from wanting nothing to do with the school paper, to holding the position of Editor-in-Chief. I’ve met a lot of people very different from me because of this, and shown them all love. One of these people is our Graphic Artist, who didn’t even want to be at school. He’s an atheist and has been on marijuna and who knows what else, so he wouldn’t have responded to me preaching to him. Now he’s a good friend and we speak every other day. He knows I’m a Christian and that he can talk to me about anything. Another is one of my classmates, who is agnostic. There was a day at school I noticed she was very withdrawen from everyone else, which I found strange because she is the most outgoing person I know. I reached out to her and made a friend. If I had preached to her, she never would have talked to me again. She had a fight with her best friend, and just needed to be loved. She’s now coming to youth group with me, which she herself finds hard to believe. Another close friend at school is of a different religion, (not sure of the name, but it’s middle eastern) so preaching wouldn’t reach out to her either. But we’ve known each other for 10 months now, and a door was opened 2 weeks ago for us to discuss what we believe, and another door opened last night. All three of these people are wary of what I believe, so preaching would have only driven them away. But because I showed them the love of Christ, they now trust me to speak to them without preaching, which opens doors for me to share my faith. I’ve learned to live by the quote “Go and preach the gospel to the world, and if absolutely necessary, use words,” and I’ve seen amazing things happen because of it. My friends have never had God as a friend before, so I’ve set out to show them what it might be like. Please take into consideration what I’ve said, and reconsider your position. Praying for you! God Bless!
Rock 4 Jesus!
Your Sister in Christ,
Ariella :)