Baptist Press
By Thom Rainer, posted October 9, 2024
It’s Chuck Lawless’ fault.
Okay, the previous sentence is tongue-in-cheek. My friend and co-laborer in ministry, Chuck Lawless, has cited 2 Corinthians 2:4 so many times that I often get it stuck in my mind.
To be clear, getting it stuck in my mind is a good thing. Look at the verse:
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God (2 Corinthians 2:4, NLT).
This one verse is so rich in its depth that I could spend hours trying to understand its full import. But for simplicity’s sake, we can say unhesitatingly that Satan does not want people to become followers of Christ. He blinds them to the gospel until the Holy Spirit removes the scales from their eyes, often through our personal evangelism.
While I grasp the fundamental issue of Satan blinding unbelievers, I have given my life in ministry to attempt to understand why believers don’t evangelize on a regular basis. Satan is pleased to blind unbelievers, and I know he is pleased when believers don’t evangelize. Concurrently, he is pleased with non-evangelistic churches.
It is that previous sentence that has compelled me to study both evangelistic churches and non-evangelistic churches. Why are some churches evangelistic and others are not?
There are many paths I could take to attempt to answer that question. For now, one of my research-based answers is that many church members are confused about the meaning of church-based evangelism. The confusion often lies in understanding what constitutes an evangelistic ministry in a church. Here are four examples of the confusion. More Here
