These two conversations lingered with me the last few weeks. More and more, evangelism as we know it, isn't working. People no longer respond well to tracts, to a stranger knocking on their door to sell them books, or even to the evangelist that comes to town. Because our culture used to be majority Christian, previously all of these tactics worked. Everyone would go to hear the traveling evangelist come to town, because entertainment was not as easy to come by only some short decades ago. However, more and more our culture not only thinks God is irrelevant, but there are a growing number of people don't even believe that there is one, except to use His title and name as a curse word. And as for my friend in the trenches, how do you reach people so broken that they can't even comprehend the future week, let alone some heaven up in outer space? They need someone to save them from the hell they are in, not the future one where they might end up.
Because I've been doing some research on prayer in the early church, I have been reading a few books about worship in the first few centuries of the church's existence. First, I was reminded that even the English word "worship" has evolved over the past 500 years. Today we think of worship as something that we go to do at church on Sabbath or Sunday morning or even a style of music that we sing. But to the translators of the King James Bible it meant something quite different. This is illustrated by the vows of a sixteenth century groom who pledged to his bride: "With this ring I thee wed; this gold and silver I thee give; with my body I thee worship; and withal my worldly goods I thee endow."
"the sixteenth-century groom was referring not to "worship" of his wife as some inward disposition that he would manifest from that point on but to what he was actually doing by giving his bride tokens of his property, including a ring. This sharing of wealth was itself "worship"-- a ritual, but also a literal form of reverent service, the founding example of a set of acts and dispositions inherent in a marriage rather than merely a sign pointing to them." -"Ancient Christian Worship by Andrew B. McGowan, Pg. 2The King James bible takes this word worship and uses it to translate Hebrew and Greek words about obedience, service, and physical acts related to them.
"The wider reality, or "worship" is obedience or service, not gatherings, nor beliefs, nor song, nor ritual, except within that wider whole. Prayer and communal ritual nevertheless served, along with personal and physical acts of bodily "worship," to create and express that obedience and service. For the ancients, therefore, such language was not specifically about liturgy any more than it was about music, and it had as much to do with what we would call politics and ethics as with what we call worship -Ancient Christian Worship by Andrew B. McGowan, pg.3Worship then, although it includes church service like activities, is all encompassing. For Israel every time they fulfilled a law in Torah they were worshiping God. Worship then has more to do with obedience than what songs you sing in church on Sabbath. But what does this have to do with original evangelism. In Deuteronomy God gives this reason for the laws and statutes that He has given to Israel.
" 5 See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 6 Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? 8 And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?" Deuteronomy 4:5-8It seems that God's original evangelism plan was for Israel to live out the Torah He had given them and by their actions other nations would be attracted to how great God was. All they had to do was "worship". But did this plan stay the same through the centuries?
My mind had been pondering this ancient definition of worship, when I stumbled across this amazing premise from Paul F. Bradshaw, in his book, "Reconstructing Early Christian Worship". He argues very convincingly in his chapter on baptism, that in the early church baptismal candidates were not taught doctrines, or even the gospels until after baptism. He concludes the chapter with these thought provoking paragraphs.
"I realize that to some this suggestion may sound much to preposterous to be taken seriously. How could pagans possibly have been attracted to Christianity, and how could they have been converted to the faith and been willing to prepare for baptism, if the contents of the Gospels had never been fully revealed to them?" - Reconstructing Early Christian Worship by Paul F. Bradshaw pg. 67He then goes on to admit that certain early Christian writers themselves knew of Pagans who had some knowledge about Jesus an idea of what he taught. However, he cautions us not to read presuppositions from our age back into the ancient one.
"We tend to assume that in order for a person to be drawn into a religious sect, it must be the central doctrines of that sect which attract them and win them over, causing them to change their lifestyle. In other words, we see the sequence as: believing first, belonging second, behaving third. But this is not necessarily always true... In particular, the scrutiny of baptismal candidates" (in the early church) "were asked if they lived virtuously while they were catechumens, if they honored the widows, and if they visited those who are sick, and if they fulfilled every good work.
Thus, it rather looks as though it was behaving that was the prerequisite to belonging in the early church, and that at least some believing might have been expected to come later. Indeed, it appears to have been the behavior of Christians rather than their beliefs as such that was the principal attraction to the movement for pagans and the most effective means of evangelization. Christians would thus not have needed to tell them everything about the gospel in order to draw them in to the catechumenate." pg. 68 (Italics mine)Those closing paragraphs floored me. Not only because of the obvious, that pagans might not have studied out all of the beliefs of the church before being baptized, or that behavior was a prerequisite for joining the church, but that behavior of the Christians was the main source of evangelism. My mind immediately went back to God's original evangelism plan in Deuteronomy.
I personally am not sure I would make the cut if I was trying to convert to Christianity in the 1st through 3rd century. Granted our culture is different. Widows are not left completely destitute, just because they are widows. Most of the sick already have doctors to take care of them, and I'm learning that probably even some of the "good works" in the early church might be a little different from "good works" in our culture. But while those "works" maybe aren't as needed any more, although still important, what about the other side of the coin? As a Christian, am I living out God's ways so completely that I would attract a non-believer to God? Without knowing anything about Jesus, would someone want to be baptized into my way of life just because of what they saw in mine? Because although our ways of bringing people to God in the last 2000 years have changed, I'm not so sure God's have. Is He still waiting for our "worship" to attract the peoples to the Kingdom? My friends in the trenches are already doing this, how can I join them? Points for me to ponder over throughout these Days of Awe.
