Honest Evangelism

How to talk about Jesus even when it's tough

Gillian Pegler | April 2015 - Highfields Book of the Month

By Rico Tice - (2015) New Malden: The Good Book Company

heRico Tice challenges us to show our love to others by sharing the gospel - telling them the best news they'll ever hear.

Rico Tice, founder of Christianity Explored Ministries, has written a book on evangelism that is short and to the point.  It's not just a 'how-to' guide.  He explains what evangelism is, the reasons we find it difficult, whose job it is and what an evangelist is (you might be surprised in chapter 6).

The title 'Honest Evangelism' refers to fully informed and fully informing evangelism. 

Fully informed evangelism: Rico reminds us that there is hostility to the gospel but there is also a hunger for the gospel.

Hostility and hunger

Fully informing evangelism: We don't like talking about death, sin or hell - it's not nice and it's not socially acceptable.  But, he says, when we just 'say enough to salve our consciences - we talk about church, or Jesus' love, or how great it is to pray', we don't say enough to help people to be saved.  We need to talk about the hard stuff. 

If I'd really loved him, I'd have warned him about hell, shown him the cross, and invited him to trust Jesus and spend eternity with the new creation.

Rico recounts a story of one of his friends who heard him explain the gospel on one of his sermon tapes.  This friend was very upset that Rico hadn't told him the gospel, and Rico says, 'If I'd really loved him, I'd have warned him about hell, shown him the cross, and invited him to trust Jesus and spend eternity with the new creation.'  He challenges us to show our love to others by sharing the gospel - telling them the best news they'll ever hear.

Rico says that if we remember three truths, we will get on with sharing the gospel - God's sovereignty (God puts each one of us where he wants us and he lines up opportunities for us to witness), God's grace (the opinion of our family, friends etc is not what gives us value - we are saved children of God and are priceless to Him), God's power (Your job is to share the gospel, you don't have the power to save.  That's God's job).

Ask questions, chat your faith, pray, invest

He explains what we need to say to share the good news.  I'm not going to give all the answers away, suffice to say, if you've done the Christianity Explored course, it will ring some bells.  Ask questions, chat your faith, pray for God to work in this person's heart, invest in the relationship.

Read the book.  It's short, it's punchy, it's to the point.  It's honest about evangelism.

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