evangelism and theology
Do they mix? Michael Green in his 1970 work Evangelism in the Early Church (Eerdmans, 1970, 2004) noted in his intro that typically an evangelist is not interested in theology and theologians are not interested in evangelism.
Green wants us to know he is committed to both, but I wonder about his assertion? I don't know too many evangelists who exemplify good theology or even show interest in larger theological issues - most of the time they are about Jesus and seeing people come to saving faith in his work on the cross - yet I haven't seen too many ivory tower theologians either out street preaching either. Often they might be more concerned with things like textual criticism, form criticism, source criticism, and other various criticisms along with correct doctrine and theology.
So, do they mix? What say you?
Labels: evangelism
posted by Brian @ 2:40 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Brian,
We need to be scholars with an evangelistic heart. That will help us to perform both tasks. It is quite possible to be a good theologian, at the same time, a good soul winner.
I completely agree Lou.
I think too the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John show it can be done for they were all evangelists and theologians.
However, in today's world I think it takes some work though as there are many who see theologians as faithless people and there are many who see evangelists as "uneducated ordinary men." I think it takes work on the part of the theologian to keep his faith and desire to see others come to saving faith in Jesus and it takes work for the evangelist to sit and read enough other books than just the Bible to be a well rounded well read evangelist.
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