Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism

There's a place for doctrine and dogma, and science and history and apologetics, but, these things are not Jesus - they are humanly manufactured attempts to make people think that having the right ideas is the same thing as loving and following Jesus.

The gospel is not a debate or a list of things to believe. The gospel is a person. Jesus Christ is the gospel. He is the truth. He is the point. He embodies all of the salvation/redemption/forgiveness/freedom stuff Himself, and because He is a personality, He does not require doctrinal mastery to connect with an individual. In

When we preach Christianity, we have to own it. When we preach Jesus, we don’t have to own anything. Jesus owns us. We don’t have to defend Him. We don’t even have to explain Him. All we have to do is point with our fingers, like the blind man in the book of John, and say, “There is Jesus. All I know is that He touched me, and where I was once blind, now I see.

The Western church is attempting to legislate morality in order to maintain a society that is pure, safe, and peaceful. Which, in and of itself, is not a bad desire. But when injured, we change. Under fire from a hostile and misunderstanding world, we grow defensive, begin challenging and targeting different opposition groups, demolishing the characters and teachings of individuals through media outlets, pamphlets, and even sermons. It becomes very difficult to “love the sinner, hate the sin” when we hole up in a defensive posture. I think it’s a huge mistake to turn morality into a politically, legally enforced code, because doing so creates more division and defensive posturing.

My faults don’t keep Jesus from me, but they can keep me from Him.

But if Jesus is lifted up, He draws people to Himself. It isn’t our job to lose sleep trying to decide if so-and-so is “in” or “out.” If we were to look at Jesus, in the totality of His love and determination, we would realize we are not required to make ourselves His followers by force of reason. We would realize He came to us in our poverty of mind and heart. It is our job to follow Jesus, like Paul and E. Stanley Jones, refusing to know anything else but the crucified and resurrected Jesus.

First, we try to “download” the right definitions, doctrines, and beliefs into the brains of people who don’t know the apostle Peter from Homer Simpson. By doing that, we communicate that having the right thoughts is the means of salvation. We’re telling them that it’s the stuff that happens between their ears that matters. When we focus on ideology, we’re not touching thirsty hearts. Thirsty people don’t want to memorize theology any more than they want to learn a new language.

The gospel is not an idea. It is not a belief. It is not a favorite verse. The gospel does not live in your church, it cannot be written down in a simple message, and it is not the sinner’s prayer. The gospel is not a what. It is not a how. The gospel is a Who. The gospel is literally the good news of Jesus. Jesus is the gospel.

There are only people like you and me. People with full brains and empty hearts. People who need Jesus, not a massive array of doctrine, polemics, and theology lessons. People who need a relationship. People who need to belong before they can believe.

Understanding the doctrine of forgiveness does not deliver us from sin. Jesus does.

Miller concludes: “To a culture that believes they ‘go to heaven’ based on whether or not they are morally pure, or that they understand some theological ideas, or that they are very spiritual, Jesus is completely unnecessary. At best, He is an afterthought, a technicality by which we become morally pure, or a subject of which we know, or a founding father of our woo-woo spirituality.

Idolizing somebody only for his death is a cheap fake compared to trying to live up to his life and words.

I proved that is was more important to me to win an argument than to be like Jesus - compassionate and loving.

Jesus’ way is a way of great personal cost and even greater personal pleasure. It is an economy of joy and pain existing in a life lived according to the values and priorities of Jesus. Self is no longer the most important commodity. Living in the wisdom and compassion of the true Way, the life of the Nazarene, is in itself a death of sorts. It is a daily ritual of surrender to the here and now of self-interest. In order to live like this, we must model ourselves after the Christ, pursuing relationships, compassion, and even reckless self-endangerment as a sacrifice to this person, this Way. Jesus’ way embraces this cost as a means of living in the pleasure of the kingdom of heaven. It is what pastor and writer/translator Eugene Peterson refers to as the “pilgrimage” of obedience to Jesus.1 It is a journey, it is a trail, it is a way. It is the only Way.

The kingdom of Jesus has somehow become a religion of the mind rather than a spiritual response of the heart. We focus on psychological compliance rather than spiritual dependence upon the teachings of Jesus and the guidance of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

To a culture that believes they ‘go to heaven’ based on whether or not they are morally pure, or that they understand some theological ideas, or that they are very spiritual, Jesus is completely unnecessary. At

Relax. Enjoy your friends. Enjoy their company along with the company of Jesus. Point Him out, freely, without fear or intimidation. You’re not responsible to sell Him to them. You’re simply saying what you’ve seen. You’re not the judge. You’re the witness. We’ll go further and further into this way of thinking until you’re free to speak of Jesus often and always. And you’ll see—people will listen. Not because we’re so good, but because He is compelling!

Jesus didn’t come to build a kingdom. He brought one with Him. He is the kingdom. He is the entry point to it. Look at the tense of Jesus’ message: By saying “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2 NKJV), He was saying that the kingdom of heaven is available now.

We would realize He came to us in our poverty of mind and heart. It is our job to follow Jesus, like Paul and E. Stanley Jones, refusing to know anything else but the crucified and resurrected Jesus.

I call this salvation insecurity. My friend Phil calls it control-freak Christianity. We want to measure, define, scrutinize, and secure our place on the “inside.” And then, with that template in place, we go out into all the world to make other people nervous about whether or not they’re in the circle.

As you go, you’ll notice a pattern of attraction. Instead of a theologically manufactured, doctrinally approved boundary, there is only the space between the person and Jesus. The differential is the arrow, which designates the intention of the heart. As Jesus Himself pointed out, this arrow is often guided by bare need.

As I look over the history of Christendom, I notice our minds are where our hearts should be. The kingdom of Jesus has somehow become a religion of the mind rather than a spiritual response of the heart. We focus on psychological compliance rather than spiritual dependence upon the teachings of Jesus and the guidance of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

nice and talk about Jesus all the time. It’s not rocket science.

Jesus’ way believed in people, in unity, in community. Jesus believed in the power of uniting people in spite, or perhaps because, of their differences.

Jesus taught us to love our enemies, and He taught us not to judge.