Evangelicals in the West often lament that the modern church fails to resemble the Christianity of the apostles in the first century. Believers will point to how the early church leaders cared for the needs of one another and the emphasis placed on their fellowship. They will also lean heavily on the miraculous acts done by God to establish the apostolic witness.

But when current church leaders speak of returning to the practices of the church in Acts, what they usually fail to mention is the evangelistic methodology employed by followers of the Way.

Their methods were consistent with their principles and anchored in the divine authority of the risen Lord. The unfolding drama of their activity bore witness to the fact they had been clothed with power from on high. Though the apostles occupied a unique office, Christians today have been cleansed by the same blood and filled with the same Spirit who dwelt in Peter, Paul, Apollos, and Stephen, and the position of the modern Christian before God is equal to that of the great heroes of the faith.

Moreover, Christians possess the same gospel message the Lord empowered by his Spirit to turn the world upside down. Sadly, in our present cultural moment, the church bears more resemblance to the world than the other way around. Much of this reality is owing to a faith that is not offensively minded.  

Christianity on offense

The modern church’s evangelism strategy and methodology is not what we read about in the book of Acts. It is geared towards appealing to the unchurched to entice them to attend a Sunday worship experience. Emphasis is placed on making unbelievers feel comfortable and facilitating a family-friendly atmosphere where they will hopefully commit their lives to Jesus and continue to come back week after week.

To be sure, Christians should have a priority of welcoming those who will come to congregational worship. But we should remember that the gathered assembly, with the administration of the word and sacraments, is primarily for believers, not the unregenerate. We should praise God if an unbeliever gets to hear a gospel sermon. However, the preaching of the word on the Lord’s Day is not to be confused with the regular practice of Christian evangelism.

Biblical evangelism, as modeled by the apostles, aims to bring the message of peace and reconciliation with God outside the walls of the church and into the public square. Unbelievers are presented with what God has done to save sinners and called upon to repent of their sins, experiencing new life under the Lordship of Christ. The bold and public proclamation of the truth is the example that the church has been given to emulate in Scripture.

Godly controversy

The Acts of the Apostles gives us the early account of the unfettered progress of the gospel. We are told in numerous places that the word of God continued to increase and multiply in spite of opposition and persecution (Acts 6:7). Acts opens with the promise of the risen Lord to his followers that they would be empowered to witness from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The narrative unfolds accordingly, and the book ends with good news being brought all the way to Rome even as Paul awaits trial under Caesar’s guard.

The conclusion of the book is clear: the word of God wins. The truth goes forth without hindrance because it cannot be held captive.

The evangelism of the apostles causes no small stir among the leadership of the day, who are astonished at the courage and the authority of their message. It leads to the apostles being threatened, beaten, and jailed. Paul’s customary practice was to go into the marketplace and religious centers of worship to reason from the Scriptures about the identity and work of the Messiah (Acts 13:5). What was the reaction to such a practice? The apostles were largely met with mobs and riots. By conservative estimates, Luke records no less than ten public disturbances that result from the public ministry of the word. Many wanted Paul dead, and some were even taking oaths not to eat until the job was done (Acts 23:12). Local economies were upset, idolatry was confronted, and religious leaders were powerfully refuted.

Perhaps the most telling recognition of how this ministry was interpreted can be seen in the account of their labors in Thessalonica: “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things” (Acts 17:6-8).

Although no follower of Jesus was a violent revolutionary, the proclamation of the Kingship of Christ was considered by the people and the authorities to be an act of insurrection. The mission and vision of the church was to win the entire world to Jesus, from commoners to kings.

Realizing this mission was tied to a practice of publicly preaching the victory of the Messianic Kingdom over all earthly powers, Paul was insistent on being presented before Caesar to testify to the Kingdom of God. We know that his efforts were successful because the epistle to the Philippians ends with a greeting from those of Caesar’s household! The message of the resurrected Lord may not have been political, but the implications were clear to those who heard the preaching: if a man came back to life in the same world that he died in, then that man had authority over all and his word was to be believed and obeyed (Matthew 28:18-20).

Evangelistic revival

Christian churches are in dire need of recovering the evangelistic fervor seen in the book of Acts. But the church not only needs the same zeal for the lost and the glory of God; it also needs to be steeped in the example left to us by the apostles. Their methods need to inform our practice, and we must discard our love for the praise and approval of men. Our cues for reaching the lost should not be coming primarily from business strategists or marketing consultants, but from the apostolic example of contending for the truth in the synagogues, the marketplaces, and the public square.

Contemporary objectors to the faithful evangelism of the early church will protest that these methods will not be effective at winning people or growing churches, because much of modern evangelicalism has made the focus of its efforts catering to the desires of the carnal and unregenerate. Returning to apostolic practice would take the focus off of so-called results and place it back on obedience to the example of Scripture.

The Bible makes clear that God blesses his people when they do things his way, even if some people want them dead for it: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied” (Acts 9:31).

Biblical evangelism is about humbly and boldly declaring the crown rights of King Jesus over all of life. Christians are to propose the truth to an unbelieving world, reasoning with and persuading them in the hope that God will open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18).

The approach may vary among groups. On one hand, to the Jewish audience the focus was placed on showing them from the Scriptures that Jesus is the promised Messiah who had to die for sins. On the other hand, to the pagan audience the emphasis was on showing the supposedly irreligious how religious they were and that their yearning for the divine could only be satisfied through the man God had raised from the dead to judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31). Jew and Gentile alike were called to repentance on the basis of the word of God.

The apostles were convinced that Jesus truly did rise from the dead and that he is reigning from heaven at the right hand of God. They believed the message and confronted the audiences of their day with this reality. God blessed their work. Through suffering and persecution, he turned cultures and governments upside down with the announcement of Christ’s Kingship.

God can do it again. He is ready to pour out his Spirit on the efforts of his people. We must return to proclaiming God’s truth in God’s way by following the pattern we find in Scripture and stop moving the ancient landmarks set by our forefathers. The gates of Hell will not prevail against an advancing church.

Christians in America must utilize the freedoms we have been given while the cost is low for exercising them. We must proclaim the truth now, going on the offense, lest we lose the blessing of being able to do so freely.