Have you ever heard a pastor give a sermon on Ezekiel 33? God tells Ezekiel to cry out against the unfaithful watchmen in Israel who did not warn Israel about impending judgment. He says that because they were silent, the blood of the people who die will be on the heads of the lazy watchmen.
Every time I hear this passage preached, the application is the same: “If you don’t tell people that they are going to hell, when they die, God is going to hold you responsible! Their blood will be on your head! So never miss an opportunity to tell a friend, a coworker, a neighbor, a relative, or even a stranger on the bus about Jesus!”
I heard this passage preached just last week with this exact application.
I have always been uncomfortable with preaching this passage this way, but only last week did I understand why. First, the passage has nothing to do with eternal destinies, but only with temporal judgment on sinful Israel. So from that perspective alone, the “bloody head evangelism” application is illegitimate.
But more than that, as I listened to this pastor preach, it hit me that all he was really endorsing was “hit and run evangelism.” He was basically saying that as long as a Christian got something out about sin, hell, and believing in Jesus for eternal life, their duty to warn others was fulfilled. They were no longer responsible for that person. The pastor’s exact words were “Their blood will be on their own heads rather than on yours!”
Aside from being a terrible application of this passage, such an approach to evangelism is simply scary, and probably does more damage than good. It gives a Christian the sense that as long as they get the gospel off their chest to anyone and everyone they come into contact with, they are no longer responsible for that person. Once the other person “hears the good news” they are solely responsible for what they do with it.
With such a perspective, it is not necessary for any Christian to befriend or develop relationships with other people. It diminishes evangelism down to a simple proclamation of a few Bible facts. Under the guise of “caring for people’s eternal destinies” it reveals a heart that really doesn’t care about the person.
This is not what evangelism is or how it should be done. Over the next couple of posts, I will suggest some better options.
Interesting thoughts Jeremy. A long time ago, I read Lifestyle Evangelism. I don’t remember much, but what stuck out to me was the emphasis on befriending people, caring about them, meeting their needs, etc., and then sharing the gospel. Ideally, they should be able to see the gospel lived out in your life before you even speak a word because they have seen your actions. I believe that this would be much more effective than the situation you described above as ‘hit and run’ evangelism.
An illustration popped into my mind as I was typing. You see parents who don’t have much of a relationship with their children. When their child acts up, they walk over and spank them a few times really hard and then tell them not to do it again. They don’t explain why, nor have they taken the time to explain before hand what is expected of the child. The kid is crying wondering what in the world they did wrong. When their children turn out to resent them, they think that they did enough by spanking them and then throw their hands up and say, “you can’t win them all.”
They haven’t taken the time to get to know their children. They haven’t invested in their lives. They haven’t explained to the child what they did wrong and what is expected. They haven’t won the trust of their kids. No sane person would say that the parent did a good job and that the blood is on the child’s head. Rather, the parent did an awful job and if the child turned out well, it was for some other reason than the parent’s efforts.
This seems to have a lot of similarities to ‘hit and run evangelism.’ Walk by, spank them a few times with the gospel, and when they don’t respond, we say, “you can’t win them all.” We think the blood is on their head, but in reality, we have done a terrible job.
Daniel,
Good to hear from you! Almost done in Dallas?
I love your comment about “spanking them with the gospel.” I laughed and laughed.
I was at a church service a week ago when the guest preacher started off by telling the crowd that he was going to offend us. He said that if you’re preaching the Gospel and it doesn’t offend people, then you’re not preaching the true Gospel…and that’s what he was going to preach. He reminded us that the Gospel was an offense (meaning, I suppose, “offensive”), and then told us three more times that he would offend us. He spent nearly the first half of his message trying to convince us of this, and then proclaimed the Gospel (by telling some great stories about his life and ministry with teens) without being offensive at all. I found this disturbing at first, but then mildly amusing.
I wonder if this twisted view of what it means to be proclaimers of Good News is more about our fear of rejection than anything else? I mean, if we sort of psych ourselves (and perhaps our audience) up for the possibility of rejection, then we find more courage to speak.
The sad irony is that the Gospel is not all that offensive. It is an offense to some, mostly those who see it as an indictment to their chosen way of life (and I wish it were more so for more of us who live so decadently), but it really is GOOD NEWS to those who are hopeless and fearful and feeling far from God.