THE NEW TESTAMENT COMMANDS IT

First, your involvement in Evangelism is important because Scripture commands us to shepherd the sheep. Paul commands us in Acts 20:28-31,

"Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the Church of God which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remember that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears."

The word overseer in Greek is ejpivskopo" (episkopos).⁶⁷ It occurs five times in the New Testament.⁶⁸ Rackham, in his commentary, The Acts of the Apostles states that an overseer has the same function as a shepherd. He states,

"The shepherd protects the flock against the wolf, and that by watching against false doctrine: That is the episcopos is a teacher, and guardian of the faith. . . The presbyter has an active ministry of helping the weak—and that at the cost of self-sacrifice, even as the good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep."^69/386

Paul tells us in this passage of Scripture that there are evil men and deceivers in the world that wish to draw God’s people away from the truth. In many cases they are drawn away. When they are they are blind to their deception. Because they are blind they certainly are not going to realize they need to talk with their Pastor or someone else qualified in the body to show them the deception of their ways. That is why we must take the initiative when someone disappears from the fellowship to go and seek them out, for they will not come to us.

Not only will men outside the Church draw Jesus’ sheep astray and away from His fold, but Paul also tells us that perverse men right in the midst of the Church will draw Jesus’ disciples away from the fold and after themselves. This kind of subtle deception can only be discerned and discovered by our taking the initiative to visit with the sheep individually to see how they are doing and what they are into. As we take this initiative we can then also show them the error of their ways and thinking before they get too deep into whatever it is and be unable to draw them back to the truth in Jesus.

In conclusion Paul speaks of his own life as an example of being a good shepherd to them, who took the initiative day and night for three years admonishing each one of them with tears until they were well established in the true faith and mature enough to give others the same kind of one on one care. Paul commands us to go and do the same.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5,

"For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful in order to destroy strongholds. We are subverting computations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

Again he tells us in 2 Timothy 2:24-26,

"And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will."

The word for strongholds in the Greek is ocurwma (okãrÇma).⁷⁰ These strongholds are centered in the subconscious part of man’s soul where basic presuppositions, decisions made, and talents are stored or implanted as a result of volitional decisions made through conscious reasoning and God implanted giftedness. It is also the root of soul expression (1 Cor 14:25, Prov 27:19).

The word t/yl;K]⁷⁵ (kelayoth) in Hebrew in the Old Testament and nefroiv⁷⁶ (nephroi) in Greek in the New Testament translated reins seems to fit into this description (Jer 17:10, Rev 2:23). David Cairns in his book The Image of God in Man defines this word as meaning ". . . where motive, or that which is known to God but hidden to man."^46/34 Lawrence J. Crabb in his book Effective Biblical Counseling defining what he calls the unconscious mind states that it is ". . . the reservoir of basic assumptions which people firmly and emotionally hold about how to meet their needs of significance and security."^47/91

Paul in these passages tells us that men are bound by Satan, and that this bondage comes about through false assumptions in their subconsciouses (strongholds) about the truth. The only way a person can be freed from a lie is through hearing the truth. Jesus said in John 8:32, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Through Christian Laymen reaching out Evangelistically, Satan’s lies to Jesus’ sheep can be exposed and the truth put in its place. The end result will be that those sheep will be freed from the bondage of Satan’s lies, be made healthy spiritually, and continue to grow in the true knowledge of Jesus Christ and into maturity. Without Christian Laymen reaching out Evangelistically, many sheep will stay bound by Satan’s lies and eventually die spiritually.

Marshell Shelly, in an article titled, "Home Visitation: How Well Does it Work," quotes from a letter of a woman who had been visited by a Church group in her home,

"I became a Christian three years before, but I backslid. After this visit I felt as though someone cared. When they left, I rededicated by life to Christ. Now I’ve joined a woman’s Bible study at the Church."^71/80-81

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church,

"For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep." (1 Cor 11:29-30).

The word judge in the Greek is diakrivnw (diakrinÇ) meaning also to discern.⁷²

Outside of open rebellion, it has been my conviction for a long time that there is never a valid reason why any believer should fall back into the world, but many do. Why? Because they are not being rightly judged or discerned by the body of Christ.

To illustrate what I mean, one night a brother called me up to express concern over another brother who was practicing the sin of homosexuality. The brother who called me loved this brother and was concerned that he was going to have to stop fellowshipping with him, not because he wanted to, but because this brother seemed to him to express an uncaring attitude about his present life-style. The brother who called me and asked me to come along with him to talk to this brother about his homosexual sin was doing the right thing since he could not reach him alone.

My concern in the matter at that point, though, was not so much whether or not we were going to have to reprove this brother as much as it was why he was choosing to go back to his former life of sin. In other words, was he going back to a homosexual life-style because he was simply choosing this out of his own desire irrespective of the love of the body of Christ, or possibly because of the lack of it in some form? If it was the former, then reproof was in order. If it was the latter, reproof at that point would be a mistake.

When we walked into this brother’s apartment and sat down I explained to him that I was not there to judge him, but that if what my brother said was true about his present life-style that he was right in calling up a brother and asking him to come along to confront the supposed issue. I told him I assumed the best of him and then asked him if what this brother said about him was true. He said that it was true. At that point I still was not so much interested in what he was doing as much as I was in why he was doing it. As I began with great sensitivity to investigate the why of my brother’s practice of sin in this way, it eventually came to the surface that though he had repented of his former life-style, the body of Christ was not accepting him and giving him the love and support he needed. In fact no one was calling or visiting him at all. Instead they were criticizing him to death and doing their best to avoid him without justification. Because of his loneliness and the continued rejection and isolation that he was receiving from the local body of believers, which to him was a reflection of God’s supposed attitude toward him, it seemed to him that since he could not meet the standards of the local body of believers in his repented state, what difference did it make to go back to his former life-style of sin? At least something then was filling the void.