Beyond scales

The authoritative source for understanding evangelization
By José Bernardo

I remember when, in 2001, I saw the need for outcome in evangelization, the biblical demand for fruit that remains. The Brazilian Church wasn’t ready for that, and was always thinking evangelization as sowing an differentiating it from discipleship. This is surprising, since we don’t read in the Bible such distinction. I recognize that there is a biblical evangelistic process, but there is much misunderstanding and deviation on this issue. Let’s think about it.

I sympathize with the fundamental questions that led Frank Gray to work for so many years on the evangelistic process. Going through the whole Gray Matrix idea again I see his questions as mine. Why do people react so differently to the Gospel message? Is there such a process for evangelization as sowing, watering and ripening?  What is the essential Gospel message or what is the Good News? What is and how does the cognitive process connect Gospel knowledge to personal attitude? What are the different presentations of the Gospel and why should we use them? What makes the communication of the gospel efficient and effective? However, I disengage from his work when it looks primarily through Engel’s behavioral scale or to communication theories for an answer.

Wouldn’t the Bible be the one to answer our questions about how people can and will believe? If we trust the Bible as a rule of faith, then it is the Bible that should speak into how to build that faith. However, in Frank Gray’s work, ‘Biblical basis’ is a side topic. It isolates verses chosen to support the behavioral and communicational thinking used to explain the dynamics of conversion. In doing this, sowing, watering, and reaping (1Cor 3), which is a text about the history of the church in Corinth, was taken as if it were a regular process. Moreover, Jesus’ teaching that some did the hard work of sowing while others are called in to reap the harvest (John 4:36-38), is erroneously taken as simultaneous functions and not events separated by the death of the seed.

We should take the Bible as our foundation, the origin of our thoughts. The biblical inspiration was intentional in teaching on the evangelistic process. The parable of the four fields (Mathew 13:1-9), for instance, responds to why people react differently to the Good News. Jesus’ teaching about harvesting in John 4 puts the process of evangelization in another perspective, since 1Cor 3 does not refer to that. In the first chapter of Mark (14,15) we find Jesus preaching the essential message that he ordered to be preached in the last chapter (Mark 16:14,15). Jesus quotes Isaiah in Mathew 13, divinely explaining the cognitive process of knowledge and action. The Scriptures on the Great Commission depict four different presentations of the Gospel. When inviting us to season our preaching with salt, Paul shows us how to make our message more efficient and effective. Let's search the Bible, it’s all there! 

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Jose Bernardo is the OneHope vice-president for lusophone countries. OneHope is a global agency of the Bible that has worked in 145 countries giving the Word of God to every child.