Evangelism / Proselytizing / Repentance

It seems to me that many Christians focus a LOT of their efforts into trying to make as many converts as possible. And I was just thinking the other day why that is.

In the final verses of Matthew and of Mark Jesus gives the so called great commission to go into all the world preaching the gospel and baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Luke and at the beginning of Acts He implies that the gospel will spread out to the whole world, but He doesn't command them to do the spreading.

In Mark 6 when He sends out His disciples He tells them to preach repentance and to heal the sick. In Matthew 10 He says the same thing: preach repentance. But this time He specifically says to only go to the Jews; nobody else. In John 10 He says to tell them that the kingdom of God has come near to them. In John 20:21 He says, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you."

My point is that there are very few places in the gospels where Jesus says we have to go out and tell people about Him. When He does send out His disciples he tells them to heal the sick and preach repentance, just as He did while He was walking around with them. He wasn't going around saying, "Hey everybody! I'm the Messiah. Believe in me or else you'll go to hell." He did do some of that but it seems that His bigger focus was on repentance and healing.

Really quick I will define repentance for you, because a lot of Christians really don't understand this word. Repentance means you stop sinning. In modern Judaism when we say a Jew repented what we usually mean is that he left his life of doing whatever the hell he felt like doing and he started living according to the Torah. I think that's a very accurate definition of repentance.

In the gospels (I'm particularly thinking of John) Jesus says that if they knew the Torah and the prophets they would know Him; they would have immediately recognized Him as the anointed redeemer of the world. What I'm suggesting now is that rather than making our priority going to all the world to tell them that they are sinners who need Jesus, maybe we should be doing exactly what Jesus did: healing the sick and preaching a return to the lifestyle of the Torah. My theory is that once people have truly repented and gained an understanding of the Torah they will automatically see Jesus for themselves.

But then why aren't all the religious Jews seeing it so obviously? They have been purposely blinded for now and it may be that in all world they will be the last to see it. As it has been said, "the last will be first and the first will be last."

When was the last time you saw someone both preaching repentance and healing the sick? I've never seen it personally. I've heard a few stories from Africa and India, but I've never seen it up close. There are so called healers like Benny Hinn, and there are feel good preachers like Joel Osteen, and there are guys like Paul Washer preaching repentance, and there are theology teachers like John Piper, but why have I never seen anyone preach total repentance AND heal the sick? Isn't that exactly what Jesus told us to do in the gospel accounts I mentioned above? So why aren't we doing it?

I want to remind you that also how well carry out the great commission has no direct connection to our own salvation. In other words our entrance into heaven is not at all based upon the number of people we led to know Jesus. What it IS based upon is that Jesus is able to say to us, "oh yeah, I know you! Well done good and faithful servant!" The way Jesus describes His good and faithful servants is they kept watch for His return, they tended the "vineyard", they visited the sick and imprisoned, they clothed the naked, they fed the hungry, they invested what He freely gave to them so that it grew.

The good and faithful servants' lives show the following characteristics: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. When you look at someone and see that these things are the description of their character you will also notice that it's contagious. Their great character also gives the people around them great character. Now add to that the fact that this guy has the power to miraculously heal people and he does it in the name of Jesus, who he follows with all his heart. After about 10 seconds with this guy you would see others like him who were doing the same things. Because the Holy Spirit doesn't lie dormant; it spreads like fire to all who will receive it.

Now I come to my main thought and question: how did we Christians get our priorities so mixed up? How did we make the great commission mean we just go tell people about Jesus to add them as a number on our list of converts we made? The Gospel is so much more than that! How have we so easily received Christian doctrine and thrown out the Bible? What have we done? We desperately need repentance: to return to God in humility, to study the Bible as is, and to completely rethink what our mission from God is here in this world.

He says if we seek Him we will find Him. If we seek Him with our whole hearts.