The approach to presenting the Gospel that most of us grew up with…the preaching, writing, teaching, and evangelism…and then inherited, might’ve worked on a culture that pretty much doesn’t even exist anymore. We live in a post-Christian culture where “the Bible says” clearly doesn’t carry the weight that it once did.
But the first-century followers of Jesus…especially the Apostles…showed us how to go about it. They put all of their eggs in one basket…the Easter basket…they leveraged the reality and the truth and the historical event of the resurrection. They drove it home. Maybe the church nowadays oughta do the same.
A simple change of approach…one that clearly grew Jesus’ ekklesia in the first-century against overwhelming odds…will likely have a much better result than what is still being done today, ‘if’ the church truly wants to reach unchurched and post-Christian people nowadays.
Apostle Paul was clearly more than willing to adjust his approach. He even used the words “By all possible means” to describe it. So maybe the present day church oughta adjust their sails and simply shift their approach for the sake of presenting the Gospel to these folks, and actually ‘reaching’ them with it.
The faith of current believers doesn’t depend on it (even though I think this insight can certainly strengthen one’s faith), but the faith of the next generation just might. It makes sense to me to make Christianity attractive again by stepping back onto the solid foundation of that of the first-century church; the foundation that gave rise to the original version of Christianity; a version that spread like an airborne contagion; a version that the ancient world found to be attractive and captivating.
