Evangelism

A Biblical Evangelist: The Fifth Mark of a Healthy Church Member

/ davidsschrock / 2 Comments

On Sunday night, the church I am interim, Calvary Baptist (Seymour, IN), looked at what it means to be a “Biblical Evangelist” according to Thabiti Anyabwile’s helpful study What is a Healthy Church Member?  During our time together, I suggested five ways to live out a life of intentional evangelism.  In addition to memorizing an evangelistic tract and /or a series verses that outlines the gospel, consider the following steps of towards evangelistic fervency:

1. Community Evangelism.  Pray for a different ‘lost’ family member, friend, co-worker each day of the week.  Then, invite someone to church each week.  Imagine, under God, what your church would look like if every member of your household of faith took seriously these two practices–praying daily and inviting weekly.  Coupled with the faithful preaching and teaching of the gospel at your church, this exercise could bear much, much fruit.

2. Spontaneous Evangelism.  In Colossians 4:3, Paul says, “Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.”  Paul not only preached boldly, he prayed dependently and recruited others to pray with him and for him, so that God would open doors for evangelistic witness.  In my own life, earnest prayers like this have regularly been answered with God-ordained encounters to bear witness for Christ.  The problem is not God’s faithfulness to answer such prayers, but my weakness to keep praying for more opportunities.  May we learn to pray unceasinlgy with Paul for open doors to spontaneous evangelism.

3. Lifestyle Evangelism.  The Great Commission instructs us that “as we go” (participle) we are to “make disciples” (imperative).  Put in one word, evangelism should be our “lifestyle.”  There are dozens of ways to do this.  Let me suggest four: (1) live a life that leads to “Why”–as 1 Peter 3:15 suggests, live a life that causes others to ask you about the hope you have in Jesus; (2) get to know people by asking questions that will lead to more informed and more specific applications of the gospel, ask God to give you a heart for people and look for ways to interject Christ into daily conversation; (3) perform ‘strategic’ acts of kindness that will show the love of Christ and that instigate conversations about Jesus; and (4) commit yourself to being a regular and recruiting participant in your church’s evangelistic programs– don’t miss the joy of joining others in your church as they share Christ in your local context.

4. Thoughtful Evangelism.  Growth in anything requires time, persistence, and studied contemplation.  This is true for evangelism.  So, if you are serious about wanting to grow as a biblical evangelist, let me suggest a handful of helpful resources

  • Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism is the first book I would recommend, as it provides an excellent discussion of what the gospel is and how to go about telling others the simple, and yet eternally signficant, message of forgiveness and hope.
  • Robert Colemen, The Master Plan of Evangelism examines the life of Jesus and shows how the best evangelists are disciple-makers.  This book has been formative in my understanding of ministry, especially in the idea of spiritual multiplication.
  • J.I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God is an excellent theological inquiry into the relationship between God’s sovereignty in salvation and man’s responsibility to share the gospel with all people.

5. Discipled Evangelism.  Finally, there is no better way to grow as a “biblical evangelist” than to “do evangelism!”  And there is no better way to do that then to find a friend or older member in your church and learn from them and with them.  Timothy, Titus, Silas, and others co-labored with the Apostle Paul and learned first hand how to boldly share their faith, so too we should link arms with others in the church to grow in evangelism.  This co-laboring strengthens relations within the body and maximizes the effectiveness of the church’s witness.   If your church does not have such a ministry team, perhaps you, in coordination with your pastor, could help implement such an evangelistic unit.

In truth, evangelism is not something that we can do in the strength of our flesh.  Most of us experience great feelings of defeat whenever we think of evangelism, and yet this is one of God’s clearest instructions for us, to go and make disciples, sharing the good news with all the nations.  In fact, the Holy Spirit has been given to us for just such a ministry (Acts 1:8), and it is only as we join in what the Spirit of Christ is doing in the world that our joy is complete (cf. 1 John 1:1-4).  So, this week, let me encouage you to take hold of one of these action steps and to go forward with boldness and conviction to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.   You won’t be disappointed that you did.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Happy St. Patrick’s Day :: Green Means Go!

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

What comes to mind when you think of St. Patrick’s Day? 

Leprechauns.  Ireland.  A pot of gold.  Wearing green or drinking green beer.  If that is it, your understanding of this celebrated day is divorced from history and the real Patrick of Ireland.

Today on Moore to the Point, Dr. Russell Moore gives a brief history lesson on the real St Patrick that should make every missionally-minded Christian sit up and take notice.  Drawing on the Philip Freeman’s 2007 book, St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography, Moore summarizes:

Any evangelical seeking to kindle a love for missions among the people of God will benefit from this volume’s demonstration that the Great Commission did not lie dormant between the apostle Paul and William Carey. Patrick’s love and zeal for the Irish may also inspire American evangelicals to repent of our hopelessness for the conversion of, say, the radical Islamic world—which is, after all, no more “hopeless” than the Irish barbarians of Patrick’s era.

I encourage you to read the rest of Moore’s blogpost, What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick, and to give thanks for this obedient servant of Christ.  May his brave example spur us on to share the gospel with our own pagan nation and hostile neighbors. 

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

The Mystery of Marriage: A Quasi-Ordinance

/ davidsschrock / 3 Comments

[This is a follow-up post from The Mystery of Marriage: A Parable of Christ and Church  which reflected on George Knight’s article on Ephesians 5 in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem [Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991], 175-76)].

From the foundation of the world, marriage was always designed to picture a greater reality.  Generation after generation of God’s covenant people knew of his marital designs and creation, but only in the fullness of time, as Jesus Christ came in the flesh and the Spirit of Christ inspired the apostles to elucidate the gospel of Jesus Christ, did the mystery of husband and wife become known.  Consider Knight’s concluding remarks:

But if this is so, then the order Paul is speaking of here (submission and love [in Ephesians 5:22-33]) is not accidental or temporary or culturally determined: it is part of the essence of marriage, part of God’s original plan for perfect, sinless, harmonious marriage.  This is a powerful argument for the fact that Christlike, loving headship and church-like, willing submission are rooted in creation and in God’s eternal purposes, not just in the passing trends of culture (176).

In our foolish and anti-Christ(ian) world, there are countless marriages that exist in rebellion against the very purpose for which they were designed.  God made marriage for his glory and the expression his covenant love with his bride, redeemed humanity.  Consequently, the establishment of marriage in Genesis 2 was intended to tesify to this reality. 

Today, unbelievers experience the mystery of marriage, but without knowing how to understand it.  They are blind to its salvific and cosmic significance.  Too non-Christian marriages are drenched in bitterness and guile, because unmitigated sin gnaws at their covenantal bond.  But unbelievers are not alone.  Christian marriages war against God’s design for marriage whenever they cast aside God’s intended order for husbands and wives (cf. 1 Cor. 11:7; Eph. 5:22-33; 1 Pet. 3:1-7).  This can be done by deliberate egalitarianism or by immature believers in need of marital sanctification.  Either way, in failing to recognize God’s wise design for husbands to lead and wives to follow, for men to love like Christ and women to submit like the church, they are dishonoring the Word of God, disobeying the Lord who bought them, and distorting God’s picture of salvation captured in the parable of marriage. 

God’s illustrative purposes for marriage is what makes it a mystery.  Just as the heavens testify to the glory of God, so marriage captures something of his grandeur–something that is seen in the best of marriages, to be sure.  Likewise, as baptism and the Lord’s supper resemble the salvation of Christ’s disciples, so marriage images something about Christ and the church.  In this way, marriage is a kind of quasi-ordinance.  It is not restricted to the church; it is rather for all people.  Yet, in its global enjoyment it testifies to heavenly realities and God’s cosmic plan of redemption in Christ.  In this way, marriage is perhaps one of the largest and potentially broadest means of sharing the gospel, as marriage itself can be called upon to witness to Christ and the church.  The impact of marriage biblically arranged and gloriously incarnated has great evangelistic potential.  Soberly, couples that disregard God’s word concerning marriage, cannot have such effect. 

God’s designs are not new, they are from before the foundation of the world.  Neither is Satan’s attack on marriage.  He attacked Eve in the Garden and he is still advancing towards marriages today.  May we who love the gospel and the biblical vision for marriage, fight to protect our homes from the corrosive effects of an anti-marriage culture, and may we by the power of the Spirit embrace and embody God’s glorious designs for marriage.  So that perhaps, the world around us might come to know Christ by the testimony of our marriages which point to the message we proclaim–Jesus Christ is Lord!

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Salvador Dali, Marriage, and the God Who is There

/ davidsschrock

In his book The God Who is There, Francis Schaeffer points to Salvador Dali as an example of someone whose world reshaped his worldview.  Unlike many whose lives are marked by inconsistency, promoting one system of thought but living out another, Salvador Dali, the twentieth century painter, readjusted his artwork to accord with his home life.  Describing this transformation, Schaeffer remarks that Dali’s loving tribute to his wife marks the time in which his paintings took on a more humane and sensible form.  He says, “So on this particular day [describing the day he painted his wife] Dali gave up his surrealism and began his new series of mystical paintings.” (71).

In his later artwork, Dali turned to Christian symbols and figures to express his non-Christian mysticism. For instance in The Sacrament of the Last Supper, he depicts a vaporous savior seated with his disciples overshadowed by a human figured on a cross, presumably Jesus, but whose head is unseen, cut off by the top of the painting.  Thus his paintings have Christian motifs but ignore the historic Christian message.  The painting that Schaeffer points to most and the one that he attributes to his remarkable “conversion” is that of his wife.   In the painting Dali depicts his wife with one breast exposed, her name prominently on the picture, and great artistic emphasis on the ring on her finger, unashamedly supporting their marital vows.  Schaeffer’s assessment is that, “his loved jarred him into a modern type of mysticism” (71). 

But if marital love moved him to some kind of transcedent mysticism, it, by implication, saved him from the suicidal nihilism of a worldview devoid of love and meaning–the worldview that accompanies surrealist art.  Dali named this painting of his wife, “A Basket of Bread.”  Interestingly, this is the same name he gave to two other “eucharistic” paintings.   It seems by such a title that he is applying eucharistic overtones to and deriving spiritual elements from his marriage.  And though Dali does not have the categories or the definitions to understand what he is seeing, in his marriage he sees something transcedent and spiritual.  In short, in his marriage he is given a picture of a greater reality–that is the mystery now revealed of Christ and the church (cf. Eph. 5:32).  Sadly Dali never embraced this greater reality, but it is apparent that his marriage made him thirst for more.  His marital union, it appears, allured him to long for more of Christ, though in the end he ignorantly revolted against the one who drew him near.

Dali’s artistry and life are illuminating.  They remind of us of the impact marriage can have and is designed to have.  It was made to awaken our senses for God.  More specifically, marriage was made by God as a witness to Jesus and his bride, the church.  It is a mystery, but every marriage–Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Wickan, or otherwise that unites one man to one woman–portrays Christ and the church.  Even those like Dali, who reject the Bible, taste and see something eternal, holy, and true in their own marriages, but without Spiritual illumination they will never comprehend that which they experience.  

Salvador Dali’s life and art is a helpful reminder that marriage beckons us to the God who is there.  Even in the lives of agnostics and atheists, marriage serves as divinely-crafted institution to assist the Great Commission and to bring unbelievers to Christ.  Consequently, Christians should see marriages as evangelistic weapons in the spiritual warfare we wage.  As we point married men and women to Christ, we can call on their own marriages to testify to their need and desire for the heavenly marriagee.  Marriage is a personally authenticating reality that testifies to the world and to those who are married (or those who long for marriage) that there is a God who is there, and that he is not silent, and that his message is a wedding invitation for all those who are willing to wear his ring (cf. Matthew 22:1-14).

May we like John the Baptist (John 3:27-30), be faithful groomsmen, calling people to come to the wedding to which all weddings foreshadow.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Intimate Allies (pt. 2): Marriage and Evangelism

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Evangelism: Marriage Depicts the Mystery of Christ and the Church

In Intimate Allies, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman show how marriage reflects to the watching a world a picture of the gospel, while at the same time for those Christian couples committed to growing in Christ-like conformity, it provides powerful opportunities for discipleship and sanctification.  Consider first their observation on marriage’s gospel-depicting purpose(s):

Marriage must be a picture of or testimony to new birth.  Marriage must reflect the fruits of new birth and the creative, Trinitarian God who is he author of life.  In that sense, a marriage is the foundation of evangelism and the declaration of the possiblity of being a son and a daughter–being a member of the family of God.  The central task of a marriage is first to create and offer life and then to take new life and shape it in the direction of maturity (79-80).

What an incredible vision of marriage!  By participating in and continuing the work of creation in the world through child-bearing, marriage is a picture of new birth.  Likewise, as life is cultivated within the marriage, and as the fruits of marital love are seen with runny noses and dirty feet, God’s program of filling the earth is accomplished.  Consequently, marriage does not stand at odds with God’s plan of salvation, as some might assume from passages of Scripture like 1 Corinthians 7; rather, marriage is a primary means by which the Great Commission is accomplished.  Consequently, marriages that seek to reflect the overflowing love of Christ and the church, provide a powerful lead in to gospel conversations and testimony to the greater, more perfect marriage–one that married and singles alike, can look forward to.

Paul in writing to the Colossians asked for prayer, that God would open a door for more effective service.  He writes, “Pray for us also, that God may open a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison” (4:3).  This petition is a model prayer for all missions-minded believers, and for the married couple who long to see their marriage be a means of evangelistic witness, it should fill their hearts with hope.  For the very being of their marriage witnesses to the mystery now revealed–Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32).  So married couples can and should pray with boldness that God would open doors of for the word of God, pried open by unbelievers witnessing the effect of Christ on their marriage.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

The Goal of Marriage is the Kingdom of God

/ davidsschrock

THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE IN THE PLEASURE OF ANOTHER

 

Here is a point to ponder.

Darby Livingston, pastor of Come As You Are Fellowship in Union City, OH, comments on 1 Corinthians 7:29, in his book The Pursuit of Pleasure in the Pleasure of Another: A Christian Hedonist Guide to a Happy Marriage (if you are not familiar with the term Christian Hedonism, coined by John Piper, see Pastor John’s explanation here).  Pastor Livingston writes:

 

 

“From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none”  (1 Cor. 7:29)  What does that mean?  Are we supposed to leave our spouses?  NO! [Capital letters mine]… We’re just supposed to be gospel-centered whether single or married.  The gospel isn’t to be used to build better marriages, though sermons and books abound on that topic.  Just the opposite is true.  Marriage is to be used to expand the Kingdom of God through the gospel.  In saying that men with wives should live as though they had none, Paul is saying that the gospel has invaded this evil world and has flipped past priorities on their heads.  Our priority before believing the gospel may have been to build a comfortable little life with our spouse and pray we live long enough to enjoy the fruit of our labor [Ecclesiastes 9:9 does say as much].  Our priority since believing the gospel must be to use every temporal blessing, including marriage, as the means of advancing God’s Kingdom on earth (Darby Livingston, The Pursuit of Pleasure in the Pursuit of Another [USA: Xulon Press, 2007], 124).

In John Piper-esque fashion, Pastor Livingston challenges comfortable Christian marriages, to count the cost, pick up the cross, and carry the gospel.  This is not optional, this is essential.  Overstating his case, Livingston says that “the gospel isn’t to be used to build better marriages.”  Clearly this is not true in and of itself.  The gospel of Jesus Christ does build better marriages.  However, in context his point is dead on!  Good marriages are not the final goal.  The gospel is!  And marriages are to orient themselves around this reality.  As Jesus says with similar hyperbole, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).  In stating his case this way, Pastor Livingston is simply paraphrasing the words of our Lord, and challenging Christian couples to live lives of discipleship.  

Though, I have only read a few chapters of Livingston’s book, I commend it to you as a book that will help you see the glory of God in your marriage and to live radically for the kingdom of God.  If you are a Christian Hedonist, this book is for you; if you are not yet a Christian Hedonist, I would encourage you all the more to check it out.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Marriage: An Evangelistic Conversation Starter

/ davidsschrock

A good friend of mine, Jedidiah Coppenger, who happens to be the new basketball coach at Boyce College, and who blogs with some quality brothers at Baptist21, recently posted a reflection on trends in evangelism that he has experienced as a cell phone salesman.  Throughout more than two years of work three things stood out as counter-cultural evangelistic conversation starters: family, work, and marriage.  His thoughts on marriage correspond with many of the things I have reflected on over the last couple months.  Listen to what he says:

First, a biblical view of marriage seems to be a significant place for evangelistic conversations. Sadly, it seems like most Christians look at marriage the same way that they look at the American Post Office. They don’t care how the Post Office orders itself, just as long as it delivers. Likewise, they don’t care how the marriage is ordered, just as long as it lasts. There is something attractive about this approach in light of the divorce-ridden culture in which we live. After all, some say, with as much divorce as there is, do whatever you can! This type of attitude will be well accepted by your lost coworkers and the culture at large.

But cultural accommodation isn’t the goal. After all, you won’t find a Bible verse saying, “Marriage is so hard that you should do whatever works best for you personally. The ordering that works best your marriage may or may not work for another. Just make what you can of it. Good luck.” Instead, you’ll find very clear directions from the Apostle Paul on the most volatile part of marriage, how the couple should relate to one another. The Apostle says that “the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church” (Eph. 5:23) and that wife should submit to her husband as the church does to Christ (Eph. 5:24). So the husband is placed in a position of authority and the wife in a place of support. Both, of course, stand before God as equals (1 Pet. 3:7), but they serve distinctly.

Will this solve all of the marital problems? Of course not. We are all sinners. But with more Christian husbands seeking conformity to the headship displayed by Jesus as he gave his life for the good of his bride on the cross, the role of the husband as leader will look less like a privilege and more like a glorious burden. And if more Christian wives joyfully submit to their husband’s leadership like the church does to her husband, Jesus, then the role of a submissive wife will look less like a prison and more like a place of freedom and joy. Marriages like this won’t make you popular, but they will be used of God to make you holy. And, by God’s grace, as more Christian marriages conform to the Christ-church picture in the midst of a culture that will continue to glorify christ figures (husbands) who forsake their brides, the curiosity of more unbelieving coworkers and neighbors will be awakened. Hopefully, through consciences that know something has been lost, these friends will ask us for the reason for the order in our homes. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to point them to the order in the household of God.

I wholeheartedly agree.   May we who love the gospel order our homes and our marriages in such a way that our lives confront disinterested family members, co-workers, and neighbors with a kind of marriage that does not fit the 21st Western mold.  By ordering our marriages and conducting ourselves according to a heavenly logic, we can better tell the world of the Christ-church mystery that they were created to enjoy.  As Jed asserts, this won’t make us popular, but perhaps for those who have eyes to see it will make the gospel persuasive–which is far more important.  Lets pray and work towards that end!

You can read the rest of his post here.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Too Busy Not to Evangelize?

/ davidsschrock

Always probing, Timmy Brister challenges brothers and sisters in Christ to slow down and evangelize. The whole article, “Too Busy Not to Evangelize?”, is convicting. This is the sentence that got me.

The more important we think we are, the less time we will have for people, especially people who are not like us.

Lord, may we like John the Baptist decrease so that Jesus Christ and the gospel may increase. May we slow down to spend time with the people for whom Christ died so that the kingdom of Christ may gain speed in our neighborhoods and around the world.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Marriage: A Heavenly Sculpture Formed From Earthly Clay

/ davidsschrock


In his popular-level book on marriage, Married for God,Christopher Ash relates a story from Britain that illustrates the way that marriage is expressly intended to display the lovingkindness of God.

Some years ago I read of a dispute in Britain between the Foreign Office and the Treasury. The argument was about which British Ambassadors would be provided with a Rolls Royce for their official duties in a foreign capital [sic]. The Treasury unsurprisingly wanted the wonderful cars restricted to a few: perhaps Washington, Moscow, and Paris. The Foreign Office argued for many more and I love the reasoning. Most people in a foreign capital [sic] have never been to Britain, they said. But when they see this magnificent car gliding through the streets with the Union flag on the bonnet, they will say to themselves, “I have not been to Britain. I don’t know much about Britain. But if they make cars like that there [and in those days we did!], then Britain must be a wonderful place.

In a similar way, I like to think that men and women may say to themselves as they watch a Christian marriage: “I have never seen God. Sometimes I wonder, when I look at the world, if God is good, or if there is a God. But if he can make a man and woman love one another like this; if he can make this husband show costly faithfulness through sickness as well as health; if he can give him resoucres to love when frankly there is nothing in it for him; well, then he must be a good God. And if he can five this wife grace to submit so beautifully, with such an attractive gentle spirit under terrible trials, then again he must be a good God. If you are married or preparing for marriage, pray that others might be able to say this of you in the years ahead (Christopher Ash, Married For God:Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2007],96).

Christopher Ash’s analogy points to the way God has designed marriages to radiate His glory and reveal truth about His faithfulness and love. In the human clay of marriage, God has imprinted his heavenly signature, and men and women who are joined by him have the dignified privilege of serving as heavenly ambassadors in a fallen world. Such a living portrayal of God’s love is neither optional or incidental, it is God’s design and his desire for every marriage–Christian or otherwise. Of course, patterned after Jesus Christ and his bride, only those marriages founded on Christ and filled with the Spirit are able to fully reflect his glory (cf. Matt. 7; Eph. 5:18). Nevertheless, every truly Christian marriage should invite others–married couples and interested singles–to experience the increasing depths of heavenly intimacy had in the display of Jesus’ redemptive love portrayed in marriage.

Reading Ash’s account challenges those married or soon to be married to consider how your own marriage discloses or covers Christ and the Church, the love of God, and the blessed hope of union with Christ at the end of the age, to name a few. Marriage was not ultimately created to provide temporal pleasures in a rough-and-tumble world; it was created to picture a greater reality that might draw all the nations into the gracious embrace of the Risen Savior. While providing wonderful pleasures, marriage points to a greater and more lasting union– the marriage feast with the lamb of God (Rev. 19:6-10).

May our marriages grow in the glory of God’s love, and may a skeptical world be awakened by the light of Christ shining forth from our Christ-centered marriages.

Sola Deo Gloria,dss

Sex tells…the Gospel !?

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Everyone knows that sex sells, but not everyone is equally well informed that sex also tells.   Indeed, for covenant-keeping married couples, sex tells the story of the Triune God who, though different from us, desires to be united with us.   Amazingly, God has ordained that within the matrix of marriage, covenant partners are privy to the delicacies of God’s unconditional, everlasting, and all-consuming love.  By divine design, marital love is analogous to God’s love for his people, so that all those who participate in this blessed union of souls (i.e. monogamous, heterosexual marriage) find a flesh and blood illustation of  God’s lovingkindness and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The result is that within marriage, sex uniquely discloses an epic of God’s sacrificial love and covenantal faithfulness.  For instance, as a man honors his wife by delighting in her frailities and imperfections, he expresses the love of Christ; just as when a respectful wife gladly receives the off-balanced advances of her repentant husband, she reflects the obedient enthusiam of the Spirit-filled church.   In this is the mystery of Christ and the church, because after all, the passionate death of God’s son was enacted for the express purpose of purchasing of his beloved bride (John 3:16; Ephesians 5:33).   Consequently, Christian marriages that endeavor to show the love of God to one another in sexual intimacy, beam forth with radiance and bear witness to the cosmic reality of Christ and his church.   Though this is probably not the first thing young couples think about on their honeymoon, perhaps it should be.

Mark Dever makes this bold connection between human sexuality and divine glory in his essay on the Puritan’s view on sex.  Rather than subscribing to a dour, disenchanted view of sexuality and marriage, the biblically-saturated Puritans, delighted in sexuality for the purpose of glorifying God’s goodness and extolling his Good News.  We can learn much from the example of these heavenly-minded saints.  Dever writes:

We need to re-couple sex and the glory of God as part of our evangelism.  When we use another person for money or for a one-night stand, when we use pornography, we de-couple sex from its intended purpose.  Whenever we use other people to achieve our own gratification and ends, we idolize ourselves and out appetites.  However, God set up good sex as part of evangelism.  That does not mean we practice evangelistic dating, let alone evangelistic mating.  It means that the sexual intimacy of marriage helps our spouse to love God, it helps us understand how Christ loves the church, and it builds a marriage that is distinct from unfaithful and non-Christian marriages. 

[Richard] Baxter writes, “When Husband and Wife take pleasure in each other, it uniteth them in duty, it helpeth them with ease to do the work, and bear their burdens; and is not the least part of the comfort of the married state” (The Christian Directory, 522).  In short, sex within marriage helps display the Christian gospel by teaching us how to love and how we are loved by One who is different than Ourselves–by God himself  (Mark Dever, “Christian Hedonists or Religious Prudes?  The Puritans on Sex” in Sex and the Supremacy of Christ [Crossway: 2005], 264).

“Sex as part of evangelism.”  When was the last time you heard that as a church growth strategy?  Certainly, all things that God created good have the potential to elicit praise and to point people to Christ.  Sex should no different.   Upheld in its dignified and holy place, sex ought to be a means by which Christ and his church are made known.   This is certainly true within marriage, and as Christians hold out a model of pure and lovely sexuality in a world that trashes the beauty of this creation, they offer to those who have ears to hear a message that points people to Christ.

It seems then that we can learn much from pure, holy, and protected sex within marriage.  Amazingly, we can even learn about the gospel!  And unlike the vulgar knowledge of sex gained in a high school locker room or the backseat of a car, this knowledge opens the eyes of our heart to see the lovingkindness of the creator of this marvelous gift.  Moreover, it demonstrates his love to us and charges us to make his grace and glory known by keeping our covenant commitments of marriage and to keep his precious gift of sexuality pure.  In this way the gospel is advanced and the love of the kingdom is made manifest.  May we learn from our Puritan heritage, and learn to delight in our spouses for the sake of our marriages and for the sake of the gospel.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss