What is Successful Evangelism?
How do we know if our evangelism is effective? If it has been successful? If God is pleased with our service? These are questions that I have frequently been asked since I began as a lay leader in Trinity’s evangelism ministry in 2019. Often, though not always, the people who are asking these questions have been taught that the effectiveness of an evangelistic encounter is measured by how the unbeliever responds to the evangelist. Are they remorseful over their sin? Have they put their trust in Jesus? Was it at least a “pleasant” conversation, devoid of heightened negative emotions? Does the unbeliever leave with a positive view of the evangelist, or more broadly, of Christianity?
I certainly understand why many people think that this is a good way to measure evangelistic success. Those whose opinions on evangelism have been influenced by worldly thinking will want to see that they have successfully “convinced” the unbeliever that they need Jesus. They think that if they have a strong enough argument their opponent will concede their points. Even some trying to think from a biblical perspective can err here, thinking that humans are basically reasonable and able to respond positively to the gospel if the evangelist’s arguments and witness are good enough.
However, thinking that the measure of evangelistic success lies in how an unbeliever responds is unbiblical for several reasons. The first is that only God can change an unbeliever’s heart. Only God can make a dead man live. The second is that the consistent mark of success for Old and New Testament prophets was not how their audience responded to their message, but how faithful they were in passing God’s message to the people. The third is that in his natural state, man is unable to respond positively to the gospel outside of God’s saving power.
It is God Who Saves
Whether intentionally or not, people who contend that our arguments or witness can convince an unbeliever to repent fundamentally misunderstand how God saves people. Let’s take a quick run through some passages that show us who is responsible for saving souls:
Ezekiel 36:26
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel 37:3-5
“And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “Oh LORD God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”
John 6:37
“All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”
Romans 1:16
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
Ephesians 2:8-9
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
This is but a sampling of teaching from the bible that clearly shows that it is God who gives the gift of salvation. Only He can take out a man’s heart of stone that is unresponsive to God and give him a living heart of flesh. The gospel is the power of God for salvation, not the power of man. We are given by the Father to the Son.
This should put to death any idea that you can save someone by convincing them of the truth of the gospel. Man does not have that power! God in His immense grace and kindness toward us chooses to work through our preaching of His gospel, but we should not confuse that with us having the power for salvation any more than a saw can take credit for cutting down a tree. God may work through us as a means, but only He has the power to take a man who is dead in his sins and make him alive with Christ.
The Example of the Prophets
Since a prophet is someone who speaks the Word of God, and our job as evangelists is to give people God’s Word unto salvation, we should look to the example of the prophets that God sent throughout the Old and New Testaments as an example of informative and faithful service. How did God measure the success of the prophets? If evangelism is successful when an unbeliever responds well, then the mark of a successful prophet would have to be repentance from their audience, right?
The answer to that should be painfully obvious. Very few of the prophets sent by God were well received. 2 Peter 2:5 calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness” and yet only Noah’s family was preserved from the Flood. His preaching appears to have been completely in vain, without success, and yet he is still called “blameless” in Genesis 6:9, and held up as an example of faithfulness in Hebrews 11.
Or how about the example of Moses? Though he led the Israelites out of Egypt and to the promised land, God ultimately rejected that generation because of their grumbling against him in the wilderness. Moses had given those people the law! He was their leader and representative before God, and there are many examples in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy of him preaching to them and warning them against turning away from God. And yet they did just that.
Did God then consider Moses to be a failure? He did prevent him from entering the promised land because Moses disobeyed Him (Numbers 20:12), but not because Moses had failed to keep the Israelites on the right path. According to Deuteronomy 34:10, there has never again been a prophet like him (until Jesus).
Next, let’s look at Jeremiah. He was a prophet to Judah shortly before and during the Babylonian exile and destruction of Jerusalem. He preached to the Judeans that they must turn back to God and away from false prophets, but the book of Jeremiah records that his warnings were not received well (Jer. 7:27), his own village tried to kill him (Jer. 11:21) and he was generally persecuted throughout his life because of his prophecies against Judah. Was Jeremiah a successful prophet? Was he faithful to God in his duties even though the people rejected him? Absolutely.
I will also briefly mention examples in the New Testament of Paul, the 12 Disciples, and even Jesus himself being rejected by people, yet commended by God. Paul was stoned, beaten, lashed, and imprisoned for preaching the gospel (2 Cor. 11:23-25). Yet God was glorified in his weakness and suffering, and through Paul spread the gospel further than through any other Apostle. Jesus told the Disciples that if a town rejected them, they should shake its dust off their feet (an act of condemnation). He didn’t lambast them for unsuccessful evangelism in those towns. And lastly, Jesus himself, who never sinned, was rejected by almost the entire nation of Israel, yet his Father in heaven was pleased with him (Matt. 17:5) and no Christian would dare say that his evangelism was unsuccessful.
In each of these cases we see a prophet being commended by God despite the fact that their audience did not respond “well” to their preaching. This flies in the face of measuring evangelistic success by how unbelievers receive our message.
Man’s Depravity
The belief that evangelism is successful when unbelievers respond well also fundamentally misunderstands the nature of unregenerate man. Let’s take a look at a few more Scriptures to see what the bible says about man’s fallen nature.
Romans 3:10-12
“…as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Romans 8:7-8
“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Ephesians 2:1-2
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience…”
Scripture clearly teaches that man in his natural state is incapable of pleasing God. Does it not please God when someone repents of their sin and trusts in Jesus? Of course it does, which means that man in his natural state, without God’s special grace, is not capable of doing so. A man dead in his sins, hostile to God, cannot raise himself to new life, regardless of how well tuned your arguments and witness to him are. He needs the Holy Spirit to give him a new birth first (John 3:5-8).
What is Successful Evangelism?
If successful evangelism can’t be measured by how well unbelievers receive it, how can we know whether our evangelism has been successful? The answer is this: You have had a successful evangelistic encounter if you have faithfully given them the gospel. Your success in evangelism is not measured by their response, but by how faithful to your Lord you have been in preaching His Word to them. Each of the prophets I listed above were commended by God because they faithfully passed along His words to the people that He told them to speak to. How can they, or we, be held responsible by God for how other people respond to His Word? Each one of us will stand or fall before our own master (Rom. 14:4).
I would like to end this blog post with 2 Corinthians 2:14-16. We, in Christ, are a fragrant offering to God. Pleasing and beautiful to those who are being saved, but the aroma of death itself to the dead. Remember this when you faithfully preach the gospel. Even though the one you’re preaching to may respond with hatred; it is pleasing to God, and that is what matters most. And perhaps He will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 2:25).
2 Corinthians 2:14–16
“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?”
