Book Review: The Gospel and Personal Evangelism

It has been said that if you want to humble any Christian you should ask him/her how their prayer life is going or how they are doing at evangelism. That statement would most certainly apply to me regarding evangelism (we will leave my prayer life for another post.) I must admit that evangelism was not something on my radar. I rarely thought about sharing the Gospel with people, and when I did I always had some excuse to give to not share. Even the remorse, sadness and guilt at missed opportunities was quickly dashed away. I was blissfully going through my days without a second thought about sharing the Gospel with those around me that were blinded by their sin and on their way to hell and I held in my hands the news that they needed to hear, the news that would rescue them from condemnation, the news that would restore a right relationship with God. Something was wrong and something needed to change in me. It is with that in mind that I picked up the book “The Gospel and Personal Evangelism” by Mark Dever.


Dever is senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. He also serves as the executive director of 9Marks Ministry, a ministry that seeks “to build biblically faithful churches in America," and as co-founder of “Together For The Gospel,” an organization that seeks to bring together different denominations without sacrificing doctrine. On top of these three major ministries he can also be found speaking at conferences around the country such as the Desiring God Conference, Shepherds Conference, Together For The Gospel Conference and Ligonier Ministries Conference. Somehow he manages to find time to write some pretty good books too (Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel).


There are many fine books on evangelism that I could have benefited from reading. But, Dever’s book attracted my attention because of its length, it is brief at only 124 pages, its brutal honesty, its real life application and most important: it’s Bible based.


The chapter titles are:
1. Why Don’t We Evangelize?
2. What Is the Gospel?
3. Who Should Evangelize?
4. How Should We Evangelize?
5. What Isn’t Evangelism?
6. What Should We Do After We Evangelize?
7. Why Should We Evangelize?


Each chapter is very important to Dever’s purpose in writing this book. Dever states on page 16 “(this book) is meant to be an encouragement, a clarification, an instruction, a rebuke, and a challenge all rolled up into several short chapters. My prayer is that because of the time you spend reading this book, more people will hear the good news of Jesus Christ.” His work does not fall short of his desire. Pastor Dever pulls no punches when he reminds his readers of Christ’s command in Matthew 28. We are called to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." The words of Jesus are clear. We are to be those who tell others of the good news: Jesus has paid the price for our sins. And if we know the good that we are to do and do not do it James is very clear with his warning: So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:17).


The words of Pastor Dever and more importantly the words of God have struck me in a very painful way. I have sinned every time I chose not to share the Gospel because “It’s not the appropriate time, it’s not the appropriate place, I don’t want to ruin the relationship.” I sinned every time I shrugged off a missed opportunity to tell others that without Christ they will justly be condemned by a holy God to eternal separation from Him to a place that is described in Scripture with words like “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” and “the lake of fire,” and “where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched?” Yet, all the while it was I who was sinning. It was I who did not love them enough to share the most amazing news of all time: Jesus Christ, for our sake he (God) made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (11 Cor. 5:21)


The rebuke in the book is very heavy, but it is well balanced with encouragement to get on with sharing the Gospel. Through thought provoking questions and solid practical answers you will be ever mindful of sharing the Gospel with those around you. I now enjoy asking God each day to give me opportunities to share the Gospel with the people around me. I would highly recommend it.


For another review of the book refer to: http://www.discerningreader.com/review/the-gospel-and-personal-evangelism

Jason