“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” Isaiah 61:1-2a ESV
Reflection: what do you say when you share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others?
If you look up the word “Evangelism”, you’ll probably find a definition like “the act of sharing the Christian gospel, the message and teachings of Jesus Christ, with the intention of converting others to Christianity.” This one was from Wikipedia, which is not necessarily known for the best representation of biblical truths. But, we can probably agree that the definition is not too bad. Now, following this definition, an Evangelist is therefore someone who is actually “sharing the Christian gospel” with others. Next, we see the “what” in the definition, saying that an Evangelist shares “the message and teachings of Jesus Christ,”, which is also pretty close to the truth. But the last part of the definition, the “why” in Evangelism, where it states “with the intention of converting others to Christianity.” gives a false impression of purpose. Because, this definition makes Evangelism almost seem deceptive, like having a hidden agenda such as growing a political party or cause. But, then let’s ask ourselves,
Why do we want to share the gospel of Jesus Christ?
If you have ever tried, you know that “what” to share is not that easy. But reading Isaiah 61 might give us a much better way to share the gospel of Jesus. Let’s start by read what Jesus Himself taught in the synagogue, to His own people. “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”” Luke 4:16-21 ESV.
Now, if you look back at the focus verses for today, you will see that He read from Isaiah 61, and then proclaimed that He, Jesus from Nazareth, was the fulfillment of this prophecy. He was the anointed one who Isaiah spoke of, the Messiah who would fulfill this, the Christ. We might also remember that most, in particular the religious leaders, took great offense to this and rejected Him. In fact, they wanted to get rid of Him. And what is so interesting about that is the specifics about what He was teaching them, what His message was to them. It wasn’t an offensive message at all. Let’s enumerate again the main points of His message, if we take it from the Old Testament account,
- bring good news to the poor,
- bind up the brokenhearted,
- proclaim liberty to the captives,
- opening of the prison to those who are bound,
- proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
If we look at this, who was He really speaking to? The poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the imprisoned and bound; not physically speaking, but the spiritually poor, broken, etc, which is also echoed in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. That really was His message. His gospel. It was a message of freedom; which was summarized by the last element of the message; “a year of the Lord’s favor”. That idea was well understood and known among the people and religious leaders at the time, as it was part of their law demonstrating God’s mercy (Leviticus 25). But their hearts were hardened. They didn’t like that people would be free; they wanted to control people, they wanted power over people. Boy, doesn’t that sound familiar? Notice also Jesus never tried to use any sort of deceptive or coercive means, no hidden agenda in what He said.
He simply offered freedom, and asked people to follow Him.
Perhaps we too can take some lessons here about how, what, and why to share the gospel with others. It is a simple message of freedom to all who have seen and know that this world only offers sorrow, hurts, enslavement, imprisonment, and captivity. We don’t have to “trick” anyone to give money, to join a church, or some sort of a movement, in order to be freed and become a follower of Christ. Because, the gospel is freedom, fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It is a message we can deliver from the Lord, of His favor to all who receive.
