Shortly before His ascension, Christ gave His disciples an immense task: to “go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:16-20).
The obstacles those disciples faced may seem completely overwhelming to us. The greatest challenge was not adverse terrain or wearying travel, their greatest challenge was other people — humanity. They were opposed and persecuted by both Jews and Gentiles, by individuals and governments. They were imprisoned, beaten, whipped, stoned, tortured, and killed for their faith in Jesus Christ. Even so, against all odds (to the world’s view, at least), they succeeded in their mission to teach the world in just a few decades. How did they teach and what can we learn from their methods?
One thing to notice is that their preaching was centered on Christ, not on themselves. Paul wrote “We do not preach ourselves” (2 Corinthians 4:5). They did not preach “their” church, but Christ’s church. In their evangelism, they first taught the foundation of who Jesus is: they taught about His authority, sinless life, miracles, death, and resurrection. In Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, he told the Jews about who Jesus was and what they had done to their Messiah, then commanded them to repent and be baptized. Sometimes in our eagerness to evangelize we accidentally put the cart before the horse. If people don’t know who Christ is or why His death matters they can’t believe in Him or repent of their sins.
Another point for us to consider is that they saw their responsibility to teach as a personal one, not simply congregational. We likely often think of evangelism in terms of a congregation supporting a preacher or even multiple preachers. These things are scriptural and good, but it is important to realize that they were not the main mode of spreading the gospel in the first century. Christians who heard the gospel (and spread through the world) told others because they saw it as their own, personal responsibility. They told others to “come and see” (John 1:46).
Lastly, they were willing to live lives of sacrifice and to die terrible deaths for the cause of Christ. To the Corinthians Paul wrote, “For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If One died for all, then all died. And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). Christ showed the greatest love of all time by dying on the cross. The first Christians knew could never repay Christ for His love, but they could reflect to others the love that Christ showed to them.
When we have the attitude about ourselves and our relationship to Christ that the Christians in the first century had we will be properly equipped to be effective evangelists. We must, like Christ, speak what we have been sent to speak (John 12:49; 17:18; 20:21). We are but the messengers, entrusted with an incomparable message (John 13:16). The world must see Christ Jesus in the lives we live, the actions we take, and the words we speak.
— Stefan Richardson