The Master Evangelist

In John 2:13-25, Jesus entered the temple in Jerusalem and found the leaders selling oxen, sheep and doves. The quiet serenity of the temple had been replaced by a din of animal noises; the fragrant smell of incense oils had been smothered by animal smells; the excitement of coming to the living God in an attitude of repose and worship was a ghost of the past. The moneychangers sat plying their trade. They changed the people’s money and greedily took a cut from the exchange. The priests paraded their importance as a sign of spirituality.

According to the Law of Moses, to receive forgiveness for their sins, the people who came to worship needed to offer sacrifices to God. However, in Jesus’ time, when a devout Jew brought the required animal to the temple to be sacrificed, he immediately ran into a problem. The priest at the door examined the animal and, more often than not, claimed that the animal was not good enough. He should know. He had studied “Lamb Theology.” The lamb would have a blemish or defect, unseen by its owner, that did not meet the priest’s standards of perfection. The priest would then offer to buy the animal at a price well below its true value and then sell one of his own “perfect” animals to the man.

Where did the priest get his “perfect” animals? From a previous worshiper!

What sort of God were his priestly representatives portraying to the common Jew by such a practice? Over the centuries, since the time of their return from captivity, the Jews had fostered a picture of a God who took and took. Religion was pure business. The religious leaders had given the people a wrong picture of God because the leaders themselves did not know the living God.

Read John 2:13-25 and answer the discussion questions:

Is the true God a god who only takes and takes?

How do religious leaders today portray God?

Do people in our time have a right or wrong picture of the true God?

What must be corrected in the thinking of many people?

How can we correct this wrong thinking?

How did the Lord correct it?

Can you imagine what it would have been like to stand in the temple that day? What would Jesus have looked like as he saw the corruption going on in His Father’s temple? Can you picture his expression as he patiently fashioned a scourge of cords together?

Was Jesus polite in his actions? What would people say about him on social media today?

Did Jesus want these priests to come to the Father? Then why was he so “impolite” to them? What kind of evangelism is that? Would the priests have listened to his message any other way?

Jesus’ conversation with these corrupted religious officials can teach us a lot about evangelism.

John 2:18 ESV

So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”

Look at Jesus’ answer!

John 2:19 ESV

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Did the priests understand at all what Jesus was saying to them?

John 2:20 ESV

The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”

And that was the end of the conversation! No debate, no podcast, no anything.

What can we learn from this very short conversation about evangelism?

1. Jesus did something that the leaders did not understand.

What did Jesus DO? He cleansed the temple. He gave them no warning, He did not ask their permission or opinion.

And as a result of his actions what did the Jews do? Jesus’ actions caused the Jews to ask a question.

2. Jesus gave an answer they could not understand.

How do we know that? Look at their response!

3. Jesus did not explain what he meant!

Can you see these three principles from the text?

Jesus wanted to correct the Jew’s wrong picture of God. He wanted to show them what God is really like— the true God.

John 1:18 ESV

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

In contrast to the greediness of the religious leaders in the temple, how did Jesus show them that God does not take, but rather gives?

Let’s look at two other responses of Jesus when it comes to evangelism.

II. The Lord’s Response to Nicodemus (John 3)

Key question: Did Jesus treat Nicodemus in the same way he treated the Pharisees?

John 3:1 ESV

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

What was Nicodemus’s social status?

Did Nicodemus have wealth? prestige? power? When a man has everything, he has no reason to fear anyone, right?

John 3:2 ESV

This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

Why then, did Nicodemus come to Jesus at night?

In v. 2 Nicodemus uses the word “we.” Who did he mean by we?

What question is Nicodemus asking in this non-question?

John 3:3 ESV

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Does Jesus answer his question?

How well would Nicodemus had know the OT?

Jesus talks about being “born again.” Where does this concept occur in the OT?

If the OT says nothing about this new birth, then how could Nicodemus have understood the Lord’s comments?

Did Nicodemus understand what Jesus said?

John 3:4 ESV

Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

OK, Nicodemus is confused? Surely Jesus is going to bring clarity to this conversation, right?

John 3:5 ESV

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

It must get better right, let’s keep reading...

John 3:6–8 ESV

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Did Nicodemus understand what Jesus said?

John 3:9 ESV

Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”

OK, now Jesus has to give him an understandable answer right?

John 3:10 ESV

Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

How do you think Jesus’ answer struck Nicodemus?

“The biting sharpness of the question went right to the heart of Nicodemus’s problem. The Pharisees claimed to be the mediators between God and man. Jesus attacked Nicodemus in his stronghold. He called into question his ability as a teacher and a mediator between God and man. The most basic and most important question that anyone could ask was, “What must a person do to get into heaven [enter the kingdom of God]?” And Jesus told Nicodemus that if he couldn’t even answer this question, then he was a complete failure. What a devastating remark!” —Floyd Schneider

Why did Jesus treat Nicodemus this way?

Does Jesus every give Nicodemus an answer he can understand?

John 3:13–14 ESV

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

Does Nicodemus have at least some understanding now of what Jesus is saying? Nicodemus would have know the story of Moses and the serpent in the wilderness very well.

John 3:14–15 ESV

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Jesus finally gives Nicodemus and answer he can understand. But, it was a process. He didn’t wipe out the OT immediately and exegete the story of Moses.

Why did Jesus treat Nicodemus this way?

Do we notice any similarities or differences between this story and the previous one about Jesus in the temple?

Progression:

Jesus states something that Nicodemus could not understand, and Nicodemus does not understand it.

This causes Nicodemus to do what? Ask a question.

Jesus then made two more statements that Nicodemus didn’t understand.

Did Jesus know all along that Nicodemus wouldn’t understand him?

After arousing Nicodemus’s curiosity with statements that were NOT understandable, Jesus then verbally slapped him in the face with an insulting rhetorical question. Why? (He attacked his stronghold)

Then, and only then, did the Lord give Nicodemus an answer based on the OT that he could understand.

What was different in Jesus’ response to the Jews in the temple? In their case he gave them no explanation as to what he meant. With Nicodemus, he insulted him and then gave him an answer.

Why did the Lord give an answer to Nicodemus but not the Jews?

III. The Lord’s Response to the Samaritan Woman (John 4)

Did Jesus treat the Samaritan woman differently?

John 4:7 ESV

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

What was unusual about this request?

John 4:9 ESV

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Does Jesus answer her question?

John 4:10 ESV

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

What are the characteristics of water? hot, cold, running, polluted, wet, hard, and so on.

What does “living water” look like? Does it have four legs and a head, or leaves like a tree?

Plants, animals and humans are living, but water?

The woman doesn’t understand either and asks another question in an attempt to get come clarity.

John 4:11 ESV

The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

Does Jesus clarify things for her?

John 4:13–14 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Did Jesus peak her curiosity?

John 4:15 ESV

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

So now, Jesus explains the full gospel, right?

John 4:16–18 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

How did she respond?

John 4:19–20 ESV

The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

Her response can be evaluated in one of two ways:

She is attempting to change the topic and shift things away from her sinful lifestyle.

2. She might have been searching for God all her life, only in the wrong place—husbands!

Either way- Jesus did not allow them to get off topic.

John 4:23–24 ESV

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Then she brings up the truths she knows about the coming Messiah.

John 4:25 ESV

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”

Then, and only then, on the basis of this “confession” did the Lord give her a direct and clear answer:

John 4:26 ESV

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Can we see a repeated use of the Lord’s principles of evangelism?

1. He around their curiosity? How?

He did something that was not understandable to them:

Cleaning out the temple

Asking for a drink

Or, he made statements that were incomprehensible to them:

Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.

How is Jesus’ strategy different from our current methods of evangelism?

Our thinking usually goes something like this: I want to witness to my friend, neighbor, or relative, but once I mention the subject of God or the Bible, I’ll never be able to talk to them again about it. They’ll reject me, turn me off, and it will be the end of our relationship. So, my only hope is to get them to listen to the whole gospel in this one shot.

What happens? We attack them with everything about sin and hell and love and God and death and resurrection and sanctification and justification and propitiation and – sure enough, they never want to speak to us again! We had only the one shot. We knew all along that it would happen that way. And if someone were to suggest to us that maybe we should have insulted them first and then only given them a small tidbit of the gospel, well, that is simply ridiculous! (It does sound rather odd, doesn’t it?)

This leads to our second principle of evangelism, which the Lord followed explicitly, even with his disciples.

2. He did not give answers until they were ready for them.

The Jews in the temple never did get an answer or explanation to the Lord’s statement about raising up the temple again. Nicodemus got his answer, but not until the Lord had pointed out that Nicodemus’s knowledge was useless because it was not coupled with a personal relationship with the God of the Old Testament. Jesus scorned and ridiculed those who claimed to teach about God and yet did not know him.

The woman at the well-received an answer but not until the Lord had brought her to realize that He was a prophet (which He was) and state her belief about the coming Messiah.

How can we expect our unsaved friends to see their need of salvation when they do not understand from what they need to be saved—sin and their own sinful nature?

Nicodemus’s problem was the pride of his profession and position – knowledge and degrees. The Lord attacked him directly, as he did most of the Pharisees.

The Samaritan woman had apparently been seeking God, but in the wrong places. The Lord gently and progressively revealed to her that He was the Person whom she was seeking.

The principles of evangelism remained the same in both cases:

1. curiosity aroused;

2. problem pointed out; and then (maybe),

3. the answer is given.

Why did Jesus choose different methods for different people? His methods were based upon the person’s willingness to receive the answer.

If people were unwilling to listen they either didn’t get an answer, or they were given a parable. Jesus was simply using excellent teaching techniques.

He did not give an answer until he had helped the person ask the right question.

In applying this principle to our methods of evangelism, we should first determine a person’s willingness to accept the gospel before giving him the whole package.

How can we determine this? Ask them if they want to read the Bible with you.

If they aren’t willing to read the Bible with you, they probably won’t believe what you say about the Bible either. Look for people who will read the Bible with you, not just talk about it.

We do not want to give our friends the answers until we are certain that they are really searching, and we don’t want to give them too many answers too quickly.

An illustration that has helped me grasp these principles concerns the building of a house. Suppose that a friend of yours buys a piece of land with a house on it, but you don’t think the house is right for him. You think that he should build a different kind of house to live in. How would you go about getting him to build a different house?

You would first have to convince him that the old house is not right for him. You would mention things that would begin to raise doubts in his mind about the old house. The ventilation is outdated, and the walls are starting to lean outward. The chimney is clogged and could start a bad fire. The final blow comes when you show him its crumbling foundation. You take him around to the back of the house, reach down, pull out one brick, and say, “How many bricks would I need to pull out before the house collapses to the ground? How many do I have to pull out before you will be convinced that your foundation is rotten?”

The easiest way to destroy his house would not be to start taking the roof off but by removing a few key bricks (cornerstones) from the foundation and letting the house collapse under its own weight.

The same is true in witnessing. Most people can assimilate only so much information at one time. Therefore, we give them the gospel a little at a time. Very few people react favorably to being bombarded with the gospel all at once. They don’t like feeling that you have used the machine gun or shotgun approach, filling them with gospel bullet holes, and leaving them stunned, if not dead. Do you like having someone push his view of something down your throat, giving you no time to think it through and demanding that you make an immediate decision? Neither does anyone else.

The first step toward bringing a person to Christ is to make him doubt his own values and self-established goals. Eventually he has to realize his sin before a holy God.

When a person has come this far, the next step rests on his shoulders. He will ask himself, “Am I willing to admit my sin to God? Am I willing to change my thinking?” The infinitive “to repent” in the New Testament means “to change one’s thinking.” By taking enough bricks from his philosophical foundation, you will have helped him face the question of repentance.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 ESV

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

We are involved in a battle of the mind: the world’s and the Devil’s views of things versus God’s view of things. We have to help people change their thinking.

Our Goal is to make our friends curious enough to want to read the Bible with us.

Door-to-door and tract evangelism can be quite effective in some cultures, and we need little preparation for these methods, just a time slot in our weekly schedule. However, the Lord’s method of making people curious and getting them into His Word is quite different from our past hit-and-run methods. To make people curious, we need to make certain adjustments to our thinking.

“But I don’t know how to make people curious,” you might say at this point. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. I don’t know how to turn a conversation around toward spiritual things. And when my friends do start talking about such things, I don’t think fast on my feet, and I never have the right answers to their questions or objections.”

Let me assure you that the art of making people curious can be learned! This is not a technique only for gifted evangelists. It has been learned and used by believers with many different personalities.

DO IT!

1. Read John 5 and ask yourself, “Why didn’t the Lord heal every person at the pool? What was the main purpose of the Lord’s miracles?”

2. Read John 9 and ask yourself, “Why did the Lord tell the man to go to the pool and wash his eyes, when the Lord did not use the pool in chapter 5 to heal the sick man? What did the Lord want to accomplish by sending the man to the pool instead of taking him to the pool?”

3. What major sins do you see in your unsaved friend (e.g., pride, immorality, or lying)? What questions (not accusations!) can you ask your friend that will point out these areas as wrong? Would you ever insult your friend to get him to think about his sin or God or the Bible?

4. Write down 5 different questions that will make your unsaved friend think that his sin or his views about God and the Bible might be wrong. Then use these questions the next time you meet him!

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