Most of the so-called evangelism of our day is a grief to genuine Christians, for they feel that it lacks any scriptural warrant, that it is dishonoring unto God, and that it is filling the churches with empty professors. They are shocked that so much frothy superficiality, fleshly excitement and worldly allurement should be associated with the holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They deplore the cheapening of the Gospel, the beguiling of unwary souls, and the carnalizing and commercializing of what is to them ineffably sacred. It requires little spiritual discernment to perceive that the evangelistic activities of Christendom during the last century have steadily deteriorated from bad to worse, yet few appear to realize the root from which this evil has sprung. It will now be our endeavor to expose the same. Its aim was wrong, and therefore its fruit faulty.

“Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few” (Eccl. 5:1). “But the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him” (Hab. 2:20). Now the words of our text are applicable to every minister of the gospel and to every church where the gospel is to be preached. In our text, 1 Corinthians 9:16, Paul says seriously, sincerely, in simplicity, in boldness, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, “though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of.” What is it to preach the gospel? Is everybody preaching the gospel? No! Is everybody who claims to preach the gospel preaching the gospel? No! What is it to preach the gospel?

The question, therefore, which each of us has to answer to his own conscience is, "Has it been the end of my ministry, has it been the desire of my heart to save the lost and guide the saved? Is this my aim in every sermon I preach, in every visit I pay? Is it under the influence of this feeling that I continually live and walk and speak? Is it for this I pray and toil and fast and weep? Is it for this I spend and am spent, counting it, next to the salvation of my own soul, my chiefest joy to be the instrument of saving others? Is it for this that I exist? To accomplish this would I gladly die? Have I seen the pleasure of the Lord prospering in my hand? Have I seen souls converted under my ministry? Have God's people found refreshment from my lips, and gone upon their way rejoicing, or have I seen no fruit of my labors, and yet content to remain unblest? Am I satisfied to preach, and yet not know of one saving impression made, one sinner awakened ?''

The truth is that two distinct conceptions and types of evangelism have been developed in Protestant Christendom during the course of its history. We may call them the "Puritan" type and the "modern" type. Today we are so accustomed to evangelism of the modern type that we scarcely recognize the other is evangelism at all. In order that we may fully grasp the character of the Puritan type of evangelism, I shall here set it in contrast with the modern type, which has so largely superseded it at the present time.

One rejoices in the fact that there is a renewed interest in evangelism throughout the church today. On the one hand, there are the non-church related groups that are carrying on independent evangelistic efforts in various ways, such as, evangelistic crusades, and campus work. On the other hand, there is a development of an emphasis on evangelism in the old-line denominations themselves. This renewed interest in the task of evangelism is bringing forth a variety of views as to how the Gospel is to be presented to the lost. In the face of this multiplicity of evangelistic methods, the Biblical Christian needs to examine them in the light of the Scripture, so that he may be able to discern which are the most Biblical methods of evangelism, and so that he may himself become an evangelist in the Biblical sense of the term.