You Have to Be Different to Make a Difference

In the church today the tendency is to look at the world all the time and to see the tragedy of the world. That is perfectly right, of course; the church is to be evangelistic. But the question is, how is the church to be evangelistic? And I contend that what the New Testament itself tells us, and what the history of the church tells us, is that the church is most successful evangelistically when she herself is as she ought to be. Why are the masses of the people outside the church? I do not hesitate to say that the reason is that they fail to see in us anything that attracts them, anything that creates within them a desire to receive what we have, or anything that rebukes them and condemns them for their way of living. Not that we should necessarily put that into words, but it should be seen.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Possibilities of the Christian Life

When the Church Does Not Evangelize

Evangelism is the primary work of the Church, and when the Church does not evangelize, it becomes doctrinally cold, or, self-satisfied with its past achievements, will not produce fruit, and will shrivel in size. Evangelism will save a church from inroads of modernism — the two never exist together. True evangelism requires absolute confidence in the full gospel of the New Testament, and the deep conviction the only Christ can save men.

Wilbur M. Smith, Peloubet’ Select Notes on the International Bible Lessons for Christian Teaching: 1958 (Boston: W. A. Wilde Co., 1957), 90.