Give Weakness Evangelism a Try

And take the pressure off.

Charles Spurgeon described evangelism as “one beggar showing another beggar where they found bread.”

While it’s true that once a beggar takes and eats of the bread of life, they are no longer a beggar, but royalty — adopted into the family of King Jesus — the concept of “beggar to beggar” is an apt metaphor/analogy of evangelism for us today, and maybe especially so in a post-Christian cultural context.

My friend, Johnny Long, calls this “weakness evangelism,” where our focus is not on what others need but on what I need. And yes, what I need, they need. But they will only take and eat if they’re hungry for the grace of God in Jesus. And they will only be hungry for the grace of God in Jesus if the Spirit has created the hunger.

Beggar to beggar evangelism removes the pretense often associated with sharing the gospel. It levels the ground and takes the pressure off.

From this perspective, I don’t have to be a teller as much as a confessor, sharing how the blood of Jesus was shed as a propitiation for my sin and how Jesus’ bodily resurrection confirms that the promises of grace in the cross objectively and historically have been validated as true.