“First, and most basically, there is a certain balance that we want to strive for in our evangelism [sharing of the gospel], a balance of honesty and urgency and joy. Too often we only have one, or at best, two, of these aspects rather than all three. The balance is important. These three together most appropriately represent the gospel.”

Have you ever tried to sit on a chair with one leg missing?  Its not very easy.  And, although seemingly not a difficult task at first, it becomes very unstable the longer you try to remain there…as the motions become more and more exaggerated until you fall over or the chair falls over or you have to stand up. This is the same when you approach evangelism without sharing the cost of discipleship (sugar coating the truth), or you don’t share the fact that hell awaits someone who does not choose to follow Christ, or that there is an amazing overabundance of joy in those who abide in the Lord.

If one of these items is missing, the gospel presentation is not balanced.  It will seem too easy, or not urgent or lacking an upside.  The person we are sharing the gospel with needs to know the whole story, not just the pieces we like or we think that they’d like.  The WHOLE story.

I was reading The Gospel & Personal Evangelism when I wrote this post.

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