Evangelism

Evangelism
The early church had a particular approach to evangelism. While the overall approach seems to vary quite a bit in various circumstances, there are some common elements throughout. These are most easily divided into two main aspects-- God's work and man's work.

God's Work
Evangelism was seen as God's work. It was he who decided to work for the salvation of men, loving the world and sending his Son for their salvation (John 3:16). It was he who enabled faith (Acts 14:27) and drew people to him (John 6:44). He led Christians to those he wanted saved (Acts 8:26-27, 16:6-10) and kept them safe while they did the work (Acts 18:10).

Man's Work
The apostles saw themselves as God's fellow workers in this mission; they had their part and God had his part (1 Corinthians 3:5-9). According to this passage, man's part was "planting the seed" and "watering the seed." God's part was making it grow. Thus, the apostles planted the seed of the word (ref. Matthew 13:1-23) and "watered it." Yet, the planted seed grew up from God (see also Mark 4:26-29).

"Sowing the Seed"
The apostles and the early church were content to scatter the seed of message of the gospel and watch the fruit grow from it (Acts 8:4, Colossians 1:6). Since faith was critical to the whole conversion process (ref. Romans 1:5), the proclamation focused on building the faith of the hearers. Like Jesus, the early church presented the gospel not as a message of judgment but as a message of salvation (ref. John 3:17). The end result of this approach was that the word was most likely to be received as "good news" and then acted upon.

The apostles, like Jesus, were audience-sensitive and looked for the best ways to sow the seed of the word in various situations. They might preach to Jews in synagogues concerning how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah. They might look for devout God-fearing people and present the gospel of God's inclusion to them, or to philsophers and show the exellencies of the gospel in their language and frame of reference. Peter spoke about "always being ready to give an answer" (1 Peter 3:15) for the reason for their hope, and they prayed to be able to have the right words at the right time (Colossians 4:2-6, Ephesians 6:19-20, 1 Corinthians 2:4, 2:13).

They didn't generally invite people to events as much as they took the message "on the road" (Paul's studies in the lecture hall of Tyrannus in Acts 19:9 are a notable exeption). They realized people could be converted in a day, and often introduced no delay in bringing the word of the good news to people.

"Watering the Seed"
The only mention we have in the New Testament of this "seed watering" is Apollos (1 Corinthians 3:6-8). In context, watering is a work of ministry subsequent to planting but prior to reaping. Thus, some people help others to have the word grow within them-- that is, to help that which has been already taught to have its ultimate effect of people believing in the message and being converted to Jesus. This watering seems to consist of love and care in the context of ministry (ref. Luke 13:8, 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8). Yet, there are instances of people becoming Christians in a single day. In these cases, it does not appear that "watering" took place at all.

Not Focusing on Themselves
The apostles attributed their mission of evangelism to Jesus; it was never about them but about his command to speak to the people concerning himself (e.g. Acts 10:42) and drawing people near to him. They were careful not to "preach themselves" (2 Corinthians 4:5). They rejoiced in seeing people won to the Lord, but did get caught up in taking credit for the work themselves or boasting compared to others (Luke 10:20, 1 Corinthians 3:7).