Staring out into a stadium full of people, he would quote the Bible, calling people out of their sin and into a loving relationship with God through Jesus.
Billy Graham’s impact is beyond question, but would his methods work today? Specifically, his use of scripture in evangelism? The fact is, he operated in a very different context. A context in which large percentages of his audience had favorable views of God, even if they weren’t committed followers of Jesus.
He could confidently reference the Bible in his presentation, knowing that the majority of his audience viewed it as a source of moral authority.
Times have changed.
We now live in a post-Christian culture. Many people have walked away from the Church. The fastest-growing "religious group" in America is the religiously unaffiliated, with over 30 million added in the last decade alone. This is most pronounced among millennials and gen Zs, making up approximately 45% of these two generations today. This shift is largely due to nominal Christians becoming secularized.
What does this mean? It means that when sharing the Gospel with friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family members, we cannot start with the Bible.
I believe the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. All of it is true and important. And yet, most secular people need reasons to trust scripture, as many see it as a myth, a moral teaching guide, or even a propagator of bigoted, marginalizing, and anti-scientific views. Our task is to communicate the truths of scripture in a way that a non-believer will understand. But how?
Consider the Apostle Paul’s approach in Acts 17:22-23:
“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way, you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”
He models three crucial steps:
1. Understanding: he took the time to understand his audience by walking around and looking carefully at their customs and cultures.
2. Opportunity: by taking the time to understand the Athenians, he recognized how the altar to the unknown God would provide an opportunity to point them to the one true God.
3. Approach: Paul took advantage of the longings and curiosities of his Athenian audience and quoted their poets and philosophers, to demonstrate how they were satisfied best in Jesus.
Paul balanced an unwavering commitment to truth with a sensitivity to the felt needs of his audience. We can learn a lot from the way he shared the Gospel.
I pray that God would raise up evangelists with a message both pure in its communication of the truth and precise in its relevance to culture. When you commit to both, God moves supernaturally, and lives change!
Want to listen to the full conversation? Listen to Episode 462: Does the Bible Belong Outside the Church?
