Conducting an exposé

For our first Q&A interview for 2022, I figured it was time to sit down with Phillip Jensen and have a chin wag. As is usually the case when we get together, the conversation bounced here and there, covering everything from why the resurrection is the climax of the gospel, to why our preaching should be more like an exposé than an apology.

The audio version of the conversation goes for about 40 minutes. The edited text version below doesn’t cover the whole thing—but I figured that 3000 words of transcript was enough!

Enjoy.

TP

Tony: So there are all kinds of things I was going to talk you about today. But you just were mentioning before that you’ve started work on another book—on evangelism. Why do we need a book on evangelism?

Phillip: Well, the book that's been a great help to people was Chapman's Know and Tell The Gospel. But a generation has risen up that has never heard of Chappo, and people read books that are current rather than what is really best. So I think we just need another book that is currently teaching people about evangelism, encouraging them to do it.

TP: What’s the outline of it?

PJ: Part 1 is on the who, why, what, when kind of thing—who evangelises, why do you evangelise? Part 2 then works through the gospel itself (I'm going to use Two ways to live as the summary) showing the kategorics of it rather than the apologetics of it. Because I think in our evangelism, we are too defensive and not... What's the alternate word for defensive that's nice?

TP: Positive?

PJ: Well … we're not telling the world that the world is wrong. But if the end point is that want to ask people to repent, you’ve got to point out what's wrong with your life that you need to repent from. And so, it's showing the implications of creation and rebellion and judgment in terms of how the world is operating in blindness and ignorance. So it's the accusing of the world by the gospel.

And then, Part 3 of the book is about the spiritual nature of evangelism. Because it's about prayer. It's about the work of the Holy Spirit in changing people's lives. It's about our need to beg God for the mercy that is really required. We need to be more encouraged, I think, that this is not an impossible task because we have God doing the task. The Holy Spirit in the end is the evangelist.

TP: In talking about ‘kategorics’ in Part 2, are you saying—if repentance is a turning from and a turning to, what are you turning from? Like turning from idols to the true and living God?

PJ: Yes that’s right. Think how the Bible treats idolatry. It really says that it's foolishness; it's an absurdity. To worship things that are less than yourself as if they are God, is just an absurdity. And likewise, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. But we say, “All of the most educated, wise, sensible people in all the universe are saying there is no God. And so we've got to answer their accusations.” Now, the fool of Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 is a moral fool—but then that's the point.

TP: So ‘positive’ is not the right word. We’re not trying to be positive about the world, but expose the folly of the world through shining the light of the gospel on it. But I was going to ask you: how do we do that in a way that doesn't come across as the Nasty Party or as a negative, unattractive kind of presentation?

PJ: Well, personally, it’s simple. Because personally, it's so easy to love people. And in the context of your genuine care and concern and love for them, the negative things that you say are part of that expression of love. But media-wise and in a book, it's much harder to do.

What I am trying to emphasize is that the thing that connects us with people in the world is not culture studies, and so on. The thing that connects us is creation. We're humans, we have babies, we're in love, we live in a magnificent creation. And so, try and say the positive things that are part of the way in which God has made us and which work and which we enjoy.

But having said all that, no matter how hard you try, in a hyper-sensitive age, as soon as you say, "Yeah, but we're all liars" … It’s offensive.

TP: Are you saying that if we get too apologetic or defensive about the gospel, we don't expose people to truth about themselves?

PJ: Yes, absolutely. And in fact, I looked at apologia in the New Testament. It's never used of intellectual defence. It's always used of what you say when you're dragged in front of the court.

TP: Like when Paul making his defence before...

PJ: Festus or Agrippa or people like that. That's when you use the word. There is the reference in 1 Peter 3 about giving the defence for the hope that lies within you. But that's in the context of being accused of being immoral and then being dragged off and persecuted. So it always seems to be in the persecution context.

And kategoria (to accuse, to convict) is used almost twice as often as apologia. But hardly anybody talks about that—about ‘kategorics’.

The other good word, which we don't know how to translate, is the one in John 16 about Holy Spirit convicting the world of sin and righteous and judgement. And in that sense, while I need to point out what's wrong with the world, it's the Holy Spirit who does that work of conviction.

I wonder if the best word is ‘exposé’. We’re trying to do an exposé of the world. A bit like how the ICAC in NSW ‘exposes’ corruption but doesn’t actually do the prosecuting. It’s the Holy Spirit who prosecutes.

TP: So as part of this book on evangelism, you're going to be talking about what the gospel actually is, the gospel that we preach, and you’re going to use Two Ways To Live as your summary or framework—which is a convenient segue to one of the things that I wanted to ask you about.

With this new version of Two Ways To Live—one of the things that it's managed to successfully convey is the centrality and importance of the resurrection of Jesus.

Most people don't think of it that way. In fact, most of us would probably say the cross is the centre or the nutshell or the climax of the gospel, and the resurrection is kind of the denouement, the wrapping up of the loose ends. So why do you say that the resurrection is the climax of the gospel?

PJ: When you analyse the New Testament and its gospel preaching, it nearly always features the resurrection. And I think in the Book of Acts, it always is on the resurrection. And what is interesting in the Book of Acts is that it's never on the atoning work of the cross. Luke knows about the atoning work of the cross, because Paul speaks about it in Acts 20 to the Ephesian elders. It's not as if it's a theologically unknown thing. But that’s not what they preached when they were speaking to the Jews in the synagogues, or the Gentiles in the synagogues, or the out and out Gentiles in Athens. But they always preached the resurrection.

It's slightly astonishing when you first see it, because most gospel preaching in my lifetime has been about Jesus dying on the cross for my sins—which I believe and the New Testament believes. But then the resurrection is, “Oh and by the way, he's not dead; he's alive.” It has no theological place. It's just a kind of an end point somehow.

But that's not how it was in the New Testament. As you explore the word ‘gospel’, it means ‘the great declaration’. And the great declaration is that Jesus is King. Which explains why in the Gospels, when Jesus preaches the g