Some Motivation Towards Evangelism

In my weekly small group gathering with my local church, we seek to keep each other accountable towards engaging lostness and living an evangelistic lifestyle.

Here are some notes I wrote about Paul in Romans 1 which I shared with our small group recently.

(1:1) He was given a mission to preach the gospel where it had never been before ("called to be an apostle").

(1:1) His mission was not a goal Paul set for himself, but he was commissioned by God himself for the transcendent, universe-defining purpose of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ ("set apart for the gospel of God").

(1:5) Paul shared the gospel not for his own sake, but "for the sake of his name among all the nations".

(1:14) Paul sensed an obligation to preach the gospel to all people. Lost people hearing the gospel message was not a low-priority thing for Paul.

(1:15) Though Paul was "under obligation", he was also eager to share the gospel.

(1:16) Why was Paul eager to share the gospel of Christ? Because Paul knew that the gospel's power was not in Paul, but that the power of the gospel flows from God. We know that the whole world lives in the depths of sin and guilt, but the gospel communicates the power of God to save hopelessly damned sinners.

(1:17) The power of God to save lies in God freely crediting Jesus' righteousness to sinners who believe and trust in the content of the gospel - the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.