Evangelical churches have pushed “winsomeness” over the past few decades as the way we should present the gospel to the lost. “Why are not more coming to faith?” they asked. “Why are we not seeing more people flooding into the kingdom of Christ? How can we better win souls to the Lord?”
They then looked at the preaching of their fathers and grandfathers and found it full of judgment and condemnation towards the wicked. “How can you win souls to Christ if you tell them they are evil and bad?” they wondered. They did not think this was a winsome message. Dale Carnegie would have agreed—telling them they are headed for hell is not a great way to win friends and influence people.
Thus, seeker-sensitive churches were born, with sensitive preachers announcing the good news of the gospel to the sensitive world, attempting not to tread on anyone’s toes too heavily or violate anyone’s sense of well-being. The message is always “Jesus loves you,” and how can you possibly argue with that? Of course Jesus loves everyone. He died to save the whole world (John 3.16). He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3.9), although we should probably go light on the whole repentance thing, since that could put a negative frame around what we are trying to accomplish. We want happy people rejoicing in the love of God, stepping easily from their place in the world into the Lord’s loving arms without having to change too much too soon, because change scares people, and we should take care not to scare folks away from Jesus. Can you imagine what Jesus would say if we pushed folks away from him by not being winsome enough?
This all would make perfect sense…if the gospel worked that way and if Jesus really were interested in this kind of winsome, delicate, watered-down presentation of who he is and what he has accomplished.
Was Jesus interested in winning souls?
Yes and no. He praised the Father at one point for not revealing the gospel to the wise and understanding of the world, but rather to the little children. He then said, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11.25–27). In other words, it was within Jesus’ power to reveal the Father to certain people and hide his Father from others. This Jesus hid the gospel of the kingdom by preaching largely in parables (Mark 4.10–12). He also refused to give certain people signs. He did not always use winsome language but pushed hard on people, especially the rulers of the Jews.
Many peace-promoting preachers of our day would squirm if Jesus or one of his apostles were to preach in one of their churches. Would Jesus be turning over tables laden with religious wares? Would he double down on repentance and talk about hell? Did you know, of all the Bible personalities, Jesus spoke the most about hell? He talked often of outer darkness where there would be gnashing of teeth, unquenchable fire, worms that never die, eternal torment.
Paul wrote, “We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? …But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed… on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 2.2, 3, 5, 16; emphasis mine).
Does that sound winsome?
Our job is to preach Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2). We do want to become all things to all men (1 Cor. 9) in order that we might win some, but we must not water down the word of God to make it more palatable to our neighbors. In fact, when we don’t preach rightly on repentance and judgment and sin, we do the hearer a great injustice! Paul said, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable…testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ… I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20.20, 21, 26, 27).
The gospel (good news) is predicated on the bad news of our rebellion against the holy Creator. We must preach sin. We must reveal the darkness of the human heart, the futility of the human condition, and the righteous wrath of God which will be poured out on all who do not believe in God’s Son. We must preach the need for and the reality of the cross.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1.21–24)
No one finds Christ through human wisdom. Many intelligent people have heard the gospel message and not received the wisdom of God. Many even saw the Son of God with their own eyes and heard him with their own ears and mocked him, spat on him, and turned their backs to him. Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, even sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, the value of a slave.
But God saves people through the Word of the gospel. Paul said, “The gospel…is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1.16). Not everyone who hears the gospel will be saved, but no one will be saved who has not first heard the gospel. Our job is to present that gospel in all its truth, with all the hard parts, characterizing God’s wrath and grace properly. He is holy. He cannot allow evil, yet he forgives in his mercy.
Do I want to win souls to Christ? Absolutely! But I must win them God’s way and not rely on my own wisdom of how to do it. God says, “Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4.2). Reproving and rebuking don’t sound winsome. But that’s because I’m not thinking with God’s wisdom! In God’s wisdom, preaching the whole counsel of God does win souls—those who hear his voice will come to him.