Go Beyond

The Bible teaches that there is a commanding call to evangelism that originates from above (read The Call from Above) and a distressing call that originates from below (read The Call from Below). However, there is yet a third call to evangelism that we cannot escape — the call that comes from without.

Luke’s account of Paul’s second missionary journey starts in Acts 15:36. Immediately prior to the start of this second journey, Paul and Barnabas had a disagreement regarding whether or not to allow John Mark to join their team. Paul did not want John Mark on the team because he had deserted them in Pamphylia on the previous journey. Barnabas, the encourager, wanted to give John Mark a second chance. Since Paul and Barnabas could not agree about what to do with John Mark, they agreed to go their separate ways. Barnabas took John Mark with him on another journey and Paul chose a new traveling companion named Silas to accompany him on his second missionary journey.

As Paul and Silas traveled, the Holy Spirit shut doors along the way and redirected them to Troas, a city on the extreme western shores of Asia Minor. While there, something significant happened (Acts 16:9): “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a certain man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

This is the call to evangelism that comes from without — an urgent call from lost humanity, pleading with us to come and help. This was a significant call for Paul because Macedonia was on the continent of Europe and represented the place where the gospel had not yet been preached. And, the man in the vision represented and spoke for all who had not yet heard the gospel.

Like the Macedonian man, there are billions of people in the world today who are urgently crying out for help, asking for someone to show them the way out of darkness into the light and out of condemnation into forgiveness. People everywhere are looking for answers to life’s deepest questions. If you will listen, you’ll hear the cry of the Macedonians in your world, pleading for help.

Are you sensitive to the cries of those who are still waiting to hear the good news? Ask God to help you to tune out distractions so that you can hear the cries for help from others, cries woven into daily conversations with words that signal confusion, hurt, despair, and lostness. And when you hear these cries, do what Paul and Silas did, share the good news of Jesus Christ.