On the 1st of March, 2024, Paideia Press published the book Every Christian Is an Evangelist: Biblical Motivations for Sharing the Gospel by Brian G. Najapfour (PhD). I do not often write reviews for books, but this publication struck me as not only worth reading but as worth highlighting for the broad edification of the church. While my parents first came to faith in a Hispanic Baptist church in Toronto, most of my childhood and teenage years were spent in Pentecostal and charismatic circles, and such circles are not by any means reformed or Calvinistic. The Arminianism was strong – it still is in those circles today. Where this is perhaps most evident is in the biblical practice of evangelism. I remember one leading voice within those circles on evangelism: Mark Cahill. Cahill made it his mission to not only motivate churches to share the gospel but to bury the church under the infinite guilt that all those who go to hell are the result of our failures in evangelism. While a point can certainly be made concerning the neglect of evangelism by many church communities, the camp of Arminianism essentially dismisses the biblical reality of God’s sovereignty in saving the lost. In fact, it was a common argument that if God was totally sovereign in the salvation of the lost then what was the point of sharing the faith? The church did not have to do anything if God was going to save the lost one way or another. This was a total misunderstanding of the nature of God, His church, and our mission. As Joel R. Beeke writes in the foreword of Najapfour’s book:
The Reformed emphasis on the sovereignty of God in salvation helps rather than hinders evangelism. Indeed, the Reformed movement put modern missions on the map in certain areas where the Reformed found access to do so (recall that John Calvin sent missionaries to Brazil).[1]
When I came to discover the reformed faith in my post-secondary years, I came to understand evangelism, not as a guilt-motivated practice, but as a liberating God-glorifying task. There is a significant depth to what God called us to do as evangelists, a depth that I had otherwise been unaware of. The discovery and experience of that depth was exhilarating. I began to understand more meaningfully the privilege that God has given us, His people, to partner with Him in His kingdom advancement. Of course, there have also been transitions by some people to the other extreme, the “hyper-Calvinists”, as some refer to them. Najapfour highlights this when speaking of the English missionary William Carey:
In 1789, William Carey (1761-1834) – considered by some to be “the Father and Founder of Modern Missions” – attended a meeting of Baptist ministers in England. In that meeting he stood up and explained the obligation of the church to spread the gospel throughout the world. One of the pastors in the meeting told him, “Sit down, young man; when God wants to convert the heathen, He’ll do it without your help or mine.” The pastor was suggesting that we have no need to intentionally reach pagans with the gospel; after all, if God intends to save them, He will bring them to the gospel in some supernatural way, or bring the gospel to them without our assistance. But this is not the attitude that Scripture teaches us to have!
Thankfully, Carey did not sit down; he did not listen to this pastor, who at that time represented the attitude of many Calvinistic Baptists toward evangelism. Instead, in 1792, Carey penned An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. In this treatise, Carey argues how the Great Commission, given by our Lord to His disciples in Matthew 28:19-20, is still binding on us today, and that we should use every lawful means to share the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.[2]
Najapfour’s book provides a biblical correction to an oft-misunderstood calling, on both sides of the theological spectrum (Arminian and Calvinist). To have such a booklet available to us from a biblically reformed starting point is a blessing to the church at large. It is my hope, as it is of the author, that this book not only provide a biblical understanding of evangelism, but also motivates the whole body of the church to share the gospel and to make disciple-making disciples. Pick up a copy of Every Christian Is An Evangelist at the Paideia Press online store or at any major online book retailer.
[1] Joel R. Beeke, “Foreword” in Brian G. Najapfour, Every Christian Is An Evangelist (Jordan Station, ON.: Paideia Press, 2024), xii.
[2] Najapfour, Every Christian Is An Evangelist, 7-8.