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by Charlie Wolcott

When Paul said that he determined to know nothing but Christ and Christ crucified, he did not say he intentionally forgot everything else. Instead, he was saying that of everything he said and did, his goal was to get to Christ. Little showcased this better than Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill, where he started with the religions of the Athenians and then used the “Altar to the Unknown God” to showcase the ignorance of Athenian philosophers and then point to Jesus Christ.

Charles Spurgeon once spoke of a young preacher who had his mentor in the audience. After the sermon, the young preacher asked about how it went. The old mentor said that despite the proper exegesis, despite the great tone and voice, and despite the images and illustrations, it was a poor sermon. Why? Because there was no Christ. The young preacher said Christ was not in the text. The mentor replied that as there is a road from every village to London, there is also a road from every text to Christ and the job of the preacher is to find that road and even make one if he has not seen one yet.

Preaching should have one key thrust: to showcase and reveal Christ and to proclaim the Gospel. That is one thing I greatly appreciate about Answers in Genesis as a ministry: they purpose to make the Gospel the goal of what they do and what they share. While they emphasize dealing with origins, their stated goal and purpose is to help people believe that Genesis can be believed and therefore so can the Gospel. It is also a problem I have with other “ministries” where the goal and purpose is to promote self. And don’t get me wrong: the big creation organizations are very capable of stepping off that goal and starting to view every other creationist and organization as competition.

In March, I went to the Grand Canyon with the Engage Truth Ministry and many of their Worldview Academy students. The morning sessions were about getting the Biblical worldview side of the canyon, and the afternoon was about evangelism on the South Rim. The science was awesome, but the evangelism was the most amazing part. In our small groups, we asked some basic questions about how the canyon was formed, but then we went straight to the Bible and the Flood. We began explaining how the Flood and the aftermath are the only things that make sense of it. In my particular group, the bulk of those we spoke with were already Christians but none of them had made the connection between the Bible and the canyon before. They were very grateful to us for sharing our faith and helping them make that connection.

The best part of it was when we went to the geology museum. We got there just in time for an older lady to do her scheduled talk about the canyon and how it formed. It was so full of lies and bad science that it was very difficult for me to not interrupt. But I did not want to embarrass this poor old woman who was speaking from a script. So after the presentation, I took our group outside to debrief them and we just got a fire under our bellies. We went back and then presented what we had learned from the morning and then presented the Gospel in their own museum. Many from the audience there thanked us. Some were Christians, some were not, but they said it made absolute sense. We did have some scoffers who didn’t have the courage to engage with us. But it was incredible. Again, the goal was to present Christ and to present the Gospel. That day, a pastor from Phoenix came up to us and specifically thanked us for what we did.

If Paul could tie an altar to an unknown god to the Gospel, and we can tie a location like the Grand Canyon to the Gospel, we can connect just about anything to the Gospel. We can use any starting point and carve away a message to showcase the Gospel. Now there are limitations to this. I remember in my schooling days I thought we could showcase the connection between Star Wars and the Gospel, and the reality is yes and no. Many people have made a connection between Harry Potter and the Gospel (I have not read the books, only seen movies 1-5). Even the very popular TV Show “The Chosen” can be used to showcase the Gospels, even though it is a fictional supposition of what some of the backstories could have been. Now I am careful about justifying making a connection with a pragmatic basis, so one does need to be careful here.

The point here though is whatever tool you are using, get to the Gospel. Don’t let the tool replace the Gospel or supplement the Gospel; just use it as a connection point to pave and carve your way to Jesus. Even though we have some great tools, when a preacher or evangelist is doing his job correctly, and the person is intently listening, that person should be thinking more about Jesus than any other topic. In the Gospels, when people talked about Jesus, they did talk about their problems, but they talked more about Jesus than they did themselves. We need to do the same. When we get to Heaven, the focal point will be Jesus, so let’s start practicing now and making Jesus the center of every discussion and the target of every topic.

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