Yesterday, I gave a short summary of Paul Little’s classic guide to evangelism, How to Give Away Your Faith. Today, I am reviewing some of the book’s strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths
There is much to appreciate in Little’s book. Readers will sense Little’s experience in personal evangelism. The strength of this manual lies in the practical nature of Little’s insights. His directions are borne out of experience and passion, not merely theory and academics.
It is encouraging to see that Little makes room for tough questions regarding the Christian faith. One of the reasons some people give for their lack of evangelism is that they feel ill-equipped to answer tough questions.
Little offers some preliminary answers to hard questions about Christianity. These answers point us in the right direction and whet readers’ appetites for going deeper into understanding why we believe what we believe.
Likewise, Little’s emphasis on apologetics keeps him from basing reasons for belief solely in the experience of believers. He clearly believes that Christians will have a conversion experience that results in a personal relationship with Jesus as Lord.
But he does not allow this experience to overshadow the objective truths of Christianity. He wisely avoids making his case for Christianity’s truthfulness by appealing to subjective religious experience, a mistake made by many today.
Also helpful is the way that Little delineates the biblical truths about Jesus and thus holds the spotlight on Jesus, not the personal testimony of the evangelist.
Weaknesses
How to Give Away Your Faith is a helpful volume in many ways. Still, there are a couple of sections that could be strengthened.
First, it was good to see Little emphasizing the importance of Christ’s resurrection. (Some evangelistic strategies focus on the cross to the exclusion of the empty tomb.)
Unfortunately, his unpacking of the resurrection’s meaning is somewhat reductionistic. According to Little, Christ’s resurrection proves his divinity, and it means we can have a personal relationship with Jesus today (98).
Both of these statements about the resurrection are true. But the Gospels and the preaching of the apostle Paul lead us to a richer understanding of the resurrection, one that goes beyond mere apologetic proofs for the deity of Christ and leads us to the biblical teaching of God’s kingdom community.
Resurrection morning is the start of God’s new creation – the kingdom of God being inaugurated now, even as it has not yet come in its fullness. The disciples experience the power of Christ’s resurrection, not merely so that their relationship with the living Savior can continue, but also that they may form the people of God, the new humanity, a beloved community of faith that has been “reborn” and now serves as the sign of the wondrous future that God has in store for the whole cosmos.
The reductionist understanding of the resurrection creates the next problem for Little’s proposal: the local church is mentioned merely as “follow up” (104-8). Thus, the creation of the community of resurrection faith is not seen as central to the gospel presentation itself.
To his credit, Little emphasizes the need for local church participation. Yet, he clearly views the church as a little more than a place for fellowship with like-minded believers. There is little sense in this book that the creation of the ekklesia was one of the primary intentions of the atonement.
How to Give Away Your Faith shines light on both the strength and weakness of the evangelical approach to personal evangelism.
Its strength lies in its emphasis on personal salvation and individual conversion.
Its weakness lies in its relegation of the doctrine of the church to “follow up,” an evangelical tendency which generates the unfortunate situation in which people make decisions for Christ but fail to see the importance (indeed necessity) of being incorporated into a local manifestation of Christ’s body. The church is seen as an afterthought, something to follow up with after individual salvation has taken place instead of being seen as the central platform for God’s grace to flow out to the wider world.
Conclusion
How to Give Away Your Faith is one of the better books on evangelism that I have come across. Filled with practical insights and spiritual fervor, Paul Little’s book continues to resonate with audiences today.
Despite a couple of flaws indicative of the atmosphere of evangelicalism in Little’s day, the book contains engaging examples and motivational insights into the nature of the Great Commission and our responsibility to fulfill it.
