Mushroom
Puritan Board Doctor
Well, I would say that there is a normative method, and that is through the Church by the preaching of the Word and administration of the sacraments. God is by no means restricted to that in harvesting His people out of the world. He can use any means He decrees, He used a donkey to rebuke Balaam. But I've not run across any talking donkeys in my travels.Right. I'm not saying it's the only way that evangelism should be done, and I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. I'm just pointing out that God works however He pleases, and we shouldn't restrict Him to a specific method or procedure. Salvation itself and the conversion of a sinner is never normative and no method, whether using tracts or building relationships, should ever be considered normative, because it is a supernatural work of God that exhibits more power than the creation of an entire universe. And instead of trusting in tracts, or in a follow-up procedure, we need to be trusting in God who regenerates sinners and keeps His sheep.
In our modern/post-modern/existential way of thinking these days, we tend to reject organization and hierarchy in favor of independency and a lone wolf mentality, but that is not the biblical model. We are an organic body, the Body of Christ, with Offices and callings whereby we serve the Lord in the Great Commission. That the Lord has used irregular or extraordinary means to save individuals does not always indicate that those particular means are to be pursued. I was first approached about Christ by drug-addled Jesus freaks. The fact that God used that to draw me to Himself does not infer that being a drug-addled Jesus freak is an acceptable way for a Christian to evangelize. So we need to be careful. 2Ti 2:20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.
Now, personal evangelism and passing out tracts may be perfectly sound methods, but I think it behooves us to strive to be theologically sound in what we say and what the tracts say, and probably the tract thing is best done under the watchful authority of the undershepherds set over us, but the normative aim is to point the lost to the Lord through His Bride. And nowhere is every Christian commanded to use these means.
BTW, in Phillip's case, he was an ordained Officer of the Church, and therefore qualified to administer baptism. I sure hope no laity think to derive from that event that they should be baptising anyone, which brings us back around to the fact that the Church is the normal means whereby the lost are led to Christ. And why Deacons are to be ordained, not 'commissioned', but that's another thread.