GUEST: MARK SPENCE, Evangelist and Senior VP, Living Waters
While he was imprisoned in Rome and shortly before being martyred, the apostle Paul, in some of his final words to his understudy pastor Timothy, exhorted him to “be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5).
After Christ rose rose from the grave and ascended to heaven, His followers couldn’t stop speaking the good news and saving message that “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Evangelism, explaining the good news of the gospel to others, is more than a command for the Christian—it should be a response of gratitude to God for personal salvation and an act of love toward others who need salvation more than anything. Think about this—Christians have the great privilege of being used by God as He redeems souls from destruction to glory!
But opening up our mouths with the gospel has its difficulties. We’re not quite sure how to transition a conversation from the temporal to the eternal. We’re concerned how unbelievers—or our family members—will respond. Or, we conclude that “evangelism is for those with the gift.”
Mark Spence is an evangelist with the ministry Living Waters, which “seeks to train the members of Christ’s Body in the principles of biblical evangelism and to provide them with practical tools to proclaim the gospel.” This past week, the Living Water team of Ray Comfort, Emeal Zwayne, Mark Spence and others were invited by Turning Point USA to do an open-air Q and A and gospel presentation on the California State Fullerton campus.
