Evangelistic Snobbery
I was mortified as I sat at the back of a Baptist chapel. A man had come into the service whom I had shared the gospel with; he was from a rough background and facing many hardships. Yet here he was on a Sunday night, slipping quietly into the church. I was glad to see him there, but soon I was stunned and angered (I’d like to think righteously!).
As the man sat down, I could instantly tell that people near him were uncomfortable. These respectable Christians, who openly claimed to support evangelism, began to look disgusted as they realised that someone different was sitting in their pews. One lady looked at her husband and shook her head; the husband, a church leader, glared at the man who had just sat down. Another lady elbowed her husband in the ribs, and they both got up to move away from the unsaved visitor.
The man hung his head low; he knew he wasn’t welcome in the chapel.
Numerous true accounts could be told of similar events occurring. I have seen young people banned from entering a church because they made the congregation feel uncomfortable, or because a leader in the fellowship doubted whether the youth were truly there to worship God. I once evangelised a couple who began attending a church, but they left after a few weeks because people looked down upon them for being different—they were the type of people Jesus spent time with (Mark 2:15-17). That couple eventually ended up attending a cult because the people there made them feel welcome.
But this kind of sinful snobbery isn’t confined to churches; I have seen it in the open air as well. People who are out sharing the good news on the street sometimes question whether it is worth telling a homeless person about Jesus, or whether they should share the gospel with a drunk or a prostitute. What would happen if these people started coming along to our respectable church services!?
Before I say any more, I must confess that I, too, can fall into this mindset. When sharing the gospel, I tend to find it easier to speak with people who are like me. There are certain types of people I don’t wish to be around, but I need to recognise that such attitudes are sinful and need to be repented of, as they do not reflect the Saviour I serve. We need to regularly remind ourselves that the Lord Jesus didn’t come to call respectable people to salvation—He came to call sinners.
Jesus said in Luke 5:31-32,
“It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
If you are a Christian, then there was a time when you were an ‘undesirable.’ When you see people enslaved to all manner of sin, remember—you were once like them. You are not better than them, nor are you more respectable than they are. You deserved Hell just as much as they do. The difference is that you have met the Saviour, who rescued you from your sin. Since Christ saved you from your depravity, you should long to tell others still trapped in their sin about the Saviour who came to rescue them. You should share the message not from a position of superiority or snobbery, but from a position of humility. You have been rescued from the darkness and filth of sin—you have been clothed in righteousness not because you were a better class of sinner, but solely because of God’s grace. You have no grounds to boast (Ephesians 2:8-9); all you can do is point to Jesus.
On what basis can we justify being snobs when it comes to the classes and types of people with whom we share the good news, or who come into our churches? The moment we start saying that certain types of people shouldn’t hear the gospel or cannot come to church, we are erecting a barrier that God does not erect. We are setting standards that Christ did not put in place. We are commanded to share the gospel with all people, not just with those we like or who are similar to us.
In the Book of Jonah, we read the well-known account of the runaway prophet—one of the most unwilling preachers in history. When we think about his story, we tend to focus on the great fish, the attempt to flee, and the mass conversion of Nineveh. But what we often overlook is that Jonah was an evangelistic snob. He did not want the Ninevites to be saved—they were the enemies of his people, filthy sinners, not the kind of people you would want to spend eternity with or have in your worship service.
The reason Jonah ran was that he knew God was about to save a whole bunch of ‘undesirable’ people, and for Jonah, that was unacceptable.
We read in Jonah 4:2-3,
He prayed to the Lord, “Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah was such an evangelistic snob that he would rather have died than have God convert people he didn’t like. We can shake our heads at Jonah, but the question is: are we like him?
A good way to test whether you are an evangelistic snob is to consider this scenario. Imagine that on Sunday, you arrive at church, and as you make your way to your usual seat, you notice a stranger sitting there. No matter—you decide to sit elsewhere. But then you realise all the seats are full. The pews are occupied by drunks and homeless people who are neither clean nor smell the best. Other seats are crammed with prostitutes and drug addicts. Scattered throughout are people from various criminal and social classes, different skin colours, cultures, and religions—people you don’t feel comfortable with.
How do you respond?
Do you rejoice that they are in church and will be under the sound of God’s Word? Or do you start thinking about why they shouldn’t be there and the issues their presence may cause? If you do not rejoice, then you are like Jonah.
Jesus came to rescue sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), not for the clean and respectable people. If we are to love like Jesus and evangelise like Jesus, then we cannot be evangelistic snobs. May the Lord break us and bring us to repentance so that we may reach out to all kinds of people.
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