Good News and Friendship

December 1, 2008

John Stott Ministries recently asked some of the current scholars how obtaining their Ph.D.s affect their ministry in evangelism and how they expect to be involved with evangelism when they return home. Ignacio Benitez from from ISEDET University Institute in Buenos Aires, Argentina, responds with a reflection on how his thoughts on evangelism changed during his studies.

Langham Scholar Ignacio Benitez

Before I started my graduate work, I believed to have all the answers to people’s problems. And that’s how I approached evangelism… with a sincere heart but a limited scope concerning the church’s mission and Christian theology. I did my best in communicating the gospel. I used to feel guilty if I was not preaching every single day and not winning people for the Lord. Unfortunately, I realized that a good part of my sharing the gospel was empowered by envy, the need to feel that I was “a good Christian” and to say “I preach everyday”. Preaching in the streets, buses and trains is great, but through the years I have understood that evangelism through friendship is more effective.

When I started my M.A. in Biblical Studies (California) my vision about the church’s mission was enriched considerably. I began to realize that I didn’t have all the answers to people’s problems and that people were not a “product” to obtain using certain cliché evangelism phrases but human beings with unsurpassable worth because of what Christ did on the cross. My vision on evangelism changed radically.

Langham Scholar Ignacio Benitez (far left) with JSM VP Dave Hoffman and friends from the Certeza bookstore in Argentina.

We have decided –with my wife Larisa– to spend as much time as possible with our non-Christian friends. We are amazed how the Holy Spirit opens their hearts, and how they want to know more and more about the Lord. Our love for them is honest and real. Now we enjoy sharing the good news in a very simple way –not by pressure or envy– that sometimes includes saying “I don’t know” to the hard questions about life and suffering. It may sound paradoxical and even outrageous, but my Ph.D. studies are helping me become conscious of how little I know about the complexities of life and how the love of Jesus is sufficient to change every heart and situation.

I always encourage my students at the Bible College to invite their non-Christian friends to have a meal at their home, to serve them in love, to be there for them unconditionally, to ascribe worth to them in every situation. I believe this is what Jesus did throughout his ministry.

May the Lord help us-–here in Argentina–-not to be self-righteous but a loving and embracing church that shares the good news of Christ.