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In 1 Corinthians 13, there is a building project and a rewards program that all Christians need to be involved in. Which is more important, evangelism or discipleship? We’ll be thinking about this today on Grace in Focus, and we welcome you to today’s edition.
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Once again, it’s faithalone.org. We also want you to enjoy our short videos, which are available on YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society. Now, with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates.
And we have a question Frank is asking about 1 Corinthians 3 and the…
One of our favorite passages.
Absolutely. 1 Corinthians 3 is a passage.
And he’s asking about the portion dealing with the judgment seat of Christ.
He mentions the judgment seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3. And specifically, he wants to know, and he mentions you specifically, but I’ll jump in here too. What is your take on the relationship between evangelism and eternal rewards and discipleship and eternal rewards?
I’ve got some pretty strong feelings on this passage of scripture. First of all, when Paul talks about, there’s no other foundation can be laid, which I laid, which is Jesus Christ, Paul evangelized at Corinth. He established a church here.
He was the one that was involved in evangelism.
Right. He says, I planted Apollos water.
Right.
That sounds like Paul’s the one that led the vast majority of the people in the Church of Corinth to faith, and Apollos, he started discipling them. Apollos came in and kept on discipling them.
Right. And he uses Apollos as an example of those who build upon the foundation.
He calls them wise master builder.
Right. And so when he’s talking about building upon the foundation, let each man be careful how he builds upon it. Most Christians who believe in the judgment see to Christ, take that to be, how do I build up my life?
You know, I’m saved. I need to be careful how I build on my foundation or that foundation that’s already laid.
No, the foundation, Ephesians 2.20 is the foundation of the church, and it’s based on the apostles and the prophets, with Jesus Christ being the cornerstone.
Yes.
So the building here is the church.
Bingo.
Not just a local church.
And it’s not just me. It’s not just how am I doing.
No, it’s all churches from Pentecost till the rapture being built up as a big superstructure. And so we think of this big skyscraper, and we’re part of that. And we can either be building it up or tearing it down.
The building it up is in, like you said, verses 10-15. The tearing it down is in verses 16-17. 10-15 says we build it up, we get rewarded.
Verses 16-17, we tear it down, we get cursed.
Yeah, and so Paul says if we’ve built upon that foundation, wood, haystubble, gold, silver, precious stone, that’s going to determine whether we get a reward or not. And so it is what we do in the church. What are we building up in the church?
How are we building up others, for example?
Well, do these things have enduring value? That’s what the gold, silver, precious stone, they survive a fiery test. But the wood, hay and straw doesn’t mean bad works, it just means worthless works.
Like this morning, you were staying at our house and I’m watching the top 10 in Sports Center and you said, this is horrible, this is lousy, this is going to burn.
There’s no value to this.
There’s no value to this. And I’m like, I’m going to get rewards for this in the judgment seat of Christ. He said, no, you’re going to get rebuke for this.
It’s going to get burned down.
You’re wasting time here. And I’m like, well, OK, maybe. But my point is concerning the judgment here.
Yes, I think what I do watching sports or things like that, it may be recreation, but I’m not doing something. I’m not sinning, but it also has no eternal value. I would agree with you.
It’s not gold, silver, precious stone. I may need a little of that to keep my sanity, right? But I’m not getting eternal rewards if I go out and play golf or if I go play tennis or if I go hunting or fishing, unless while I’m doing that, I’m also somehow serving Christ.
What Frank asked about is how evangelism and discipleship relates there. And what I hear you saying, Ken, is that the main emphasis in 1 Corinthians 3 is on discipleship and building up the church.
Yeah, I don’t think 1 Corinthians 3 is dealing with evangelism. The only one who really did evangelism in 1 Corinthians 3 is Paul. And obviously, Paul is going to be rewarded for that.
He presented the gospel at Corinth, and people believed, and he laid the foundation of the church there. And so, that’s definitely going to be rewarded.
But now, let me say, if you go to 2 Corinthians 5, 9 and 10, Paul says, we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things which he has done in the body, in his physical body, that’s 2 Corinthians 5, 1 through 8, whether good or bad. And so, it’s important to recognize that the judgment seat of Christ is a comprehensive judgment of all of our deeds from the time we’re born again until the time we’re raptured or the time we die. He looks at all of our works, not just works done in building up the church.
So, and not just evangelism, not just discipleship, everything. So for example, if you are being a loving spouse, that probably falls into the umbrella, I would suppose, of discipleship, right?
Right.
And so you could say that’s discipleship, but in a sense, you’re not discipling your spouse at this time, unless you’re discussing the word.
And I suppose, too, that in the broadest sense, in 1 Corinthians 3, if you’re married to a believer and you’re helping her, if you’re loving her, you’re building her up.
Right.
We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote The Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true, and GES President Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel.
Bob’s new book, The Gospel Is Still Under Siege, is a book about theological clarity on the biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s bookstore.
Find it at faithalone.org/store. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s content.
Well, let’s say you’re driving on the road, and you let somebody else in. Is that rewardable? I think it is.
Do you, really?
Yeah, I do. Well, okay, let’s do it the other way. I’m driving on the road, and I flip somebody else off.
Is it possible that that is going to be something I need to confess? Maybe at the judgment seat of Christ, that would be something that would be considered a bad work.
Sure, so if you do a good work.
But that doesn’t fall under evangelism or discipleship. I mean, I guess you could say, in the broad sense, if I’m a nice driver, I’m letting my light shine before men, right? So in a sense, you might put that under the umbrella of evangelism.
But I don’t know that it’s particularly helpful to try to separate everything from evangelism and discipleship. Besides, there are things that don’t neatly fall in either category, right? So all we do, if I’m being a loving spouse, if I’m being a parent that’s a loving parent…
A good citizen.
Yeah, a good citizen. Let’s say I go to my child’s baseball game or a softball game or go to their soccer match. Are there rewards for that?
I think there would be. Even though you’re not during that time exactly discipling them or evangelizing them, you’re just being with them and loving them. There’s a lot of things like that in the Christian life.
But let me talk a bit about evangelism, because I came to faith through Campus Crusade for Christ. I was on staff four years in college ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ, and we emphasized big time evangelism.
Didn’t you have to present the gospel to so many people each day?
It was supposed to be 10 a week.
10 a week?
We had staff reports and we would put down the name of people and whether they had received, we would put PRC if they prayed to receive Christ, or NCO meant non-Christian open, and we had other things. Anyway, yeah, we were supposed to share our faith a lot, and it was a big part of the Christian life. We also had what we called action groups, which were discipleship groups, so we did discipleship as well.
But Navigators, on the other hand, were more known for their discipleship, but they also evangelized. But with Campus Crusade for Christ, it was more evangelism. I would say that evangelism is an important part of the Christian life.
And even if you don’t have the gift of evangelism, we’re all called to evangelize. But we evangelize in our own sphere. So if you have children, whose job is it to evangelize your children?
Your job or the church?
Yeah, it’s our job, the parents.
We can’t say, well, the local church messed up because they didn’t do a good job. No, the parents need to do it first, right? And foremost, and the most often.
And your close friends, who has the most opportunity and who is most likely to evangelize?
You or your pastor?
Right.
You do.
Yeah, I do.
And your family?
Sure.
Your brothers, your sisters, your aunts, your uncles, your parents. Now, not all those people are open. And I personally don’t think it is helpful to force yourself upon everyone.
With Crusade, kind of our philosophy was, if you have one minute with somebody, you better pull out the Four Spiritual Law Booklet and start going through it. The truth is, I think it is important to be available, but you’re looking for opportunities that are natural. Some people with the gift of evangelism seem to have the ability for it to be natural just about all the time, right?
You’re getting a hamburger. You’re able to bring it up.
And somehow Jesus is the bread of life, right? He’s the hamburger bun of life. I guess I get that, but my point is, evangelism is part of what will be evaluated in the judgment seat of Christ.
But it’s just one part.
And so is discipleship. There’s a lot of other things that don’t quite fit in it. Am I a faithful employee at work?
Well, is that evangelism? No. Is that discipleship?
No. That’s just being a faithful worker. If I work hard, that’s rewardable, right?
Whatever you do, do your work hardly, as unto the Lord rather than for men. Colossians 3.24. So it seems to me, it’s not just box one, box two, that’s it.
There’s a whole bunch of boxes. The point is, we’re called to be spiritually minded people, and to view everything through the lens of Jesus’ coming again, and I want him to be pleased with me, I want him to approve of me, I want him to say, well done, good and faithful servant. So I want to be the kind of person that’s honest in all my dealings.
That may be, broadly speaking, under the umbrella of discipleship, or even evangelism, right? I’m letting my light shine. But I think the main thing is, please God in all you’re doing.
So what you’re saying is, on those examples of letting your light shine, how we are as citizens obeying the government, how we are on the job, how we’re driving, things like that. We are going to be rewarded how we deal outside of the church and inside the church. But 1 Corinthians 3, 10-15, is specifically dealing with the church.
And so, but there’s these other passages that say we have a responsibility outside the church as well.
In all aspects of life.
In all aspects of our life. And when we have the opportunity, when it presents itself, that includes telling people to believe in Jesus for eternal life.
And by the way, this should be natural.
Sure, a natural thing.
This shouldn’t be forced. This should just be, hey, I am so thrilled that I know I have eternal life simply by believing in Jesus. And I hope you gain that assurance.
Particularly with someone that you’re close to, you work with, a friend or something like that.
Exactly.
Well, Frank, we appreciate the question.
That’s a great question.
Yeah, just the bottom line.
Nobody’s ever asked us that.
Yeah, the bottom line is, Judgment Seat of Christ is going to be an interesting period of time. Until that day, folks, remember, keep Grace in Focus.
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The preceding has been a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.
