Home Outreach Leaders Is it Time to Stop Quoting John 3:16 for Outreach?

Is it Time to Stop Quoting John 3:16 for Outreach?

Here are four drawbacks of shrinking the gospel into John 3:16:

Our quoting John 3:16 means we have distorted God’s love, and his call for us to love in return.

Make no mistake: God is love. Who could be against love–especially the perfect love of the Father? But the love of God goes beyond his sacrifice and empowers us to respond. His love teaches us to love. His love is modeled in the life of Jesus–not just his death. Most important, when we use John 3:16 for outreach we fail to communicate the first and greatest commandment, that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Our quoting John 3:16 means we have distorted the life-changing responsibility of belief.

Faith is vital to our entry into the Kingdom of God, but in our day “belief” has been reduced to “agreement.” True faith is a dangerous, life-changing force that causes us to die to ourselves and the old way of life. True faith causes us to count our lives as lost for the sake of gaining God’s Kingdom. The “faith” presented in the bumper-sticker application of John 3:16 asks simply for the nodding of our heads.

Our use of John 3:16 means we have traded the promise of God’s vast Kingdom for simply living a long time.

I’m so glad I will live forever. I’ve bet my eternal destiny on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Yet when we reduce the gospel to everlasting life, we have presented a false reward. Imagine someone who attained everlasting life apart from the love of God or transformation into Christlikeness–what would this do to someone’s soul? What if we got to live forever but didn’t like the life we got to live? Jesus has a different definition of eternal life than simply beating death: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) Eternal life is relationship with our Creator, knowing him and being known by him. To be present with God is to leave this life behind.

Finally, quoting John 3:16 means we have failed to make disciples. The Great Commission has become the Great Omission.

We have taken the methods of salesmanship and used them for an evangelism that misrepresents the gospel Jesus announced. It is a bait-and-switch, without the call to switch. We should ask ourselves what kind of disciples have we made. For the last 60 years in North America the answer is that we have fallen short of the Lord’s commission to us. What if we chose Matthew 11:28-30 for their outreach verse instead of John 3:16? What kind of disciples could we make? Or Luke 9:57-62? Or the entire Sermon on the Mount? He calls us to come and follow.

It’s not a drive-by gospel. The Kingdom of God doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.

 

This article originally appeared here, and is used by permission.