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Bringing the Gospel Home

Reviewed by Philip Joy.

American minister and Messianic Jew, Randy Newman probably knows more than most of us about the difficulties – and joys – of sharing Christ with our families. Realistic about our inhibitions over witnessing to the Gospel per se let alone witnessing to those who by virtue of knowing us so well are inclined to be most critical or most dismissive, Newman admits that bringing the Gospel home is probably the most difficult and frustrating kind of witnessing there is. Yet it is also one of the most exciting: Randy has led several family members to Christ.

Aware, however, that it is so often the evangelists who write about evangelism, thus making the ordinary Christian feel inadequate, Newman begins carefully. He first discusses family as both a blessing and a burden. Since God designed families in his image as places of relational intimacy and practical training, it is unsurprising that the devil tries to destroy marriages, provoke incest, abuse and much more. Depending on their culture, people draw apart and glorify individualism, or draw together and make an idol of the family (the film “The Godfather” comes to my mind in this respect!). Despite the fact that families are redeemable, evangelism then becomes difficult and highly charged emotionally. In fact some of the worst persecution can come from families: Muslims or Jews who disown or murder converts, families who seek to rescue converts from what they call ‘cults’, converted children whose sexually promiscuous parents ridicule their attempts at pre-marital celibacy. But Newman draws our attention to the amazing grace that can well up in our hearts, break our pride and then flow out to our families in honest confession of our sin and of glorying in the Sin-Bearer.

It is this emphasis on Christian theology impacting not just those we seek to save, but ourselves who offer to save them, that characterizes Bringing the Gospel Home. Anecdotes are chosen which put a premium on understanding our own faith as it relates to ourselves as witnesses, as well as to our families as potential converts. Truth liberates, but it is also a narrow way which we must not water down; love is craved by all, but seldom conveyed by the heralds of the Gospel; humility is modelled by Jesus, yet so rarely found amongst his witnesses; God’s time frees us not to rush in with the Gospel, but also bids us make the most of every opportunity, for eternity is a scary thing as well as a comfort, and we dare not permit fear, denial or false hope when it comes to death, or else we drain the power out of the Gospel’s message of victory.

I like this book, and as a handbook for evangelism it is more frank and more challenging than most. This is doubtless because family situations require a level of Christian knowledge, honesty and right behaviour which is far more demanding than other evangelistic situations. If you can minister the Gospel to your nearest and dearest, then you are a faithful witness indeed.