In Paul’s second letter to Timothy he writes; “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick (living) and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time WILL come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. They will be myth-taken and in so doing they will be MISTAKEN”!
Sadly this attitude toward Paul’s gospel is fairly widespread in Christendom today. Men do not wish sound sensible teaching, they cannot endure it. Rather, remaining willfully blind to their wretched condition and seeking to fulfil “their own desires”, they “heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears”; the fact that these teachers offer only a “babel” of confusion does not seem to bother them, as long as they do not teach the truth of the Bible. Indeed, turning their ears from the truth, they are “turned unto fables”. Note carefully these fables are not of the Aesop variety, they are not parables, but fanciful stories. Sadly an apostate church provides such stories and even so-called fundamental organizations are increasingly doing so. Read your religious magazines and note how large a proportion of them are given to stories, written to encourage, to instruct or to promote. However a story can prove almost anything too many people. Take a closer look at your Christian bookstore. It is largely filled with novels, biographies, success stories and everything but the solid teaching of God’s word.
However, in spite of all this, the Apostle Paul charges Timothy, “Preach the word” (Romans 10:17) there is no other means of salvation, or the building up of the saints. It is only as the Spirit of God uses His own word to convict and can convert, that men are saved to eternal life in Christ, and added to the Church, the Body of Christ.
Paul admonished Timothy to stay faithful to the ministry and God’s word that he had been taught; “But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry”, (2Timothy 4:15)
It should be evident by now that the Apostle Paul would not have fit the evangelistic picture today. No evangelistic committee would even take a second look at someone like Paul today. They would say; “This man is too outspoken. He disputes with people and tries to persuade them to his way of thinking. Besides he does things in such a small way; he will not go very far.” However Paul is without doubt the greatest Christian evangelist that ever lived and he won lost souls to Christ by teaching the great doctrines of sin, alienation, reconciliation, and justification. Today any evangelist worthy of the name must be well grounded in God’s eternal word, for souls are saved only as the Holy Spirit uses that word to convict of sin and of righteousness, and of judgement.