Is The Gospel A Sales Pitch?

At church we were discussing reasons why Christians are reluctant to tell people the good news of Jesus Christ. One man said, "Sharing the gospel makes me feel like a salesman." We all knew what he meant - even the professional salesman in the room who responded by clearing his throat loudly. Of course, there is nothing wrong with sales as long as it is carried out with integrity and good will. But somehow, salesmanship at its purest, noblest, and most necessary seems to be an unworthy model for presenting Jesus. Sensitive Christians rightly recoil from it when trying to persuade people to follow Christ. We feel a check in our spirit when we find ourselves slipping into a mode which suggests that Jesus is a product and the potential convert is a customer. Why does that mode bother us?

One straightforward answer is to say that Jesus is a Person, not a commodity. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. To put him - however unintentionally, and even if only implicitly - in the same category as a diet plan that will help you shed unwanted inches is to diminish and blaspheme him.

But another objection to the sales model has occurred to me, and it has to do with the fundamental nature of gospel proclamation. I would like to introduce it with the following device:

You are walking down a sidewalk and you see a wallet flip out the back pocket of the person ahead of you and land on the pavement. The person walks on completely unaware that he has lost his wallet. What should you do?

A classmate informs you that he has a stolen copy of the licensing exam that you will be taking tomorrow, and asks if you want to see it. What should you do?

You see a child being attacked by a savage dog. No one else is around. What should you do?

Note that I did not ask what you would do. Only God knows that. You might be a greedy corrupt coward who would pocket the wallet, cheat on the test, and leave the child to be mauled. Or you might be a decent person and hopefully confident that in each case you would do the right thing - but find that, in the actual pressure of the moment, you become as morally weak as St. Peter on the night before Jesus was crucified. But I'm not asking what you have done or what you think you actually would do in such circumstances. I am making this easier by asking, "What should you do?"

There is another question, in each case, that I did not ask. It is, "What would be in your best interests to do?" That question elicits a different set of answers from the "should" question. In the first instance, it is in your best interests to pocket the wallet and delight in found cash. In the second, it is in your best interests to look at the test beforehand so you can ace it and move forward in your career. In the third, it is in your best interests to let that poor child fend for himself, because if you intervene, you yourself will get hurt, and probably pretty badly.

Let me head off the objection, "But it would still be in my best interests to do good because my selfish behavior might be found out, and then I'd be shamed, held accountable and penalized." I stipulate that, in these hypothetical circumstances, you know for a fact that you won't get caught. "But even if I never get caught, my conscience would trouble me, and since living with that pain would devastate me and leave me unhappy, I can still say that it would be in my best interests to do right." I answer, "Why let the voice of conscience trouble you? Surely by now you have learned how to silence that annoying little bastard. And if you haven't learned, it won't be hard for me to teach you. Here is lesson one: Acknowledge that it is in your best interests to free yourself from the shackles of irrational conscience. Our friend Nietzsche will help you absorb the sweet logic of this liberating truth."

My point is that a great chasm yawns between "I should do X" and "It would benefit me to do X." Sometimes those two things meet or happily coincide, but they never do so out of necessity. That is, they are not equivalent or derivable one from the other. They are not two ways of saying the same thing. Sometimes I should do what is clearly not in my best interests, and sometimes the thing that is in my best interests is something I really should not do.

Now a sales pitch is always an appeal to your best interests. That, at rock bottom, is what a sales pitch is. The salesman has his own interests as well, and they do not necessarily correspond with yours. (Mainly he needs to put food on his family's table.) But his best interests are not the basis upon which he tries to get you to buy his product or service. Only a desperate poor sap of a salesman says, "Come on, buddy, buy this, I gotta make quota here." If he is a good salesman, his focus will be on you and your need. He labors to convince you that whatever he has to offer will benefit you, and therefore well worth the money. If you don't buy it, it will be your loss. A sales pitch goes no deeper than that.

I maintain that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not, at rock bottom, an appeal to one's best interests. Since gospel proclamation has devolved in much of North American evangelicalism to resemble such an appeal, it seems to me the time has come consciously to resist that model. Now please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that there is no benefit to an individual who believes and obeys the gospel of Jesus. There is. Eternal life in the blessed presence of the Creator is a benefit that exceeds all reckoning. I am just saying that the foundation of gospel appeal goes deeper than self-interest - and so, so much deeper that matters pertaining to our benefit might almost be considered an afterthought, an add-on, a "What? Do you mean I get that too?"

The gospel is a statement that is true and a commandment that is right. (I defend at length the idea that this is the Bible's own understanding of the word "gospel" in two essays: "The Gospel's Hard Edge" [June 20, 2014] and "The Gospel Is Something You Obey" [June 22, 2014]). True statements and right commandments have this in common: they don't care (if I may put it that way) whether you benefit by believing or obeying them. They remain just as they are no matter what their effect upon you and no matter what you do with them. Your potential benefit cannot render a false statement true or an evil commandment good. Neither can your potential detriment impeach a truth or invalidate a just command.

Though we who proclaim the gospel must do so as graciously and as winsomely as we can, we must never forget that we proceed from a position of strength. Our gospel stands on the hard, unmoved and unmovable pillars of goodness and truth. Just as we would not feel it necessary to say to someone, "It would be in your best interests to save a child from a savage dog," so we need not say, "It would be in your best interests to bow the knee to Jesus Christ." (Again, it is in the person's best interests, but that is beside the point.) Moral imperatives stand alone and need no buttressing. It's, "Rescue the child!"; "Return the wallet!"; "Don't cheat!"; and, "Submit to Jesus Christ!" Truth likewise requires no support from self-interest. If I want you to believe that the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter yields a number that cannot be expressed as a fraction, I want you to believe that because it is true, not because it will do you any good.

To avoid slipping into the salesman mode that rightly repels all thoughtful communicators of the gospel, remember that - deep down - we are not so much pleading with people to buy as we are commanding them to bow. And we are proclaiming something true: Jesus Christ died on behalf of sinners, he rose again from the dead, and he reigns forever with absolute authority. The chief beneficiary of that truth is Jesus himself.