Romans Road or Road to Calvary?

Doug Wolter:

If you’re like me, you’ve shared the “Romans Road” with lots of people. Beginning with our sin in Rom. 3:23 and ending with our need to confess Jesus in Rom. 10:9, I’ve walked down this road many times, with many different people. Last night, however, I was struck with something John Dickson said at our Promoting the Gospel Conference for pastors here at LBC. He said [and I paraphrase],

There’s a reason why the Gospels are called the Gospels. They tell the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so we must remember in our evangelism to point people to the gospel of Jesus Christ to find the person of Jesus Christ. After all, we give our life to a person, not an idea.

How true. I started thinking about how many times I’ve shared “the gospel” with very little mention of Jesus himself. It’s like the story of Jesus and all the events leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection are assumed. The trouble is many people don’t have a clue about the Jesus we mention on our last stop on the Romans Road. We kind of throw him in there as the Savior and Lord to give your life to with very little knowledge about who he really is. But people need to know the Jesus they are bowing their knee to. They need to acknowledge his greatness and admit their unworthiness before they are ready to ask for his forgiveness and trust him as King. How does that happen? By seeing Jesus in the Scriptures.

To put it simply, we cannot graduate from the gospels when sharing our faith with others. We need to walk down the road to Calvary a little more than we do. After all, where else but the gospels can we get to know Jesus more personally and then learn how to share him more clearly with others?