What is Power Evangelism?

Power evangelism is to deliberately cooperate with God in faith to provide opportunities for the Holy Spirit to demonstrate the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to the unsaved. This may occur by signs, miracles, wonders, the gifts and baptism of the Holy Spirit, and other unmistakably supernatural occurrences of God.

The best example in the Bible of power evangelism is the story of Elijah the prophet in 1 Kings 18 confronting Israel in their apostasy. The nation was serving false gods. Elijah appears on the scene with an ultimatum:

“How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” (vs. 21).

Now what would be the deciding factor? Who could present the best argument? No, the test wouldn’t be a debate of the flesh. It would be a demonstration of the Spirit:

“Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God. So all the people answered and said, ‘It is well spoken’” (vs. 24).

The false prophets prayed, and cried aloud, and even sacrificially cut themselves trying to get their god to answer. Didn’t work. Then it was Elijah’s turn. He prayed (vs. 36-37):

“Then the fire of the Lord fell [from heaven] and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench” (vs. 38).

The argument was settled by a demonstration of God’s power that made it impossible to deny without proving one’s self to be dishonest or stubbornly rebellious. Unfortunately, this is often the case. Many, many people will not believe and serve the Lord no matter what evidence He graciously gives them. Nonetheless, power evangelism is His prescribed way for us to present the gospel. For some will believe when they see the workings of the risen Christ.

New Testament Power Evangelism

The New Testament is filled with examples of power evangelism. In fact, Jesus taught and modeled that the gospel should be accompanied by supernatural signs, miracles, wonders, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Every time He sent out His disciples to preach, they were commanded “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give,” (Matthew 10:7-8).

But that was just for the apostles, some mistakenly say. The truth is that even in the gospels, we note that Jesus and the apostles weren’t the only ones with miracle ministries. There were at least seventy-one other people working miracles.

One was an unnamed disciple who didn’t follow with the twelve apostles. He simply heard the word of God and went out in faith to emulate Christ and the apostles (Mark 9:38-40).

The others was a group of men that Jesus sent out by twos to do what He and the apostles were doing (Luke 10:1-9).

This pattern is followed in the church in the book of Acts. There we see well over a hundred people other than the apostles operating in supernatural ministry (Acts 1:14-15; 2:1-18; 6:8; 8:5-13; 9:10-18; 10:1-8; 11:27-28; 13:1-2; 19:1-7; 20:17-23; 21:1-4). Sometimes the ministry is for believers; sometimes unbelievers.

One thing is certain. Jesus Christ and His ministry hasn’t changed. When we work with the Holy Spirit to represent Christ with signs, miracles, and wonders for the sake of the lost, this is power evangelism.