"Christians are made, not born", observed Church Father Tertullian. And over the years, one of the tools the Church has utilized to live out the making of new Christians is evangelism.
Now EvanTell, the ministry training and equipping Christians to share the Gospel, offers The Evangelism Study Bible, meant to offer fresh perspective to the God's Word in the task of making new Christians.
EvanTell founder and CEO, R. Larry Mouer serves as the general editor and occasional contributer to The Evangelism Study Bible, with the goal of enabling Christians to share the Good News of Jesus Christ simply and clearly. Filled with evangelistic themes and including various features and study notes throughout the New King James text, this study Bible is a unique resource for pastors and churches and individual Christians. It's meant to remove guilt and fear from the evangelism process, so that Christians can share in the act of grace in sharing the Good News.
While I wanted so much to find this study Bible useful, though, I read so much that relies on nineteenth-century revivalism that I simply can't affirm theologically. The insistence of the "assurance of salvation" rests on our thinking and knowing, not on what God has done in Jesus, according to this study Bible. And in that way, it promotes the age-old problem among so many Protestants that salvation is our acceptance of Jesus -- a work! -- rather than Jesus' acceptance of us.
So in the end I was disappointed with this study Bible. It attempts to make the Good News so simple that it removes the crisis of the Cross itself.
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I was provided a free copy of this book from Kregel Publications in exchange for my honest review here.