Sometimes earnest Christian Sabbathkeepers are accused of proselyting. Is proselyting wrong? X.
The Standard Dictionary defines “proselyte: to win over to a different opinion, belief, sect, or party; proselytize; especially to convert from one religion to another.” It defines the noun “proselyte: one brought over to any opinion, belief, sect, or party; especially one who has been won over from one religious belief to another; specifically in Jewish history, a convert to Judaism, as ‘Jews and proselytes.’”
This last expression is taken from Acts 2:10. “Proselytes,” then, means those who were won from the pagan religion.
Now as to whether the term is a reproach or not depends upon those who proselyte. If by proselyting is meant simply winning a churchmember from one church to another, merely a change of a church home, without any change whatsoever in the individual, that is one thing. In such a case as that, one church has lost a member and another church has gained a member; and presumably one church has lost so much of its income, while another has gained some in the same way. This is not a right thing to do. We do not see how any one church of the church federation could proselytize among the members of another church belonging to that federation. But if by the term is meant the preaching of advanced light and truth, based on God’s Word, that is another thing. The term then is indeed honorable.
There is not a single Christian church in existence to-day but what in its beginning, at least, when its zeal for God was warm and true, and its love for God’s truth burning and shining, put forth every effort in its power to win souls to the same zeal and love for God. Consequently the Jewish church, when it stood where it ought to stand, was doing all that it could to win the heathen; and the early Christian church did all in its power to win the Jews to the new light—faith in a risen Christ. The Christian church did all in its power to win the heathen, and doubtless the heathen called them by the most contemptuous terms equivalent to “proselyters.”
When the Reformation churches started under Martin Luther, Zwingli, and others, they also did the same. They felt that there was real light and truth in God’s Word concerning justification by faith and other vital matters; and therefore they did all in their power to win Roman Catholics; and the true, living Protestant is doing just the same to-day. But God has yet more light in His Word, as John Robinson, one of the leaders of the Puritans, declared. The Lord Himself declares that “the path of the just is as the shining light, that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” He tells us also that in the last days “knowledge shall be increased;” and right in that very connection He declares that those that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever.
Of His Gospel in its last phase, He declares that the Gospel of the kingdom, showing that His kingdom is near, will be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and in a great threefold message in Revelation 14 He has given us more in detail what the preaching of that Gospel means. It is not only the great positive truths of the Gospel which must be preached; but men must be brought back to a fear of God, to a reverence of God’s law, to a turning away from the great Babylonian confusion that exists in the world, to the rejection of the beast- and image-worship, and to the acceptance of “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” in order that the church may be ready for the second coming of Christ. The man or the woman that receives those truths in his soul must teach them to others; and he does not do that in order that he may gain a member of a church, or of a different body of Christians. That is not his object; that is not the true object of any reformation,—merely to gain a churchmember, to count numbers. His object, the object of every true Christian, ought to be to save souls, and to bring to souls who are saved more of the light and blessing of God’s truth.
Now, if that is proselyting, there is not one Christian but what ought to be willing to be called a proselyter. It is what Episcopalians had to meet when they broke away from the Roman Catholic Church; it is what Methodists had to meet when they broke away from the Episcopal Church; it is what Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, and Baptists have had to meet. The terms of reproach should never move God’s people in any way only to more diligence in the service of the Master. Teach His truth, live His truth, win other souls to His truth, which has the power to save.