How many times have you heard a fellow Christian say that evangelism is telling people that ‘God loves them’, or that it is ‘sharing the love of Jesus’ with them?

And what’s wrong with such an approach?  Does not the Bible itself declare that ‘God is love?’  Isn’t John’s Gospel rightly described as ‘The Gospel of Love’?  And are not the words and works of Jesus himself overflowing with love?

But here’s an obstinate fact: the Book of Acts, which documents the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem and Judea to Samaria and onwards the boundaries of the then-known world, doesn’t mention ‘love’ from beginning to end.  Not once.

Luke, the author of Acts, certainly had the word ‘love’ in his vocabulary, for he uses it several times in his Gospel.

So, what is going on?

When we say, ‘God loves you’, we are describing God’s disposition.  But that expression says nothing about what God has actually done.

And that’s where Acts comes in.

As John Frye puts it:

‘The original gospel in the Book of Acts was not explicitly about the love of God. The story that turned the world upside-down and inside-out was not a love-drenched word as we assume today…the recorded evangelistic sermons in Acts recount the actions of God, not the love of God.‘

Of course, those actions demonstrate the loving disposition of God towards sinners.  But the emphasis falls on the actions, not the disposition.

That shift in emphasis matters, because it is a shift from me-centredness (me as the object of God’s love), to God-centredness (the God who, in Christ, has taken decisive action to redeem sinners such as me).

God’s decisive action involves the birth, public ministry, death, resurrection, ascension and future return in judgment of Jesus Christ his Son.

John Frye concludes:

‘That, my friends, is love in sacrificial acts (and in Acts), not words. Only as Christ is owned as Israel’s Messiah can he be received as Savior of the world. The one and only true God is Israel’s God made known in Jesus the Christ who now is Savior for and Lord of all. Every word in that gospel announcement is written in costly love.’

We could say, then, that the book of Acts is not the declaration of God’s love, but rather the demonstration of his love.