How a Bill (Bright) Becomes a (Spiritual) Law
David McGaw
April 1, 2001
With more than 1.5 billion copies in print, chances are you've seen the Four Spiritual Laws-Campus Crusade for Christ's E-Z way to share the gospel. No matter how fervently you desire to see people come to know Jesus Christ, this little booklet likely stirs up a few mixed emotions. Is it too impersonal and canned, or the simplest, easiest way to explain salvation to the lost? I worked for eight years with Campus Crusade, and even I'm not sure of the answer. When businessman-cum-evangelist Bill Bright founded Campus Crusade back in 1951, he wanted to keep the ministry's focus on reaching the lost for Christ. As part of a methodical training plan, various experts were invited to address staff members, and in 1956, a salesman told them honed messages were key. In fact, he suggested that they were already sharing the same basic gospel message over and over. At first, Bright bristled that his ministry was being compared to sales, but upon reflection, he realized that the salesman was right. To help equip the growing band of Crusaders (many of them recent converts), he wrote God's Plan for Your Life, a fifteen-minute speech that covered the basics of salvation. God's Plan was essentially the Four Laws in narrative form-with the significant difference that it began by talking about mankind's sin before speaking of God's love in sending Jesus. Though this was a common mode of gospel presentation, one night in 1958, Bright sensed the Holy Spirit telling him the gospel should begin with God's love. A small shift, but it was a radical departure from current Christian evangelistic efforts, and from history. When the revised version was adapted into the tract-form Four Spiritual Laws in 1964, many believers were concerned that Bright had ...
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