Recently, my church has been studying the book of Acts. You can’t get far in this account of the early Church without realizing the important role that early Christians played in spreading the Gospel message, both in their communities and throughout the known world. Of course, the early Christians were not always met with a warm response to the message that they carried, and in fact, often encountered outright hostility and sometimes violence. Under normal circumstances, this should have stopped the message in its track. However, this was not a normal message, and these were not normal circumstances. God used the persecution that the Christians experienced to drive them from their homes and to further spread the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.
These early days of evangelism could not have been easy. Not only was the Church dealing with the aforementioned hostility, but there was little in the way of preparation for the task that they set out to do. There was no formal missionary training, no “10 steps for leading a revival.” Their resources in terms of money, talent, and experience were limited, and yet God used them to “turn the world” on its head.
As they engaged in their evangelistic task within this framework – these early Christians were called to simply be faithful witnesses (1 Thess 2:4). Most of the early disciples of Christ didn’t have much in terms of reputation or renown, but what they did have was a testimony of what Christ had accomplished while He walked this Earth, and what He had done in each of their lives. And this was enough. This is what they were to share. What happened as a result wasn’t their responsibility – they were to recount what they knew and God, through their faithful obedience, would accomplish His purposes (1 Cor 1:26-31).
It works the same in evangelism today. We are called to bear witness, and God takes on the responsibility of using that testimony to draw others into a right relationship with Him. What does a faithful witness look like? In the US judicial system, they are those who uphold their oath to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” In our evangelism, we should do the same.
Tell The Truth
If we are to be a faithful witness for Christ, we need to tell others what God has accomplished – both in history and in terms of our very own lives. Often this may require some humility. We may not like to think about who we were before we became a Christian. We may not want to reveal the extent of our sin; we may not like even facing the reality of it ourselves. But when we bear witness to Christ, we need to testify to what we have seen and heard – and we are the foremost expert on what God has done in our own hearts to make them more like His Son. We need to clearly and deliberately share with others that we are not merely a “good person” who believes in Christ because it “works for us.” Instead, we need to testify that we were a sinner in need of a Savior and because of what Christ did for us through His death and resurrection, we are now redeemed to live a life for Him. This life of following Christ is not always easy, and in fact, God promised it wouldn’t be, and we need to tell the truth about that too. Let us not try to win people to Christ without sharing with them the cost. After all, Christ caution against this very thing (Luke 14:25-33). Let’s be clear on what God saved us from, and what God calls us too. And let’s trust that even if we don’t think that makes for a very effective “sales pitch,” God can use our faithful witness to bring others to Him.
The Whole Truth
In a United States court of law, the second thing that a witness attests to is that they will tell the whole truth. This is a commitment that is also important in our evangelism. We must be sure that we do not add or detract from the Gospel. We may be tempted to soften Jesus’ call to take up crosses and follow Him in order to make our evangelism more palatable and therefore seemingly “more successful.” Resist this temptation! Our Gospel presentations need to clearly present the costs of becoming Christ’s disciple, even if we think it will make people more resistant to accepting Him as Savior. After all, this is what Jesus did when He called people to follow Him – He delineated the costs and the sacrifices. Those who were His followed; those who weren’t at least knew what it was that they were rejecting.
And Nothing But The Truth
If we are not tempted to skirt the costs of discipleship when presenting the Gospel, we may be inclined to instead add to Christ’s call, becoming like the Pharisees by adding on extra burdens based on our understanding of secondary or even tertiary issues. Don’t do this either! There may be times to discuss and debate interpretations and application of detailed doctrinal issues, but when we are presenting the Gospel to non-believers this is probably not the time. Paul provides us a great model here. His evangelism efforts were focused on those things that were of “first importance.” (I Cor 15:3-4) Similarly, he frequently taught against being caught up in “foolish controversies” (Titus 3:9). It is likely ineffective to spend our evangelism efforts arguing with non-Christians about issues that are of secondary importance. The Gospel is what has the power to save (Ro 1:16). That is what our message needs to consist of.
Although there may be a variety of reasons that people are reluctant to engage in the task of evangelism, one of the most common ones may be because they don’t know what to say. Let us abandon this excuse! Instead let us remember that our job is to be faithful witnesses – to accurately attest to the truth of the Gospel and the change that it has wrought in our life through the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection. As we do this, let us trust that even if we don’t see the fruit of our testimony, God is using our faithful obedience in the lives of those who don’t believe. And one day, we will meet in Heaven people who came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through our commitment to frequently and faithfully testify to Who He is.
*It is helpful to note that a witness at a trial isn’t responsible for conviction. Neither are we as we attest to the truth of the Gospel (1 Thess. 2:4). We are simply tasked with attesting to what we know is true – and trust that God will work through our faithful obedience to accomplish His purposes (1 Cor. 1:26-31)
