A Different Viewpoint on Christian Evangelism

A closer look at what the bible really says (and doesn't say) about witnessing, discipling, and the Great Commission. A 3 part series.

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In the matter of witnessing to outsiders, what about those of us who do not have the gift of evangelism? I’m using the term “witnessing” as it’s often used in church circles - as a verb - to actively go out and seek people who are not Christians in order to explain the gospel to them and try to convince them to become believers in Christ.

audio version:

the Samaritan woman at the well

In the New Testament (N.T.) gospel of John, we have an example of giving witness that was a natural result of an inward impulse to tell of some great thing.

In John chapter 4, after talking to Jesus, the Samaritan woman left her waterpot at the well and went into town and asked everyone to come and see if this man, Jesus, was the Messiah, for she testified, “he told me all the things that I have done”. (verse 39) It’s the word in the Greek (martureo) that could be translated “bear witness”. She was telling, or bearing witness, or testifying, to what she had personally experienced. There was no command - it was a natural response - she could hardly keep quiet about it.

the early church

Now let’s look at the rest of the N.T., after the gospels which tell of the miracles of Jesus. In the history of the early church and letters to the churches “witness” is mostly used as a noun. It’s the same root in the Greek as the word for martyr. It could usually be translated as “testimony”. To be a witness or to give testimony is most often a response to some inquiry. So it’s not the same as evangelism, which is one of the special kinds of ministries given to some but not all members of the body of Christ, as mentioned in Ephesians 4:11.

I used to be in sales. First insurance, and then real estate. I went to quite a few seminars on sale techniques. In real estate, I had a listing ‘farm’. That was an area of several blocks of residential houses. I went door-to-door, cold canvassing, asking people if they were thinking of selling their house. It wasn’t easy, because I got lots of rejections. It trained me not to be afraid to knock on doors, because every once in a while, someone would say “Yes”. But obviously, not everyone is comfortable approaching strangers. Some are naturally very shy, some are introverted.

Is it easy or hard for you to approach a complete stranger and present the gospel to them?

If it’s hard for you, so that you would prefer to avoid it, do you feel guilty?

Why should you feel guilty for not doing what you were never ordained or called to do?

Being a witness means to tell about something you’ve personally seen, heard, or experienced

is it a command for all of us?

This raises the question – Is there any command in the New Testament epistles, given to all Christians, to go out and “witness”?

As an elder, I used to teach about how we should share the gospel. I taught from the few commands on the subject. Aside from the Great Commission that Jesus gave to the eleven apostles in Matthew 28 and Mark 16, which will be addressed in Part 3, the rest of the bible has only three passages that could be construed to command us to talk to unbelievers about our faith. (correct if I’m wrong; 3 is all I found)

1. Colossians 4:5-6  Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. ⁶ Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

“Outsiders” in this context are non-Christians.

 Is this a command to go out witnessing? Or is it a command to be ready to respond when an outsider gives us an opportunity by asking us about our faith? The idea here is to wait for an opportunity. Our Christian behavior will sometimes be so noticed by non-Christians that they’ll ask us about it.

When I was a brand new convert, I naturally went to visit my best friend, ‘Cole’. It was normal for us to get together a couple times a week. He greeted me at the door with 2 beers in his hand. One was his, the other for me. I said no thanks. This came close to offending him. I remember him saying one time “Anyone who won’t drink with me is no friend of mine.” (He was an alcoholic and later died of cirrhosis of the liver.) But we were very close friends. When Bev and I came to Oregon from the East Coast, we didn’t know anyone here. We met when he was our neighbor in a duplex, and he kind of took us under his wing. Anyway, he brought me into the house and before we even sat down he asked me why I didn’t want the beer. You need to understand that for me, drinking beer represented going out ‘honky tonking’, as Cole called it - a more biblical description would be ‘carousing’. So as soon as I was converted, I felt that for me, drinking would be a sin, because it would go against my own newly sensitive conscience. Since Cole put me on the spot, I was compelled to tell him what had happened to me. It was perfectly natural - he had asked - so I told him how and why I had come to the point where I believed the bible and believed in Jesus and had made the committment to be baptized into Christ. He listened, rather amazed. Later, this led to him even coming to a church service with me, and he was almost persuaded that very day to give his life to the Lord, but he held back, and the moment passed. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever experienced - seeing my friend reject Christ.

The point is, my “witnessing” was a perfectly natural reponse. I had not gone over to his house that day with any intention except continuing to be a friend, but as it turned out, I “made the most of the opportunity”, as we’re told to do in Colossians 4 above, when he asked me what had happened to me.

2. 1Peter 3:15  But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.

Again, is this a command to go out witnessing? Or a command to be prepared? Here the idea is to have such an attitude of hope in our daily lives that it gets so noticed that we’ll be asked about it. Then we can tell them about Jesus and how our hope is based on his love and His promises, and so on, in our own words and in our own way. Again, the good news about Jesus is given after being asked. That’s quite different from the idea of going out door-knocking or some such outreach project. It’s not wrong to do those things, I’m just making the point that it’s not a command, and if it’s not a command, there’s no reason to feel guilty if we’re not agressively going out. Some people are very good at it, and that’s great, but we all have different gifts.

I just recently saw a great example of 1 Peter 3:15 in action. A Christian friend, Jack, had just departed to be with the Lord. About a week after the memorial, his widow was smiling, almost glowing. She told us how much joy she had when several neighbors came over to her house. Some didn’t know Jack had died. The joy she spoke of was from the wonderful opportunities she had to tell them about the assurance of heaven that comes from believing in Jesus. For her, it wasn’t just some platitude to say “he’s in a better place”, or something like that - it was a solidly deep felt conviction. Again, her witness was a natural response to being asked about the hope that showed all over her face, just like what is spoken of in 1 Peter.

3. Jude 3-4   Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. ⁴ For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Is this strong encouragement to contend for the faith asking us to go on offense or defense? The context is talking about defending the faith from ungodly people who “slipped in” among us (the church). I used to err by taking it out of context and just focusing on the phrase “contend for the faith” as if it were a general command for everyday situations.

 the involvement of the Holy Spirit

Are there even situations where we don’t need to worry about or prepare ahead about what to say? Yes:

Luke 12:11  “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, ¹² for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”

This is an important verse to remember in this time when Christianity is coming more and more under persecution, and the possibility of being hauled before the authorities for living out our faith when laws are passed that are hostile to Christianity.

Here again, we are talking about defense, not offense. It is a wonderful comfort to know that the Holy Spirit will help us.

Next Tuesday: Part 2, on “discipling”