How To Witness: How To Tell Others About Christ

I just thought that today we should tackle the topic of How to Witness: How To Tell Others About Christ.

From an idealistic point of view, it is a pity that we ever need to pose the question, “How shall we witness?” Those who first heard the apostles’ preaching cried, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37), but that concerned the step that followed conviction, and Peter promptly answered, “Repent, and be baptized” (verse 38).

And “they that gladly received his word were baptized” (verse 41), but they hardly seemed to have needed instruction about their subsequent Christian duty. They had all things in common, they sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with the needy. They praised God and found favor with all people; “and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (verses 44-47).

Their dedicated fervor impelled them to witness. They told what the Lord had done for them, their transparent sincerity carrying such conviction that their number increased by leaps and bounds.

In sharing their newfound faith in so spontaneous a manner, those converts were but following their Lord’s counsel. From the beginning of His ministry, He had counseled His followers in the most effective form of witness when He said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works” (Matt. 5:16). There was to be nothing forced or artificial about their Christian service.

The practical product of their religion, their “good works,” was to be as evident as the light that effortlessly shines from a lamp and illumines all around. Even so, would the radiance from genuine Christian conduct lead others to glorify their heavenly Father?  “The unstudied, unconscious influence of a holy life is the most convincing sermon that can be given in favor of Christianity. Argument, even when unanswerable, may provoke opposition; but a godly example has a power that is impossible wholly to resist.” – The Acts of the Apostles, p. 511.

But we must not run away with the idea that witness is to be wholly passive and unconscious, for the same Lord who advised us to let our light shine also commanded, “Go ye into all the world, and preach” (Mark 16:15). The light from our personal lamps is limited in its range. If the whole world is to be lightened with the gospel’s glory, the individual lights need to be evenly spaced to ensure maximum coverage and must be greatly multiplied, or there must be a conscious effort to share the gospel blessings with “every creature.”

Even then the best results come when professional preaching comes from the lips of those whose lives completely harmonize with the message they proclaim. There is, then, no way a Christian can escape responsibility for the quality of the life he leads.

Christ teaching has an uncanny pervasiveness that leaves no corner of our lives and no mite of our responsibilities untouched. His authority and His impulsion are omnipresent and inescapable. We might “take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; [but] even there shall…[his] hand lead” us, and His “right hand shall hold” us. This places on each of us a global responsibility for witness far and near, with no ready-made pardon for neglect of one or the other. As G. K. Chesterton would remind us:

We may indeed find the weight of Christian duty to be much greater than we bargained for, but it must not, therefore, be jettisoned.