This series was a mini series on Witnessing. In this first part, we looked at God’s Word as the basis for this practice, beginning with the Lord Jesus’ very own words on the matter.
Acts 1: 8
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
The following notes are as usual, broad-brush. It is a fairly extensive topic – verbal and non-verbal witness, different forms of evangelism and so on so we’ll just lift out from scripture some of the key elements on this key subject.
Outline:
- First we’ll ask- Who can be a witness?
- The motive for witness
- The mechanics of witness
- The Material for witness
- The Method of witness
- The Manner of Witness
Who can be a witness?
Two years ago today I was driving home from a young peoples meeting in Stowmarket and as I pulled away from some roadworks that had reduced us down to one lane the driver behind me sunk his 1 series BMW into the back of me. We both pulled over and exchanged details as you do and there were some workmen close by so I approached one of them and took down their details as well. That way we had a third party who could help establish the truth between potentially different versions of the accident. And if it did get legal, he would have been called as a witness – someone who could state what he had seen and/or what he knew. That is what a witness is – someone who will state the truth, what they have seen and/or what they know. That’s how we understand it in the present day but those ideas are also consistent with the use in scripture, as we shall see.
Think about this – Ever since Satan’s misrepresentation of the character and will of God in the garden of Eden God has been looking for those who by contrast, will bear witness to the truth. Those who are willing to truthfully represent Him – His character, will, purposes, plans and mind. He chose a nation and to some extent they were effective in their witness. The tabernacle was in part just that, a testimony, a witness – it’s called as much. You think of people like Rahab – the witness of the nation reached her somehow. And the witness was a story of the truth of God’s power and redeeming love. Naaman – the nation now broadly ineffective in its witness, but still, there were individuals like the young maid who were prepared to state the truth about the God of Israel.
And now, Christians are called to be witnesses. In a world where Satan continues to misrepresent God, spread his lies and keep men in darkness, we are called to shine as lights, share the truth and represent God as no less than his very own ambassadors.
Needless to say, this requires at very least that we know God personally. Thinking back to the road accident that I mentioned – it would have been plain foolish for me to have driven to a nearby town and just selected someone from random to be a witness on my behalf, because they had know knowledge of the accident and know knowledge of me as a person. They wouldn’t be able to properly represent the events surrounding the accident. And so with our subject here, God isn’t calling every man and women to witness.
So who can be a witness? A Christian – someone who knows their sins forgiven and is following Christ. And as we follow him we convey the truth about him to others. In the New Testament, the witness is presented as someone who values the truth more than he values his life. Witness in scripture is inextricably linked with the idea of truth. Establishing truth, maintaining truth, proclaiming truth and so on. So just very simply, let’s ask ourselves a question: as Christians are we fulfilling our responsibility to witness? As those that are saved by grace and following Christ, are we telling others about what we know about him? For all the thousands of lost people in your locality, the jury is still out and if there is no one willing to tell them the truth about Christ they will remain in the kingdom of darkness. Worse still they may remain in the darkness because we misrepresented God.
The motive – why we witness
- Obeying Christ: the primary motive for witness is perhaps this – that Christ expects it. In the events leading up to his ascension, The Lord Jesus made clear the responsibility of those who loved him to tell others the truth concerning himself.
In Acts 1 it is clear from Luke’s record that Christ viewed his disciples in particular as witnesses and tasked them with that responsibility. Bear in mind that those who he was referring to had been with him from the beginning, (John 15:27) “you have been with me from the beginning”. Their knowledge was particularly intimate. Peter says in Acts 10:39 that they were “witnesses chosen before God”. So these were if you like expert witnesses and in fact when the idea of witness is referred to so far as the New Testament believers are concerned it firstly refers to this group. By extension we can apply it to ourselves but if we are to be honest in our exposition we should point this out.
And then we have the record of the ascension events in the gospels and we can see that Luke places an emphasis on preaching the gospel whilst Matthew emphasises making disciples. All the gospels make clear the scope of the mandate, it is to all nations. So here is our first motive – Christ instructed us and because we love him we should obey him. But let me suggest a few other driving elements here.
Following Christ – the Lord Jesus himself was a witness – John 5:36, “I have greater witness than that of John, for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me”
Honouring Christ: Proverbs 14:25 – ‘A true witness delivers souls: but a deceitful witness speaks lies.’ You will remember that when Christ was on this earth, men sought false witness against Him. And so today, there are many who still bear false witness about the person of Christ. Paul said “woe is me if I preach not the gospel” and we can apply this to that ourselves individually and collectively. Whether Christ has instructed us or not we should want to share and live gospel truth. Matthew wrote, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
So the motive then, obeying, following and honouring Christ.
The mechanics – how witnessing works
We won’t need to spend a great deal of time on this but it will help steer our thinking in the right paths if we briefly remind ourselves of the doctrine related to witnessing is concerned.
- The subject of our witness is Christ.
- The power of our witness is conveyed through the Holy Spirit based on the Word of God. This is pivotal truth that you can see brought out in the upper room ministry (so-called) of the Lord Jesus and then played out throughout the book of the Acts
- The truth we convey for our witness is from the Word of God
Now what are the implications of these points? Firstly, if the subject of our witness is Christ then subjects like apologetics or perhaps the story of our own personal conversion – these things take second place so far as our focus in witness is concerned. Furthermore, it will necessary to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. A witness that expresses the truth concerning Christ will need to be backed up by a life that is modelled on Him also. A jury wouldn’t think too highly of the testimony of a witness in court no matter how compelling it might be if they know that person to be a liability in the community.
Second if the power of our witness is conveyed through the Holy Spirit, it follows then that to be effective in our witness we must be living set apart lives, not having fellowship with the works of darkness, not grieving him.
Third, if the truth we convey for our witness is from the Word of God then we must be acquainting ourselves with it daily.
Fourthly, if the subject is Christ, the power is conveyed through the Holy Spirit and the truth is from the Word of God we are reminded of this that, “Salvation is of the Lord”
Now finally on how witnessing works, we should remember that a significant component of our witness is conveyed non-verbally. In other words, your attitudes, behaviour, temperament, character should all demonstrate that you have been with Jesus. And by so doing you will silently albeit powerfully convey the truth of Christ. We have already quoted Matthew 5:16 – “let your light so shine”, the other references there to being the salt of the earth all indicate the expectation of Christ for us to be influencing the world around whether we speak or not. This is an important aspect on its own but all the more so when we realise that our verbal witness will be unconvincing if our non-verbal witness is out of step. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Philippians 1:27, “let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” And Paul speaks in Galatians 2:14, of those whose “conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel.’” We should ask ourselves whether our life is coherent, it makes sense. I have kids and they are quick to notice when my life doesn’t.
So then the mechanics as I’ve called them, they’re important to ensure we come at this subject of witness from the right angle. Doctrine is important. You can’t behave correctly unless you know what you believe. You can’t undertake witnessing effectively unless you understand witnessing.
The motive, the mechanics and now the material.
The material – what is our witness.
Now we’ve already mentioned Luke’s record so let’s go back there and refresh. Luke records Christ’s own words and to paraphrase – “Christ had died and risen again the third day in order that men and women might be forgiven of their sins through repentance”. So our material for witness starts here:
- Christ: a declaration of the person of Christ. Paul said, “we preach Christ crucified” and I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). The early church knew little else – they presented Christ, this one who they had witnessed, live, die and become alive again. And as men and women recognised the truth about Christ they realised they were sinners and turned from sin to serve the living God. So in our witness before the jury of this world, we declare the truth concerning Christ and him crucified. I think we’ve lost confidence in the power of that simple message. We’ll go on now to think some other scripturally based elements that make up the material of our witness. But we need I think to renew our confidence in the power of a clear and spirit-filled declaration of the person of Christ. And we can try and analyse how this has become the case but ultimately, if I look to my own heart it’s probably just a question of the fact that he’s not front and centre. However, from experience, when you walk up to someone on the street and start ‘witnessing’ you have very little time on your hands and so you’d better get to Christ pretty quick. I’ve had the thrill of witnessing on the streets – not the soapbox approach, more getting in the middle of a small stationary group of people and sharing Christ. There is nothing like it. And my opening line would often be, “do you have a moment for me to speak to you about the Lord Jesus”. Now you might think that’s a little in-your-face, almost too simplistic. But if they reject you there and then, you can be sure because you started with Christ that you presented them with a genuine opportunity to consider him. If you start with the weather, you may never get to Christ. If you’re one of these people that has the gift-of-the-gab and you can bend the conversation around from the weather then fine. But don’t think starting with Christ is a naive approach. If you don’t have the gift-of-the-gab you’ll find it very difficult to transition to talking about Christ and it’ll come across just as awkward as if you’d started with him in the first place. So just start with him. Tell them what a perfect man he was, that he came to die for sinners and he came because God so loved the world that he gave…I don’t think that’s naive, I think that’s scriptural (cf. 1 Cor 15:1-4). Talk about the life of Christ, that’s scriptural. And talk about his death, burial and resurrection.
- Judgement: when you present Christ, we are presenting truth. And the truth hurts – Peter elaborates on the words of the Lord Jesus in Acts 10:42, he says that the Lord Jesus “commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of the living and the dead.” So we must graciously present Christ as Saviour but also Judge. We must convey the need for repentance as well as the promise of forgiveness of sins. We must honestly explain the holiness of God as well as the offer of grace through faith.
- Cultural awareness: when you present Christ, if we look at the pattern of the New Testament – there is clear evidence that are grasp of relevant culture and topical issues is helpful. In the early part of Acts, you think of Stephens witness for example, it’s heavily weighted with Jewish references. Whereas Paul’s sermon in Athens is weighted quite differently, for his Gentile audience and more than that, a Greek, largely religious, intellectual audience. So we are permitted to include in our witness, relevant mentions of cultural and topical significance. Emphasis on relevant. Don’t abuse this liberty and bring too many gimmicks into your material. These references that we make should be carefully selected based on our sensitivity to our audience and with God’s help merely a brief stepping stone into which we can then present Christ. So visual aids for example, make sure they are visual aids and not visual handicaps.
We have also seen in our study in apologetics that if there is a specific barrier to presenting truth it may be necessary to adopt an apologetic position for a while before going on to present Christ. This would often be relevant in a work environment where failure to actually deal with the issues would undermine our effectiveness. Now this leads us very smoothly into method. If material is about what our witness consists of, method is about how we go about it.
Method – how we witness
- Prayerfully: Before we get into the methods described in the NT in relation to active witness, evidently we must approach this task in a prayerful manner. Praying for opportunities, for courage, for blessing, for God’s glory.
- Openly: for this we go back to Luke again as our starting point. Luke records Christ as saying that these things should be “preached”. The original word is kerysso (ka-ru’s-so), and means to herald – open proclamation of the gospel – it has behind it the sense of something done with formality, gravity and authority. So the expectation of Christ and therefore the divinely appointed methodology so far as gospel witness is concerned is heralding the gospel – publicly, proclaiming Christ. Romans 10:15 – “how shall they hear (what’s the method) without a preacher” – same word, herald. And this is important – this is the overwhelming emphasis in relation to the spread of the gospel in the NT. That’s very important. Witness in this way seems also, the responsibility of men only in the New Testament and also is never done independent of a church and not alone. So when we go out in this way with the gospel it should be done cooperatively.
- Evangelically: in Acts 8 where you have preaching mentioned several times, you have the two main words for preaching used closely together, ka-ru’s-so that we’ve just mentioned in v6 and euanggelizo (yu-an-ge-le-zo), in v4. Euanggelizo means to bring good news, and the word is used very broadly in a wide range of different contexts including more private witness and informal witness. So what we learn from this is that as well as the formal proclamation of the gospel, our witness should be second nature as part of our every day outlook and the sharing of the gospel should be spontaneous.
- Strategically: we can lack a certain amount of vision and wisdom in our witnes. Individually, we wonder why we don’t have opportunities, but then we’re not really making ourselves available, praying about it, seeking out opportunities and with God’s help even creating those opportunities. And then collectively, the pattern of the New Testament is very much a pioneering approach to witness. Not planting churches, we can leave that to God as we can the saving of souls. But definitely seeking the Lords mind and will as to where he wants us to take the message. This kind of early church mentality is exactly what we need in our country today because with the passage of the last 50 years and all the fallow ground that’s opened up with Christian testimony, in decline there’s a desperate need and a wonderful opportunity in the locality where God has placed us. Here’s an interesting point – the word preaching meaning proclaim or herald isn’t used in Acts until chapter 8 when Philip takes the gospel to Samaria. Why weren’t the evangelists proclaiming and heralding the message to the Jews in Jerusalem? The point the inspired Word of God is making is that you don’t proclaim gospel truth to people who already know it. They ‘taught’ in the synagogues and they shared the good news, but the first time it was heralded was in fallow ground. Interesting. Ever tried to stand in a meeting where there are only saints present and herald the gospel? It’s not scriptural to do so. Teaching the gospel perhaps, but not heralding. A strategic approach to witnessing would save us from such misplaced effort.
So much then for the method.
Lets bring our thoughts to a close by thinking about the manner of our witness.
Manner of our witness
- Gentle: Peter says this in his first epistle (1 Peter 3:15), “be ready always to given an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. So the manner of our witness should be in meekness, in other words gentle. Never patronise the lost. Don’t be unnecessarily confrontational either. One of the things you learn with street evangelism is to be bold without being cold. You have real people, who are lost and they’re all around you. You make a mistake with your attitude and you might find yourself provoking abuse unnecessarily. You must speak the truth in meekness and in fear. Your witness will be far more convincing this way than if you come across as someone who is a little too sure of himself, possibly a little snobbish, pious. God forbid. Particularly in apologetics, may God help us to be winsome by avoiding the shallow tactics of our opponents. I remember to my shame, coming away from a door some years ago having conveyed the truth to a so called Jehovah’s Witness and saying something to the effect of “that gave them something to think about.” Almost as if this was a competition or a challenge. That was not the right attitude. Those people are in darkness. And if proclaiming the gospel with gentleness seems to be a contradiction then how much we need God’s help in this business of witnessing.
- Reverent – meekness and fear. As we articulate the truth of God may we do so reverently. It’s a pretty regulating principle that you can extend across everything we’ve said thus far.
- Sacrificial – witnessing is not about us. The extraordinary story captured by Luke in the book of Acts shows us those who witnessed for Christ were willing to lay their very lives down. And the word for witness in the Greek is actually Martyr so when the Lord Jesus mentioned that as recorded in John 15:27 – he was letting them know what it meant to be a true witness. In Bury St Edmunds, King Edmund is said to have died for the truth – that’s a legend mind-you. But near to his memorial, there is a larger memorial in memory of the 17 Christians who burnt at the stake in the 16th century. What will be the memorial of our generation? How will we be remembered? “Faithful witness” or “self-preservation”?
Lloyd Stock, May 2015
