A gaunt, angular, clumsy man grasped my hand. He was a son of the soil, who would never in his life feel comfortable in a suit and a tie. He was at ease and re laxed in conversation when on his farm, but he would always be tense in a formal meeting. I also knew him to be a jewel of a Christian. I had just finished a sermon in which I had described the qualifica tions of a Christian witness. I had set the standard high, stressing not only a dependence on the Holy Spirit, but also a rather complete knowledge of the Scriptures as well as an under standing of human nature. “Tell me, Pastor,” he said, “how can I get to be like that.” The moment he said it, the truth dawned on me like a flash: he could never get to be the kind of man I had described. My whole sermon had been completely theoretical and vis ionary. For him to become the kind of witness I had described would have required that he be made into something superficial and complete ly unnatural for him. I began to re-think my whole concept of Chris tian witnessing. Many people refrain from witness ing because they think it is some thing particularly difficult, that it requires certain skills or abilities and special knowledge. Witnessing does not consist neces sarily in knowing and quoting Scrip ture passages. It is not giving out information about the Christian life or the way of salvation. It is not presenting any argument for Chris tianity or the gospel. Witnessing is not something which requires the ability to answer the objections of un believers. Witnessing is not the same as soul winning.- To be outstanding as a soul winner does require a certain amount of knowledge and ability to explain the way of salvation. Christians who love the souls of men will have the ambition to win as many as possible t® Christ and will try to improve their ability and knowledge in soul winning. However, we must face the fact that some will be much more adept at soul winning than others who are just as consecrated and sin
cere, and some will find it almost im possible. This fact need not be a cause of frustration, for witnessing is not subject to all the pre-requisites of soul winning. A witness speaks out of his own experience. The apostles witnessed out of their personal experience of Christ, His earthly ministry and death on the cross, and particularly of His resurrection (Acts 1:22,3:15, etc.). We do not have the same kind of contact with the earthly life of Jesus, but the commission to witness has nevertheless been given also to us. One irrefutable answer to those who contend that this commission was given only to the apostles is that the command calls for witnessing “unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The apostles themselves did not get to the uttermost part of the earth, and as long as there is a single dark heart in any part of the earth, the commission to witness is still applies able to believers. Christian witnessing is not the re lating of experiences of special provi dences of God. Suppose you have been in an accident. Your car rolled over four times. On the fourth time around, the door flew open, you were thrown 30 feet and landed in a hay stack just five feet across, without a scratch. You may consider this sensa tional experience a miracle and tell it with real appreciation to God far His intervention. Your neighbor, whose fine Christian son was killed in an accident somewhat like yours, will wonder why you landed in the haystack and his son landed on a block of concrete. Couldn’t God pro vide a haystack for him too? This does not mean that we should never tell of such miraculous deliverances. It does mean that they must be recognized as special providences of God which are not directly a part of His redemptive pattern for all His children. Such experiences should be told carefully. They must never leave the impression there is something special about us, or about our faith, that merits God’s special attention. Sometimes we tell things, because of. our love of the sensational, or of the heroic limelight, which had best be left untold. A good rule to fol-
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low is to refrain from telling any thing which might need, or be im proved by some such phrase as, “ of course I’m ' saying this for the glory of God.” If this is not obvious from your telling of the incident, you had best leave it untold. Such a phrase only gives you a pious excuse for bragging. Fundamentally, we are called to be witnesses of the redemptive work of Christ. Witnessing and confessing Christ as Saviour are very much alike. Our confession of Christ as Saviour goes further than a testimony of our initial conversion experience. It is normal to have a continual stream of experiences of Christ’s deliverance from sin. Growth in grace is the product of the continuous redemptive work of Christ. Growth in grace is growth in righteousness. Every new development in Christian liv in g should make sin appear more sinful and more specific and should give us a higher standard of practical right eousness. This will be our confession, and this will be the subject of our witness. This is an over simplification, but for the sake of an illustration, let us assume that, in the normal process of Christian growth, the following mat ters were brought to your attention by the Holy Spirit and were dealt with in the order indicated:
Your Prayer Request Each morning at nine the editorial staff of King's Business magazine gathers for prayer. Over the years God has answered the heart-cry of thousands. Should you have a request we would count it a privilege to take it to the throne of grace. Your request will be held in the strictest confidence. Address: The Editors, King's Business magazine, 558 So. Hope St., Los Angeles 17, Calif.
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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