9 reasons why sharing God’s Word is essential for the mission of the church
The Word One to One’s CEO, Le Fras Strydom, shares nine reasons why equipping Christians to read the Bible with others is crucial for the church’s worldwide mission of making Jesus known.
Our friend Rico Tice has called it the ‘silver bullet’.
Rico doesn’t mean that The Word One to One itself is THE silver bullet.
He means that the widespread and daily discipline of everyday Christian believers lovingly coming alongside their non-Christian contacts, opening the Scriptures with them, and helping them navigate the bewildering (to those who are new to it) Christian sub-culture is essential for the mission of the church to flourish in our day.
This 'journey' with the non-Christian is simply vital as individual brothers and sisters seek to connect the people in their lives to the courses, events and Sunday gatherings we long for them to come to. This journeying is key to helping them take a next step, and then another towards repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Here are a few reasons why:
Cultural reasons why ‘Bible sharing’ is so helpful (a non-Christian perspective):
1. An openness to exploring faith: the recent Talking Jesus survey indicates that in the UK, about 1 in 3 non-Christians who’ve had a conversation with a practising Christian about their faith wanted to know more about Jesus Christ.
Many people around us feel a curiosity, and even a hunger, for meaning. This resonates with what active Bible sharers find; among those who say ‘no thank you’, many non-Christians are in fact deeply grateful when someone offers time with them to help them understand what the Bible says about Jesus.
2. A safe environment: for people who know they don’t have the answers to life and feel self-conscious about it, the safe space within a relationship of trust is such a helpful environment to ask those questions and to share the concerns and the issues that are holding them back from understanding and responding to Jesus.
3. A captivating subject matter: make no mistake about it… people find the Lord Jesus captivating. They find the Bible intriguing. Most people who look at Episode 1 of The Word One to One (which focusses on that glorious introduction of John 1:1-18) want to see what happens next!
Don’t underestimate how much our non-Christian friends will enjoy the experience once they get into it... here is a comment that Bible sharers often hear from those they read with:
“ Why has nobody ever shown me this before?”
Cultural reasons why ‘Bible sharing’ is essential (a Christian perspective):
1. Reach: today, the reality is that most people have little or no real connection with a church or a church leader. To bring the message of the gospel to the people around us, it's obvious that God’s people need to be mobilised to share it persuasively in the communities where God has placed them.
2. Clarity: even when God’s people have shared the gospel in the recent past, it has typically relied on gospel outlines, apologetic arguments or personal testimonies.
While these can all be helpful and should be learnt, most people around us are Biblically illiterate, which means they have little or no understanding of the Bible’s message – so these fleeting conversations can be easily misunderstood, ignored or rejected. And if we are honest, we can also get it wrong! When our message is rejected because of the offense of the gospel, that is fair enough. But at times it’s because we as Christians botch the job (oh and have I botched a few jobs in my life!)
The clarity of chatting through the Bible together verse-by-verse, and the context of doing that over time and within a relationship of trust, takes the pressure off us as believers to nail the elevator pitch, win the apologetic argument or blow them away with our personal testimony. We offer to give the non-Christian time and space to explore and respond to the Biblical Jesus, rather than relying purely on our representation of Him.
3. Discipleship benefit: mobilising Christians as witnesses is not just an issue of reaching the non-believing world. It is the testimony of Scripture – and this is borne out by experience – that those who learn to actively share God’s Word have a vibrancy and a vigour to their own personal walk with the Lord. Disciples are called to make disciples, and our Lord promises to be with us as we do so. This is why we at The Word One to One talk about ‘joyful Bible sharers’, because we have seen countless Christians around the world liberated and empowered in evangelism by learning to trust in the power of God’s Word.
Which leads me to…
Biblical reasons for ‘Bible sharing’:
1. ‘Bible sharers’ lean on God’s Word: the Bible – and particularly the Gospels – were given by God to bring people to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As the apostle John himself puts it in John 20:31, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Surely an encounter with Jesus in the Gospels should be our aim for any of our non-Christian contacts?
2. ‘Bible sharers’ trust in God’s Spirit: as the Christian steps out in faith to share, God’s Spirit meets them there in power. So many Bible sharers testify to this – Jesus speaks through His Word! These words from John the Baptist really resonate with those who share God’s Word:
“The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.”
Our job includes knowing when to get out of the way and allowing God to speak to our friends through His Word. Our Lord Himself said “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
3. ‘Bible sharers’ display God’s love: because the Word is shared in the context of relationship, the non-Christian can experience something of the love of Christ through us.
We give them time and space to explore, we answer questions and share something of what God has done in our lives. We take an interest in their lives. We pray for them. We invite them to events or courses or church services they may find helpful. We point them to books, videos or podcasts.
As God enables, we begin to introduce them to other brothers and sisters so they can see the community of Jesus’ followers in action.
The widespread and daily discipline of everyday Christian believers lovingly coming alongside their non-Christian contacts, opening the Scriptures with them, and helping them navigate the bewildering Christian sub-culture is essential for the mission of the church to flourish in our day.
The Word One to One is not the silver bullet. But it’s a great resource for pointing people to Jesus Christ as you support them on their journey.
Can we help you or your church family start sharing it?
Discover more about what people think of Jesus, Christians and evangelism in the UK today at talkingjesus.org
Find out more about mobilising your church for Bible sharing.
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