Awakening

The joys and frustrations of Witnessing:
‘Square pegs can’t fit in round holes’

by Tom Muller

Witnessing to those who we know in our lives about the good news of Jesus Christ, brings them a message of hope, light and salvation. It is an integral part of living a missional life for and with Jesus, as we heed His call to enter into culture, preach the gospel and make disciples. The joy of knowing God, and living by his gift of imputed righteousness transcends anything else and it is this joy that encourages us to share to those around us the gospel, the power of God for salvation.  But "witnessing" can sometimes feel like an ambiguous task. What exactly is it and what is the best way? Well unfortunately for all of us there are no secret formulas or special techniques, no matter what you may have lately researched on youtube. But perhaps this is where the beauty lies. Each individual deserves the opportunity to have the gospel effectively presented to them in a way that is relevant and appropriate for their current context and life situation. Now this does not mean that the gospel is compromised or changed in a way to meet the felt needs of those around us in a last ditch effort to entice their conversion, a prevailing problem in contemporary consumer driven religion. It just means that those we are witnessing to deserve the dignity of having us make the effort to not only understand their own world-view and where they are at in life but to effectively convey the message of Jesus in a way that they will understand. This involves time, lots and lots of time. In my experience preaching the gospel in a  'shoot from the hip' type of fashion has rarely seen many results. Time is needed to build relationships of trust and love, which in and of themselves express the Trinitarian nature of God and the purpose of the gospel, to be reconciled to a relationship with the Father. It is through such relationships that the gospel can be effectively appropriated and spelled out gradually both in dialogue and through our lives as believers. Time is needed to understand the intricacies of alternative belief systems in order to have these effective dialogues. For example, I regularly spend time with philosophical atheists (meaning they reject the possibility of God on philosophical grounds). I have many interesting conversations with them about my faith in Christ. Yet in doing so I must be aware that attempting to validate the gospel by appealing to the penal substitutionary atonement of our sins by the Son of God for our salvation is ineffective. Why? Because my atheist friends hold vastly different presuppositions than the presuppositions needed to find a statement like that compelling. Firstly, they do not believe in a God who is existent, who determines what is right and wrong and then who is compelled to hold us accountable for our rights and wrongs. Therefore secondly they do not believe in sin as something needing to be cosmically vindicated for. Hence thirdly the statement “God died for our sins” is in complete disagreement with the first two propositions and therefore is irrelevant in relation to the framework of their world-view. For someone to hip shoot a statement to them such as "Jesus died for your sins" is like fitting a square peg into a round hole, it just isn't compatible to their world-view, it means nothing to them. Expounding on this analogy, time is needed for both parties to understand what makes the round hole round, and how that differs from what makes the square peg square. Once this is achieved it is possible to journey together in understanding why each world-view is contrastingly different allowing those who are hearing the gospel the adventure of coming to understand its truth by allowing the opportunity for their round hole to become a square one, instead of tossing it into the wind. For me this would mean spending time in explaining not only that Jesus has died for our sins but why I believe God to be true, sin to be real, the historicity of Jesus credible and the effect of the gospel on my life as more than a mere illusion. Spending time and effort towards understanding the positions of doubting unbelievers who may very well want to accept Christ but can’t, due to numerous intellectual/cultural/experiential reasons, in the attempt to aid in the working out of these issues may be the most loving way in which to lead someone to Christ. Because it is not easy, it is not quick and it usually challenges our own faith to the core. And unfortunately the Church has for too long winced unlovingly away from the rationally doubtful, fearful of the probing objections that pierce the pseudo-protective sheath of dogma.