How do we share the gospel?

Question 11018.

Most Christians want to share the gospel and do not, and the reason is rarely a lack of conviction. It is that the moment arrives and they have no idea what to say, so they say something about church instead and spend the evening annoyed with themselves.

So this is a practical answer rather than a theological one. What is the message, how do you open a conversation, and what do you do when it goes badly?

Know what you say when you share the gospel

Before you can share the gospel you have to be able to state it. Paul’s summary is the place to start: Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, He was buried, and He was raised on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Fill that out with four things. God made us and has the right to our obedience. We have all gone our own way, and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Jesus, God’s Son, took the punishment in our place and rose again. Anyone who turns from their sin and trusts Him is forgiven and received.

Write it in your own words and say it aloud until it sounds like you. Most people cannot share the gospel because they have never once rehearsed it, and a message you have never spoken will not arrive fluently under pressure.

Start where people actually are

Paul did not use one approach. In the synagogue he reasoned from the Scriptures his hearers already accepted. In Athens he began with an altar to an unknown god and quoted their own poets before naming the resurrection (Acts 17:22-31).

The content never changed; the entry point always did. So listen first. What does this person already believe about God, about death, about right and wrong? You cannot share the gospel usefully with someone whose questions you have not bothered to learn.

With a lapsed churchgoer you may need to dismantle a false picture of God before anything can be built. With someone entirely unchurched you may need to explain what sin is before forgiveness means anything. The same news, told differently.

Openings that are not awkward

The best openings are honest. Tell someone what you did at the weekend and let church be in the sentence. Mention that you prayed about something. Answer ‘how are you coping?’ with the truth about where your hope comes from.

Questions work better than statements. Ask what someone believes happens after death and then actually listen. Ask whether they have ever read any of the Bible. Ask, when someone says they could not believe in a God who allows suffering, what happened to them, because that objection almost always has a story attached.

And use the moments life supplies. Bereavement, illness, birth and crisis raise the questions that ordinary weeks bury, and people who would never discuss religion at a barbecue will discuss it at a graveside.

Your story is useful but not sufficient

Testimony is powerful. The man born blind said one thing he was sure of: though I was blind, now I see (John 9:25). Nobody can dispute what happened to you.

Keep it short and keep it honest. What you were like, what changed, what difference it makes now. Avoid the temptation to make the before more dramatic than it was, and avoid implying that life has been smooth since, because your hearer will notice the moment reality contradicts you.

But your story cannot save anyone. It explains why you believe; it does not tell them what to believe. So always move from your experience to the events, because when you share the gospel it is the death and resurrection of Jesus that carries the power rather than your biography.

Call for a response

The apostolic pattern includes a call. Repent and be baptised, said Peter (Acts 2:38). Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, said Paul to the jailer.

That does not mean pressing for a decision on the spot. It means being clear that the gospel asks something rather than simply offering information. People need to know that trusting Jesus is a step to be taken and not a fact to be filed.

I would rather someone counted the cost slowly than prayed a prayer to end an uncomfortable conversation. If you want to hand someone words, use them as a way of expressing faith rather than as a formula, and I have written about the sinner’s prayer and its limits.

Common objections, briefly

You will meet the same handful of replies. All religions are basically the same: they are not, and the differences are precisely at the point of how a person is put right with God, which is where Christianity says the work has already been done for you rather than by you.

A good God would not allow suffering: this deserves a slow answer rather than a clever one, because it is usually asked out of a wound. Say plainly that Christianity does not explain suffering away, that God entered it in the person of Jesus, and that the cross is the last place anyone can accuse Him of keeping a safe distance.

I am a decent person: gently move the standard. Most people are comparing themselves with their neighbours rather than with God, and Jesus’ summary of the law, to love God with everything and your neighbour as yourself, is a standard nobody has kept for a morning.

The church is full of hypocrites: agree, cheerfully, and add that there is room for one more. Then say that you are not asking them to believe in the church but in Jesus, who was harder on religious hypocrisy than any critic outside the building. Do not be defensive here, because when you share the gospel an honest admission does far more good than a defence of the institution.

When it goes badly

Sometimes you will fumble it, say the wrong thing, or realise afterwards that you talked far too much. Welcome to the company. Peter denied Jesus outright and preached at Pentecost seven weeks later.

Sometimes the person will be angry, and you should not confuse that with failure. Jesus was rejected by people who understood Him perfectly well. Your task was to share the gospel clearly and kindly, and you cannot control what is done with it.

What matters is the relationship afterwards. Stay friends. Keep being useful to them. A door closed today is not a door bricked up, and a great many believers I know were argued with, prayed for and quietly loved for years before anything happened.

Doing it together

You are not meant to do this alone. The Twelve were sent out in pairs, and Paul rarely travelled without company. Praying with one other believer for the same people over months does more than a hundred good intentions.

Involve your church. Introduce your friend to other Christians so that the faith stops looking like your personal eccentricity. Invite them to something ordinary rather than to a special event, since it is the normal life of a congregation that convinces.

Be patient with the pace as well. Very few people move from indifference to faith in one conversation, and treating every exchange as the decisive one puts a pressure on it that nobody enjoys. When you share the gospel you are usually adding a piece to something being built slowly, and the person who plants is not always the person who reaps.

And pray. Paul asked the Colossians to pray that God would open a door for the word and that he would make it clear, which is how he ought to speak (Colossians 4:3-4). If the apostle needed prayer for clarity, so do we.

So, now what?

Write out the gospel in your own words this week. One side of paper, no jargon, aimed at somebody specific you know.

Then pray for three people by name daily, and ask God for one opening rather than for a change of personality. You will not become an evangelist overnight, and you do not need to. I have written more on what evangelism actually is.

Keep a list and keep praying over it, because most people who come to faith were prayed for by somebody for years before anything visible happened. You are usually joining a work already in progress rather than beginning one, and the conversation you dread may turn out to be the last link in a long chain you knew nothing about.

And ask yourself the honest question. If you never share the gospel with the people closest to you, what exactly do you believe about where they stand?

But in your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

1 Peter 3:15, ESV