Luke begins his Gospel be telling Theophilus that his purpose is
“So that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught”
What does he do next? Well, in our contemporary context, we would expect someone with that intent to begin to teach Theophilus some apologetics, to help him think systematically through the questions he might be asking. Luke doesn’t do that though. Instead, he launches into a series of stories. He tells Theophilus (and future readers) true stories about what Jesus said and did, he recounts stories that Jesus told. Then in his second volume (Acts), Luke launches into more stories. This time, he tells the account of the early church and the work of the Holy Spirit through those first followers of Jesus.
I believe that here, we have a good model for our to approach evangelism, apologetics and discipleship as well. Rather than attempting to respond to questions with philosophical reasoning, we do better to take people straight to Jesus by telling them stories about him.
The benefits of this are that first, it helps us, especially where we lack confidence. Often we are nervous about getting involved in evangelism because we are afraid that we will come unstuck. We worry that people will catch us off guard with questions that we cannot answer. Sometimes, we worry that we are not far along in our own journey to answer those questions. So, instead, why don’t we let Jesus himself answer the questions.
So, I encourage people to think about what it is that others need to know about who Jesus is. There are lots of things we can say about him. We of course want to get to the point where others k now him as Lord and Saviour but along the way, we want to encourage them to build up a picture of who he is. The disciples on day one didn’t know that Jesus was fully God and fully man, they did not at that point know that he was going to bear the penalty of death for them or credit his righteousness to his account. Rather, they begun to get to know and love a man who was altogether good and altogether great in a way that no mere human can be. The Gospel accounts show that growth in understanding which is then turbocharged by the Resurrection.
So what if we were then to think about stories from Jesus’ life that illustrate this aspect of who he is? What if we were to follow up with stories from our own life (testimonies). The best thing is that to do this, we don’t have to get everything sorted out and sewn up first. In fact, you can start to do this before you’ve even come to saving faith yourself. Simply seek to pass on what you’ve discovered so far.
The final advantage is for the hearer, because what we find is that when we tell stories, is that rather than shutting conversations down as a carefully polished knock down answer might do, those stories often open up further conversations. They get people thinking, puzzling, digging, asking more questions. Luke knew what he was doing.
So, this is what I’m encouraging people to do. Try to do two things. First of all, think about 4 or 5 things that you would love your friends to know about Jesus. Then identify two or three stories about Jesus for each of them. Practice telling these stories to one another. Then think about examples from your own life story that illustrate the point. Practice telling these to others as well. Take people to Jesus, tell them stories about the difference he has made.
Faithroots 