EDITORIAL
Nothing is more common in the world of Adventist worship and education than reminders of the obligation believers are under to share the good news of salvation and ultimate redemption through Jesus Christ.
Before we walked into the water on the day of our baptism, we were told of our responsibilities as a witness to His power and love. When we emerged, dripping wet, out of the river or baptismal pool, we were urged to share the gospel. In a hundred sermons since then we have heard the biblical imperative to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19).
We have framed the sharing of the good news as a dutiful response to a command. And so we have invested in training seminars, coaching exercises, and practice sessions to make what often seems an unwelcome task more tolerable.
But biblical Christianity knows little of this sense of heavy obligation, in which, with Shakespeare’s schoolboy, we go “creeping like snail unwillingly to school.” An irrepressible joy suffuses the pages of the New Testament: we sense that it was harder for these believers to keep silent than to speak abroad the Name above all names.
Wherein lies the difference? They were reporting a personal encounter they had found with Jesus: words of admiration, praise, and witness flowed from them like “a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14), just as He had promised. They were reveling in a friendship with One who had suddenly made all things possible, including witness.
As you read the striking articles about witness in this edition of Adventist World, pray for an encounter with the Savior that will renew the story you are privileged to tell. No seminar technique, no memorized approach, will ever be even half as compelling as the testimony that begins “Ah, let me tell you what Jesus has done for me.”
—Bill Knott
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