Why every Christian must share the gospel

The last thing Jesus said before ascending was not a suggestion, and it was not addressed to a professional class.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).

There is a grammatical detail here worth knowing. In the Greek, there is only one imperative verb in that sentence: make disciples. "Going", "baptising" and "teaching" are participles describing how it is done. A more literal rendering is: as you go, make disciples.

Which means it is not primarily an instruction to relocate. It is an instruction about what to do wherever you already are.

The logic that makes it unavoidable

Paul's argument in Romans 10 is a chain, and each link depends on the one before:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?— Romans 10:14-15

Work backwards. Salvation requires calling on Christ. Calling requires believing. Believing requires hearing. Hearing requires someone speaking.

There is no step in that chain that God has arranged to bypass human speech. He could have. He did not. He chose to make the ordinary means of salvation one person telling another.

Which means Christian silence is not neutral. It breaks the chain at the only point where a human being was placed.

The watchman

The most uncomfortable text on this is in Ezekiel, and it is worth not softening:

If I say to the wicked, "O wicked one, you shall surely die," and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.— Ezekiel 33:8

The watchman is posted on the wall. He sees the army coming. If he sounds the trumpet and the city ignores him, the responsibility is theirs. If he stays silent because he does not want to cause alarm, the responsibility is his.

Paul evidently had this passage in mind when he told the Ephesian elders: "I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:26-27).

Where it actually happens

One of the most persistent myths is that evangelism belongs in events. Look at where the New Testament puts it.

• In a chariot on a desert road — Philip, running alongside a foreign official's carriage, starting from the passage the man was already reading (Acts 8:26-35).
• At a well, at midday — Jesus, starting with a request for a drink, with a woman from the wrong ethnic group and a complicated personal history (John 4).
• In a prison cell at midnight — Paul and Silas, after an earthquake, to the jailer who had just flogged them (Acts 16:25-34).
• In a marketplace and then a philosophical forum — Paul in Athens, quoting their own poets back to them (Acts 17:16-34).
• At a dinner party — Matthew, who threw a feast for his tax-collector colleagues so they could meet Jesus (Luke 5:29).
• On a rooftop, at home — Peter with Cornelius's household (Acts 10).

Not one of these is a scheduled meeting. Every one is an ordinary situation the person was already in.

Why we do not do it

Better to name the real reasons than pretend they are theological.

Fear of what people will think. This is the main one, and almost nobody says it out loud. We would rather a colleague think we are pleasant than think we are strange. Proverbs names it exactly: "the fear of man lays a snare" (Proverbs 29:25).

Fear of not having answers. Understandable, and largely solvable. "I do not know, let me find out and come back to you" is a completely acceptable sentence and is often more persuasive than a fluent answer, because it is obviously honest.

Not knowing how to start. A practical problem with practical solutions — the article on starting conversations exists for exactly this.

Not actually believing it is urgent. This is the hardest one, and it is worth self-examination. If we genuinely believed what we say we believe about eternity, our behaviour would be different. The gap between our stated beliefs and our actual behaviour is usually a belief problem, not a technique problem.

Bad experiences. Many Christians have watched evangelism done badly — pushy, manipulative, treating people as scalps — and quietly resolved never to be that person. That is a good instinct being applied to the wrong conclusion. The answer to bad evangelism is good evangelism, not none.

What you are

"We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us" (2 Corinthians 5:20).

An ambassador does not invent the message and does not represent themselves. They carry someone else's terms, and their standing comes entirely from who sent them. That should remove both the pressure and the timidity: the content is not yours to compose, and the authority is not yours to establish.

Paul described the compulsion he felt in the strongest terms available: "necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16).

What is not your job

Two things, and confusing them for yours is the fastest route to burnout.

Converting anyone. That is the Spirit's work: "he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement" (John 16:8). Paul: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth" (1 Corinthians 3:6). You are responsible for faithfulness, not outcomes.

Winning arguments. Nobody has ever been argued into the kingdom. Arguments remove obstacles; they do not produce faith. If you leave a conversation having won and having damaged the relationship, you have lost.

The measure

Spurgeon put it in a sentence that is difficult to read comfortably:

Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that.— Charles Spurgeon, The Soul Winner

That is not a claim that a nervous Christian is unconverted. It is a claim about desire. Someone rescued from a burning building does not need to be persuaded that the people still inside matter.

If the desire has gone cold, the remedy is not more effort. It is going back to what you were rescued from.