Rethinking the Way We Witness

With God's ever present help and great input from friends, I just finished writing and publishing YOUR STORY, a quick journey through the Scriptures that shows how your own story is (and can be forever) linked to your Creator's story. This 36-page booklet takes about 35 minutes to read out loud.

Why give out a 36-page booklet instead of a 3-page tract?

Have you ever given away a 3-page gospel tract (you know, those little pamphlets with colorful covers and someone’s best effort to present the core message of the Bible in 3 pages)? Did the tract lead the recipient from confusion to clarity? While many readers have been marvelously helped, multitudes are left wallowing in confusion as a result of the tract’s use of alien terms like Bible, God, sinner, Jesus-Christ, Son of God, shed blood, resurrection, saved, heaven, hell, repent, believe, etc. Is it reasonable to expect anyone to believe a message they don’t understand? Is it fair to ask someone to trust a stranger? For most people today, God is a stranger. And the gospel of Jesus makes little or no sense.

Years ago, I corresponded with a Muslim Doctor of Philosophy who, in response to the statement that Jesus died to save sinners, wrote, “What happens to the people who were born and died before God decided to concoct this charade only 2000 years ago? It seems that the Christian God is a poor planner and a late thinker because it took him thousands if not millions of years to find a way of forgiving ‘the sins’ of mankind.” Such objections are not likely to be overcome by reading a 3-page gospel tract, or by hearing a brief presentation of 4 spiritual laws.

It is time to rethink the way we share our faith.

It is time to face reality. In today's biblically-illiterate world, skeletal outlines of God’s message are not geared to lead people from confusion to clarity. Such brief presentations of the gospel often ignore the architecture of God’s Book, which has an Old and a New Testament. If the Creator-Owner of the universe took thousands of years to prepare the world for the arrival of the promised and prefigured Savior, is it unreasonable to expect truth seekers to invest an hour in thinking their way through God’s amazing rescue plan that makes it possible for them to know Him and live with Him forever? The Scriptures are not a collection of cold, isolated doctrines. The truths God wants all people to understand are embedded in a story—HIS Story. But it takes time to tell a story. Believe me, I’ve heard the objections. “Time?!? Did you say it takes time? Who has time to read a 36-page gospel booklet?” The obvious answer is: People who value their souls and care enough about their eternal destiny to forfeit a one-hour T.V. Program or an hour of sleep. “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)

Everyone loves a good story. The biblical Scriptures contain hundreds of great stories, which together form ONE STORY—the greatest story ever told and the greatest message ever delivered—that Jesus the promised Savior “died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

People can be led from confusion to clarity.

The Bible records the narrative of two travelers who, like our PhD friend, had concluded that the idea of a crucified Messiah was utter nonsense. So the Lord Jesus, whom they knew only as a “stranger” (Luke 24:18) came alongside them and after listening to their story, he took them back to the first pages of the Old Testament, “and beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27) And what was the end result of Jesus’ chronological telling of His story and message to these two confused travelers? “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’” (Luke 24:31-32) For the first time in their lives they understood the gospel. Yes, it was the Lord who opened their minds and hearts to understand, but He did it through a clear, chronological, and compelling recounting of His message AND story.

The YOUR STORY booklet explains God’s message AND tells God’s story. Does it provide enough information to lead a person from confusion to clarity? Read it and decide for yourself. If it begins to clarify for you the best news you have ever heard, then pass it on to your family, friends, and associates—and trust the Lord Himself to open their eyes and transform their minds, hearts, and lives—forever.

To read, download, print, or purchase YOUR STORY, click here.

— P.D. Bramsen, July 2009