When I was a teenager I heard some of my Baptist friends talking about witnessing. I didn’t know what that was at first, but eventually I figured out it meant talking to others about Jesus. Then I heard them talking about people giving their testimony at church. I learned that this had to do with telling others how Christ had saved them and changed their lives. Both witnessing and giving one’s testimony were strange sounding phrases to me, because we didn’t use that language the church I grew up in.
At first I didn’t pay much attention to them. Later I smugly deemed witnessing a grammatically incorrect usage of the English language! Much to my chagrin, however, I learned later still that the English word witness can in fact be a verb as well as a noun, and the verb doesn’t necessarily have to have a direct object. My friends were not committing any grammatical sins!
Today I don’t think the way they were using the language represents the emphasis of Scripture, but I now also realize they were on to something significant that I knew very little about. The Greek words for witness, testify, and testimony all have the same root and form a word group with some 170 occurrences in the New Testament. There are also a few other related words used much less often. That means this theme is much more important in the Bible than I realized, and it deserves our attention.
I can’t describe all the teaching about testifying without this article becoming long, so I’m going to touch very lightly on some matters and focus primarily on a good way for us to think about testifying to Christ today. Hopefully in a couple weeks I can finish and provide a more complete and therefore more truly biblical article about this theme on the Resource page of the Empowering Subjects website (here).
The part I am touching on lightly is the others who have testified before us. This includes God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Scriptures, who have all testified to Christ, and also includes the apostles who were chosen to be unique eyewitnesses to him.
The words spoken by these divine and human witnesses are now embedded in Scripture, and we may think of them as testimony, something similar to depositions in our day. What they said focuses on Christ; his death and especially his resurrection; his supreme identity as Lord, Christ and Son of God; and the salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life that are found in him. This is a summary of their “testimony.” You may notice it is essentially the same as “the gospel,” and in fact, the word testimony is sometimes used to refer to the gospel (Matthew 24:14; 1 Corinthians 2:1-2; 1 Timothy 2:6; 2 Timothy 1:8). The content described in this paragraph is by far the most common testimony spoken of in the New Testament, and it is the testimony that we should most emphasize!
How, then, should we think about testifying today? We already know God wants us to tell others about his work in Christ. Here we can add that, even though we are not unique eyewitnesses to Christ like the apostles, we can still rightly use the witness/testify/testimony word group to describe our evangelism. The primary way this is so is that we are called to pass along “the testimony” to others. In this case, strictly speaking, we are not “testifying,” because we are not eyewitnesses. Instead, we are passing along “the testimony” of God and the unique eyewitnesses described above.
The clearest example I know of a non-eyewitness being expected to do this is Paul’s exhortation to Timothy:
do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God (2 Timothy 1:8).
Timothy was from Asia and was not an eyewitness of Christ. Yet Paul urges him to speak “the testimony.” Testimony here is a noun and is “about our Lord.” It refers to the content that was testified to by both the divine witnesses and the human eyewitnesses mentioned above. It is their depositions, as it were. Paul is urging Timothy not to be ashamed of this message by failing to speak it (cf. Mark 8:38; Romans 1:16). Then, in the parallel line, he refers to the message he wanted Timothy to speak as “gospel” instead of testimony. As noted above, the word “testimony” is sometimes used to describe the gospel. Paul wants Timothy to speak a message that can be described either as “the testimony” or “the gospel,” and to do it even if it leads to suffering. The rest of the passage indicates suffering is indeed likely for those who speak the gospel (2 Timothy 2:10-12a).
Another clear example of non-eyewitnesses passing along the testimony is found in Revelation. Late in the first century, John recorded a vision he received from Christ and sent it to seven churches in Asia. It included a scene that pictured Christians at war with Satan. The way the Christians were able to be victorious over him was “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11). Here again testimony is a noun. And again, there is no reason for thinking these people were eyewitnesses. Rather, the word refers to “the testimony” of God and of the eyewitnesses mentioned above. The verse here describes it as “their” testimony in the sense that they were passing it along to others. Like Paul, John also indicates the very real possibility of suffering by adding, “for they loved not their lives even unto death” (v. 11; cf. Revelation 2:13; 6:9; 17:6; 20:4).
So the words in 2 Timothy 1:8 and Revelation 12:11 are not intended to get an eyewitness to “testify” in the usual biblical sense of the term but rather to get non-eyewitnesses to pass along “the testimony” given previously by God and the eyewitnesses. One corollary to this is that it is vital for those of us who are not eyewitnesses but who want to help spread the testimony about Christ to pour over the “depositions” of God and the eyewitnesses found in Scripture and clarify just what their testimony was. We can then participate by passing along that testimony.
We may be strengthened to do this when we realize we have the testimony in ourselves (1 John 5:5-12)! Verse 10 literally says whoever believes in the Son of God “has the testimony in himself” (ESV, NASB; cf. NRSV). This idea may be difficult for us to grasp, and perhaps that is why the NIV translates v. 10 as “accepts this testimony” instead of rendering it literally. More explanation of this involved passage is needed than I can provide here, but one key observation is that John states directly the content of the testimony he is referring to. It is that God has given us eternal life in his Son (v. 11). This brief summary matches the description of “the testimony” (depositions) given by the eyewitnesses and mentioned above. Since we have responded to Christ in faith, we now have inside us both the Son of God and eternal life (v. 12; John 14:23). Even though we are not eyewitnesses, having these inside us gives us a very close, personal connection to “the testimony.” Perhaps this is another reason the words spoken by non-eyewitnesses can be described as “their” testimony as mentioned two paragraphs above. Having the testimony in ourselves certainly bolsters our credibility in passing it along. This is in contrast to the minimal effect of testimonials in TV commercials or conversations when the “witness” does not actually use the product they are endorsing.
After discussing the emphasis of the Scriptures regarding testimony, we now suggest that it is also appropriate for us to carefully testify to what we have seen and experienced of Christ in our own lives. This kind of testifying appears to be a major emphasis among those who use the language of witnessing today, even though it is not the most common way Scripture speaks of testifying about Christ. We do see something like it, however, in the woman from Samaria who testified about a man who told me all I ever did (John 4:29) and in the people who saw him raise Lazarus from the dead and were testifying about it (John 12:17). Though these were not eyewitnesses in the specialized sense of the apostles who saw his entire ministry from John the Baptizer through the ascension, they did encounter Jesus personally. That means the parallel between them and us is not exact. Still, the parallel seems to me to be close enough that it is fitting for us, too, to testify to what we have experienced of Christ in our own lives. Notice that this is a technically correct use of “testify” since we are telling about something we have actually experienced.
When we testify to the effect Christ has had on us, however, it is imperative that we not embellish it. We don’t want to be guilty of false testimony! We must also make certain our testimony to Christ’s work in our lives is more about him than us. We must never upstage him. Our experience may support or illustrate the message about Christ, but our primary emphasis should be on “the testimony” described above.
It would seem, then, that “witnessing” is not only grammatically correct but is also a biblical idea. The emphasis of Scripture about it, however, is not on the personal experience of non-eyewitnesses but rather on the testimony of God and of the unique eyewitnesses to who Christ is and what he has done. We should focus on passing along that testimony.
How can go about doing this? Briefly, we might gain some insight by considering how we normally tell others the testimony we hear about products, services, and opportunities in our everyday lives. We might also gain courage by pondering the truth that the Holy Spirit also testifies (John 15:26-27; Acts 5:32). The responsibility is not ours alone.
Empowering Subjects 