Witnessing

John is the Bible writer who most uses the term “witness,” though Paul uses it many times as well. Most of the mentions of witness in the three synoptic gospels are about false witness. However, in John 1, John the Baptist is four times called a witness of the Light coming into the world in Jesus. In later chapters, Jesus calls Himself a witness to the truth, and accuses His hearers of refusing His witness. He also says, in John 5:31-36 and in 8:18, that God bears witness to Him, not He to Himself, and that if one does not want to believe God, one should at least believe the witness of Jesus’ life and works. In the epistles 1 John and 3 John, again it is usually Jesus whom John calls the witness. In Revelation, Jesus is the Faithful and True Witness.

John also says he and the other disciples “bear witness” to what they have seen and heard and touched, especially in I John 1:1. It sounds as if people have been scoffing at this old apostle’s stories. “I was there!” he insists. “You can believe or not, as you choose, but I know what I saw and heard. I touched Glory with my own hands.” Peter, too, says he is a witness “of the sufferings of Christ,” in 1 Peter 5:1.

And so we come to Acts and the early church, source of the word Christians have made a verb today. Witnesses to Jesus and His truth, witnesses to the gospel. We all want to be one, but what does it mean? Would you believe that with very few exceptions, every time Paul uses the term, he is speaking of God or the Holy Spirit bearing witness to us? None of the exceptions are about what we would term “Christian witnessing” today. Yet Paul is one of the greatest and most effective witnesses in history!