Witness by Teaching the Bible

Tod Kennedy, August 13, 2000

1. Witness by teaching the Bible means to communicate God’s Word to the listener so that the listener can understand the message and choose to believe or reject it.

2. To better communicate, one ought to take into account the listener’s frame of reference. Stephen, in Acts 7, teaches us the value of presenting the biblical message within the listeners’ frame of reference and within an historical context. He began with the origin of the Hebrew nation, God’s choosing of Abraham. By the time Stephen had finished, the audience could not argue with him; the well-known history had convicted them.

3. Paul witnessed for Christ to the Athenian philosophers by presenting truths from God’s Word. When he spoke with them about Christ, he took into account their own understanding about the gods (Acts 17:16-33).

4. Apollos, in Corinth, used the Word to demonstrate to Jews that Jesus was the Christ (Acts 18:28).

5. We often assume too much on the part of our audience.

   1. We need to make sure they understand the context or flow of history and doctrine so that they become convinced of the truth of the message.

   2. We need to make sure that we relate the truth to their understanding or frame of reference.

   3. We also need to make sure that we use Scripture when we witness about Christ and teach Christian life truth.