Barriers to Sharing the Gospel

Here's another post from Ligon Duncan at Together for the Gospel, the third in a series this week on the work of evangelism by the local church. You can see the earlier posts on this blog here and here. Does this help you think about your/our role in spreading the gospel?

In Mark Dever’s The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, he helpfully identifies five things that keep us from sharing the Gospel with others. Here's my spin on these reasons from Mark's chapter on "Why Don't We Evangelize?"

1. Fear - of rejection, of offending
2. Ignorance - don’t know what to say, don’t know how to say it
3. Inexperience - haven’t seen it done, haven’t done it
4. Attitude - that’s just not me, leave it to the experts
5. Lack of true love - we don't really care about the lost and their eternal destiny

In response, Mark suggests that we do twelve things:
(1) Pray - for a desire to witness to Christ, and for the opportunities.
(2) Plan - to witness (who, when, how).
(3) Accept - you are a witness.
(4) Understand - how God uses his witnesses.
(5) Be Faithful - be more concerned to be faithful to God, than for people to like you.
(6) Risk - something! - invite to a meeting; share a book; befriend someone.
(7) Prepare - that’s what this course is all about.
(8) Look - keep your eyes open for God’s opportunities.
(9) Love - cultivate a genuine love for lost people.
(10) Fear - God, rather than man.
(11) Stop - and realize the logic of sovereignty - "God is sovereign, therefore I’m responsible."
(12) Consider - the greatness of his love to you.

We will be most effective in bearing witness to Christ if we cultivate:
(1) a joyful fear of God;
(2) a biblical knowledge of who we are in Christ and what the Gospel is;
(3) fellowship with people who have a passion for the Gospel, and for showing and telling it;
(4) a proper attitude toward the task - not a drudging "I have to share the Gospel" but a joyous "I get to be a part of God’s work of salvation;"
(5) a genuine Gospel love for the lost, because of God’s Gospel love for us.

You can find the book here, and you can read the entire chapter from which this summary was taken here.