To be a Witness

In the two years since I've taken a Greek class, I've grown a bit rusty, so I've been studying my Greek. As I've studied my vocabulary lists, I came across something that I think is worth sharing:

The greek word for bearing witness or testifying is μαρτυρεω ("martureo"). This is the word that is often used when the Paul is to defend himself and present the gospel before authorities. It is the word that describes John the Baptists's ministry. The Holy Spirit itself is said to testify in this way about Jesus' identity. Perhaps the most insightful aspect of this word is its eventual connection with another important concept in the early church: martyrdom. Indeed, the word martyr itself comes from the word μαρτυρεω and refers to one who bears witness before the governmental authorities. In several early persecutions under Nero, Maximinus Thrax, Decian, and Diocletian the Roman Empire sought to publicly oppose Christianity. Often, this was because Christians failed to swear allegieance to Caesar as Lord, reserving that term for Christ alone. When called before the authorities, a Christian had two options. The first was to bow to Caesar as Lord, often offering him a sacrifice, and to hand over the copies of the Christian Scriptures in their possession. Those who did so were called "traditores", from the latin for "handing over." The word eventually became the English "traitors." The other option was to bear witness and testify that there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, and one Spirit, and one Father of all. Those who bore witness in this way were executed, often being burned at the stake.

This has tremendous significance for evangelism. Today, we tend to think of evangelism as a communication of information. We must pass the essential truths of the Christian faith to a non-believer, and so we use rhetorical tools such as the "four spiritual laws" or the "Romans road." To be sure, these tools can be helpful, and there must be some propositional content to the gospel. Still, bearing witness to Christ is not most essentially about this information. It is more about the link between the information we share and the affect that this information has had on our lives. Our credibility in evangelism is directly proportional to the degree to which the message we bear witness to has led us to sacrifice our lives. We are to die to ourselves for Christ, just as the martyrs died for him. Our evangelism is a reflection of their lives, and our testimony must bear the weighty significance which theirs did. If the gospel has not caused us to die to ourselves to live for Christ, it will be nothing more than rhetoric. In this way, evangelism is good for the evangelist as well as for the one to whom we evangelize. For the evangelist it is a call to heed Jesus' words, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). To the one who hears the message, it is a statement grounded in the truth of our lives and in the Scriptures: "To live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).