Evangelizing and King Saul

I’m really not very good at evangelizing. Don’t picture evangelists here, especially not televangelists. Instead, picture Jesus as He ascended telling His disciples to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth[i]. One might state that this blog, where I bear personal witness to my life in Christ, is a way of evangelizing into all nations, to the ends of the earth. After all, this is the “World Wide Web,” if we still call it that. But it’s one thing to write my testimony down in words. It’s quite another to speak of Christ and the good news out loud, face-to-face.

Tell all the nations? Okay. Tell my cousin or my caregiver? Wweellll … do I have to?

I know I’m not alone in this. Many of us Christians struggle with publicly stating that we are Christians, telling others about our faith, and giving those with other worldviews the reason for our hope[ii]. There can be many reasons why we end up failing to evangelize.

The Truth Is the Truth

Maybe we aren’t strong enough in our own faith, or well educated enough in our Faith, to actually put it into words. This is something that we absolutely need to work on — not just for the sake of others, but first and foremost for our own sakes. We don’t want to miss out on the joy of the fullness of faith here and now, as well as ever after.

Maybe we have a mistaken idea of what it means to love others and to judge not so that we won’t be judged. If we really have compassionate love for other human beings, we should want to share with them the things that we have discovered in life that are true, good, and beautiful. We will definitely want to share with everyone possible the good news of salvation, that death in this world is not the end of life — that there is forgiveness of sins, resurrection, and life everlasting through Christ Jesus.

We can never force our religious beliefs on other people, and we should never shout down or be cruel to someone who believes differently. But let’s remember that it is not offensive to share with others the joy and true meaning of life.

I was struck by a particular line from Sacred Scripture that we read as a Church a couple of weeks ago. It’s found in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4, verse 12. St. Peter speaks boldly to the crowd about Jesus, saying, “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”

It’s compassionate to evangelize.

Fear of What Others Think

This brings us to perhaps the biggest reason that I, and many, many others like me, don’t evangelize well face-to-face…

To be blunt, I’m afraid of what other people will think of me if I talk about Jesus out loud to those who might not really believe. I don’t want other people to think that I’m weird or ignorant or a bigot because I’m a Christian. I don’t want them to label me. They don’t really need to know anyway, do they?

Yes, Christina, they need to know. Maybe your cousins are flippant about religion, so you have often chosen to be flippant about religion. You, Christina, want them to think that you understand them, right? You don’t want to feel like an outsider, right? Maybe your caregivers seem to be looking for an excuse not to go to church, so you act like you know exactly where they’re coming from because you don’t want to go to church either. You, Christina, don’t want them to think that you go to church because you’re a cripple or to think that you’re weird because you actually enjoy going to church, do you? And you don’t want them to feel judged because they’re not going, do you, like your guilting them to go?

Oh, Christina, Christina. When are you going to be a grown up? When are you going to be who you are?

Getting to the title of this post, I’m too often like King Saul. I’ve been listening to The Bible in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz, and he made quite a point about King Saul’s downfall: he cared too much about what other people thought of him. Through Samuel, God made it quite clear that He did not want King Saul or any of his men to take anything from their destruction of Amalek, no treasures, no livestock, nothing. They destroyed the lesser animals, but the best ones they kept alive. When Samuel confronted Saul about this, he offered the defense that his men wanted to keep the best animals to be given as a sacrifice to God.

Sounds like a good thing. But that’s not what God wanted.

Samuel said to King Saul, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. And the LORD sent you on a mission… Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD?”[iii]

Am I so little in my own eyes? Do I, Christina, not know that I have been baptized into Christ, that I have been baptized a priest, a prophet, and a king[iv]? The Lord has sent me on a mission — why do I not then obey the voice of the Lord?

All that matters is what God thinks of me. All that matters is being — in word and deed — who God created me to be. I am Christ’s disciple, and Christ Jesus told me to go out into the whole world to proclaim the gospel.

And yes, Christina, the whole world also means the person right next to you.

© 2024 Christina Chase

---

Feature Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash

[i] Acts 1:8; see also Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19-20

[ii] 1 Peter 3:13-16 — “Now who is going to harm you if you are enthusiastic for what is good? But even if you should suffer because of righteousness, blessed are you. Do not be afraid or terrified with fear of them, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence”

[iii] 1 Samuel 15:17-19

[iv] Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 783 https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/208/