What Do I Say Now?

How to Motivate our Friends
to Read the Bible with Us

“How do I make my friends curious enough to want to read the Bible with me?”

I will answer this question by showing how I have done it. I have recorded two theoretical witnessing situations, which are condensed versions of conversations I have had in the past few years. Everything that is recorded in these two conversations was actually said, either by myself or the unsaved person with whom I was talking, usually over coffee and cakes.

You may ask how I came up with all the right comments at the right times. In one word: practice! I spent hours talking to myself. I used the ideas that you are now practicing from the last chapter. I imagined conversations with someone I wanted to read the Bible. I thought up questions or comments I could use to make a friend curious. Then I asked myself what answer he might give, and came up with a suitable response to his answer. I even wrote down many of these imaginary conversations in an effort to remember some of the more “intelligent” things that had occurred to me.

From these real and practiced conversations, I began to see certain principles emerge whenever I raised someone’s curiosity. I will point out these principles in the following chapter.

These conversations should not be used verbatim, as if the exact wording will lead someone to Christ. They are given as examples and nothing more. They are not meant to be used as a script, although familiarity with the contents will probably better prepare you for your own conversations. Adapt them to fit your personality and your own friends. Do not emphasize the exact words, but rather the principles behind them.

You will notice some repetition, the reason for which is two-fold. First, there are only a limited number of excuses an unbeliever can offer for not reading the Bible. Second, the goal of this method is always to convince them to read the Bible, not to blow them away with the whole gospel using the shotgun method. Remember Hebrews 4:12-13.

Please feel free to use any of these comments or answers for yourself as you speak with your friends about your beliefs. You will begin to find the style that fits you. I would welcome any comments from you, the reader, on either this book or on your own experiences in personal evangelism. As long as we are on this side of heaven, we are all still learning.

Conversation with a Friend

Karl and I met in a German-English translation class. We got to know each other over coffee and apple strudel between classes – sometimes even missing a class, because we were enjoying each other’s company so much. We had talked about everything under the sun. He read a lot of philosophy but was studying business. The job prospects for a philosopher were nil. He loved languages, spoke several fluently, and teased me about being illiterate. I only knew English and German.

We were driving to his place for a between-class coffee break when I popped the question. “Karl, what would you say if someone said he knew God?”

“I’d say he was crazy, “ he replied with no hesitation.

“Karl, I know God,” I said seriously.

“You’re crazy!” he said, again with no hesitation.

“Am I really?” I looked at him as we came to a traffic light.

He stared at me for a few seconds before he spoke. “No, you aren’t crazy. You have some weird ideas at times, but you’re not crazy!” He tried to smile, unsure where the conversation was going.

I returned his smile. “Weird, yes; crazy – you know I’m not crazy. And I’m serious.”

As we turned down the street to his apartment, he motioned for me to drive on past his place. “This needs further discussion. I’ll show you a park where we can walk and talk.”

No one had ever confronted him so directly on the subject, and his nervousness dictated an attack. “No one can claim to know God,” he said. “It’s all in your mind. There is no God.”

“Karl, have you had all the experiences of every human being who has ever lived?”

“No,” he replied slowly. “I’ve only had my own experiences.”

“Correct. Then is it possible that God lies outside your experiences? You say there is no God, but what you really mean is that you don’t know Him, if He does exist, right? If I told you about a person in another city, whom you did not know, you would not assume that person did not exist, just because you didn’t know that person.”

“But with God, it’s different. You can’t see him!”

“Does that mean he doesn’t exist? No, it doesn’t. And we’re back to my original comment. I know God. He lies within my experiences.”

“On what basis can you say that you know God?” he asked finally.

“Have you ever read the Bible?” I asked.

“I gave up religion in high school. The religion teachers and leaders of the church were all hypocrites, and I saw through them. They were just doing their ‘job’ and were not interested in people. I never could believe that they represented God.”

“Religion has always been that way. Men have been killing each other in the name of religion and ‘God’ for thousands of years.”

Karl looked at me sideways. “But you just said you know God and you mentioned the Bible. You aren’t getting religious are you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean by religious.”

“You know, becoming a fanatic about God and everything.”

“Why would you assume that I’m becoming a fanatic about God, just because I’ve mentioned the Bible?” I asked. “If I mentioned the Koran, would you think that I’m becoming a Muslim?”

“No,” he answered. “It’s just that nobody reads the Bible today, except priests and weirdos.”

I laughed with him and asked, “And which one am I?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered with a grin, “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Let me know what you decide. I know I’m not a priest, but I would like to know if I’m weird or not.” Our friendship was solid enough that we could laugh easily at each other. “Have you read the New Testament?” I asked. 

“No,” he replied. “I’m not a theologian.”

“Why do you have to be a theologian to read the Bible?”

“The Bible is too complicated for a layman to understand. It takes years of study to be able to understand it.”

“Spoken like a true theologian,” I replied.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, a bit irritated.

“Doesn’t it make sense that the theologians want us laymen to believe that only theologians can understand the Bible? If every Tom, Dick and Harry could read and understand the Bible for himself, the theologians would be out of a job!”

Karl snorted. “What have you got against theologians?”

“Karl, please don’t think that I’m criticizing or rejecting theologians. It’s just that I haven’t found anybody who can give me an answer to my question: Why do I have to be a theologian to read the Bible? If you were a Baptist or a Methodist or belonged to any other denomination, I would still be asking you the same question.”

“You understand everything you read in the Bible?”  he asked.

“Of course not! But I’ll let you in on a little secret. Since I’ve been reading the Bible, I’ve discovered two things. The first is that I don’t understand everything I read, but the second is that I understand the most important things. Mark Twain once said that he didn’t understand everything in the Bible, but that didn’t bother him. Then he added that the things he did understand scared him to death.”

Karl did not seem to know whether to laugh at my statement or not. He obviously did not know what was in the Bible, and it seemed to disturb him that someone would say that something in the Bible scared them.  decided to illustrate my point with an area of his studies.

“You have studied languages. Do you understand everything in your new language book the first time you read it?”

“With my brain?”  he asked, “are you kidding? I can barely squeeze past an exam with a C if I haven’t studied the text a number of times.”

I laughed with him. He was down-playing his intelligence, and we both knew it. “Do you throw the language book away because you don’t understand everything the first time you read it?” I shook my head. “Of course not, or you wouldn’t still be studying languages. And yet that’s how most people treat the Bible.” I opened my New Testament and acted as though I was reading it. “They read a few verses, come across something they don’t understand, close it–”  I snapped it shut.  “–and never touch it again. But they will claim that they have read it and that it is not understandable.”

I paused to let those words sink in. Then I continued, “If people want to believe that they can’t understand the Bible, that’s their problem. I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I can understand it. And if you’ve got brains enough to study languages, you can understand the Bible as well.”

He wrinkled his forehead. I saw a question coming. “Then why do people study theology? Don’t you need it to come up with the right interpretation of the Bible?”

“If that were true, then after years of theology wouldn’t everyone come up with the same beliefs?”

He chuckled. “They certainly haven’t done that,” he said. “That’s the main reason why I gave up. They were always fighting about how many angels could sit on the head of a pin!” His humor eased the heaviness of our conversation.

“Well,” I said, “if the theologians do not agree with one another within their own system of theology, then I assume that they are not infallible; they can make mistakes.”

“Of course,” he replied, “no one is perfect.”

“Then I want to know how I can determine when they have made a mistake and when they are right. I can’t ask them, they’re always right! I believe that God gave me a brain to use, not to switch off when I start having thoughts about God.” I said these last two sentences in a flippant manner to match his humor. “I have found the Bible extremely interesting. It tells me why I should not believe someone just because he has studied theology. Even if the theologian were right, the only way we could know would be to read the Bible for ourselves.”

Karl made the expected comment, “But how can anybody as intelligent as yourself take the Bible seriously? The Bible was only written by men, it’s outdated, and we can’t know if what happened two thousand years ago was really passed down to us accurately anyway.” His smile of satisfaction betrayed his feeling of triumph.

“Karl, I’m disappointed in you. You have studied philosophy, languages and business, and you are intelligent enough to study physics, if you wanted to. Do you consider yourself scientifically minded?”

He had expected me to admit defeat and was disconcerted to have to answer another question. “Yes, I don’t trust anything I can’t examine with my five senses.”

“Exactly! I’ll give you an example. Let’s say that you wrote a book on light. Another student comes to you and asks for some information on light. You give him your book and tell him that he will find out all he needs to know in your book. He comes back a week later and throws the book in your wastebasket and says that the book is just your opinion, it’s outdated, and the facts are not accurate. What would you say to him?”

“I would probably be upset at his insolence and arrogance.”

“Quite right! And if you asked him if he had read the book and, he said no? You would think he had a screw loose.”

His sly smile told me he understood what I was driving at. “Karl, you admitted you have not read the New Testament. Is it scientific thinking to reject a book as worthless, outdated and inaccurate, before you have even read it?” I didn’t need his answer; we both knew it, so I continued. “And besides, the New Testament is incredibly interesting. Would you like to read it with me? I would appreciate your viewpoint on some of the things I’ve read.”

“You present a very convincing argument, but I don’t consider myself religious,” he answered, “I don’t even believe that God exists.”

“What does religion have to do with God?” I asked.

He looked at me with a comical, puzzled expression. “All religions claim to represent God.”

“Does that mean that all religions do represent God? Isn’t it possible that God might not agree with all of these representations?” He made no reply but was obviously deep in thought.

“I’ll give you an example,” I continued. “Let’s assume that I claimed to be one of your closest friends. One day, you are introduced to someone and he says, ‘Oh, I know one of your closest friends.’ You ask who that might be, and he says my name, Floyd.  You look at him and say, ‘I don’t know any Floyd. Who is he?’ If you don’t know me, am I one of your closest friends?”

He said nothing, but shook his head, agreeing with me.

“So how do we know who really represents God?”  I asked.

He laughed and said, “Ask God!”

“Right!”

He stopped laughing. “I knew you were crazy!”

“That’s very possible, but I’m not so crazy as to believe the many Christian splinter groups. I’m far too skeptical to believe any of them. The key question we have to ask ourselves is how we know what God is really like? When we analyze the world’s organized religions, the only two conclusions we can reach are that either God is just a mixture of everything and nothing or the religions are wrong.”

“But the Bible is just another religious book, like all the other religious books,” he said, dismissing the reliability of the Bible with a wave of his hand.

“Could be,” I agreed, “but if you were going to study Islam, or any other world religion – Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on – how would you go about it? Would you analyze the many different factions among the Arabs to determine which group was really from Allah? Each group claims to be the true followers of Islam. How would you find out which one was right?”

“I don’t see any way. It’s the same thing with our so-called Christianity.”

“Exactly!  What is the standard of truth on which these groups rest their claims?”

“Well, the Muslims have the Koran. The Christians the Bible.”

“And who are the original representatives of these religions?”

He thought for a minute. “You mean Mohammed and Jesus?”

“Right! All the Christians claim to follow Jesus, but how can we know if they really do?”

He gave me a smile, as if he realized he had been guided into a trap. “The Bible.”

“Have you read it?”

“No.”

“Wouldn’t it make sense to read it, to find out what Jesus actually said about God and following him?”

“But how do we know that the Bible correctly reports what Jesus said over two thousand years ago?”

“We could ask the same question about the Koran or any other religious book. The first step is to read–”  I raised my voice and almost screamed this word “–the Bible, or any other religious book, before we judge it as unreliable.”

“Why should I accept the Bible over any other book – the Koran for instance?”

“You shouldn’t, until you’ve compared them. Have you ever compared the life and teachings of Jesus as found in the Bible with the life and teachings of Mohammed in the Koran?”

“OK, I’m waiting for the punch line. What cult are you with that you’re trying to drag me into?”

I laughed out loud. “Boy, are you in for some surprises!  Yes, I’ve won your friendship, and now I’m going to rip off all your money.”

He laughed. “I don’t have any money!”

I continued, “Okay, so I picked the wrong victim!”

“You can say that again!” he agreed.

“I’m not connected with any religious cult, but I would like to read the New Testament with you.”

“You’ve read the Bible. Why don’t you just tell me what it says,” he stated.

“No, if you really want to know what the Bible teaches, you’ll have to read it for yourself.”

“Why? I trust you!”

“Then you’re thicker than I thought! I can think of no good reason why you should believe what I have to say about the Bible. All the religions and cults will gladly tell you what to believe. If you don’t want to think for yourself, then go into any one of the churches or cults and ask them to give you something to believe. They’ll be happy to do so. I’m not going to do that to you.”

He looked at me, somewhat surprised.

“You know what I find interesting?” I continued.

“What?”

“Most people believe, in some way or another, that God created the human being. At the same time, when they talk about God and belief, they assume that belief rejects reason. If that were the case, why did God give us a brain? I find that an interesting contradiction. Well, I’m not ready to give up my mind.  God gave it to me to use.”

He slowly nodded in agreement.

“Remember our talk about skepticism?”

He opened his eyes wide in surprise. “Yes, you told me that you were the world’s biggest skeptic and that trusting people was the quickest way to get hurt in this life.”

I nodded in agreement. “I really am a skeptic, but I’ve also read the Bible and know what I’ve found. I would like to ask you to read the Bible with me, but under two conditions.”

He was listening intently.

“First, that you don’t believe anything I say. I didn’t write the Bible, and no one will ever get to God through my beliefs. I openly admit that I could be wrong and, if so, you would be really stupid to follow me. It doesn’t matter what I believe; it only matters what the Bible says and whether it is true or not. So, condition number one:  don’t believe what I have to say about the Bible.”

“And the second condition?” he asked, interested.

“The second condition: I won’t interpret the Bible for you. We’ll read it together, and you can tell me what the Bible says.”

“Well, that’s a new one.” Karl remarked. “All cult leaders I’ve ever heard about want to cram their views down your throat. But how do I know you won’t interpret it for me?”

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

“Right,” he said, rolling his eyes towards the sky. “We read together, and I’ll see. But even if you let me interpret it for myself, how do I know if I have the right interpretation?”

I smiled. “Good question. Many people raise the objection that each person interprets the Bible the way he wants to. Isn’t it interesting that we don’t think that way about any other book? If we read Hemingway or Kafka together, we would both agree on the basic interpretation of what they wrote. We might disagree on the application or out working of their writings, but that’s something else. If people would read the Bible like any other book, there wouldn’t be all those so-called interpretations.

Karl slowly nodded. “What you’re saying is that we will read the Bible to see what it says, and then I’ll tell you what it means.”

I could have hugged him. “Exactly!” I exclaimed, “And I think you’re going to be in for a surprise.”

“I don’t suppose you want to tell me how, do you?” He smiled knowingly. He had already picked up on the fact that I do not normally answer such questions, at least not right away.

I shook my head and said, “No, but I will say that I’ve read the Bible, and I have found that it doesn’t need to be interpreted – just read. If a person is honest with the text, and doesn’t read anything into it, then the Bible interprets itself. You’ll see. We won’t treat the Bible as if it had a halo around it, and if you open it wrong you get zapped by God.”

He laughed and slapped me on the back.

“We’ll just read it like any other book. We won’t take any passages out of context, but we’ll read one of the Gospels from the beginning to end.” I looked at him, waiting for a response.

“I’m probably just as crazy as you, but what you say makes sense.”

“When do we start?”

The Outcome

We started reading that day and continued to do so for a number of weeks. One day, I asked if his girl friend, Brigitta, believed in God.

“She used to, but not any more,” he answered.

“What changed her thinking?”

He hesitated a moment. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell me. “She used to be a good Catholic, but when we started living together, she lost her faith. Probably because she loves me – and I love her – and I haven’t ever seen the need for God. At least, not until recently.” He tapped the New Testament I had given him.

“Does she know that you are reading the Bible with a crazy American cultist?” I spoke ironically.

“Sure,” he answered and laughed. “I told her all about you the first week we met in translation class.  We are planning a trip to Canada this summer, and she was glad that I had found someone to speak English with for a few months before we leave.”

I do not fall into such open doors everyday. “Would she be interested in reading the Bible with you and me in English if she wants?”

“Yes, I think she would,” he said with no hesitation.

“Why don’t the two of you come over next week and–”

“We were just going to ask if you and Christine and your boys could come for lunch sometime this week.”

When my wife and I met Brigitta that week, we discovered that her friendliness matched Karl’s, and we immediately became good friends with her as well. Convincing her to read the Bible was not as easy as Karl had imagined, however. When I finally got around to talking about spiritual things she showed a fear of the Bible, which we came to discover was a common obstacle shared by most of our unsaved friends. In the end, though, she trusted Karl’s intellect to keep them from falling into some cult.

One of her first questions was why we felt that we could understand the Bible without a theology degree. I gave her a different answer that I had given Karl earlier. I used the following example to answer her question.

“If God wanted to communicate himself to the human race, how do we imagine him doing that? Is he sitting in heaven, looking down on humankind, shaking his head in disgust at our stupidity and brainlessness? Has he decided to pick out a few of the smarter dummies from among us, whom we call theologians, to give us his information? Can you imagine God thinking, `I’ll just have to trust fate that those few educated dummies will get it right and pass along correctly what I say’?”

She laughed and told me that she had never thought about it.

“Is God really so incompetent and helpless?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“We may be more intelligent than the animals,” I continued, “though sometimes I wonder, but the gap between us and God has to be millions of times greater that the gap between the animals and us. If God wanted to show us himself, wouldn’t he have to make it incredibly simple? Wouldn’t he have to communicate in such a way that we could understand, assuming we wanted to?”

She agreed.

“If an ant wanted to talk with me, what would he have to do? He might walk over to me and talk to me in ant language, and I might understand him, but he certainly would not be able to understand me. First, I would have to want to communicate with the ant. We need to ask the same question about God. Does he even want to tell us about himself? Why should he? Are we `worthy’ of this knowledge?

“Second, I would have to communicate with the ant in a language he could understand. The best idea would be to become an ant. But what if the other ants don’t like me? What if they crucify – I mean – kill me? I’m not sure I would like that.”

I tried to make this illustration sound funny, and she gained enough confidence in her own intellectual abilities to understand the Bible that she decided to read with us. 

After a few weeks of reading together, they began to read other parts of the New Testament on their own. Shortly thereafter, they both came to realize that they did not need to rely on me as their “answer man”. They were beginning to understand the Bible without depending on my questions, which originally had been meant to help them think. A year and a half later, they accepted Christ as their Savior.

Do It!

1.  Imagine the joy of having this kind of conversation with one of your own friends!

2.  Re-read this chapter along with the next chapter.

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