Quotes about Witness

We don't apologize for who we are. We do what we do as Christians. Our faith isn't hidden. There should never be a separation between God and good works.

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

Yes, the church is part of the good news of Jesus. And the church proclaims the good news of Jesus. But when men and women have only seen churches formed by unhealthy power, celebrity, competitiveness, secrecy, and self-protection, our corporate ecclesial life belies the truth of the gospel. The church can only witness to the truth of Jesus by seeking justice, serving with humility, operating transparently, and confessing and lamenting failures.

The martyrs who sing the new ode of Moses sing a song not of their own liberation from Egypt or their own salvation but of the impact of their witness on the world around them. Their witness led a mass of people to praise the God on the throne and his Lamb. John's ode is like Moses's ode, but it's also altogether new at the same time.

The entire sweep of the Bible teaches that Christians in non-Christian environments are not to be worried so much about changing their environments as they are to remain faithful in whatever kind of environment they find themselves.

Martin Luther King Jr., closing down one of his sermons in the early days in Montgomery, speaks of what it means to be a witness: Honesty impels me to admit that transformed nonconformity, which is always costly and never altogether comfortable, may mean walking through the valley of the shadow of suffering, losing a job, or having a six-year-old daughter ask, "Daddy, why do you have to go to jail so much?

I'd like to suggest that the Golden Rule is perhaps the most potent political weapon we Christians have today. And I don't say this because I'm Anabaptist but because empathy is at the bottom of the Golden Rule. If we as Christians with a faithful witness would set the example, not by way of reaction but by way of reasoned empathy, we might set the tone for more shalom in our world.

If we as Christians with a faithful witness would set the example, not by way of reaction but by way of reasoned empathy, we might set the tone for more shalom in our world.

James taught me that there is nothing that shows the world what God is like more clearly than when we love our enemies. Despite the reality that throughout the New Testament the cross is not only how God saves us, it is how we witness to that salvation.

I'm aware that "enemy love" still scandalizes many a fundamentalist and liberal alike. Who wants a Savior who loves the enemies we want to kill? Who wants to witness to the God whose love falls like rain on the just and the unjust alike? Who wants a God who longs to heal those who have hurt us so they hurt no more? Who wants a Christ who comes to us in the pain we want to run from?

God is neither Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian , nor Episcopalian [nor Reformed, either]. God transcends our denominations. If you are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to know this....

If you love Christ, never be ashamed to let others see it and know it. Speak for Him. Witness for Him. Live for Him.