• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Sermo Humilis

Humble Speech

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Just a Thought / The Onlookers

The Onlookers

February 20, 2020 By David Trounce 2 Comments

Reading Time: 3 minutes
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Onlookers - Sermo Humilis

The Gospels are full of accounts of Jesus teaching, healing and giving the Pharisees a drubbing. And one of the interesting things about those incidents was the place of the onlooker. We tend to think of evangelism as direct communication to a person or crowd. But quite often it’s those on the sideline who are responding and thus becoming the object of God’s blessing.

A personal experience of my own illustrates the point. Some time ago I was an onlooker at a birthday party of a man who was turning 60. Let’s call him Richard (for that is his name). Anyway, everyone was seated at this long banqueting table with Richard at the head.

During the meal, bottles of wine start turning up. Typically, a waiter would come around, open them and offer to fill each glass. But on this occasion, Richard (for that is his name) got up, opened each bottle himself and quietly went around the table offering each of his guests a glass of wine.

As an onlooker, what I saw brought a tear to my eye. There was something in this humble honouring of his guests—at an event in which he was the guest of honour—that seemed so beautifully and fully Christ-like. I said to myself, “I want to be like that man.”

In Luke 7:36, Jesus is having dinner with Simon the Pharisee and some of his mates. A woman of the city comes into the home. She is anointing the feet of Jesus with tears and precious ointment. Jesus declares the woman forgiven of her many sins. Jesus is interacting solely with the woman, but it’s the onlookers who are left convicted and astonished by His words to her.

Earlier, in Luke 7:11, Jesus is talking to a woman grieving the loss of her son. Jesus raises the son from the dead. There is no word from the woman in this situation but the onlookers all confess that Jesus is a prophet and they all glorify God.

Zaccheus was an onlooker. And, on the cross, it’s an onlooker, a centurion, who declares Jesus to be the Son of God (Mark 15:39).

In Acts, 18:27-28, Luke records that when Apollos came to Ephesus,

…he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.

Notice how Apollos powerfully refuted one group but was a great encouragement to quite a different group. This principle is repeated in many places throughout the New Testament. Both Jesus and the Apostles are presenting the gospel to a group or an individual who is not open. But this turns out to be a very effective way of reaching a group of onlookers that are wide open.

This is especially important to remember in an age where just about anything we say and any defence of the faith we give is deemed offensive.

We are fast approaching the place where some candid and courageous Christian is going to maintain loudly that grass is green, and the professional whiners will react saying, “Don’t talk that way. Do you want to make them mad? Don’t you know that the Philistines rule over us (Judges 15:11)?”

It’s a fair question. Why argue with the hard-hearted? Why bother sharing the gospel with the hecklers, the mockers and the shushers? Because the onlookers are looking in. They are taking notes. They are listening and many of them are seeing the absurdity of the current culture as we have been pointing it out and they are coming to Christ in faith.

And this is why we can’t have some neat and tidy formula for our evangelism.

It may be the way you speak to your children in public that is overheard by an unbelieving parent or friend. It may be the way you talk to your wife or your congregation. It may be the defence you give of marriage, manhood or womanhood to some angry uni student who majored in gender-neutral basket weaving.

It may be the energetic debates you have with your mates in the pub or your feeding of the poor in your community, your comforting of the widow and providing for the orphan.

All of our charitable work and our evangelistic debates and conversations are seen and overheard by onlookers. Onlookers who may well begin to take stock, to think, to ponder.

Your conversation and your behaviour might be directed at one unripe target, yet it’ll hit fifty deliciously ripe targets all leaning in on what you are saying or doing.

This observation is obviously not your permission to play games with the audience. But it is an encouragement to not judge the results of our evangelism by the response directly in front of us. It’s a reason to keep sharing and living out the faith for the unknown benefits and blessings of those silently watching from the side.

Related...

House to House
What Marriage is For
Frustrated for Our Own Good
The King Has One More Move

Filed Under: Just a Thought Tagged With: Apologetics, Evangelism, Onlookers


Writing Ideas on Sermo HumilisWhat do You Want to Read About?

 

Nothing like real-world issues to focus the mind. If you have something you would like me to write about, send me a message and let me know.

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarJennifer Evans says

    April 21, 2020 at 7:56 pm

    Thanks David. This is again very helpful to me at a time when I am keen to share about Jesus Christ on social media but was feeling I wasn’t reaching people, perhaps even inviting ridicule or disinterest. Am still praying about this and the best way to share.

    Jenni

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Jesus, Repentance or Rage – Sermo Humilis says:
    April 12, 2020 at 1:07 pm

    […] this heated exchange, Jesus is talking directly to those ready to stone Him. But, once again it’s the onlooker who is benefiting from all of this. There are sheep in the wings who would soon be followers because of the words He […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Sermo Humilis

For the love of all things true, beautiful and good.


Welcome to Sermo Humilis, a digital home for biblical discipleship and cultural Christianity. A few new thoughts every week.

Please remember to like, subscribe and share. It really helps me out.

Subscribe for Weekly Updates

As per our Privacy Policy, we will never hand your information to a third party.

please check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Categories

  • Life in Christendom
  • Just a Thought
  • Who we Are Instead

Find us on Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Support Sermo Humilis

If you enjoy Sermo Humilis and want to say thanks you can support me here.

Support

Series

Sidebar - Jesus Through all of Life Series Sidebar Series - The Life and Times of Jesus Sidebar Series - Proverbs - Let the Lady Speak Sidebar - Marriage Preparation Series

The Most Popular Guff

Keeping up with the Cool Kids

Suppressing the truth doesn't come without effort. Our attempts to

The Sabbath Under Our Feet

Sunday is typically a day of rest for the church. We have several rest

#4 Jesus and Marriage

In the Gospel, Jesus comes to take a people for Himself whom He will,

Sheep Spotting

"How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us

Jesus, Look and Live

Matthew 27:45-61 gives us the account of Jesus' death on the cross,

We are on Schedule

Because we get our theology from the Bible, and not the daily news, we

Jesus, Proof of Pardon

The people that Jesus had come to save had thought that He was too

See and Hear

On the move? Weekly content can also be seen and heard via Youtube.

Topics

Beauty Charity Comfort Covenant Creation Death Earth Eternity Evangelism Faith Fear Fellowship Food Forgiveness Gospel Grace Grief Guilt Heaven Holiness Jesus Joy Judgement Kingdom Law Life Love Marriage Mercy Money Prayer Redemption Rest Resurrection Sabbath Sacrifice Salvation Service Sheep Sin Slavery Truth Victory Weakness Wisdom

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe to Sermo Humilis

Find us on Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Support Sermo Humilis

If you enjoy Sermo Humilis and want to say thanks you can support me here.

Support

Copyright © 2021 · Sermo Humilis

John Piper - A Hallway of Mirrors