“Therefore those that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4).

What is today called “personal evangelism” may well be the need of the times in most churches. People today seem timid, overly-cautious, even reluctant, to talk to their neighbors about the gospel. Parents even have a kind of hesitancy–at least some needless procrastination– about teaching their own children about Jesus and His salvation. Are we ashamed of what we believe? Are we ashamed of the death of Jesus on the cross for our sins? How can we be reluctant, embarrassed about so great a sacrifice, timid about so wonderful a salvation?

Luke’s statement in his narrative about the early church gives us vital information about how they did what they did to help people to be saved. We would do well to consider it carefully.

They went. We don’t ordinarily go places until we first decide to. It occurs to me that we don’t have to go as far as they did–sometimes just across the street or around the block, or over at the school lunchroom, or the coffee-break room at work–and yet we wait. There are opportunities everywhere. “People just aren’t interested,” we say. Well, we need to get them interested. What we have is vital to their eternal destiny. Folks, if we’re going to sow the seed, we have to get the seed out of the barn. How do we know someone is not interested when we’ve told them nothing?

They went everywhere. Anywhere people are there is the need for Jesus Christ. “And daily in the temple and every house they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42). That’s how the early disciples did it. Not just the preachers, either. Wherever people go, there is sin. Wherever there is sin, there is the need for salvation. Wherever there is the need for salvation, there is the need for those who will deliver the message of salvation. We have to go everywhere we can. And when we decide to wait, think about this: what if this is the last chance? Wherever you are you can help someone find the Savior.

They went everywhere preaching. Preaching is not easy. It requires preparation, then determination. One is no good without the other. I am convinced that the more people know about the Savior, the more they are apt to tell others about Him. And you don’t have to have some kind of special oratorical skill, you just have to be interested and concerned, and show it. We don’t need more programs about evangelism until we have more people who are so concerned about the souls of men that they can’t leave the message alone. Programs don’t work without people. We need people who have a burning desire to tell someone about Jesus. Could it be that the reason we don’t have such a burning desire is that we don’t know enough about Him ourselves? We don’t need more pulpit preachers. What we need is more out-of-the-pulpit preachers.

They went everywhere preaching the word. Did you know that the most valuable thing you own is your Bible? It’s the only thing we have that relates to and connects us with eternity. It tells us where we are. It tells us what we are. It tells us how we are. And then it tells us how to make ourselves, by the grace of God, into what we need to be. I don’t care how rich a man becomes, one day he must face his own mortality. I don’t care how reputable a man becomes, one day he must look at himself for what he really is, and not what people think him to be. I don’t care how powerful a man becomes, he must eventually face the reality of his own impotence when it comes to his salvation. The word of God is the answer to all our needs in life. How can we allow it to be dormant; how can we give it second, third, or fourth place in our lives; how can we ignore it until there’s a funeral to attend?

We have the responsibility–yea, the blessed privilege–of bringing people to Jesus. Can you help someone find the Master? Can you do what people did in the early church–people who didn’t have automobiles, telephones, television, internet–and yet they went and did it anyway? “They went everywhere preaching the word.”

--Dee Bowman