Moving on from Mere Emotional Experience to a More Biblically Informed Witness

By Mark W. Christy, PhD

In this increasingly self-centered world, many people seek experiences that satiate their every desire. This desire for experience is often found even within the church where many gather on Sundays not so much to worship God for what He has done in their lives through Christ but simply to get their emotional ‘batteries recharged’ to face another week. Beyond this, it also tends to impact their personal testimonies as well. This trend seems to only be getting worse as the church continues its long march along the road of being ‘dumbed down’ with self-help messages and feel-good sermons which satisfy the emotions but fail to train the mind in sound theology. For the Christian who seeks to be a light and biblically responsible witness, it is important to consider afresh Paul’s example of witnessing.

In Acts 9:1-9, Luke records a sensational account of Paul’s initial salvation experience:

“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”[i]

In Acts 22:1-21 and 26:12-18, Paul recounts this experience in his witness to the Jews and Agrippa. In his testimony to the Jews, Paul includes the dramatic elements of his initial salvation experience but is prevented from going further when he mentions his call to take the gospel to the Gentiles. In his testimony to Agrippa however, he was allowed to go beyond the more sensational elements of his salvation experience and declare the essential gospel truths of repentance, forgiveness, and faith in Christ as Savior (cf. Acts 26:18). After making it clear to Agrippa that he had preached this message of repentance to both those in Damascus and Jerusalem, he then expands upon his testimony of Christ as the Promised Messiah:

“I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place; that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22-23).

In both of these witnessing accounts, it seems clear that Paul was intent upon moving beyond the more fantastical elements of his salvation experience. While he led with these elements, his goal was to direct his audience to essential gospel truths that are necessary for salvation. If he had simply shortened his testimony to his miraculous experience, then he himself would have become the focus of his testimony and his call to salvation would be a call to seek the same experience. Unfortunately, this is exactly what many Christian witnesses of today do. They focus heavily on their own experience with Christ (if indeed their experience was truly with Christ) and fail to deliver any essential gospel truths. That being said, one wonders how any genuine salvation experience can occur apart from the essential elements of the gospel since those elements are mandatory for an authentic experience of salvation. To put this another way, one cannot know Christ apart from embarking on the gospel road of repentance of sins, forgiveness, and faith in Christ as Lord and Savior.

Paul’s witness demonstrates the importance of having a biblically informed and gospel elevating witness. As one moves beyond Acts, one will notice that Paul’s witness begins to gloss over the sensational elements of his salvation experience in favor of a testimony of the internal work of the Spirit in his mind (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-8; Gal. 1:11–16). One example of this can be found in Philippians 3:4-11:

“…although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. 7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

In this passage, Paul highlights multiple areas from which he supposed himself meritorious of salvation. Paul’s merits included his devotion to ritual (“circumcised the eighth day”), his race (“of the nation of Israel”), his high rank among Jews as being from a more prominent clan (“of the tribe of Benjamin”), his intense regard for tradition (“a Hebrew of Hebrews”), his religious commitment (“as to the Law, a Pharisee”), his ardent sincerity (“as to zeal, a persecutor of the church”), and his legalistic righteousness (“as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless”). After casting aside these faulty means of salvation and even accounting for them as “rubbish”, Paul’s focuses his testimony on Christ and his obtainment of righteousness by faith through him. Overall, Paul’s testimony in Philippians 3:4-11 demonstrates a profound change in Paul’s orientation of thought from that which was focused purely on the world to an eternal perspective of a future life with Christ.

Given Paul’s example, believers should never be satisfied by simply articulating the more sensational elements of their salvation experience should they have any. Rather, they should declare the essential gospel truths and how those truths have reoriented their lives internally to a more eternal perspective.

Ultimately, all people are seeking salvation in some manner. While those in Paul’s audience may have being seeking salvation by merit, Christians today may encounter people who seek it in some other manner. For some, salvation is sought by altering one’s experience through the use of drugs simply to gain temporal salvation. Others seek adrenaline highs to get a boost from the humdrum of daily life. Still others seek salvation by inundating themselves with material goods and sensual pleasures so as to derive the most of this present life. As alluded to at the beginning of this article, even supposed Christians seek salvation from the “rat race” by going to church for “an hour of power” to get their emotional fix for yet another week of the same.

In response to all of these (and more) attempts to attain unto some measure of salvation, the faithful witness must point to Christ as the only true means of salvation. They must help the worldly in their midst see the futility in their attempts to attain salvation of any other kind and by any other means. They must move beyond their own emotional experiences and testify to the internal changes within wrought by a true knowledge of Christ. Finally, they must make sure to declare the essential gospel truths by which people may be saved.

[i]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.