Sharing Hope: Pressure, Resistance & Invitation – Brad Jersak

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1 Peter 3:15 – “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you…”

Pressure:

As a very young Evangelical, I embraced the call to evangelize—based in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19 (“Go and make disciples of all nations”) and passages such as 1 Peter 3:15 (above). This came with an urgency to rescue people from hell by convincing them to believe what I believe and persuading them to commit their lives to the Christian faith. To fail to do so came with its own threats… their blood would be on my hands (Ezekiel 3:18) and as a ‘fruitless branch,’ I too might be cut off cast into the fire (John 15:2). This was a terribly heavy burden for me as a child, especially as I assessed the spiritual state of family members who I loved and felt paralyzed by the pressure to proselytize them.

Resistance:

When I was able to overcome evangelism inertia and speak up, I regularly noticed how socially awkward my intrusions were. Yes, I did cold call door-to-door witnessing and some cringey street preaching in the early 1980 (Imagine! No, please don’t). And even when I built a relationship with someone, the pressure to share would generally be met with resistance. I have a theory. What if the resistance we feel to our faith is a response we generate from the pressure we feel and project in sharing it? What if the prospect is simply mirroring the heavy pressure we feel in ourselves (to share) and that we’re channeling to them… so any pressure they feel came from us. And if they don’t respond, perhaps we feel better anyway because in our messaging, we’ve accomplished some form of catharsis… now the blood is on their own hands, not mine. Maybe sometimes I used them as an unwilling sounding board for my own guilt. Possible. Knowing me. Eventually, I could see how off-putting my practice was and just let it go.

Invitation:

In more recent experience and a careful rereading 1 Peter 3:15, I’m seeing evangelism from a fresh (to me) perspective. Let’s call it a (not ‘the’) way to see the whole sharing faith thing.

First, Peter doesn’t talk about ‘sharing one’s faith.’ He’s talking about ‘sharing one’s hope.’ The two may have been synonymous for him, but modern Evangelicalism tended to describe sharing one’s faith or sharing the gospel in more doctrinal terms. Like so: “Here’s the thing you need to believe. Here’s the doctrine you need to agree to. If you don’t believe it and don’t agree with it, then you’re lost. But if I can convince you (confusing apologetics for evangelism) through my best arguments, then you’ll sign up through a confession of agreement with the truth and be baptized into the family of God. You were lost. Believe this. Pray this. Now you’re found. Now you’re saved.”

Compare that to sharing the ‘hope that is in you.’ In the New Testament, hope is not wishful thinking. It is an outlook with a referent—the Hope is Jesus. And the hope is internalized (it’s ‘in you’) such that it’s observable to others. Not just observable. It may be contagious enough that some will be curious and ask about it. “Tell us about this hope in you.” That’s an invitation. When invited, I share the hope that is in me.

I don’t know too much about Peter’s immediate context, but in our time, one could make a case that 1 Peter 3:15 should be applied as conditions for sharing. The conditions would be:

  • Do I have a hope in me? What is it? Can you name it? Have I internalized it such that it’s more than a creed to be parroted and more like an orientation to life?
  • Is the hope evident in the way I live? How does it show up? Do others see it? Does it seem authentic to them? How would they describe it?
  • Have they invited me to share it? What are they asking? Why are they asking? Is my sharing consensual? Is it mutual? Am I just telling, or am I also listening?

Now here’s my experience. When I lost the pressure to recruit people (or else), I stopped projecting that pressure onto others, and I discovered a lot more freedom to share my hope and have seen a lot less resistance. If I don’t feel under the gun to ‘close the deal,’ they’ll be less likely to feel like I’m holding a gun to their head (‘turn or burn’). Just as my pressure and others’ resistance correspond, my ease (and theirs) and our mutual curiosity work in tandem. We can be friends sharing a path together, comparing notes, and weirdly (?), my hope (Jesus) comes up more often and more naturally than when I would fret about ‘getting them saved.’ Turns out I’m still an evangelist.

You can’t make it for that!

I sometimes go to Costco and make a beeline for the potato salad shelf. They have great potato salad. The recipe includes Yukon gold potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, buttermilk, yellow mustard (including turmeric, paprika, and garlic), red onions, celery, and sometimes dried dill or red pepper flakes for extra flavor. Not only that, you can get 2.3 kilograms for $8.99 in Canada!

To my wife’s great chagrin, I often plant myself there, hold up a container and say to her, “Eden, you can’t make it for that!” People who overhear notice my enthusiasm. They wonder if I’m a salesman. Nope. I just think it’s delicious and it’s a great deal. They might even ask me about it. I tell them how much I enjoy it. How far it goes. I have no need to pressure them. There’s nothing in it for me if they buy some. And there’s no offense to me if they don’t. But if they show some curiosity, I’m happy to show them the ingredients. And while they might think it’s weird that I’m celebrating Costco potato salad, they never get angry or defensive about it.

I get nothing for saying I love Costco Potato Salad

Well, that’s not exactly how I share my hope. I’m way more into Jesus that potato salad, way more into loving the person than making a sales pitch to strangers, way more patient about waiting to be asked, and way more ‘chill’ (at ease) when I offer an answer for the hope in me. Most of all, my first concern is attending to the hope. What is my hope? Is it in me? What does that mean? How do I live there? That slows me down.

There are also reasons for that in those with whom I would share… Some have had a “potato salad gospel” force-fed to them, some got terrible food poisoning from it, some can no longer stand the smell. The ingredients have often included fear-mongering, ultimatums, and retribution… others read the best-before date and see it has long expired. Shoving a spoonful at them—even the good stuff—is just not the Jesus Way.

So what is the way? Peter tells us, and he was pretty good at it:“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you…”

Final note: did you notice that ‘demanding’ is what the asker does, not the teller. I aspire to live in such a way that others demand to know about this hope. When I get there, I’ll let you know.

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