“Once you understand and see the bigger picture,” she said, “that outside perspective of what I see—dude, you’re gonna die if you stay in there—you’d be very appreciative of the good news of someone rescuing you.”
The three went on to discuss why many Christians are reluctant to tell people about the good news of Jesus’ salvation, including the fact that, without him, people are going to hell. Pokluda mentioned a video of magician Penn Jillette of the duo Penn & Teller in which Jillette described how a man approached him after a show, shared the gospel with him, and gave him a Bible.
Jillette is an atheist but said in the video that he appreciated and respected the man for sharing his beliefs, adding, “I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, or whatever,” Jillette said, but then don’t tell people about hell out of fear of being “socially awkward…how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?”
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“It’s been said a lot of us are like functioning atheists because we say we’re Christians, but we’re surrounded by people who we believe are going to go to hell by their own volition one day, and we do nothing about it,” said Pokluda. “And I think there’s such a command in the Scripture for us to share the gospel, and I think the enemy deceives us into silence.”
Reasons why Christians stay silent instead of sharing their faith include that they prioritize their own comfort and convenience, and they fear rejection. Pokluda said the worst consequence he has ever experienced from sharing his faith was that a man at work threatened to turn him in to HR. But then the man, his wife, and his daughter ended up getting baptized.
Bure said that she has been challenged lately to be more explicit in sharing her beliefs with the people she works with. “I talk about God all the time because it’s in my daily language, whether or not someone’s a believer,” she said, “but I thought, ‘[Have] I actually shared the gospel with the people that I’m sitting at dinner with right now? Have I actually done that?’”
“And I was like, ‘Nope, I haven’t,’” she realized. “So it really convicted me, and I’m very prayerful over it now, because…you know, you get a little too comfortable.”
