yes, you can - dee bowman

Yes, You Can!

by Dee Bowman
Southside Church of Christ
Pasadena, Texas

“I just can’t teach people,” he said. “I’m just not able to talk to them.” We were at his home for a snack following services on a Lord’s Day evening service. It was a nice summer evening, warm, but with low humidity and a light southerly breeze. It was a nice time. The conversation was nice, too. We were visiting about things that really matter, things having to do with heaven, hope, and things like that.

I had brought up the subject of teaching people and how that it seemed to me that most folks would like to do so, but just don’t get around to it. It was then that he said what he did. He just didn’t feel like he could tell people about the gospel. “I just can’t teach people,” he said.

After a few minutes he asked if I’d like to see his new tractor. It was a nice vehicle. Sparkling green, a brand new John Deere. He took me right up to it and began to tell me things about it. It had hot spark ignition, an overhead cam shaft, a five speed transmission with a variable torque converter and a power transfer apparatus that could be used for a dozen different attachable implements (I made all that up, but it was something like that). He took me to the back of the tractor and began to make known to me all the things that it would do that the tractor he had before couldn’t. I was impressed. He went on for ten minutes or so.

“Stop!” I said. “Stop for a minute!” “Tell me again that last part.”

He began again. I stopped him again. “Paul,” I asked, “are you the same fellow that just told me a few minutes ago that you couldn’t teach anybody?” “You’ve told me more about that tractor in the past 15 minutes than I’ve ever known the rest of my life put together.” “And how say you, ‘I can’t teach somebody’ when you just taught me?”

He looked startled, red-faced.

The people who first taught the gospel were not learned people (“behold, are not all these that speak Galileans?” [Acts 2:7]). They just had been furnished with the right information and were motivated to do something with it. And while it was presented to them in some cases by inspiration, it’s still the same information today that it was then. And the same motivation is still available. After the persecution arouse in Jerusalem, it wasn’t the Apostles or the preachers who “went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4), it was the common Christians, “as many as were scattered abroad.”

Actually, with few exceptions, it was the common people who did the most preaching and teaching in New Testament times. Acts is filled with statements like, “the word of the Lord multiplied greatly…” Neighbor taught neighbor, family taught family, everybody felt the responsibility to bring someone to the Lord.

So why it is that we have so much trouble doing that today?

Could it be that we’re too busy? If that’s so, then we’re just too busy. We cannot afford to be so busy that we don’t have time to tell somebody about the salvation that is in Christ. Do you think you’re too busy to hand to someone one of the cards with which you’ve just been furnished? How much time can that take? Could it be that “too busy” is an excuse, and “I’m afraid” is the reason? Can you bring someone to the Lord? Yes, you can.

Is it because we don’t give much thought to it? I suggest that the most valuable thing you possess right now is the forgiveness of your sins. There isn’t anything to compare with it. It’s more valuable than your stock portfolio, more valuable than your home and cars, your job or your retirement. Believe me, there will come a time when we’ll all realize that, too, for “it is appointed to man once to die and after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). What will all that accumulation be worth if you reach the end of the way and are still in your sins? What if you reach the end of life with all that information still in your pocket—information that could have been responsible for forgiveness for many others—and you did nothing with it? And what if you can’t enter because you can’t answer the Lord’s question, “who did you bring Me?” Maybe—just maybe—we ought to give more thought to the teaching of others. And don’t tell me you can’t. Yes, you can.

Is it because you don’t feel like you have enough education? Education is relative. The best education of all is the one where someone knows what is good for him, what he needs to do to secure it, and why it’s really important to use it properly. It doesn’t take much education to ask for a Bible study or to tell someone why you are what you are. And it won’t matter how much you know if you don’t get to heaven, that’s for sure. Even if you become highly educated and miss heaven, it was all just so much worthless information, stupid jargon, and irrelevant statistics. And when you’ve had the education that can help someone else escape hell and you do nothing with it, what will the Lord say to that?

Could it be that we just don’t care as much as we ought? Surely not. Surely that’s not the case. I refuse to believe it. I don’t believe it. I believe we care. I believe it’s mostly carelessness. I believe we all intend to. And I believe we all really want to. We just don’t get around to it. But there comes a time when we have to give ourselves a quick, hard nudge and get up off the stool of indifference and get on with it. There comes a time when we have to stop making excuses and start making contacts. There is a time to get the seed out of the barn and into the field (Matt. 9:37).

And don’t say you can’t. Yes, you can! If you can buy groceries and not get cheated on the change you can teach someone the gospel. If you can ask for directions and then follow them to your destination, you can give someone directions on what he needs to be saved. If you can understand the 10 o’clock news, you can understand the importance of teaching someone about Jesus. So, why wait? Let’s get on with it! You can. Yes, you can.