Getting Over a Difficulty with Evangelism

“There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four.She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” (Luke 2: 36-38, NIV)

Do you struggle with evangelism? I know I do. I get super nervous to tell other people about Truth, and I know it is something I need to work on.

I know I’m not alone in that. In fact, I would be willing to bet that most Christians struggle with the task. That’s the reason that most churches struggle with things like outreach and missions: because it requires us to know our Word, be willing to go out into the world and be ready to articulate and defend it if necessary. 

But in a women’s group I’m a part of, we’re reading Twelve Extraordinary Women by John MacArthur, and one of the chapters are on Anna, a woman that is only found on one page of the Bible. 

Her story is short, but full of encouragement and lessons to learn. We find her in Luke 2, when Joseph and Mary go to the temple to perform the purification rites required by Jewish law after Jesus’ birth. This is where an older man named Simeon– a man that was told by the Holy Spirit that he would live long enough to meet the Messiah– has a moment with Jesus. As Simeon is blessing Jesus and addressing Mary and Joseph, Anna walks by.

Little is known about her, except that she was married as a young woman for seven years before her husband died. After he died, Anna dedicated her life to working in the temple as a prophetess. In those days ‘prophetess’ didn’t mean that she gave revelations from the Lord or predicted the future. In this context, it doesn’t even mean that she held the office of a prophet the way Paul talks about in Ephesians. 

Instead, Anna is a prophetess in the sense that she knew the scriptures and her ministry was all about encouraging and speaking into other women coming to the temple using the Word of God. On the day Anna met Jesus, she was an older woman, and had spent the vast majority of her life praying, like Simeon, for the Messiah to come.

And in a moment, Anna meets Jesus in the middle of the temple, gives thanks to the Lord for allowing her to see her Savior, and then spends the rest of her life telling everyone she could about Him.

That’s it. That’s all we know about her. We don’t know how much longer she lived after seeing Jesus. We don’t know how many people she told about Him. We just know that she dedicated her life to the Word of God, saw Jesus, and became one of the first evangelists to be recorded.

But we can learn so much from just a handful of verses.

First, we can be sure that Anna was devoted to the Lord. She spent seven years of her youth married to a man whose name has been lost to time. We can assume she never had children with him, or else she would have had children to support her as a widow, and probably never would have lived in the temple, worshiping night and day.

She dedicated her life to the service and worship of God. She fasted and prayed. She knew her scripture. She ministered to others, building them up using that scripture and became an old widow completely wrapped up in serving the Lord with everything she had. Because of this, we can be sure that Anna knew what it was to spend time beholding God. We can be confident in the fact that she had a love that was firmly built on knowing Him.

So much so, that she recognized Jesus in a crowded room and in a form no one expected Him to take. You have to understand: at this time, Israel was on high alert for the promised Messiah, but they were expecting something completely different. They were expecting a triumphant entrance; Jesus on the clouds coming to avenge Israel’s enemies. So no one paid any mind to this infant Messiah that came right into a busy temple. But Anna knew Him when she saw Him. She knew Him because she had spent so much time with the Father for her whole life.

She saw Him and she knew Him. She held Him and gave thanks for Him. She spent a single moment with Jesus, her long awaited Savior, and then used the rest of her life telling people about that one moment. That fleeting second was enough to fuel her desire to evangelize for whatever time she had left. 

For us, it should be the same. We should know God so deeply; we should be well-versed in His scripture, zealous in our love for Him, and diligent in prayer. We should be eager to behold Him and to pursue Him. That joy to know Him should aid us in experiencing Him. Our knowledge should result in our encountering Him, and that encounter should be the catalyst in our sharing of His Word with all who will listen. 

Knowledge and devotion results in our being able to rightly see Him and our seeing Him should result in our wanting to tell the world about Him. If we can’t get over our fear of evangelism, then perhaps that means we haven’t truly experienced Him. If we’re not experiencing Him, then it probably means we don’t really know Him. 

If you want to be a better encourager of the Church and sharer of the Gospel, then start with devoting time to Him reading the Bible and in prayer. Get to know Him and behold Him. Looking upon our Savior should change us and empower us to be able to articulate what He has done for us.