When assessing a person’s testimony of faith, I wonder what you look for? We may have a broad formula in our heads, particularly one that works with people a bit like us. We know the kind of things we would expect to hear from a person brought up in a fairly ordinary, stable family who was taken to church all their life as well as the similar kind of person who grew up in a non-Christian family. We kind of know the gist of what we expect to hear.
Things get a little trickier the further removed from ourselves we get. What do we expect to hear from the non-Christian, never been to church in their life, who grew up on a British council estate and now professes faith? What about the drug addict who has only just encountered the church through some outreach the church puts on? How about the British-born Muslim who has never set foot in a church who was raised to view church as something for posh white people? What about the non-British born Muslim who had to flee their country because of their claims to Christianity? What would a credible testimony sound like in these different cases? Presumably not exactly the same.
When we speak about hearing a ‘credible profession’, we are usually talking about one that is capable of being believed. That is to say, it is not IN-credible. It is not so outlandish that nobody could possibly believe it. There is enough there that the story – even if it is not utterly convincing – is credible enough to be believed.
In many ways, the story of how one became a Christian – and there are all manner or weird and wonderful ways that can happen – is less important than what one now affirms and believes. A credible story might have some quite incredible aspects (in the second, rather than the first, sense of that word), but that doesn’t make the story untrue or unbelievable in the round. And what is more important than the specific story of how it came to be is the affirmation of what has come to be. What does this person now believe and affirm that makes them a Christian? This is the really key part.
Again, every story will be different. But in essence we are looking to hear some affirmation/claim of the following:
- This person was not always a Christian
- There was some encounter with the truths of scripture
- They came to an understanding that they are sinner
- They understood that there was only one means of dealing with sin; Jesus Christ
- Jesus paid for sin at the cross, promising forgiveness and eternal life to all that believe in him
- Jesus’ death was not universal but is only applied to those who believe; those who do not believe in him remain in their sin and stand to face its consequences
- Nothing needs to be added to Jesus’ work on behalf of those who believe
- Salvation and their eternal future is absolutely and utterly secured by Jesus
People may put some of these things across in slightly different ways and use various ways to describe these things. They may emphasise some of these things more than other parts. They may state some of these things as part of their testimony, other bits may only come out under a bit of scrutiny and questioning. But some form of the above is likely to be present.
Of course, we don’t only expect to hear a credible testimony and basic understanding of the gospel, we also expect to see genuine believers (whoever they may be) living in line with the things they claim to now believe. We, therefore, expect to see some moral, ethical and behavioural change in them. Again, that is unlikely to all happen at once and to the same degree, but there ought to be some change from what they once were to something that tallies with what they now claim they are. Certainly, we would expect to see nothing that clearly and openly undermines their new profession of faith (particularly things that cannot be expected to change by degree over time or that cannot reasonably be explained by the understandable ignorance of someone green in faith).
Though the stories may look and sound a little different depending on who you are speaking with, these are the basic things we expect to see.