OPINION —
In 2012, not long after I returned home from a deployment to Afghanistan, Ann and I decided to take a road trip and visit as many state and national parks as we could between Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Utah. Our daughter was only about four months old, and after spending so much time away I was looking forward to being with my family. We had planned about ten days on the road, and on the very first day, while driving through New Mexico, something happened that I have never forgotten.
A large road sign had blown into the middle of the highway. Like the cars around us, I swerved to avoid it and kept going. A few seconds later, I looked in my rearview and watched two cars behind us do the same thing. The third car however, didn’t see the sign in time to react. The car hit the sign, veered into the median and began rolling.
I can still remember the debris flying through the air as the vehicle turned over multiple times. I immediately pulled onto the shoulder, told Ann to get into the driver’s seat and slowly back our car toward the crash while I got out and ran. By the time I reached the vehicle, the scene was chaotic, and I knew those first few minutes mattered.
I had a decision to make. I could call 911, step back and wait for paramedics, or I could act. To many people simply stopping and calling 911 seems sufficient. But because of my medical training in the Air Force, I knew how to assess injuries and respond in emergency situations. I knew more than simply how to call for help.
Once Ann reached me, I handed her the phone and began checking the woman and her young child. The woman was disoriented and bleeding, and her toddler was crying. The child had been strapped into a car seat, but the force of the crash had been severe enough that the seat had broken loose from the seatbelt causing it to slam forward and become lodged between the front and back driver side seats.
I had assisted at roadside accidents before, but this one, for some reason has become a more frequent and easy memory to recall. Maybe it’s because I was on vacation and not on duty, I’m not sure. I wasn’t wearing a uniform and nobody would have been the wiser had I only called 911 and went about our journey. Still, I knew I had been given training that could help someone, and once I saw the need, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know what to do.
That is part of what I hear when I read Romans 10:14–17. Paul asks, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” His point is simple. The gospel does not move by accident.
Someone has to carry it. We often hear that passage and immediately think about preachers or missionaries, but the New Testament shows ordinary Christians carrying the message wherever they went. Acts 8:4 says that those who had been scattered by persecution “went everywhere preaching the word.” They simply carried what they knew.
That’s where this passage gets personal. If we know the gospel, if we understand what Jesus has done and if we have experienced His grace, then we are carrying something the world desperately needs. That means we can’t make it about us and whether we feel comfortable sharing the Gospel with others or only sharing it when it’s convenient. Sharing the Gospel isn’t only for dynamic speakers, outgoing personalities and extroverts. It’s for all of us to share. Because it’s not the messenger who is the Savior, but the message itself that points people to the Savior that must be proclaimed. We aren’t responsible for forcing a response or nor do we have to always have every answer. What we can do however is tell people the good news that Jesus died, was buried and rose again, and that through Him, reconciliation with God is possible.
That word reconciliation matters. 2 Corinthians 5 describes the gospel as a message of reconciliation, not simply condemnation. We are telling people that their failures do not have to define the rest of their lives, that grace is real and that new life is possible through Jesus.
But people can’t respond to a message they’ve never heard. Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Our confidence is not in how persuasive we are or how perfectly we explain everything. Our confidence is in the message itself. And that’s good news because it takes the pressure off of us and put’s it exactly where it supposed to be. In God and in the Message itself. The very very same message we’re told “Works effectively in those who believe.” (1 Thes 2:13).
Most of us did not come to know Jesus by accident. Someone came upon us and recognized that we needed help. So they invited us, taught us, prayed for us or opened a Bible with us. Someone stopped and carried the message far enough for it to reach us.
And now, it’s up to each and every one of us to go and carry that very same life-saving message to those we encounter — because when we know that what we have can save someone, simply passing by can never be enough.
