Imagine if someone were in a house that caught fire and rushed out to save their own life but didn’t do anything to help the others who still were inside. Worse yet, they didn’t even call the fire department. Instead, they walked off and acted as though it didn’t happen.
Not only would that be wrong, but it’s even a criminal act.
Or let’s say that a physician ran a series of tests on a patient and realized that person could be treated with a course of antibiotics or perhaps a simple surgery. But the physician felt uncomfortable, even awkward, about telling the patient some bad news. Instead, he sent the patient away and said, “You’re good to go.” That is an irresponsible doctor.
So how much worse would it be to know the way to Heaven, to know the way for someone to be forgiven of their sins and find the meaning and purpose of their life, and not tell them? That’s why not sharing the gospel can be a sin.
Understand, sin has many definitions. There are sins of commission and sins of omission. A sin of commission is breaking a commandment and crossing the line. It’s doing something that we know is wrong.
On the other hand, a sin of omission is not doing something that we know is right. In fact, the Bible says, “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it” (James 4:17 NLT).
Let’s remove the words preach and evangelism for a moment and put a different word on the table: recommendation. We make recommendations all the time, from restaurants to the best products to buy. And when another person recommends something to us, it carries weight.
So let’s take that idea and apply it to sharing the gospel. We’re willing to talk about hamburgers, but are we willing to talk about Jesus?