4 Simple Illustrations for Sharing the Gospel

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Recently, our pastor spoke about sharing the gospel. Sharing our stories to share the gospel message with others.

It’s not always easy, is it? I know that this is a struggle for me. I’m always afraid of saying the wrong thing, but Pastor reminded us that your story can’t be wrong. He also reminded us that the authority of God will multiply your efforts to reach people. How? You may share the gospel with one person, who in turn will share it with others or become a missionary or serve others in their communities, and, in turn, reach many more people. YOU can be that spark to change a community, making disciples of all nations, as the great commission commands:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”

Matthew 28:19 (ESV)

Sharing the Gospel

When giving gospel presentations, no matter what form you use, keep in mind these tips:

1. Keep it to three minutes or less. People don’t want to attend a Sunday morning sermon they didn’t sign up for. Also, talking for a long time may lead to more confusion for the listener.
2. Use simple words. Don’t talk “Christianese” and use a lot of words used only in the Christian community.
3. Be direct and to the point.
4. Practice what you will say
5. Share YOUR story. No one can argue what God has done in your life. (You can find my story HERE).

By getting out of your comfort zone and sharing your story and the love of God through gospel conversations, you are making an investment in the Kingdom of God!

4 Illustrations for Sharing the Gospel

The illustrations below are well-known in the Christian community and come from the book Becoming a Contagious Christian by Bill Hybells and Mark Mittelberg. I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book to learn the best ways to get more comfortable in sharing the message of the gospel.

1. Do Vs. Done

• This is the most simple and concise tool for sharing the gospel
• Great place to start for addressing the question of what part our own efforts play in attaining God’s grace and salvation (outlining the difference between religion and Christianity)
• It helps to write the letters as you explain it for a visual illustration.
• Also works well in Spanish Hace vs. Hecho

“Religion is spelled “D-O,’ because it consists of the things people do to try to somehow gain God’s forgiveness and favor. But the problem is that you never know when you’ve done enough. It’s like being a salesman who knows he must meet a quota but never being told what it is. You can never be sure what you’ve actually done enough. Worse yet, the bible tell us in Romans 3:23 that we never can do enough. We’ll always fall short of God’s perfect standard.

But thankfully, Christianity is spelled differently. It’s spelled ‘D-O-N-E,’ which means that what we could never do for ourselves, Christ has already done for us. He lived the perfect life we could never live, and He willingly died on the cross to pay the penalty we owed for the wrongs we’ve done.

To become a real Christian is to humbly receive God’s gift of forgiveness and to commit to following His leadership. When we do that, He adopts us into His family, and begins to change us from the inside out.”

2. The Bridge Illustration

• Best-known and most frequently used illustration for sharing the gospel message
• Graphically shows people their predicament and God’s solution
• Advised to make it more personal by drawing it out on a piece of paper than carrying a printed version
• Follow the following Hybels’ script as a guide as he brilliantly explains the illustration

It helps to start by telling the person ‘We matter to God. He made us, and He wants to have a relationship with us,” and then write ‘Us’ on one side of a piece of paper  and ‘God’ on the other: 

Then explain the problem. ‘We rebelled against God. Both actively and passively, we’ve all disobeyed Him. And our sins have separated us from Him, and caused us to have a broken relationship with him.” And draw lines by both words in such a way that they form walls around a great chasm, separating us from God: 

‘To varying degrees, most of us are aware of the distance from God in our own life. I know I was, and you may be, too. And so we start doing all kinds of “good deeds” to try to get back to Him, like being a helpful neighbor, paying our taxes, going to church, and giving money to charities. Yes, these are all good things, but the Bible makes it clear that none of them can earn us God’s forgiveness or re-establish our relationship with Him.’

Then draw a couple of arrows, going over the ‘Us’ cliff. These signify our attempts to reach God that always fall short, as the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans. You can even write ‘Romans 3:23’ next to the arrows so the person can see the biblical source for what you are saying. Then you can add, ‘the sins we’ve committed must be punished, and the penalty we owe is death, which means physical death as well as spiritual separation from God for eternity, in a place called hell.’ Then add the word ‘Death,’ and if you’d like, Romans 6:23, at the bottom of the chasm:

At this point, you can share with the person that you admit that the picture looks pretty bleak. It’s important to share with them the reality of how much trouble we’re in apart from Christ. People need to realize how lost they are before they’re likely to become interested in being found. (Do you remember how you felt before you knew Christ? Did you feel lost?)

But don’t leave them hanging on the bad news for too long. ‘The good news, as I said in the beginning, is that we matter to God. In fact, God’s love for us is so vast that He did for us what we could never do for ourselves. He provided a bridge over which we can find His forgiveness and restore our relationship with Him. He built it by coming to earth as one of us, and dying on the cross to pay the death penalty we owed. That’s the good news of Jesus. Here’s what the bridge looks like.” 

Then draw a cross in such a way that it touches both sides of the chasm, and you can add 1 Peter 3:18 next to the cross: 

Then finish by sharing that the picture is the heart of the gospel and the central message of God’s word. And that’s what God wants each of us to understand. But just knowing God exists is enough. We’ve got to act upon it. God wants us to move over to the other side. 

‘We do this by humbly admitting to God that we’ve rebelled against Him and need His forgiveness and leadership. That simple act of trust and obedience results in our sins being pardoned and our debt being paid. Our relationship with God is firmly established, because we’re immediately adopted into His family and as His son and daughter.” 

While explaining this, draw a stick figure on the ‘Us’ side of the chasm, and then from it an arrow over the bridge to another stick figure on the ‘God’ side, (you can add John 1:12 if you like).

Then ask the person if the illustration makes sense to them or if there’s any part of it that they would like to discuss. The last thing you should do is ask them where they would say they are on the drawing, and if they seem open, whether they would like to move over the bridge by making Christ their forgiver, redeemer and friend. 

Most people will tell you that they have to think about it and that’s ok. That’s okay. Most need time to process the gospel message as Jesus suggested in Luke 14:28-33. 

(Illustrations from Paul Sohn)

3. The Romans Road

• This is the most effective way to illustrate the center of Christian faith for those who want hard evidence from the word of God.
• The illustration is based on three key verses from the book of Romans

The first verse to show your friend is Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” I explain, “According to this, all of us have sinned against God. This includes not only big sins, like rape and murder, but also stuff like moral missteps, likes, cruelty, insensitivity toward others, losing your temper, cheating, and self-centeredness. I’m willing to admit to some of these. How about you? Most people have no trouble admitting they’ve done these things, too. 

Then I turn to the second verse, Romans 6:23, and let them read, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I’ll say, “According to this verse, those little wrongdoing you and I just admitted to have earned us a penalty. The penalty is death.” But then I’ll draw attention to the second half of the verse, and say, “it refers here to a gift.” God has offered us a gift of eternal life. We can freely receive God’s forgiveness and His pardon from the death penalty we owed. The penalty has been paid for by Jesus’ death on the cross. And like any other gift, we can’t earn it, we can only receive it. To find out how, let’s turn to one more verse.” 

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And then I’ll let the person read Romans 10:3, where it says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Do you see how simple it is to receive God’s gift? All we have to do is recognize the fact that we’ve sinned and deserve death, and then call out to God humbly for his forgiveness and the new life He’s offering to us. That’s what I did a few years back, and I’d like to encourage you to do the same.” 

4. The Airplane Illustration

• This is a helpful tool for unconcerned seekers and occasional church-goers to understand that it’s not enough to merely believe the right things about God or to just attend a Sunday morning service once in awhile. This tool for sharing the gospel is great to use with the “casual Christian”.

Doing these things is like studying the science of aviation and then hanging around in airports. You can learn all about the physics of flight, know which airlines have the safest record, pick the best craft to fly in, reserve your flight, drive to the airport, go to the gate, double check the cockpit crew’s credentials. But it does no good unless you get on the plane. 

Knowledge alone won’t get you anywhere. You have to act on what you know. You have to climb aboard the airplane, trusting it’ll take you where you want to go.” Similarly, it’s not enough to know all about Christianity. You can study until you’re the expert, go to church, even get involved in ministry, and not have a relationship with Christ. You finally have to take a step of faith and ‘get on board’ by receiving the forgiveness He purchased on the cross and entrusting your life and future to Him. What’s what it means to become a real Christian

Add your own experience of how the love of God and the work of Jesus Christ transformed your life to one of the above tools and you have all you need for effective spiritual conversation with any and all human beings; whether they share in the Christian faith or not. 

Practice your story and sharing the truth of the gospel so you are ready when the opportunity presents itself. By sharing the gospel with one person, you may ignite a fire that God will multiply.

ESV – “Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”