Have you ever talked with Jesus Christ for a whole evening? Oh, I tell you the truth-I know what it is to sit at my typewriter with my Bible beside me and my books around me, and to listen for His voice and hear the tones of love and to feel my heart swelling until I didn't think I could contain any more. A thousand times I have known it thus, and only when the body becomes cramped or cold does my eye turn to the clock and I realize, with a start, that the night is long gone toward morning. And after such a night, one is constrained to go out and find his brother. Notice that when Andrew first went to Simon he did not begin with a theological exhortation or with an apologetic argument. He did not invite Simon to a religious ceremony. He testified of a fact that he had seen, and he invited his brother to participate in the experience that he himself had been through. He just simply said, "We've found the Messiah." Then he brought him to Jesus.
To witness successfully in the circle where we are best known demands certain conditions. If we meet a stranger and talk with him concerning matters of faith, he has no way of knowing whether or not we are living in conformity with what we are saying. He does not know whether we leave others to do tasks that we should do ourselves. He does not know whether we take overly large portions when others might be hungry. He does not know whether we dawdle in the bathroom while others are waiting. He does not know whether we are quick to defend our proud sensibilities. In short, he has no idea whether or not our life is centered in self or in the Christ of whom we are speaking.
It is true that the first generations of believers in many tribes often come straight out of heathenism, generally by the witness of some outsider who has brought the gospel specifically to them. Much of church history is the story of some alien who entered a certain area with little knowledge of the local language and who preached Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit so that people were saved. Paul, the Jew, took the gospel to the people of Asia Minor, to Macedonia and to Greece. Irenaeus, a Greek, was the first to take the good news to Gaul, which is now France. A Latin from Rome was the first missionary to England, while an Englishman, Boniface, first carried the gospel to Germany.
The moment a man becomes aware that he has been made alive in Christ, there is the urge to let someone else know about it. That urge is as natural as the cry of the newborn infant. When no such desire to witness occurs, there may be a serious question as to whether a stillbirth has taken place instead of the birth of a living healthy babe in Christ.
If abba is a Greek word, how then did it get into our English Bible? The translators who produced the King James Version were the best scholars of the seventeenth century. When they read Romans 8:15, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry-" they must have stopped to think about what really belonged there. Everyone of them probably knew the English equivalent of abba should be translated Daddy or Papa, but no one dared translate this intimate term. Instead, they created a monstrosity by transliterating abba, thereby creating a phrase that is just the opposite of what God desired to convey to His children. When we read that we have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry "Abba, Father," the mind trails off, unaccustomed to the very word which is supposed to suggest intimacy with God, and God is removed from us one degree.
