The value of bumper sticker witnesses can be debated, but I know of at least one case where gospel words written on a wall, with no personal speaker present, have changed the course of history.

The Tract League of Grand Rapids, Mich., sent me stamps with a variety of Bible verses on them to affix to my outgoing mail. At first I was excited when I spotted them in the envelope and quickly looked for the “45 cents” printed on the top right-hand corner, but of course it was not there. Then I had to decide whether I would bother using the sticky gospel quickies when I pay my Sears bill. (Funny, I would have jumped at the chance for the monetary value but hesitated when it offered only evangelism value.)

Religious stamps remind me of religious bumper stickers, and I have mixed feelings about those. It is only partly because I sometimes do the “Philly slide” through stop signs. I also feel that evangelism is best done in person and not behind tinted windows. Of course, if we never speak about Christ eye to eye, bumper stickers are better than nothing, aren’t they? The person who doesn’t do any kind of sharing of his faith should not feel superior to the person who at least evangelizes in an inferior way.

The value of bumper sticker witnesses can be debated, but I know of at least one case where gospel words written on a wall, with no personal speaker present, have changed the course of history.

My late Korean husband told me about a 19th century Welsh missionary named Robert Thomas, who deeply cared about evangelizing Korea, which was at the time a closed country. He was on board an American ship called the General Sherman that sailed up the Taedong River toward Pyongyang uninvited, and was summarily burnt down by the natives.

But a Bible tossed overboard ended up in the hands of a local who wallpapered his house with its pages. Koreans came from miles around to see the man’s strange Chinese language decor. The seed was thereby planted and the hermit kingdom began to open itself to Christ. Not many years later there was a mass movement of Koreans into the church, known today as the Great Pyongyang Revival of 1905.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout … so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).

How about this one for Sears: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” (Psalm 33:12)?

@Copyright 2012 WORLD Magazine – used with permission