New devotional provides biblical encouragement for everyday evangelism

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is releasing a new evangelism devotional at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala., June 11-12. Titled And You Will Be My Witnesses: 31 Devotionals to Encourage a Spirit of Everyday Evangelism, the book features 31 individual devotionals that each exposit a select passage of Scripture from the Gospels and Acts pertaining to evangelism.

Published by Seminary Hill Press, the volume is edited by Matt Queen, Chair of Evangelism at Southwestern Seminary, and Alex Sibley, managing editor of Seminary Hill Press.

“Most, if not all, evangelism devotionals are topical or subjective in their approach,” says Queen. “However, 31 Devotionals differs from other evangelism devotionals in that every day’s entry presents a text-driven application of evangelistic encounters in both the Gospels and Acts.”

Sibley says the devotionals are designed to lead readers in application-based study of the Scripture so that, when read with an open Bible, they will “illuminate the Scripture’s teaching on various aspects of the evangelistic task, highlighting how the likes of Paul, Peter, John, Stephen, Philip, John the Baptist, and even Jesus Himself went about proclaiming the message of God’s salvation for the world.”

“God’s Word has a lot of wisdom and encouragement to offer for the task of evangelism, and this resource aims to bring that wisdom and encouragement to light,” Sibley says. “Our hope is that these devotions will help readers see the heart of God, drive them toward a deeper understanding of His Word, and move them to share the Gospel at every opportunity.”

The devotionals are written by Southwestern Seminary professors, doctoral graduates, and current doctoral students. “Though the devotionals are written by scholars, they are not written in such a way that only scholars can read them,” Queen says. “They are written by everyday evangelists for the benefit of everyday evangelists.”

Contributing authors include Queen, Sibley, D. Jeffrey Bingham, John D. Massey, Carl J. Bradford, and several others.

Visitors to the Southwestern Seminary booth in the exhibit hall at the SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala., will receive a free copy of the book. Those unable to attend can order the book online at SeminaryHillPress.com, where it is already available for preorder.