Is it a sin to not share the gospel?

My answer may surprise you. Before I give you that answer, let me share a couple of illustrations.

Let’s say you were walking down a street and heard someone screaming. You ran to them to see that they were standing in front of a house that was on fire. You were told there were people in that home. So, you just turned around and walked away. Would that be wrong?

Or perhaps you are a brilliant scientist who discovered a cure for cancer. You yourself had cancer and were desperate for a way to get rid of this dreaded disease. You developed a pill that if taken one time would eradicate all the cancer in a person’s body. So, you swallowed the pill and were cured, yet you never told anyone else about it. Would that be wrong?

Of course, both of these things are very wrong–in some ways even criminal. I think you can see where I am going with this.

Here we are as Christians, who know how a person can have their sins forgiven and find the hope of Heaven, and we don’t share that with others? That’s even worse than not helping the people in the burning house or the ones who have cancer. Not sharing our message has eternal ramifications.

So, back to my original question: is it a sin to not share the gospel?

I believe it is.

There are different kinds of sins: the sins of commission and the sins of omission. A sin of commission is knowing what is wrong and doing it anyway. It’s crossing a line that God has drawn. It’s disobeying His commandments. In contrast,the sin of omission is knowing what is right and not doing it.

The Bible says, “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them” (James 4:17 NIV).

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