WitnessCoach.com
P.O. Box 9491
Nampa, ID 83652
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Why don’t more Christians share their faith in Jesus Christ? Fear. Many people fear being rejected, and fear not knowing what to say. The lack of confidence in their ability to confidently proclaim the gospel, give a meaningful testimony, and answer false doctrine and excuses with the Bible is at the heart of much of this fear. The Witness Trainer and this website (WitnessCoach.com) were developed as a way of becoming familiar with some easy approaches to begin to share your faith “and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (1 Peter 3:15).
The Witness Trainer is the result of over 3,000 hours of work. It evolved from a training game originally researched and created over the course of five years, culminating in 1999. The original training game had a board on which to move, where players collected scripture cards in which to answer the faulty doctrines and excuses presented by a mix of people.
After many hours of play testing it was determined that the task of collecting and tracking scripture cards became too cumbersome. It was decided then that a computer based exercise would be more successful in teaching witnessing skills, and scripture memorization.
The work on the Witness Trainer you see today was begun in September 2015, and is result of many evenings and weekends in a labor of love. The Witness Trainer has over 12,000 slides and slide layers. While many of these are duplicated in their creation, each slide is unique in its arrangement and usage.
The Witness Trainer was developed using Storyline 2 by Articulate Global, Inc. If anyone questions whether the Lord was “in” this work, we cannot be so arrogant as to say, “Yes”, but we can say that each time a technical issue arose, the answers were found in moments, not days. There was a major ‘last item’ technical issue that arose that even the Articulate support community seemed to admit was insurmountable, and yet there is a rarely used solution in the software that made finalizing the development possible in under an hour.
You might note that the Witness Trainer and this website use the King James Version of the Bible exclusively. This fact leads to the question, “Are you releasing a version of the Witness Trainer using another version of the Bible?” The short answer is, “Probably not anytime soon.” The design of the trainer relies on common keywords and the subtle connecting themes between scriptures. It is not a matter of simply rotating out the King James text and inserting the text of another version. While it sounds simplistic, the saying: ‘Things that are different, are not the same,’ is true. Replacing a text often breaks the logical, thematic, or keyword connections between verses. For this reason, each objection or false doctrine could require a complete re-mapping of the verses that appropriately answer these.
If we look at just a few verses comparing the New International Version (NIV) and the King James Version (KJV), we can see how this would affect the Witness Trainer.
Example 1: Matthew 9:13 in the KJV reads: “But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
The NIV reads: “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Since Matthew is used as a verse in the ‘Sent to Sinners’ and ‘Sinner Repent’ logic responses, an NIV version of the Witness Trainer would require removing this verse as a ‘Sinner Repent’ scripture option. This one verse difference alone affects six slides.
Example 2: John 6:47 in the KJV reads: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
The NIV reads: “Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.”
This verse is used in the following logic responses, ‘Anyone,’ ‘Belief in Jesus,’ ‘Everlasting Life,’ ‘Faith Alone,’ and ‘Sure.’ Since the NIV does not have the words “on me” this verse would need to be removed from the thirteen slides that use ‘Belief in Jesus’. “He that believeth” is a stronger proof that ‘Anyone’ can be saved than “the one who believes” since the NIV does leave the reader with the question, “Am I the one?” If removed from the ‘Anyone’ slides, it would affect an additional ten slides.
Example 3: Acts 8:37 in the KJV reads: “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” This verse is missing completely from the NIV, which affects the same thirteen ‘Belief in Jesus’ and ten ‘Anyone’ slides, and an additional ‘Christ is Son’ slide.
Rather than continue showing dozens of examples of how different versions would affect the scripture proof slides, please understand that each version would have to be customized to work properly, and this is well beyond the scope of work for a single person.