I’m excited that BSF will launch a new Equip series this year on BSFOnline.org called Finding Hope.
BSF has also released a companion booklet, Finding the Hope of the Gospel. Rooted in Scripture, this clear and simple guide explores who Jesus is, what He has done for us, and how we can respond to Him. Our theme this year is Romans 1:16 ("For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes").
As I was thinking about this verse I was reminded of how God's word changes people and what they do with their testimony after an encounter with God, hope you enjoy this little research. I've underlined and italicized the parts that we can also see in ourselves.
The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. - Luke 8:38-39
That verse establishes a three-beat pattern that recurs throughout Scripture: a person meets God in a way that changes them, God (or the moment itself) redirects them toward their own community rather than away from ordinary life, and the person becomes a witness — often an unlikely or socially marginal one — whose testimony precedes and provokes belief in others. What follows traces that pattern across the biblical narrative, grouped roughly by era.
Old Testament Encounters
Hagar (Genesis 16:7–13) meets the angel of the Lord in the wilderness after fleeing Sarai's harshness. She responds by naming God "El Roi" — "the God who sees me" — which functions as her testimony: a permanent, spoken acknowledgment of what happened to her, later reinforced by the naming of the well Beer-lahai-roi.
Jacob (Genesis 28:10–17; 32:22–32) has two God-encounters that bracket his life: the ladder vision at Bethel and the night wrestling at Peniel. Both leave him renamed or reoriented — Bethel becomes a memorial pillar and vow, and Peniel gives him the name Israel, which he carries and which becomes the name of a nation. His testimony is less a spoken sermon than a life reshaped into a monument others could see.
Moses (Exodus 3:1–4:17) meets God at the burning bush and is the clearest Old Testament parallel to the Luke 8:39 pattern: an encounter followed by an explicit commission to go and tell — first Israel, then Pharaoh. Moses's initial reluctance ("who am I?") mirrors the very human hesitancy that shows up again and again in these accounts before the telling actually happens.
Gideon (Judges 6:11–24) encounters the angel of the Lord at the winepress, builds an altar he names "The Lord Is Peace," and the encounter goes public almost immediately when he tears down his father's altar to Baal in front of the town.
Samuel (1 Samuel 3:1–18) is a child when God calls him at Shiloh. His first act of testimony is difficult and small-scale — telling Eli, his mentor, the hard word he's been given — before it grows into a lifelong prophetic voice recognized by all Israel.
Elijah (1 Kings 19:9–18) meets God not in the fire or the wind but in "a gentle whisper" at Horeb. Unlike most figures here, his response is initially private — renewed resolve rather than public proclamation — until he returns to anoint successors and confront kings, carrying the encounter into continued ministry.
Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1–8) sees the Lord on his throne in the temple and responds, "Here I am. Send me." His entire prophetic book is the extended telling: decades of proclaiming what he saw and heard to a nation that largely didn't want to listen.
Jonah (Jonah 1–3) is the most reluctant witness in the Old Testament. His encounter with God — including the ordeal in the fish — eventually produces the exact thing Luke 8:39 describes: he goes and tells Nineveh, and the city believes, even though Jonah resents the outcome.
Daniel (Daniel 7–12) receives visions he doesn't always understand himself, yet is repeatedly told to write them down and, in some cases, seal them for a future audience — testimony deliberately aimed at people not yet born.
Encounters in the Gospels
The shepherds (Luke 2:8–20) receive an angelic announcement at night and go, "spreading the word," so that "all who heard the shepherds' story were astonished." They are the first evangelists of the Gospel narrative and a near-exact structural preview of the Gerasene man forty verses of Luke earlier — ordinary, low-status people trusted with news they then can't keep to themselves.
The man freed at Gerasa (Luke 8:26–39) is the text under study. What makes him distinct is that Jesus actively sends him home rather than letting him follow — testimony among his own people, not celebrity discipleship, is the assignment.
The Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1–30, 39–42) has an extended personal conversation with Jesus that exposes her history and reveals who he is. She leaves her water jar and goes into the town: "Come and see." John records that "many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because of her testimony."
The man born blind (John 9) is healed and then interrogated repeatedly by neighbors and religious authorities. Unlike others on this list, his testimony is forced into a hostile, escalating cross-examination — "I don't know if he is a sinner… all I know is I was blind, and now I can see" — making him a model of a witness who holds to a simple factual claim under pressure rather than theological argument.
The Samaritan leper among the ten healed (Luke 17:11–19) is singled out by Luke for turning back "shouting, 'Praise God!'" and throwing himself at Jesus's feet in gratitude — public, loud testimony in contrast to the nine who simply went on their way healed and silent.
Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1–10) has a shorter, more social encounter — Jesus comes to his house — but the result is a public financial restitution announced to the crowd, a visible testimony rather than a purely verbal one.
Resurrection Witnesses
Mary Magdalene (John 20:11–18) is the first person to see the risen Jesus and is given a direct commission — "Go tell my brothers" — making her, structurally, an apostle to the apostles. Her report, "I have seen the Lord," is the shortest and most direct testimony statement in the resurrection narratives.
The women at the tomb (Matthew 28:1–10; Luke 24:1–11) run from the tomb "with fear and great joy" to tell the disciples, even though the disciples initially dismiss the report as "nonsense" — an early example of testimony being true but not immediately believed.
The two disciples on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:13–35) recognize Jesus only in the breaking of bread, and "got up at once and returned to Jerusalem," unable to wait until morning to tell the Eleven what had happened.
Encounters in Acts
Peter has two major encounters worth noting: Pentecost (Acts 2), after which he preaches to thousands, and the rooftop vision in Joppa (Acts 10:9–23), which he later recounts to the Jerusalem church (Acts 11) to justify preaching to Gentiles — testimony used specifically to defend a controversial theological shift.
Cornelius (Acts 10:1–8, 30–33) receives his own angelic visit instructing him to send for Peter, and he gathers his household and friends to hear Peter's message — his encounter's "telling" takes the form of convening an audience rather than personally preaching.
Saul/Paul (Acts 9:1–19; recounted in Acts 22 and 26) is the most extensively repeated conversion testimony in the New Testament. Paul narrates the Damascus road encounter himself, twice, in his own defense speeches, making him the clearest case of someone whose entire subsequent public life becomes the telling.
The Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–39) has a brief roadside encounter with Philip that ends in baptism, and though Scripture doesn't record him preaching, it notes he "went on his way rejoicing" — testimony implied by transformed demeanor rather than recorded speech, tradition holding that he carried the faith into Ethiopia.
The Philippian jailer (Acts 16:25–34) encounters God through an earthquake and Paul and Silas's response to it, asks "what must I do to be saved," and is baptized along with his household that same night — encounter and testimony compressed into a single night.
The Pattern Across These Accounts
Read together, these figures show that biblical testimony rarely starts with the powerful or the credentialed: a delivered demoniac, a Samaritan woman with a reputation, a formerly blind beggar, shepherds, a tax collector, women at a tomb whose report was initially disbelieved. The most consistent detail — and the one Luke 8:39 states most plainly — is that the first audience is usually the witness's own household or town, not a distant mission field. The telling is local before it is global, and it is frequently unwelcome or disbelieved at first, which does not stop it from being the thing these encounters produce.
