“Before asking how someone responds to Jesus, we should first ask how the Gospel writer has already introduced that person.”
That single observation has quietly reshaped the way I read the New Testament.
It didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t the result of discovering one overlooked verse or adopting a new theological system. Rather, it grew out of years of reading the Gospels carefully and noticing details that I had often skimmed past. The more I paid attention to the way the biblical authors introduced their characters, the more I began to wonder whether I had been making an assumption that the text itself wasn’t always making.
Imagine a salesperson knocking on your front door.
The assumption behind every cold call is straightforward. The person answering the door knows nothing about what you’re offering. Your task is to introduce yourself, explain the product, and persuade them to become a customer. That approach makes perfect sense—unless you’ve knocked on the wrong door.
What if the homeowner already purchased the product months ago and is simply waiting for it to arrive? What if they have been eagerly anticipating your visit? Suddenly, the conversation changes. You’re no longer introducing something entirely new. You’re announcing the arrival of something that has already become the object of their hope.
That simple observation has led me to ask a question I had never seriously considered.
What if we sometimes read the Gospels as though every encounter with Jesus were a spiritual cold call?
For many Christians, myself included, that assumption is almost invisible. We instinctively read the narratives believing that every significant conversation Jesus has must be describing an initial conversion experience. Every person He meets becomes someone moving from unbelief to belief. Every encounter follows essentially the same pattern.
But what if the Gospel writers are telling a more varied story?
What if some of the people Jesus encountered had already spent years trusting the God of Israel? What if they had built their lives around God’s promises, prayed for the coming of the Messiah, and faithfully waited for His arrival? What if their encounter with Jesus was not the beginning of faith, but the joyful recognition that everything they had hoped for had finally arrived?
Those questions eventually became significant enough that I found myself needing a name for the interpretive habit I was trying to describe.
I began calling it The Cold Call Delusion.
By that phrase I mean this:
The Cold Call Delusion is the assumption that every significant encounter with Jesus or the apostles should be interpreted as an initial conversion experience rather than first asking what kind of spiritual response the biblical authors are actually describing.
Notice what this definition does—and does not—claim.
It is not a denial that every person ultimately needs Christ. The New Testament clearly proclaims that salvation comes through Him alone. Nor is it an attempt to weaken the Church’s calling to proclaim the gospel. Those convictions remain central to historic Christianity.
Instead, the phrase describes what I believe is an interpretive habit. We sometimes approach the narratives with a single category already in mind, and in doing so we risk flattening the rich variety of responses the Gospel writers actually record.
The New Testament describes people coming to Jesus in many different circumstances. Some clearly encounter Him as unbelievers. Others are confronted over hypocrisy. Some are called to repentance. Others receive deeper understanding. Still others appear to recognize in Jesus the fulfillment of promises they have trusted for years. Those are not identical moments, and the Gospel writers rarely present them as though they are.
That realization led me to adopt one reading habit that has transformed the way I approach the Gospels.
Read the Character Before the Conversation
When I encounter a familiar story, I now try to ask one question before I read the dialogue:
How has the Gospel writer already introduced this person?
It sounds almost too simple.
Yet that one question often slows me down enough to notice details I had overlooked for years. Rather than assuming every character begins in the same spiritual condition, I allow the narrator’s description to shape my expectations before Jesus ever speaks.
Once I began reading this way, a host of familiar questions started surfacing.
How does Luke introduce Simeon (Luke 2:25) before he ever sees the infant Jesus?
Why does he describe Anna (Luke 2:36) the way he does?
What assumptions are we supposed to make about Nathanael (John 1:45)? About John the Baptist (John 1:6)? About Nicodemus (John 2:23-3:2)? About the disciples themselves (John 1:40-41)?
These are not merely theological questions. They are literary ones. The Gospel writers carefully choose how they introduce each character, and those introductions become part of the story they expect us to read.
If we rush past them, we may unintentionally miss clues that were meant to shape everything that follows.
Simeon: A Simple Example
Consider Simeon in Luke 2.
Before Simeon ever lays eyes on Jesus, Luke pauses to introduce him. He tells us that Simeon was righteous and devout. He tells us that he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. He tells us that the Holy Spirit was upon him and that God had revealed he would not die before seeing the Lord’s Messiah.
Only after establishing those details does Luke describe Simeon’s encounter with the infant Christ.
That order strikes me as significant.
Luke could have simply introduced Simeon as an elderly man visiting the temple that day. Instead, he deliberately tells us who Simeon already is before Jesus enters the scene. He gives readers information that shapes how we understand the encounter that follows.
I think Luke is inviting us to ask an important question:
Why did he introduce Simeon this way?
That question doesn’t settle every theological debate, nor should it. Whether or not you ultimately agree with my conclusions, it does encourage us to pay closer attention to the narrative itself before we begin supplying our own assumptions.
Learning to Read More Slowly
Over the years I’ve become convinced that many familiar New Testament passages become richer when we resist the urge to place every story into the same category.
Sometimes Jesus is announcing good news to those who have never believed.
Sometimes He is exposing hardened unbelief.
Sometimes He is calling covenant people to repentance.
Sometimes He is revealing Himself to men and women who have spent their lives waiting for Israel’s promised Redeemer.
The question is not whether people ultimately need Christ.
The question is whether every narrative is describing the same kind of spiritual moment.
That distinction may appear subtle, but I believe it changes the way we read the Gospels, the book of Acts, and ultimately the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. It encourages us to pay attention not only to what people say to Jesus, but also to how the inspired authors describe them before the conversation ever begins.
Why I’m Writing These Essays
For more than twenty years I’ve been wrestling with these questions—as a pastor, a teacher, and a student of Scripture. Along the way I’ve discovered that many passages become clearer when we slow down and allow the biblical authors to guide our reading instead of assuming we already know what kind of story we’re about to encounter.
These essays are an invitation into that process.
In the months ahead we’ll explore characters such as Simeon, Anna, Nathanael, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, Cornelius, Apollos, and many others. We’ll ask why the Gospel writers describe them the way they do. We’ll consider how the New Testament uses words like saved, faith, repentance, and believe in different contexts. Most importantly, we’ll keep returning to the same simple question:
What is this biblical author inviting us to notice?
I don’t expect every reader to agree with every conclusion I eventually reach. That’s not the point. My hope is something much simpler: that together we will learn to read the Gospel narratives a little more slowly, paying closer attention to the clues their authors have placed in front of us.
If that happens, I suspect we’ll discover that some familiar passages have been waiting patiently to surprise us.
About the Author
Gregory D. Hall is the author of the forthcoming book The Cold Call Delusion: Rethinking Conversion, Evangelism, and Discipleship Through First-Century Eyes (ColdCallDelusion.com) and the host of the Rethinking Scripture podcast. He writes about biblical theology, the Gospels, and the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.
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Reading the Character Before the Conversation
Related Concepts
The Cold Call Delusion
The central framework behind this series. The Cold Call Delusion is the assumption that every significant encounter with Jesus or the apostles should be interpreted as an initial conversion experience rather than first asking what kind of spiritual response the biblical authors are actually describing. Visit the related website: ColdCallDelusion.com
Recognition
How the New Testament sometimes describes people recognizing promises already believed rather than beginning faith for the first time. Visit the related website: ColdCallDelusion.com
Faithful Remnant
The faithful men and women who were already trusting God and awaiting the Messiah, prior to meeting Jesus. Visit the related website: ColdCallDelusion.com