A pastor named Martin Copenhaver1 went through all four Gospels and counted. Jesus is asked 183 questions over the course of his ministry. He answers three of them directly.
Three. Out of 183.
Meanwhile, Jesus himself asks 307 questions. More than a hundred questions asked for every one he actually answers straight.
Jesus wasn’t running a Q&A booth. He was doing something else entirely, and it turns out that “something else” looks a lot like a skill I spent the past few years learning in a completely different world: sales.
I’ve spent a few years living in two worlds that don’t usually get mentioned in the same sentence: pastoring a church, and working in sales. For a long time I kept those two worlds in separate boxes. One vocabulary for closing a deal, another for talking about Jesus.
Then I started noticing something. A lot of what makes someone good at having an honest, low-pressure conversation in sales is the same thing that makes someone good at having an honest, low-pressure conversation about faith. Not the tactics. The posture underneath them. And it turns out Jesus was doing it long before anyone wrote a book about it.
Here’s what I mean.
Ask Before You Go Deep
Good salespeople don’t open with a pitch. They open with a question that earns the right to keep talking. Something like, “Would it be okay if I asked you a few questions about that?”
Most of us skip this step in faith conversations. We either stay completely silent, or we jump from small talk straight into a spiritual monologue nobody asked for. There’s a better middle path: “Would it be weird if I asked what you think happens after we die?” “Can I ask you something kind of personal?”
That one small move changes everything. Nobody feels ambushed by a question they agreed to answer.
Ask, Don’t Announce
The best salespeople rarely lecture. They ask good questions and let the other person get to their own conclusion.
People trust what they discover far more than what they’re told.
That’s what Jesus was doing with all those questions. He wasn’t stalling, and he wasn’t dodging. He was letting people arrive somewhere themselves instead of just handing them a conclusion to accept or reject.
The same is true in a spiritual conversation. Instead of leading with answers nobody asked for, ask questions that let someone name their own ache. “What’s been weighing on you lately?” “Do you ever think about that stuff?” Then actually listen to the answer instead of waiting for your turn to talk.
Take the Pressure Off, On Purpose
This might be the most surprising thing I’ve learned, and it’s the biggest key to creating real curiosity instead of resistance.
Sometimes the most disarming thing you can say is something like, “It’s totally fine if this isn’t for you,” and actually mean it. It sounds backwards, but taking away the pressure to say yes usually makes people lean in, not pull away.
I think this is one of the most overlooked truths about evangelism. The moment someone senses you need them to respond a certain way, the conversation starts to feel like a pitch, and people can always feel a pitch coming. Robby Gallaty put it well: some gospel presentations sound a lot like a pyramid scheme business pitch, and people walk away feeling like they got sold something.
Curiosity grows in low-pressure rooms. It shuts down in high-pressure ones.
Be Upfront About What You’re Doing
Good salespeople set expectations before a conversation instead of steering it secretly. No hidden agenda, no engineering the discussion to land somewhere the other person didn’t sign up for.
The same honesty works in a faith conversation. Something as simple as, “Hey, I’ve got something on my mind I’d love to get your take on sometime,” is a lot more respectful, and a lot more effective, than quietly maneuvering a conversation toward a conclusion you picked in advance.
You’re Not the One Who Has to Close
Here’s the truth underneath all of it: the moment you feel like you need a certain outcome from a conversation, people can sense it, and it pushes them away.
This isn’t just good practice. It’s good theology. Paul wrote it to the church in Corinth long before anyone was studying sales psychology:
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who gives the growth”
(1 Corinthians 3:6-7).
You were never the one who saves anyone. You never held that job, and you never will. Your part is smaller, and honestly, easier to carry: plant, or water, and trust God with everything that happens after you leave the conversation.
Letting go of the outcome isn’t just a good communication skill. It’s just good theology.
One Thing This Isn’t
I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to read all of this and walk away thinking faith is just a better sales pitch, softer, sneakier, more effective. That’s not what I’m saying, and it’s worth being direct about that.
Jesus doesn’t need a PR team. He’s not a product waiting on better marketing, and the gospel isn’t a message that succeeds or fails based on how skillfully we present it. He was fully alive, fully true, and fully worth following long before anyone studied a single sales technique, and he’ll still be exactly that long after every methodology in this article is forgotten.
What I’m actually talking about is something smaller and more personal: how we treat the people in front of us. Whether we’re honest or manipulative. Whether we’re patient or pushy. Whether we actually listen or just wait for our turn to talk. Those postures matter, not because they’ll help us sell Jesus better, but because they’re simply what it looks like to love someone well while you tell them the truth.
The Takeaway
I don’t think it’s an accident that honest, low-pressure conversation works the same way whether you’re talking about a purchase or about Jesus. Manipulation isn’t the only alternative to silence. There’s a better way to have these conversations, one that’s honest, curious, low-pressure, and trusts God with the outcome instead of you.
You don’t need a script. You just need permission, a real question, and the willingness to let someone else arrive at the truth instead of forcing them there.
Martin B. Copenhaver, Jesus Is the Question: The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 He Answered (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014).