Lessons from the Life of Bill Bright | Bill Wolfe

Learn more about the Jesus Film: 

https://www.jesusfilm.org/

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Mr. Bill Wolfe from the Jesus Film Project. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Wow. Thank you. Yeah. So, Mr. Bill, you have been with Crew Campus Crusade for Christ for many years, recruited by Mr. Bill Bright, great evangelist who started this organization that now has had impact around the world. Kind of take us back to the beginning. How did you get involved with the ministry?

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (00:40):
Well, I was the radically converted heathen at the university. When someone received Christ, that was my friend, and he had a little booklet called Before Spiritual Laws. When I wondered what had happened in his life, he said, listen, I’ve got something. Let me show you. It might explain better than I can explain it. So he went and got the booklet. He actually read through this little white colored book. That’s way, way, way back in the sixties when I was a college student, and we got to the end and he said, have you ever heard anything like this before? No. You think you understand why you need Jesus as your savior? I said, yeah, I think I understand it. He says, well, when do you think it’d be the best time to make that kind of a decision? I said, well, I guess right now. So I bowed my head and trusted Jesus right there with him. He led me to Jesus that day. He went,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:26):
How old were you at that time?

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (01:27):
19. 19.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:28):
19. Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (01:29):
I didn’t know anything. I didn’t come from any kind of a Christian family, no Bible, no church, no Christian family. It was all brand new. So he goes through reassurance with me how I could know Christ in my life, how I know my sins were forgiven, how I knew I could have eternal life. And then he says, well, now do you have a Bible? I said, well, no, I’ve seen a Bible, but I don’t have a Bible. Okay, good. I’ll get you a Bible. Why don’t we get together tomorrow morning and I’ll get you a Bible. We can start in the Bible. Alright. So we get together the next morning and he brings me one of these green pocket New Testaments that the Gideons use.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:01):
Now

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (02:02):
I’d seen a Bible, and the Bible I saw was big and black and this big, but he’s handing me something. He’s calling the Bible and it’s this little square thing that’s green. I said, well, is that the whole Bible? He says, no, that’s not the whole Bible. That’s the New Testament. There’s also an Old Testament. So my question was, okay, well which one’s better? The Old Testament of the New Testament. He says, ah, they’re both good. We’re going to start with the new part. So he met with me for the next three months,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:33):
Five

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (02:33):
Days a week, 30 minutes a day,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:37):
Helping

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (02:37):
Me begin to grow in my faith. After two and a half weeks, he says to me, well, part of what this means to know Jesus is to pass it on to somebody else, and on Thursday I’m going to go tell somebody that came to one of our meetings a little bit more, try to answer their questions. Why don’t you come along? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’d have any answers. No, no. You just come along. So I did. I’m two and a half weeks old as a Christian. I’m out there. We’re telling this other person about Jesus. We got to the end, and honestly, the guy we were talking to, he really was not that interesting. He wasn’t. At the end of the time, he looks over at me and he says, well, now what about you? Did you actually believed this stuff? And all I could say was two and a half weeks ago, I asked Jesus to come into my life, to be my savior, to forgive my sins, and to give me eternal life. And that’s all I knew about coming to know Jesus.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:31):
Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (03:31):
That was my first time to tell anybody else about Jesus.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:34):
Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (03:34):
Two and a half weeks ago,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:36):
And now you’ve been telling people about Jesus all over the world. We

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (03:40):
Have.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:40):
Let’s talk a little bit about the Jesus film.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (03:44):
Okay.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:44):
It’s had a big impact. Tell us a little bit about what it’s accomplishing.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (03:49):
Well, what we found was this, what it first started, no one had any idea of what it was going to do. Okay. It was a film. It really was not that successful in the us didn’t see that much in terms of response, but people started asking for it around the world because we were willing to put it in another language, another language. And so at the beginning it was just people involved with Campus Crusade around the world, but then others would hear about it being used in that country. So we started to get requests from all these different parts of the body of Christ saying, well, now could we use it and what we’re doing in evangelism. So we had our friends from the Assemblies of God that asked us could they use it. We had our friends from the Baptist, could they use it? People from ministries doing evangelism. The children asked us, people doing television and radio started to ask us, and we realized that we had a tool that was not just a tool for us, but God had given it to us so that we could give it away to the body of Christ. What I cannot tell you is yes, it’s being used in every country of the world,

(04:56):
Every, and there are more than 1800 different denominations and organizations that are using it in what God has called them to do. It could be children’s ministries, it could be a denomination, could be a church planter, it could be an evangelist. Lots of different folks have come, and I keep asking them, why do you want to use this film? I get the same answer everywhere in the world. This is what they tell me. Well, bill, it’s visual first. People can see it. And I don’t think I really understood what that meant about seeing it. One Bible translator with Wycliffe and SIL told me, he said, oh yeah, bill, we have to have something visual.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:42):
He

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (05:42):
Said, now wait a minute. You guys do written translate. Why do you need this film? He says, well, we try to explain to somebody in writing what is a donkey, but they’ve never seen a donkey. And they said, well, it’s kind of like a zebra no stripes. He said that when they see it, they get it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:02):
So

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (06:02):
They see it’s visual. It’s oral, so you don’t have to be able to read. It’s just the word of God from the Book of Luke, and it’s in their heart language. Heart language. Okay. That’s what others tell us why they want to use it. Okay. The heart language thing, I don’t think we really, at least I didn’t understand why that was so important. One explained it to me this way, bill, we might know three or four languages, but the very first language we learned, we call our heart language what we learned on our mother’s knee. When we hear something in that language, it touches us on a level that no other, nothing else does. We could know words in another language, but when we hear it in our heart language, it so visual, it’s oral. It’s just the word of God and it’s in their heart language. That’s what people tell us is the reason they want to keep using it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:58):
Yeah. Campus Crusade was started by Dr. Bill Bright, and you got to spend a lot of time with him.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (07:04):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:05):
What were some of the lessons you learned from being around

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (07:09):
From

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:09):
Dr. Bright

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (07:10):
Bill? With Bill Bright, the power to do ministry came from an overflow of the spirit’s work in our life. Every time we would meet as the global leaders, he would come back to making sure there was nothing blocking your relationship with God. All sins were confessed. You knew the Holy Spirit was in control of your life and nothing blocking your relationship with another person. Long before he talked about strategy or what was happening in ministry or where we would go or planning, he would make sure the people in the room were right with God and right with each other. He called it roof off walls, down

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:50):
Roof

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (07:50):
Off. Nothing blocking your relationship with God, walls down, nothing blocking your relationship with another. He used to use this joke every time, same joke. He said, alright, I want you to take a piece of paper and write. Now I want you to write down any sins that God would bring to your mind right now that you need to confess any unconfessed sins. Write ’em down right now. Then he would say, oh yeah. If you need more paper, I’ll get you more paper. Yeah. Yeah. He would same everything. Okay. But for him, it was all of ministry was an overflow of the spirit’s work within us that gave us the power. He’d go back to the disciples that had denied Jesus, but when they were filled with the spirit, they were different people. So that was the starting point with him. Yes. He had a strategy to get to the whole world.

(08:39):
Yes. He saw this film was going to be a tool that could be used. The thing that we discovered many years later was that people were keeping track of how often it was being shown, and we were greatly surprised when the Guinness Book of World Records came to us and they said, I think we’ve discovered there’s an award that belongs with you. We were a little surprised, and then the guys from the Guinness Book said, well, we keep track of how many languages a film is translated into. We thought this award was supposed to go to Warner Brothers. So because you worked with them at the beginning of making the film. So we gave this award to Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers came to us and said, no, no, no. It’s probably the Jesus film then responsible. So yes, it is recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most translated film in history as of today, 2,274 languages.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:38):
Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (09:39):
So just that it’s not that this film is so deserving, it’s that any film on the life of Jesus would be that most translated film in history. That’s the exciting

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:51):
Part. Do you have any idea of how many total people have watched it over the years?

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (09:56):
Yeah, people have told us it’s very hard because now people download it from the internet. They put it on their computer and they put it on their phone,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:05):
Which actually I did today. So we’re here in PIs Lu Thailand, and we’re doing a gospel festival today, and we’re going to show a little piece from the Jesus film. And so I went on the website, I downloaded it, and you can do it in a bunch of different languages. And so I downloaded it in the Thai language, and that’s what we’re going to show

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (10:26):
Tonight.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:27):
So this is a great tool for evangelists to use. They can show the whole film, show a piece of the film, use it to illustrate something they’re talking about.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (10:35):
Yeah. What we found is we made a decision way back that we would make it available to the body of Christ at no cost. And that’s one of the reasons I think God, us honored it, is that we would give it away at no cost. Okay. Total viewing audience. What we’ve been told by the Guinness Book folks is that over the history of more than 40 years, so many have seen it two in 10 and 20 and some hundreds of times. Okay. The total viewing audience they tell us is 11,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:08):
11 billion. Wow. 11 billion people,

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (11:12):
11 billion viewers

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:13):
Or 11 billion views,

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (11:14):
Viewings of the

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:15):
People. Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (11:16):
Yeah. So okay, we got a long ways to go and a lot of people that have never seen it, but that’s what tells us, this is what God has designed. We would’ve never done this. We would’ve never had this kind of an idea. God took this little tool because it was just the Book of Luke, the gospel on film, in their own language, in their own language that they could see and hear, and we could offer it as our contribution to the body and how they might be affected in evangelism.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:46):
Amen. How many years have you been with Crew now?

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (11:51):
I started a long time ago. I’m finishing my 55th year.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:55):
55th year.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (11:56):
Yeah. When I started, bill Bright handed me a sheet of paper. He never told me it was an application to come on staff with crew. He never invited me to come with crew. He said, why don’t you come help fulfill the grade commission? What’s your plans for graduate school on hold and just come and join us to help fulfill the great commission. He asked me a question I couldn’t answer. He said, what will you do with your life that’ll last forever? And I didn’t have an answer. And then he hands me this sheet of paper and says, why don’t you come and help fulfill the great commission?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:31):
Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (12:32):
That was a long time ago. The Lord’s been so good to us all the way along the way, taking care of us, provided for us, giving us opportunity to do what he’s called us to do. But now just to be a little part of what he’s doing is the most exciting.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:45):
Tell me some more testimonies of what you’ve seen God do over the

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (12:49):
Years. Well, what I can tell you is yes, it’s used in every country. And yes, it’s been used by children’s ministries to do evangel. Yes. It’s been used by almost every group that’s out there trying to plant churches where there is no church.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:03):
It’s

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (13:03):
Been a door opener. When you can offer something in a heart language, you’re really able to connect. You’re not seen as an outsider. So we’ve been able to see it used every country. When I say yes, even the most difficult places in the world. But it’s amazing because in some places, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen a film. I’ll give you an example. We were in Tanzania introducing two new languages up near Lake Victoria, the Kawa and the Zaki language. And these are people that had never heard the gospel. It was the first time seeing this film. Sometimes crazy things happen during this because the film is on a huge screen in an outdoor setting and it’s life size lifecycle. So there are some places where they’ve never seen a film and they’re watching this and they think it’s happening right in front of them. We’ve had times in Africa where they’re watching the film. It’s the first film they’ve ever seen, and people out of the crowd pick up spears and throw it at the screen trying to stop the people that are crucifying Jesus. They think it’s happening in front of them. It’s the first time, okay,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:16):
Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (14:17):
In that crowding.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:18):
Don’t worry, it comes back to life. Its

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (14:19):
Okay. It’s okay. That’s what happens sometimes when he’s crucified, people think the film is over and they get up to leave and we have to turn it off and tell them, no, keep coming back. He comes

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:32):
Back.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (14:33):
Other times, there have been situations. I’m sitting there for this first showing with a Cabo language in Tanzania, and I’m in the back of the crowd. There’s about 400 sitting on the ground at night in an open air setting. The guy in front of me had been a part of the reporting team, so he knew English and the language that was being presented in front of him were two that were there listening for the first time. As soon as the film started, the two in front of him began to talk with each other. And I’m curious, and I said, well, tell me what are the two in front of you saying as they’re watching this film? And he leans back and he starts to laugh. I said, no, no, no. Tell me. What are they saying? He says, well, the one guy’s saying to another guy, well, now how did Jesus learn our language? Was he in your village? Was he in your village?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:19):
Was he

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (15:20):
In your village? Because they’ve never seen a film with someone like that who could speak their language.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:25):
Wow. So tell me a little bit about the app, the Jesus Film app, because that’s really cool.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (15:31):
Alright. The app is what we decided to do, to put online, to make it available as far and wide as possible. Here’s how I started to use it. The first week I downloaded it, put it on my phone. Someone said, well, if you ever have a chance to talk with someone who maybe their first language is in English, see if they’d be willing to watch a segment of the film. Alright. So I was at the American Bible Society meeting with their leaders in Philadelphia. We got done with our meetings. I get in an Uber going back to the airport, alright, well, the guy driving the vehicle, I could tell he has an accent maybe from North Africa somewhere there. So we talk and find out about his family and about his children and how long he’s been here. And then I say, well, now when you grew up, what language did you first speak?

(16:16):
And he said, oh no, you wouldn’t understand. Is it like Arabic standard? Oh no, no, no, no. It’s a minor language. Oh, what’s it called? I’m sitting behind him. He’s driving the car in front of me. He tells me the name of the language. Okay. So I go on the Jesus film map. I go to Algeria where he is from. I scroll down the languages, I find his language. I pick a two minute segment, I turn it on and I put it up behind his ear and he turns around and he says, that’s my language. I said, no, no, don’t turn around. Just keep driving. Just keep driving. He says, how did you get my language? There are no films in my language.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:54):
So

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (16:54):
He listened to it. The two minutes, would you like to listen to another segment? Oh yes, I’d like to listen to it. So it’s in 61 segments. So I picked another segment, turned it on, put it up behind his ear.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:05):
Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (17:06):
We get to the airport, he said, could I have this entire film? Oh yes. If you just put in your phone or put in your email, I’ll send you the entire film. As I’m walking away to the airport, he says to me, is it okay if I send this back to my family in Algeria?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:26):
Wow.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (17:26):
So it’s a tool that gives you a language more than 2000 languages. You’re probably never going to bump into someone who doesn’t speak one of those. You have now a tool in your hand with that Jesus film app. You can share the gospel with anybody.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:42):
So I really think every evangelist should put the Jesus film app on their phone so that they’re ready to share the gospel in any language. If you’re going to a different country, you can pull up a list of all the different languages that are spoken in that country. And so even if you meet someone who maybe doesn’t speak the main language of the country, you probably have one of the languages that they do speak.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (18:08):
They do.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:09):
And it’s a tremendous tool, and I love preaching from it. From the website, you can download segments of the Jesus film available in different languages, and that’s a great preaching tool. And so this is something that evangelists can use to help spread the gospel. They

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (18:26):
Can. What we found with some of the evangelists involved in some of the global evangelism networks is that they’ll go to an area, but the people they’re preaching to know three and four and five languages. And so sometimes they’ll take the film and they’ll say, we’re going to preach one night, but after we preach, we’re going to show the film in this language. And then they’ll come a second night, and after tonight we’re going to show the film in a second language and then a third language. So they can offer a resource in addition to what they’re preaching, goes along exactly with what they’re saying. Gives them a chance to invite a crowd back to watch the film.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:59):
And we’re also using the backpack units here in Thailand. Your team has distributed these to churches all over Thailand. And so we set up one of the backpack units recently and people were sitting and watching it and just enjoying the story of Jesus.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (19:22):
What we found is this, there were three things that make it available everywhere in the world. Yes, it’s a visual, oral tool. So it’s a gospel tool, alright. It’s in their heart language. And the third part was we had to make sure we had the technology to deliver it everywhere. So if you’ve got a phone, then whether you’re probably in the first developed world, the most developed world, you’ve got a tool on their phone.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:49):
Sure.

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (19:50):
What do we use for those places where there’s no internet,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:53):
Where

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (19:53):
There’s no electricity? That’s where we had to come up with equipment, technology that would enable people to go to the most remote, the Amazon, Papua New Guinea, no internet, no television, no phone service. So we discovered we could develop a backpack unit that would be solar powered that one person could take that would have a projector, a screen, a solar powered unit so they could go anywhere in the world and one person could take it, share the gospel, even in the most remote part.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:28):
What a tremendous blessing. Well, you have been blessing the churches here in Thailand with these backpack units. If someone’s watching and they would like to sponsor a backpack unit or they would like to be a part of helping to spread the Jesus film around the world, how can they find out more information?

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (20:46):
Well, they could just go on the Jesus film website, Jesus film.dot org, and you’ll see a place where you could say, yes, I’d like to be a part of this. Sometimes people help with tablets because the tablet going home to home, to home with all the films works. Or sometimes they say they want a whole projector set that would be able to preach to a larger crowd. So if you go on Jesus film.org, great place to look at all the kind of equipment that we need for all the places in the world.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:12):
Awesome. Well, brother Bill, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. You and I have been at different conferences and different countries around the world, and so I’m very honored to now call you my friend. We’ve been in a bunch of countries together. We

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (21:26):
Have,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:26):
And I’m just so excited about everything God is doing through the Jesus film and so appreciate the Ministry of Crew and everything you’re doing around the world. Thank

Bill Wolfe – The Jesus Film (21:38):
You. Well thank you. We love to partner with you that he might be honored.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:41):
Amen. Alright, thank you.