Tactics - A Review

“Tactics” by Greg Koukl

Getting into gospel conversations can be daunting. Starting meaningful witnessing conversations with strangers can be a real challenge. Re-engaging with people we have already witnessed to in the past can also sometimes be difficult task.

Good news! Tactics: A Game Plan For Discussing Your Christian Convictions may help!

Gregory Koukl’s book, Tactics, seeks to help Christians make more opportunities in their everyday lives to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a worthwhile goal. Hopefully, we are all seeking to make more opportunities to proclaim the excellencies of our God and Savior.

That being said, I have some qualifications about recommending this book. It has some excellent strengths. But it also has some significant weaknesses. A quick side note: this review is for the original edition of Tactics. There is an updated and expanded version now available.

Greatest Strengths

1. Straightforward, Simple, and Adaptable

I think that my favorite part of Tactics is that the approach fits for anyone who encounters other human beings at any point in their life. That covers just about everybody.

Koukl’s principles don’t require you to be particularly outgoing. It doesn’t require you to memorize a method. At its core, Tactics teaches you to use two primary questions to lead almost any conversation toward the end of confronting them with the truth of the gospel. If you can remember these two basic questions (and you can), you can begin to use these tactics immediately.

There are certainly some parts of the book which may require more time to understand and employ. However, the two questions Koukl uses are powerful. They will help anyone who uses them to be immediately better equipped to create opportunities to share the gospel during the course of their normal, everyday lives.

2. You Don’t Need to Be an Apologetics Expert

Some people think they need to know everything before they start talking to people about Jesus. They don’t want to be embarrassed because they get asked a question they don’t know the answer to. They don’t want to engage someone with strong beliefs without studying up first.

Tactics enables you to confidently speak to anyone without being an expert. What a relief!

Koukl demonstrates persuasively that your time is better spent actually talking to people to find out what they believe rather than reading books about those supposed beliefs. In the real world, very few people hold all the textbook beliefs. Therefore, those who think they need to be experts usually find themselves studying theoretical things that real people may or may not actually believe.

3. Logic

God has designed human beings to be rational. We are thinking creatures. We don’t all use our thinking skills exactly the same way but there are certain principles that apply to all rational creatures. Many Christians have never taken the time to think about how we think.

Part of the Christian call is simply to expose people to the truth. Often conversations about religion can become heated arguments. This is not good.

Koukl makes a strong appeal to Christians to never argue while witnessing. This is good counsel. The point of using logic is to help people we are speaking with to conclude on their own that their own beliefs lack foundation. This is a powerful technique.

There is a big difference between these two scenarios:

Me telling someone they are wrong; and
Me helping someone else (through the use of guiding questions) to see that what they believe is foolish on their own.

The second scenario is much more powerful.

Koukl's questions and his short discussion of basic logical principles makes this second approach a possibility. All without arguing. When done correctly, it is a powerful and persuasive tool for opening the eyes of a person to the error of their current thinking.

When people see that you helped them see the error in their current thinking, they are often open to hearing a new way of thinking. This makes for potentially fertile ground for planting the seed of the gospel.

Greatest Weaknesses

Despite the excellent strengths, this book also has some significant weaknesses. You need to be aware of these.

1. Assumes You Can Faithfully Explain the Gospel Already

While Tactics presents a quality approach for creating opportunities to share the gospel, it does not actually equip you to faithfully proclaim the gospel when the door opens. Therefore, this book should only be used by someone who has already been trained and equipped to faithfully explain the gospel. Otherwise, the opportunities that are created will not be fully taken.

Some people may think that simply having “God” conversations is enough. However, the gospel is a specific message. We owe it to people not to hover around the truth or to only provide bits and pieces. Therefore, if you are not equipped to share the whole truth of the gospel then this is probably not the best place for you to start.

If you want solid teaching on the content of the gospel message itself, check out our reviews of Washer’s Recovering the Gospel series and/or Greg Gilbert’s What is the Gospel? Both of these resources would be a great step toward understanding how to faithfully proclaim the powerful message of the gospel. Then, using Koukl’s tactics to create more opportunities to share this message will be even more fruitful.

2. Can Seem Manipulative

Some readers may find Koukl's approach to be manipulative. It’s true that his questions are powerful. It’s true that the person who uses them can direct and guide a conversation toward the end of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When used appropriately, these can and should be considered strengths. However, if used inappropriately they can indeed be manipulative. This can be particularly harmful if the person using this approach is ill-equipped to faithfully share the good news of Jesus during the course of conversation.

3. Can Rely Too Much on the Human Element

By focusing so much on how the Christian can use this approach to navigate conversations and completely ignoring an explanation of the gospel, this book can lead people to rely fully on the flesh. I highly doubt this is Koukl’s purpose. Even so, it is a real danger.

Christians have a genuine responsibility to walk in obedience to God. The power of God for salvation to all who believe is in the gospel. It is not in our approach. It is not in our flesh. It is not in our methods, intellect, or rhetorical skill.

As a result, a book that assumes we know, understand, and can faithfully articulate the gospel assumes too much. By focusing only on method this approach takes the same criticism that all methodologies take to an even higher level. Not only can this approach become rote and mechanical over time, but for some it may start there!

Concluding Thoughts

I really like Tactics. I know some Christians who really don’t. I can’t blame them. The weaknesses mentioned in this review are significant. This is a resource that I can only recommend with qualification and some reservation.

This book will not be a good resource for everyone. For some people, it is completely unnecessary.

Here’s a brief description of the person I believe this book is best suited for:

If you have studied the gospel and are equipped to faithfully share it;
You’ve shared the gospel with everyone you know (family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc.); and
You’re looking for new ways to approach and engage people you’ve already shared with or people who have shut down your attempts in the past.

If you can check off each of those three qualifications, then I would recommend Tactics to you. If not, I would recommend starting off with The Way of the Master (reviewed here) or Share Jesus Without Fear (reviewed here) to get equipped. Then, if after sharing with everyone you can you find a need for more equipping, give Tactics a read and put these tactics to work for the glory of God.