Anglican Perspectives

Why we should share Christ with others: Because we love them

Several weeks ago I had a wonderful conversation with the friend of my college age daughter. She and my daughter room together, and the Asheys were enjoying a visit to their new apartment near campus. My daughter’s friend and roommate is Jewish, but decidedly agnostic after biblical and Rabbinical studies in a seminary.  My daughter has been sharing Christ with her friend for almost two years now.  While she and the rest of the family were hanging new pictures on the wall, I sat down with her friend and just inquired into her life, her studies, and her interests.

 

We soon discovered that we share an interest in counseling and “healing emotional wounds.” One thing led to another, and I saw an opportunity to share about how Jesus Christ can actually be truly present with us in the process of inner emotional healing through prayer and counseling.  She immediately engaged me about Jesus, because she had never heard anything like that from anybody.  So for the next two hours we talked about Jesus—who Christians and Jews believe him to be, what the Bible actually says about Jesus, who he himself claimed to be, how to make sense of the Trinity, the problem of pain and evil, and more. It was an honest, courteous and challenging exchange.  It was truthful and loving.  I came to know my daughter’s friend in a new light, and to appreciate the way her questions challenged me to articulate my faith in a more coherent way. I know from comments my daughter shared with me later that her friend felt cared for in the conversation too.

 

I’m a great fan of James Engel’s Whatever Happened to the Harvest? and how he defines evangelism on a “scale” or spectrum. So, for instance, if we find someone at the far end of the scale as a hardened atheist and through loving conversations about Jesus help them move to becoming an agnostic who admits the possibility of the existence of God—well, that’s evangelism!  It’s moving people towards a personal commitment to follow Jesus isn’t it? Sometimes it’s helping to move someone from atheist to agnostic, or from questioning the claims of Jesus to praying the sinner’s prayer. But in every case it’s about sharing Christ with others, and the difference he has made in our lives because we love and care about them.

 

I used to be afraid that if I made a mistake, couldn’t answer an objection, or irritated someone by sharing Christ I might turn them away forever.  That fear paralyzed me, until the LORD took me to I Corinthians 3:6-7, where Paul says of his evangelistic work “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow…”  (emphasis added). Our responsibility as followers of Jesus Christ is to look for the opportunities in conversations to share about Jesus, and to do so lovingly, courteously, honestly, with an ear tuned to the needs and questions of the person we are sharing with and a heart of love for them.  If anything, my conversation with my daughter’s friend reminded me that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care!

 

But in the end it’s God who gives the increase. So we can be confident in lovingly and winsomely sharing Christ with others precisely because we love them and care about their eternal destiny!

 

I was saddened to read the article published by the Christian Post on May 23 in which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was quoted as saying that Christians should not initiate conversations about Jesus Christ with people of other faiths.  If true, this would be a retreat from Christ’s Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20 to go and “make disciples” of Jesus Christ, of ALL nations.  Worse than that, it would actually be an expression of not caring for and loving the other person. As Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, a converted Muslim and now Christian apologist has shared publicly:

 

“As a Muslim, I believed if a Christian was not willing to share their faith with me, then either they didn’t really believe it, or they didn’t care if I went to Hell. ‪#‎SeekingAllahFindingJesus”

 

Of course, I can imagine some situations where it is positively dangerous to share our faith in Christ—in places where such sharing can bring either persecution or death. Fortunately, that is not the case in North America.  But even in places where it is the case, I am convicted by Christians from St. Francis to the martyrs on the beach in Libya who were willing to give up their lives to proclaim Jesus Christ because they loved and cared even for those who would persecute and kill them.

 

In today’s New Testament reading in the Daily Office from Acts 13, I read how Paul initiated conversations about Jesus in synagogues with the Jews until persecution prevented him. But when that happened, he and Barnabas immediately began to initiate conversations about Jesus with the Gentiles.  “And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 13:52)

 

I trust the LORD for the increase. I know he led me gracefully into the conversation with my daughter’s friend.  Because I listened to her carefully and shared about Jesus Christ, I have a new heart and care for her.  We will be visiting her and my daughter again this weekend.  Filled with joy and the Holy Spirit, I am praying for another conversation with her about Jesus.  I hope you will join me in that prayer!

 

 

Phil-Ashey-2014

The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey is President & CEO of the American Anglican Council.

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