Thursday, July 25, 2019

Engaging the Lost

After watching several videos from the One for Israel Ministry (www.oneforisrael.org) I began to notice a trend. Many of these Jews who have come to accept Jesus as their messiah declare that they were surprised to learn that Jesus was a Jew. Some chose not to read the New Testament because the rabbis told them not to and they assumed that the New Testament was instructions to Christians to persecute Jews. “Jesus is not for us” is a common theme that these people were taught. So when they began to learn about Jesus being a Jew, and reading the New Testament that is written by Jews and about the Jewish scriptures they were shocked.

I don’t know many Jews, but I encounter plenty of gentiles who speak of God in ways that are inconsistent with who I know God to be. They speak of God as being an evil being and I question how anyone could read the Bible and come to that conclusion. But that’s just it. They haven’t read the Bible. They don’t know my Jesus. These people aren’t rejecting Jesus based on what they know about him but out of their ignorance. They speak as if they know. They speak as if they have read the scriptures. They may even quote from the scriptures, but they haven’t read to understand.

Just as Jews need to be shown passages like Isaiah 53 to help them see that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah, those who hate God need to be shown the scriptures in such a way that they can see that God isn’t what they think he is. We should not assume that just because they say they have read the Bible or that just because they reference scripture that they know what Christianity is about.

I think it is important for us to engage people on social media in such a way as to oppose the sin of the world. The more controversial the more important it is that we engage in these conversations because this is our opportunity to engage the lost. But it must not stop there. It isn’t enough to state that abortion is wrong, the divorce is wrong, that homosexuality is wrong, that the sins of the world are wrong. Doing that will make people angry enough to argue with us, but if we don’t turn the conversation to teaching God’s word then it is of no value. If we do use these conversations to teach God’s word then it can be of great value. These people may never read the Bible except for what we spoon feed them in these conversations. I don’t expect that I will ever win someone to Christ during one of these arguments, but it may convince someone to go read for themselves. If we can do that then they may be persuaded.