Articles
Love For A Soul
The essence of evangelism is not so much “a method” as it is a genuine love and concern for a soul. I think all Christians wish to engage others in genuine spiritual conversations. We likely would feel as Jesus did toward the Samaritan woman: “I have food to eat of which you do not know” (John 4:32). If you have been involved in the teaching and conversion of someone to Christ, you know what Jesus meant.
So what inhibits this desire to help others learn the truth? Some compare saving a person from drowning or fire with saving them spiritually. This analogy falters for this reason: Most people who are threatened physically want to be saved, but this is not true when it comes to their souls. Most who are walking in spiritual death are deceived and don’t realize it. They will resist the efforts of others to save them.
This disinterest or even hostility can be off-putting and cool our efforts to search for prospects, engage in spiritual conversations and develop relationships with lost people. We simply assume that most people don’t want what we are offering, and most of the time we are right.
But so many of our associates are just that – lost. We cannot forget that. We can’t let their self-deception make us callous or retreat in silence. We should forever stand in awe of the apostle Paul who went from city to city, from beating to stoning, from debate to riot, from murder plots to jail to present the gospel to the very people who were perpetrating the violence against him. He saw beyond his own feelings to the eternal lostness of his fellow man.
Paul’s outlook: “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (I Cor. 9:22). And then he said, “Now this I do for the gospel’s sake” (9:23). Jesus had come into the world to deliver the gospel in person, and He died for its sake. Paul endured more than any of us ever will for the gospel’s sake.
If we understand the hope of the gospel, we will try to reach even those who are so deeply in the clutches of Satan that they don’t know they are his captives.
