Anybody who has been in Christian circles for any real length of time would have herd the question of evangelism thrown around. What we say. When we say it. Who we say it to. Do we need to say anything at all? etc, etc, etc…
I’m not going to get into the above debate now. Jesus led a perfect life which challenged all he met and he also preached the word wherever he went so that is probably a suggestion in itself that we need to be doing both; living the life and speaking the word, but that is by the by. In Mark 1 I noticed something about how Jesus went about his preaching. Or more specifically where he was preaching.
When Jesus went to a new town he went to the synagogue to teach. I think that one of the main reasons he did this was because he knew that the spiritually aware people would be at the synagogue (of course I’m sure not all the people there were such).
This model was also followed by the apostles. The first place they tended to go to preach the gospel were places where ’spiritual’ people gathered. For example, in Acts 16 it was the riverside where they assumed people would gather for prayer (needing the water for ceremonial washing). Another example is in the very next chapter; Acts 17 talks about Paul’s visit to the Temple of the Unknown God. He simply went and told them who that God was.
So what is my point? I guess my question would be, should we be focusing our attention, for want of a better word, on people who are spiritually awake. I’m not for a second suggesting that we should become people who just wander around preaching at everything that moves. I am a firm believer that relationship and community is the way that God intended us to evangelise the world. Love people first, not because you want to ‘make Christians’ but simply because you love people. But maybe the people we should be pushing more with the ‘hard sell’ could be those we often try to avoid.
The spiritualist, the witches, the astrologers, members of other faiths, etc. These people are spiritually awake. They are aware that there is something beyond themselves. They have belief but their belief is misguided (maybe that is who Paul is talking about in Romans 1:16).
Obviously we need to discern through the Holy Spirit who we should talk to when and about what. But I wonder if those who are ripe for the truth are actually so obviously searching that as Christians we run scared.
Other posts in the Bible Study series.
DetailsRob Borley
January 7th, 2006
Leave a Reply
