RD kicks off the episode by sharing
what evangelism actually is. Greg joins the conversation by talking about
what Jesus says about Himself because as Greg and RD affirm, you have to believe in Jesus and who He said He was in order to evangelize to others. The starting place has to be your own faith, both pastors communicate, because the Holy Spirit has to be the one to guide you through evangelism.
Greg brings up how to present a vision of God's law in a time when so many people's ruling ethic is "Well that may be true for you, but it's not true for me." RD adds that we have to find a way to approach people who don't believe in God's laws, because using the argument that you just have to believe just because it's from God won't work for most non-Believers. If someone isn't a Christian, RD says, then they probably won't understand why the Bible is authoritative.
Greg references
Mere Christianity as a way to show that every person is born with a moral "ought." He goes on to say that you can start evangelizing to someone based on this "ought." RD then responds by sharing that everyone needs to fill in the gap of their morality somehow, and evangelism is showing that person how to fill in that gap with Christianity. RD also asserts that it's not your job to convert someone,
that's the Holy Spirit's job. Your job is to plant that seed and help them down that path with the Holy Spirit. Greg discloses that when we are sharing the Gospel with someone, we have to appeal to their sense of justice and show how God is not a
"Santa Claus God" who lets things slide but instead is the epitome of justice, as well as mercy.
Greg and RD then spend some time talking practical things to do before and during evangelism, like studying the Bible and
books about the Bible, and praying in the moment.
In closing, Greg brings up a
quote by Tim Keller sharing that we are worse than we think we are, but Jesus is better than we could have ever hoped for.
RD and Greg will be doing a livestream episode (most likely via Zoom) at the end of May. To submit your questions for this episode, email offstage@fellowshipknox.org
