Faith

Insights On Sharing Our Faith With Non Christians

by John Clark 
05/25/17
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Recently I initiated a discussion of a spiritual nature on a website that has a forum. This was an opportunity to present spiritual truth. It also revealed how much godless philosophies have taken over the minds of many people. Some of the posters were advancing strange teachings and myths. This exact thing is spoken of in several passages of scripture: I Timothy 1:3-4 says "...instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths..." II Timothy 4:3-4 further states, "For the time will come when {people} will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths." (I happened to notice that this is a fulfillment of prophecy. "For the time will come...")

This discussion involved myself and to or three other Christians conversing with several posters who were very anti-God, anti-Bible, and anti-Christian. I found out after the fact that one of them was involved in Wicca.  The conversation got nowhere, turning into "fruitless discussion" (I Timothy 1:6) and "empty talkers" (Titus 1:10).

Even though this being the case, we as Christians need to be engaging the godless culture with spiritual truth. As we do this we must be very discerning in what we say, realizing that the gospel should be preached "not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void" (I Corinthians 1:17). Our message and preaching must not be in "persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that {one's) faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God" (I Corinthians 2:4-5). 

It must further be kept in mind that the "natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised" (I Corinthians 2:14). As it says in II Corinthians 4:4, "...the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

However, the unbelieving have no excuse. Romans 1:20 succinctly states, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what he has made, so that they are without excuse."

Scripture also teaches, though, that we are to reason with non-Christians. Acts 17:2-3 tells us that the apostle Paul "reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and giving evidence..." All of us as believers have been told in I Peter 3:15 to "always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you." A recent title of an article read, "Evangelism is spelled APOLOGETICS." This means knowing why we believe what we do. The implication of this is that we must not allow ourselves to become programmed to believe a certain way just because a religious denomination says it's so. 

While talking to unbelievers it is necessary to be patient and gentle. II Timothy 2:25 is a reminder to use "gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth." 

On the other hand, however,  it is important to "refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels" (II Timothy 2:23). The fact of the matter is that many non-believers have no belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible. Neither do they have any belief in the divinity of Jesus, namely that he was and is the son of God in human flesh. Until one gets to this point conversations may seem to be futile and not going anywhere. 

This does not mean, however, that scripture verses should not be used! As I said earlier, the power of conviction is in the word of God, not in what we say. We must continually remind ourselves of the words of Isaiah 55:11, "So shall my word be which goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."

In conclusion, we must understand what we are up against when we share our faith and beliefs, but with the awareness that God's Holy Spirit can work in a person's life to bring about conviction. It is not our job as Christians to convert people, nor can we; it IS our job to share our faith. It is our responsibility to share spiritual truth in the face of the opposition of strange doctrines, myths, empty talkers, and foolish and ignorant speculations. 

This forum discussion had a handful of people who were opposing everything we Christians said, and they were using every excuse in the book for not believing. In reality, they did not WANT to believe. For example, one of them challenged me to present a list of secular scientists who believe in creationism. I gave a webpage of 200 such scientists! The poster responded by saying that they were not REAL scientists. 

Out of this, however, also came several Christians who banded together. Even though it was tough going with the very vocal mockers, I rejoice in the fact that the thread on the forum was read by several hundred people who, even though they did not enter into the discussion, were exposed to the truth of scripture.