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World On Our Doorstep



        Arak and Emman,     about 22


How can we share the Gospel with people who have a worldview different from our own?

Two Iranian college students, Arak and Emman (spelling?) were having coffee at a Dunkin’ Donuts and agreed to answer my question about their beliefs. Emman believes “When we die, we die, that’s it” and Arak believes we all have a spirit that lives on after we die, but that we can’t know anything beyond that.

I told them some of the things I know about Iranian spiritual beliefs from previous conversations with Iranian students – about how many view Islam as a colonizing influence over their original Persian culture and Zoroastrian religion.

Sharing what I had learned about their culture did a lot to quickly build up some rapport with them in much the same way that 45 minutes of listening won the trust of a young Buddhist man a few days earlier. It demonstrated that I wasn’t there to blindly preach at them but to truly have a two-way conversation with them.

I believe this to be a biblical form of evangelism in much the same way that Paul demonstrated his knowledge of Athenian culture by referring to their “Unknown God” when he had gone into the marketplace to talk with “those who happened to be there” in Acts 17.

Like Paul, I went on to reason with them not about Jesus, but first about God and His attributes. I needed to build a foundation of who God is before I could hope to explain who Jesus is.

Whether we go into all the world or we go to “all the world” right here on our doorstep, we must be prepared to share the Gospel with people who have a world view very different from our own.          

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