10/28/14 Alan early 20’s
I
reached out to a man named Alan while shopping at a Menards store. In answer to my question about eternity, he
told me he believes in reincarnation.
There was a time when one might have just shot down this belief as
unbiblical, but we live in an increasingly post-Christian era where simple appeals
to the authority of the Bible often fall flat. Like Paul in the Athenian
marketplace (Acts 17), we also need to “reason” with people to help them see
the errors in their thinking.
Reincarnation is easily discredited because, while people who hold to it
believe in eternal life, they ultimately realize that this cycle of rebirth can’t
continue forever, that there must be a purpose to it all, and there is still
some sort of judge who decides people’s fate based on their behavior. Alan hadn’t really thought through the
implications of what seemed like a cool alternative to the Catholic faith he
had grown up in, and quickly abandoned this untested idea to consider the
uncool realities of sin and his need for repentance and forgiveness. More and more we need to “reason” with people
in sharing the Gospel, and in order to do so we need to be willing to ask good
questions, to be good listeners, and to be able to compare their beliefs to the
truths of the Bible.
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