In thinking about communicating the Gospel to such people, let’s look at the Apostle Paul’s address to the Athenians in Acts 17. Three major principles emerge from Paul’s great sermon, which serves as a lesson for us in our ministry to people of other faiths.
You never lighten any load until you feel the pressure in your own soul.
It is impossible for you and me to bear the deafening noise of the world’s heartaches, but there is one place where there is an aggregate, an accumulation, of human suffering—the heart of God.
God takes some of those heartaches and funnels them down into the hearts of His servants so that they might sense His burden and proclaim His message. The Scriptures are full of examples of God’s prophets and apostles beholding a depraved situation and overflowing with compassion and a longing to help.
Paul at Athens is described as “greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols” (Acts 17:16, NIV). This holy anxiety is an indispensable prerequisite to significant communication.
Make sure you feel what you say when talking to people of other faiths. One way to ensure this is to do what Paul did: See and hear. Acts 17 tells us that before Paul preached, he saw the city and dialogued with the people.
Do we hear the cries of the people? The more and the better we hear them, the more and the better they will hear us. Paul’s compassion in seeing the situation and hearing the cry had a lot to do with his relevant response, which was intensely felt by him before it was felt by the people.
Read the rest here https://www.billygraham.org/DMag_article.asp?ArticleID=947
You never lighten any load until you feel the pressure in your own soul.
It is impossible for you and me to bear the deafening noise of the world’s heartaches, but there is one place where there is an aggregate, an accumulation, of human suffering—the heart of God.
God takes some of those heartaches and funnels them down into the hearts of His servants so that they might sense His burden and proclaim His message. The Scriptures are full of examples of God’s prophets and apostles beholding a depraved situation and overflowing with compassion and a longing to help.
Paul at Athens is described as “greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols” (Acts 17:16, NIV). This holy anxiety is an indispensable prerequisite to significant communication.
Make sure you feel what you say when talking to people of other faiths. One way to ensure this is to do what Paul did: See and hear. Acts 17 tells us that before Paul preached, he saw the city and dialogued with the people.
Do we hear the cries of the people? The more and the better we hear them, the more and the better they will hear us. Paul’s compassion in seeing the situation and hearing the cry had a lot to do with his relevant response, which was intensely felt by him before it was felt by the people.
Read the rest here https://www.billygraham.org/DMag_article.asp?ArticleID=947
