Witnessing
to Pagans
For the
first forty years of my life I rarely met somebody who did not know about
God. The Netherlands, where I grew up, for
centuries had been a Christian nation in the sense that most people (or their
recent ancestors) used to belong to a Christian church. In my youth I lived in a ‘protected’
environment, mostly surrounded by people of the same church denomination. With
‘outsiders’ we rarely spoke about our relationship with Christ, although we
might perhaps talk about the Bible or about ‘our’ church.
With some
other young people who wanted to reach the ‘outsiders’ we looked for ways to do
so. Local churches began to organize
evangelism committees, under the supervision and guidance of their
consistories. We experimented with
organized group activities in coffee bars, correspondence courses, and
campground ministry. Yet, somehow, it
felt unnatural as we did not know how to listen and talk to those who did not
know God. Only very gradually did I dare
to take personal initiative in a natural way.
After I had
been a teacher -living independently- for two years, I went on holidays to
Norway. In the International Youth
Hostel of Oslo I met a young guy from France, Nils, who was also traveling by
himself. He knew where he was going, and
he agreed that I travel there with him.
In the town of Linge he had family friends, whom he wanted to
visit. I joined him on his quest, and
after a while we met the folks that he was looking for. They invited us in and shared a fantastic
evening coffee meal with us- a table full of baked delicacies! After we were back at the youth hostel, Nils
was embarrassed that he had not thanked those wonderful people who had shared
such a feast with us. The next day we
cooked our own meal in the youth hostel kitchen. When dinner was ready, I suggested we thank
God. Nils replied that he could not
thank God, since he was not a Christian.
I reasoned with him, “Why, yesterday you felt bad not thanking the folks
in Linge. But when God gives you food,
you refuse to thank Him! Whether you are
a believer or not is insignificant, God still gives you many blessings, like
this food today, so you ought to thank Him!”
In our
typical theology, as I understood it, God loved us- the members of ‘the genuine
church’. We were God’s covenant
people- the chosen ones! God gave us
(irresistible) grace, but we were hesitant to acknowledge the existence of a
common grace for all mankind. So, we
never learned to listen to other people, whether they were ‘other’ Christians or
people who did not (yet) know God in Jesus Christ. Our leaders insisted that there could not be
a dialogue. Rather, we should attempt to
start a monologue, for we were the guardians of the truth and the true
doctrine.
How can we
communicate the Good News to those whom we avoid in social life? How can we
expect them to trust us unless we first show an interest in them? How can we expect them to believe our words,
if we refuse to be their friends? (On
the other hand, if such friendships become our primary friendships, they easily
take up our time and energy so that we grow apart from Christ.)
Only when
we started home schooling did we begin to understand Christians from other
denominations, and only after I could no longer teach at Christian schools did
I begin to understand how people with an atheistic or pantheistic worldview
think and live.
It was then
that I realized that in the Bible almost all the history and writing presumes
that people know (about) God. Even in
the book of Acts -in the accounts of Paul’s missionary journeys- there are only
two passages where Paul addresses people who don’t know God. So, if it is our hope to effectively
communicate with a similar audience (who doesn’t know God) today, we had better
focus on those passages.
In Lystra,
Paul heals a young man, convinced that this would open his eyes for the
truth. Yet, the public was not ready to
believe, and when they realized a miracle had been performed, they naturally
credited their own gods with the miracle.
Paul desperately tried to convince them otherwise, but the mob was
beyond reason. Paul’s argument contained
these elements: There is only one True God, who made everything in heaven and
on earth. This God already has a
relationship with you, not only in the fact that He has created you, but also
that He has provided you with many good things.
As He is now revealing Himself more fully to all the nations of the
world, He urges people everywhere to stop worshipping idols, and to only
worship the One Living God- who is their creator and provider! (Acts 13)
In Athens,
Paul is invited to share his ‘philosophy’ with the scholars at the
Areopagus. Here Paul has the opportunity
to present his argument in a more prepared and structured fashion, but the line
of reasoning is more or less the same as in Lystra. In fact, Paul goes even further, by agreeing
that all humans are God’s offspring! In
other words, if God is everyone’s creator and provider, then in one sense we
are indeed His offspring.
Note that
Paul does not insist that only Jews or followers of Jesus are God’s covenant
people. Every human being has by nature
a relationship with God! It is our task
to show them who their original father is, so that they may seek him and live
in fellowship with Him. If God has given
them no gifts, then how could they owe Him anything? Yet, in a basic but fundamental sense, all
humans have a covenant relationship with God.
As they are recipients of his gifts, they are obligated to seek and serve
Him! And since God loves them as His
lost children, He desires that they hear the Good News so that they may turn to
their Heavenly Father, embrace their true identity (not as animals, but as
created in God’s image!). Only in this
way can they live in fellowship with their Father and only in this way can they
be truly human!
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