Persuasion can be a useful tool for gospel proclamation. But what sorts of persuasive methods are open to Christians? Stephen Liggins offers some suggestions from the Book of Acts.
Because people are generally suspicious of religious persuasion, we may be tempted to leave it out in our evangelism. Stephen Liggins argues why that may not necessarily be a good thing.
Stephen Liggins argues for why evangelism is communication, not pure recitation.
I have a theory—admittedly it’s a little controversial, but I still think it holds good. It concerns jokes. In my opinion, jokes have a life-cycle of three stages. Stage 1 covers the first few times you tell it; it’s extremely funny, and you’re the life of the party. Stage 2 covers those situations where you continue to tell that same joke, and it all starts to get a bit boring.
There’s a classic story about a parent separating two fighting children. Trying to get to the bottom of things, they ask: “So what’s the problem?” Utterly incensed, one child blurts out, “It all started when Jimmy hit me back!”
I remember reading a story a few years back about a time when the great West Indian cricketer Sir Garfield Sobers (perhaps the second greatest cricketer of all time) gave a one-off coaching session to a junior cricket team in Sydney. Afterwards, a journalist asked one of the lucky young boys what he had learned from the great Mr Sobers.
Prayer is a bit like apple pie, motherhood, and long weekends: everyone is for them! I mean, is there anyone who doesn’t enthusiastically embrace these fine institutions?
I’ve just ticked something off on my hypothetical bucket list! A bucket list, for those who don’t know, is an inventory of things that someone decides that they want to do before they die (i.e. “kick the bucket”).
Sometimes we take good advice. Sometimes we don’t. What about biblical exhortations? Take the following, for example: “always [be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). This instruction makes a lot of sense to a Christian.
Unless we are very deliberate and diligent, evangelism will almost always ‘fall of the table’ when push comes to shove in church (or Christian group) practice.