As a Christian in a world of disbelief, Jesus commissioned all believers including myself to spread the gospel to the world (Matthew 28:19). If I am to spread the gospel to those around me, first I must know the essence of the gospel teaching, but I must also know who I am spreading the gospel to and what they believe. This essay is going to look at if the Christian can use knowledge, experience, and traditions of other religions to critically evaluate them and use them as tools to evangelize.
Proclaiming the Gospel through other religion’s traditions
In Acts, Chapter 17, Paul is in Athens waiting for Silas and Timothy to continue their missionary journey. Paul takes this time in Athens to get to know the community and their traditions. Then …show more content…
While I understand the power of prayer, sometimes my prayer life is not what it should be and I do not spend enough time in communion with God and listening to him and the leading of the Holy Spirit. I could take lessons regarding prayer from the Muslim religion. They stop to pray several times a day and even their work or hunger do not take precedence over their prayer life. Along with prayer, knowing the scriptures and having them hidden in my heart should be a priority but I find it easy to fall back on not having enough time or the gift of memorization. If I was a twelve-year old Jewish child, I may have already memorized the Torah (Slick, nd). By the time, I was an adult I would be expected to have memorized the entire Old Testament. The memorization of the scripture is a great Jewish tradition that would bode me well if I too took up that tradition. Lastly, when I look at how Christian holidays are practiced, if I was a student of the Buddhist’s traditions I would be more likely to use these special religious holidays to avoid evil or perhaps help some less fortunate than me in a very practical way (Thera, nd). While there are major fundamental differences in religions, there are many traditional practices that would be well received across all …show more content…
Many of my personal experiences are filtered through my belief system. For example, if a Hindu and I both had a word from god it would tend to validate our faith and not necessarily validate which one is true. I would experience hearing from God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit while the Hindu may have perhaps heard from Vishnu. We both had a religious experience but it validates what each of us already believes. The same holds true for teachings, in that many religions get their teachings from their leaders and by faith one believes in their leader so they would tend to believe the leader’s teaching. For thousands of years Christianity has been questioned, investigated, and contradicted and even though I believe with all my heart and soul that it is the one true faith, I could not prove it. I can validate aspects of it, like the bible and the historical places and people but I cannot prove without a shadow of a doubt that God created the world. I like to tell people, I believe the teaching and experience of mine and others based on my belief in Christ, not that I believed the teachings and that is why I believe in Christ. For me, my experience is personal and more heart felt than provable. Others may disagree but I think the
Proclaiming the Gospel through other religion’s traditions
In Acts, Chapter 17, Paul is in Athens waiting for Silas and Timothy to continue their missionary journey. Paul takes this time in Athens to get to know the community and their traditions. Then …show more content…
While I understand the power of prayer, sometimes my prayer life is not what it should be and I do not spend enough time in communion with God and listening to him and the leading of the Holy Spirit. I could take lessons regarding prayer from the Muslim religion. They stop to pray several times a day and even their work or hunger do not take precedence over their prayer life. Along with prayer, knowing the scriptures and having them hidden in my heart should be a priority but I find it easy to fall back on not having enough time or the gift of memorization. If I was a twelve-year old Jewish child, I may have already memorized the Torah (Slick, nd). By the time, I was an adult I would be expected to have memorized the entire Old Testament. The memorization of the scripture is a great Jewish tradition that would bode me well if I too took up that tradition. Lastly, when I look at how Christian holidays are practiced, if I was a student of the Buddhist’s traditions I would be more likely to use these special religious holidays to avoid evil or perhaps help some less fortunate than me in a very practical way (Thera, nd). While there are major fundamental differences in religions, there are many traditional practices that would be well received across all …show more content…
Many of my personal experiences are filtered through my belief system. For example, if a Hindu and I both had a word from god it would tend to validate our faith and not necessarily validate which one is true. I would experience hearing from God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit while the Hindu may have perhaps heard from Vishnu. We both had a religious experience but it validates what each of us already believes. The same holds true for teachings, in that many religions get their teachings from their leaders and by faith one believes in their leader so they would tend to believe the leader’s teaching. For thousands of years Christianity has been questioned, investigated, and contradicted and even though I believe with all my heart and soul that it is the one true faith, I could not prove it. I can validate aspects of it, like the bible and the historical places and people but I cannot prove without a shadow of a doubt that God created the world. I like to tell people, I believe the teaching and experience of mine and others based on my belief in Christ, not that I believed the teachings and that is why I believe in Christ. For me, my experience is personal and more heart felt than provable. Others may disagree but I think the