“Why has nobody shown me this before?!” How often I hear this, comment as I share the Gospel for the primary time. In its dismay, I suggest we must always realise afresh how clearly and the way powerfully God’s Word continues to talk today.
My journey into Bible sharing began in 2006. Introducing a fellow senior insurance executive friend to world-renowned apologist John Lennox, I believed my job can be to sit down back and host while watching Professor Lennox deliver a master class in evangelistic apologetics. However, what followed, over two dinners and a few seven hours, was like a terrible final at Wimbledon – a verbal tennis match where one fired questions across the online and the opposite aced the ball back, at all times with biblical answers. My non-Christian friend intellectually adored the stimulation but frankly, he wasn’t in a position to fully comprehend the answers because he was simply biblically ignorant!
I could see no point in a 3rd meeting unless we asked the nice professor to point out us where he was getting these things from. Lennox showed up not together with his Bible, but with the primary eighteen sentences of John’s Gospel chapter 1, printed onto a sheet of A4 paper. By sentence 4, my friend’s mind was blown. Here were God’s answers to life’s biggest questions and my friend had never been shown such guarantees; he was quite literally stunned into silence sentence by sentence. It hadn’t been the words of John the world-renowned professor that had spoken so powerfully, it had been John the author of the Gospel.
Now, I had never been a Bible teacher, considering my place was as a behind-the-scenes Gospel patron but immediately I knew I desperately desired to offer my friends the word of God. They so needed to see the Word and in a format that would not be alien or embarrassing to them, slightly taking a look at each sentence and transparently seeing the questions/answers that it raised.
The very next day I collared my minister, considered one of this generation’s best Bible teachers, and begged him to show me John’s Gospel. Being used to presentations with marked-up comments within the margins, I wanted clarity that could possibly be passed on to others. Hence was born an easy format – a couple of Bible sentences on a left-hand page and on the correct – key questions raised and addressed. It’s a formula that in time became The Word One to One – a tool used around the globe today in booklets, app or online by any Christian, above concerning the age of twelve, to introduce people to Jesus Christ’s Word.
For years I had been often called a Christian businessman with whom you may have an intellectually interesting faith-based conversation, but those discussions nearly at all times blew off within the intellectually interesting wind! Why? Because I didn’t know easy methods to share the Word. So once we next met, the conversation would start all all over again!
I had apologetic answers, but they tended to steer to confrontation. I had a strong testimony but that simply led my friends to say, “Good for you Richard – you could have Christianity, I actually have job satisfaction, sex, drugs, fitness and even mindfulness – let’s leave the conversation as equally respectful of one another’s positions lets?!”
However, it transformed all the pieces to be directly walking through God’s Word on a “level playing field”, in order that we were each taking a look at what the Bible said. People were transparently not listening to me, slightly they were fixated on what the Word said. I began to offer my peer group the chance to take a look at an element of the Bible that had so excited me, and the take-up was simply staggering!
All I used to be saying was: hadn’t they at all times thought that at some point they’d take a look at the book that has sold more copies than every other? Didn’t they expect that there may be “great things” in it? “Well, there may be one book that starts with an eighteen-sentence overview that has really excited me and a few great notes that make it even easier to read. Look, please can I purchase you a coffee?”. All I’ll say at the tip is “Did you enjoy that? If yes – then would you prefer to see what comes next?” No signing as much as greater than anything but the following meeting.
The lasting result? An extraordinary take up for a long-lasting journey through the Word of God. God, indirectly, had prepared them to need to seek answers.
A recent nationwide survey called Talking Jesus discovered that 1 in 3 individuals who had a conversation with a Christian friend desired to know more about Jesus. If that was your friend or colleague, where would you are taking them?
If they’re willing to return to church with you, sensible! If they’ll make it to your next Alpha or Christianity Explored course with you, great! But what in the event that they are usually not yet willing to cross that space into ‘your world’?
Here are a couple of easy lessons from around the globe:
You don’t need a mind-blowing testimony.
You need not have all of the answers or find a way to bounce your way across the Bible.
You need not have the gift of the gab, or be young, or in work!
All you would like is a caring, prayerful, love in your friend, empowered by the Holy Spirit’s presence with you and the Word of God in a format you possibly can easily share.
Since starting The Word One to One, others have seen the facility of God’s Word at work. Lucy* has been reading John together with her Muslim friends and says that it is the scariest and concurrently, probably the most wonderful thing she’s ever done. Oliver* says that “sharing God’s Word has liberated me in evangelism greater than anything.”
You too may be liberated to find how lively God is being today through the sharing of His Word, bringing His answer for mankind – Jesus.
What higher place to take them than the biblical overview that the beginning of John’s Gospel represents, introducing the Word, who became flesh to make God known to us today!
Countless people have bowed the knee to Jesus as they’ve encountered Him, as Saviour, through His Word. And countless Christians have had their faith transformed by learning to easily lean on the powerful, Spirit-filled, Word of God, and asking an easy query of Him – “Where are you at work within the lives of my circle of contacts that I may need an element to play in your Great Commission – to make you known to the ends of the earth?”
We invite you to ascertain out www.theword121.com and see if we will show you how to share God’s Word with the people in your life.
*Name have been modified to take care of confidentiality.
Richard Borgonon is founder and co-author of The Word One to One, Richard has been within the Lloyd’s insurance market since 1974 as an executive holding various market leadership positions and continues to run his own consultancy company. Today, Richard spends much of his time sharing the Bible with senior executives in addition to speaking internationally on evangelism in today’s world and in quite a few evangelistic opportunities. Richard has also been on Christian television teaching John’s Gospel through the use of The Word One to One, which has now been shown in 52 countries.
Â
