Winning Souls for Christ

Winning Souls for Christ

“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.  
To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.  
To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.  
I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” 
                                                                            1 Corinthians 9:19-23.
Here Paul is telling how he and we should win people to Christ.
All to many Christians especially when witnessing on the street quote vast amounts of scripture. There’s nothing wrong with it if it’s done correctly. Trouble is many don’t do it correctly.
Nor do they take into account their audience.
Paul says,
“To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews”
“To those not having the law I became like one not having the law.”
While Paul dose not compromise his Christian principles. He does explain things in a way the group of people he’s talking to can understand.
It was no use for Paul to talk to gentiles in Rome that had never studied Jewish law and prophesy about such things. He had to know the culture of the gentiles and meet them where they were at.
Likewise when speaking to Jews he spoke from the Jewish scriptures. This is what we need to do today.
We need to know our audience. We need to know their culture.
I once while talking to an Atheist who told me Jesus didn’t exist, used primarily accounts from outside the bible to witness to him.
I quoted from Josephus, Tacitus, Mara Bar-Serapion, and Piliny the Younger to prove that Jesus did in fact he did exist. It caught him off guard. It’s hard to deny the existence of Jesus when non Christians enemies of Christianity in a position of power admit he existed.
Thus once I had established my case with him I was able to move from there to use some scriptures and point him to salvation.
At the same time I have been able to witness from the Bible to religious groups such as Jehovah’s witnesses that deny Jesus is the Son of God. To show them from the scriptures that he is indeed the One and Only Son of God. And their need to accept Him as their Lord and Saviour.
Even witnessing to a Muslim you can point to the fact that the Koran mentions Jesus.
I firmly believe that we as Christians need to study not only the Bible but church history and what the ancients outside the Bible said about Christ even have a good general knowledge of other faiths.
Paul in the scriptures I quoted most definitely was right. We need to know the culture of those we are witnessing to and meet them where they are at otherwise we wont reach them.
To the Jew and other religious groups that don’t hold the same beliefs as we do we need to know where they are coming from and start at that point.
To the Atheist, agnostics and the average man on the street we need to use wisdom see where they are at and reach them their.
Paul when asked to preach at the Areopagus did not start from the Jewish scriptures. He started,
“Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
"For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” 
                                          Acts 17:22b,23 
He met them where they were at. He related Christ to something they understood and told them about life eternal.
Some did believe, some scoffed at him but others wanted to hear more.
And that is all we as Christians can expect from all our witnessing.
Think about it.