Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ The man replied, ‘How can I, unless someone instructs me?’ And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him. 

—Acts 8:30–31 NLT

Scripture:

Acts 8:30-31 

Philip, a leader in the early church, was given a remarkable opportunity to share the gospel. According to Acts 8, he was guided by the Holy Spirit to an Ethiopian official, who was sitting in a chariot, struggling to understand a passage from the book of Isaiah.

“Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ The man replied, ‘How can I, unless someone instructs me?’ And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him” (Acts 8:30–31 NLT).

As you explore the passage further, you’ll find that when Philip shared the gospel with the Ethiopian dignitary, he demonstrated something that’s often lacking in evangelistic efforts, and that’s tact.

Many Christians, when they sense an opportunity to witness to an unbeliever, opt for an all-out blitz. They fire away with everything they have in their spiritual arsenal. They don’t make an effort to engage the people they speak with. They don’t try to establish a dialogue. They don’t bother with building an interpersonal bridge. They simply present their arguments, make their statements, and walk away from the encounter feeling impressed with themselves. Meanwhile, the people they’re talking to are silently wishing they would just stop talking and going away.

Later, the Christian thinks, “Boy, I really blew them out of the water when they said this and that. Wasn’t that great?” No, it wasn’t great. In fact, it was quite foolish, because our job as believers is not to win the argument; it’s to win the soul.

If we want to effectively share the gospel with people, then we need to engage them. What did the master evangelist Jesus do as He talked with the woman at the well in Samaria? He engaged her in conversation. He established some give-and-take. He spoke. He listened. She shared her heart with Him. He revealed the truth to her.

When we share the gospel with people, it must be as a dialogue—and not as a monologue. It’s not just a matter of talking; it’s also a matter of listening. Sharing the gospel involves offering appropriate passages from Scripture and genuine responses from a heart filled with love.

No one will ever be argued into the kingdom of God. No one will come away from an adversarial debate with a believer—after winning or losing—with a desire to “join the other side.” Ultimately, people are going to believe because the Holy Spirit convicted them of their sin. Our job is to simply bring them the essential gospel message in a way that’s compelling, thoughtful, and personal.

Reflection question: How do you use tact when you share the gospel with others? Discuss this with believers like you on Harvest Discipleship!

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

 Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both. 

—Ecclesiastes 11:6 NLT

Scripture:

Ecclesiastes 11:6 

Here’s something amazing to think about. Saul, who would later become the apostle Paul, was doing the work of God’s kingdom before he was even in it. Remember, Saul was one of the early enemies of the Christian faith. He zealously persecuted believers, which led many to flee their homes and move to distant lands—taking the gospel with them.

Had Saul not been so relentless in his persecution of the church, I think the first-century Christians probably would have been content to stay in their little holy huddle in Jerusalem and never leave town. After all, their situation was almost ideal. God had blessed their evangelism efforts in the city, so there were believers all around. They had no need to leave Jerusalem. But because of Saul’s persecution, Christians were forced to spread out. They took the Good News of Jesus to places where it may not have gone otherwise, or at least not as quickly as it did.

Eventually, of course, Saul stopped persecuting believers and became a believer himself. And I think the person who might have had the greatest influence in bringing about his conversion was Stephen, the church’s first martyr. I believe it could have been Stephen’s bold testimony that threw fuel on Saul’s fire because Saul was under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Stephen didn’t have a long ministry. He never wrote a book of the New Testament. But if his only convert was Saul of Tarsus, then his ministry was profoundly successful.

The same goes for your Christian ministry. You may not reach millions with the gospel. You may not reach thousands. You may not reach hundreds. But you may be the person whom God uses to reach someone who will, in turn, change the world. Or it may be a child you raised in the way of the Lord who reaches someone else, who talks to someone else, and eventually shares the gospel with someone like Saul. So, here’s what you need to realize: It’s not over until it’s over.

Ecclesiastes 11:6 says, “Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both” (NLT). You don’t have to know what your spiritual work will yield. All you have to do is seize every opportunity that’s presented to you.

That’s the takeaway from the story of Saul and Stephen. As believers, we need to be faithful in sowing the seed of the Word of God, because we don’t know where that seed will go—in this life, in the next generation, or in the generation after that.

We sow the seed; God takes it from there.

Reflection question: What would sowing the seed of the Word of God look like in your life right now? Discuss this with believers like you on Harvest Discipleship!

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

 I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers there to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. Many times I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus. I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities. 

—Acts 26:9–11 NLT

Every person in your life who doesn’t know Christ represents a spiritual opportunity for you. If you’re like most people, you probably have some acquaintances who seem as though they would be receptive to the gospel message. It takes no great stretch of the imagination to picture them as fellow believers, worshipping and serving the Lord alongside you. On the other hand, you probably have other acquaintances who seem so far from God—whose lives are so broken and whose priorities are so mixed up—that you’re tempted to write them off as lost causes.

If that’s the case, God’s Word has a message for you: Don’t. Don’t fall into the devil’s trap of believing that certain people are beyond God’s reach. The reality is that no one who draws breath is beyond redemption.

In Acts 26:9–11, the apostle Paul describes one of the most amazing conversions of all time—a conversion so unlikely that even Jesus’ disciples didn’t think it was possible. He’s describing, of course, his own conversion.

“I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers there to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. Many times I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus. I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities” (NLT).

When he was known as Saul of Tarsus, Paul was one of the most radical antagonists of the early church. It was Saul who presided over the death of Stephen, the first martyr of the church who courageously stood up for his faith. It was Saul who went out of his way to hunt down Christians, imprison them, and even destroy them. This man was bent on the eradication of the Christian faith.

Yet God saved him and changed his life beyond recognition. That’s the power of the gospel.

If you know an antagonistic person, someone who seems to go out of their way to make your life miserable, someone who’s always trying to stump you with a hard question, it just may be that they’re closer to the kingdom of God than you realize.

Sometimes the people who attack the most or resist the hardest are under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Their lashing out is the last struggle of their old self. They may be closer to conversion than you realize.

No one is beyond the reach of God.

Reflection question: How can you reach out to someone who seems unreachable? Discuss this with believers like you on Harvest Discipleship!

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie