My Conversation With Three Buddhists On An Airplane

The Chicago trip went well. I learned a lot from the TGC conference. The topic was preaching Christ from the Old Testament. We had several opportunities while on the way to the conference every day to share the Gospel, and here are some of the personal discussions I had with people. We will have video post from Haiti, NJ, Raleigh, NC, and Asheville, NC in the coming months.  May we all continue in our conformity to Christ.

My conversation with Chris:

He did not like anyone telling him that he would be judged and go to hell for his sins. He had a Baptist witness who physically hit him with the Bible. "Not my top five methods of effective evangelism" He believed the Bible could be interpreted many ways and that there is truth in all religions.

I saw that he had terrible views of Christians, particularly Baptist, so I took time to be gentle but truthful.  I showed that the Bible could not be interpreted in any way someone wants to solve it, and I conveyed this by using an illustration.  I showed the original author's view is the view that we have to accept.

 I shared with him the consequences of sin and took him back to the Bible to see what the scriptures say about his condition. I took the time to explain the beauty of the cross and what Jesus did on the cross for all who repent and believe.

My conversation with Harold:

Harold was a reformed Jew. He was liberal in his view of the Bible and had very little knowledge about the Bible. He believed in the theory of evolution. We started to talk about heaven and hell, and he said he was ok because Jews did not believe in a literal hell. I said that it does not matter what he and I thought if it did not correspond with reality.  Any truth claim has to answer four major questions origin, meaning, morality, and destiny without contradictions in any four areas. He spoke of humans having souls and dogs not having souls. I asked if he could explain how this process came about, but he could not answer.

I shared how Christianity answered the problem of sin and shared the Gospel and my concern for him. At this time, the conversation became one-sided, so I gave him a tract and a card to our website.

Three Buddhists on the plane ride up to Chicago:

They were poster children for post-modernism; they had great conversations about nothing; they talked about energy and consciences and oneness with the earth. Yet, they debated the individual soul being separate from the energy that created everything.

I was in front of them, so I did not get to dialogue with them on the plane ride. When the plane landed, I attempted to give them all tracts one gentleman would not take the tract. He stated that he gave up on Christianity a long time ago. He said that Christians are hypocrites, and the Bible taught us to love. I told him that he could not blame the way people act today on the person of Jesus Christ. I asked several questions that made him verbalize what he believed about Jesus. I asked him how he accounted for all the evil in the world, but he gave no honest answer. Then we had to get off of the plane.

My conversation with Ed :

Ed has just come out of Mormonism because he could not follow all of their laws. He saw the burden of the law, so I took him through some of the commandments, and he saw his condition. I shared the Gospel, and his face started to shake physically. I asked if he had any questions, but he said no. Nathan Murray was sitting right between us, and he continued the conversation, and the young man prayed to receive Christ. Nathan, if I missed anything, please include what I missed. Sometimes I put the Gospel out there and do not challenge people to follow Jesus. Nathan continued with this young man praising Jesus. Please pray for him he has all our information but still has not contacted us. However, if God has started a work in this young man, he will see it through to completion.