Tuesdays and Thursdays have become my soul-winning days as of late. Today, I went to a village that was about 5 miles from the center of nowhere. I was surprised to see so many people in such a remote location. As we arrived at 9:30 a.m. there were a few people who were setting up their goods that they planned to sell today at the market. We made short work of giving everyone in sight a Romans booklet and then began going house to house.
I had an opportunity to present the plan of salvation a few times today. One of those times was back at the market center around 11:00a.m. Many more people had arrived and so I began handing out the Romans booklets. I always try to tell everyone that the book tells them what the Bible says they need to do to go to heaven.
While explaining the plan of salvation with a few people I said, “Jesus died on the cross was buried and after the 3rd day he arose from the dead! Jesus defeated death. Truly Jesus is God!” This declaration of Jesus divinity got a few Muslims upset. The thought never crossed my mind that I may be within ear-shot of some Muslims who would not like what I was saying.
One man began to ask me questions concerning how could Jesus be the Son of God and God at the same time. He was using some vocabulary words that I didn’t understand so it took a long time for us to communicate. While we were talking many people started to gather around to listen.
Apparently, the Muslim man said something that the others did not like and several chimed in with a loud retort. This drew more people to the area. Within a few minutes nearly 50 people surrounded me. All wanted to hear what this white missionary had to say in his broken Swahili.
At one point I claimed a small victory. The man had asked me how could God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit be God all at the same time. It’s impossible to adequately explain the trinity in English let alone in broken Swahili. I resorted to the old example of an egg. I said the outside of the egg is the shell and inside you have a yolk and a white. All three things make up one egg. The crowd loved my word picture even though it falls far short of truly explaining the trinity. They cheered. Some clapped some said amen. Yet others shook their heads in unbelief still clinging to their faith in Muhammad.
I was wise enough to know that I didn’t have enough vocabulary to continue the public debate so I made my exit. As I left, a few Christians started a heated debate with the man and continued on for at least 10 minutes.
It was fun and challenging even though for a minute it was a little scary. I pray that the name of Christ was glorified and that some would come to know Jesus as their saving God. And, in case you’re wondering, here are a few good verses proving that Jesus is God. John 10:30; John 1:1-4; Heb 1:1-8; Acts 2:36; Rom 14:9; Lu 5:21
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