Tag Archives: Evangelism

How to Take Advantage of Our Bonds

December 15, 2014

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As we progress through our day, we often have a captive audience.

As we progress through our day, we often have a captive audience.

…faith comes from hearing… – Romans 10:17

When Paul wrote the “prison epistles,” he wasn’t imprisoned in some deep dark dungeon cutoff from the world.

Paul was living in his own rent house – he even had visitors coming and going and was teaching them the Gospel! (Philippians 1:12) Since he was under arrest, he had a Pretorian (or imperial) guard connected to him at all times.

Imagine being chained to the apostle Paul a few hours a day, getting to hear God’s word directly from him!

When Paul wrote about that event, his attitude wasn’t that he was captive – in fact, the guards seemed to be the captives. He saw it as an advantage that resulted in the knowledge of Christ spreading throughout the troops. (Philippians 1:13) Paul’s success from that time encouraged the other brothers to teach Christ without fear of what the government might do to them. (Philippians 1:14)

Imagine how many guards must have been saved through the repetition of Paul teaching his visitors. He didn’t record any numbers, but if faith comes from hearing God’s word, then enough faith to respond must have eventually been present among those men.

Most of us in our era will never have to suffer imprisonment for Christ’s cause, but think about the situations where we are virtually bonded to others:

Our family.

Our co-workers.

Our club meetings.

What if we took advantage of those captive audiences?

Don’t be obnoxious … with a little planning and practice, this could be done right. Gentle and opportunistic mention of godly things is plenty in the beginning.

If we are following Paul’s example like he taught in 2 Timothy 2:2, this is something we should be doing – It’s not just a good idea.

Goal idea for the new year: Take advantage of times we are in “bonded” situations and cause X people to ask to hear more.

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