How Do I Tell Someone of Another Religion They’re Wrong?
Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear
4.8 • 630 Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2023
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Pastor J.D. answers the question, “How do I tell someone of another religion they’re wrong?”
Show Notes:
- Great question. This can be one of the hardest parts of evangelism. If someone doesn’t have a religion, it can seem easier to tell them about Christianity and why it’s the only way to heaven. …But if someone is a devout follower of another religion, that can be more difficult.
- Well, first of all, there was a season in my life when every conversation I had was with a believer of another religion — that’s when I spent two years as a missionary in South East Asia which is a very heavily Muslim country.
- The role of relationship: You earn the right to be heard.
- Being a missionary is like paying down a mortgage.
- The longer you do it, you’re watching that balance shift from mainly interest to when you’re starting to pay down principle.
- You have to be willing to put in the time.
- You have to tell them the truth:
- Paul reasoned with people often proving to them that Jesus had to be the Christ so there is a role for truth telling even without the context of relationship.
- In Acts 20, Paul told Ephesians elders he was free from their blood because he had fully represented the word of God.
- The third thought is something I learned as a missionary: Look for the places in their religion that points to Jesus and show that.
- There was a very popular book that came out in the 70s called Peace Child. It’s about a missionary family, the Richardsons, who were going to minister to an unreached tribe that was pretty brutal…
- They idealized treachery, they were murderers, even cannibals.
- The Richardsons were living there and having real trouble communicating the gospel, until one day, right before a war, reps from the other tribe came and offered a “peace child” (one from each grows up in the other)
- And the Richardsons realized that this “peace child” concept was a redemptive analogy that they could use to communicate the gospel to the Sawi people.
- Finally, this goes without saying, but prayer.
- Never talk to people about God more than you talk to God about them.
Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question.
As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. |
| 0:03.0 | Hey, everybody, welcome to Ask Me Anything. My name is Matt Love. |
| 0:21.9 | I'm here with Pastor J.D. Greer. |
| 0:24.6 | And we're on a pretty good run, everyone, with good listener questions. |
| 0:29.1 | So thanks to everybody that's submitting those questions, keep sending those into us. |
| 0:33.1 | You guys are asking some really great questions. |
| 0:34.8 | It's been fun to answer them. |
| 0:35.7 | So today we have a question from a listener named Dee. |
| 0:40.4 | And Dee has a really interesting question about evangelism. |
| 0:44.5 | She asks, how do I tell somebody who believes in another religion that they're wrong? |
| 0:50.7 | So, J.D., I mean, is that something we need to think about in evangelism? |
| 0:53.8 | How do we go about |
| 0:55.4 | evangelizing to people that believe a different religion that we think is wrong? Well, Dee, that's a |
| 1:00.7 | great question. And I know that it's probably one that you're thinking of in context of somebody |
| 1:05.0 | in particular. I always find it helpful to remember that we're not debating topics here as |
| 1:09.5 | as much as we are talking about |
| 1:11.1 | people that we love and we're not trying to win arguments but win people. I'll tell you this is one of |
| 1:16.2 | the hardest parts of evangelism. I mean, on one hand, if somebody didn't have a religion, then you're |
| 1:20.2 | able to say, well, here's why I believe in Jesus. If somebody's more of a, you know, kind of a failed, a lapse Christian or they have a general Christian worldview, you're calling them to, you know, to truth. |
| 1:30.4 | But when somebody is raised, for example, a Muslim or a Buddhist or Jew, Hindu, something like that, and you're trying tooken thing or sometimes spoken thing is people are like, |
| 1:44.8 | well, the reason you're a Christian, JD, is because you were born in a Christian country. |
| 1:48.8 | You were born to, you know, Christian parents. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from J.D. Greear, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of J.D. Greear and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.