Persuasion gets a bad rap, especially when it comes to evangelism.
Sure, we all know those types who take it to far. We've all felt that holy cringe when we've seen pointed fingers and heard "repent" reverberating from a bullhorn on the street corner. But I think we can all agree that this style of "evangelism" is more coercion than it is persuasion.
The English word for persuasion smacks of the used car salesmen stereotypes of evangelism that ask "what can I do to get you to buy into Christianity today?" to a hurried, harried and harrassed customer. But the Greek word for evangelism ("Peitho") is a whole different story.
Peitho means "to gently win someone over, to lovingly convince, to make a friend." And that's exactly what we want to do in evangelism. We want to gently win others over to Christ. We want to lovingly convince them to believe. We want to make them a friend to us and to Jesus. Read More
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