How To Share The Gospel With A Religious Person - Dare 2 Share
Helping youth leaders empower
students to reach their world.
Helping youth leaders empower
students to reach their world.

How to Share the Gospel With a Religious Person

A religious person may know the Bible well, but their understanding of salvation is off. Learn how to help them understand the true Gospel.

by

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

How to Share the Gospel With a Religious Person

(leer en espaƱol)

Basic Description

Someone with a religious worldview is typically some sort of Christian, but they live with a very strong, built-in sense of right and wrong. They will strictly follow a set of standards that they believe will earn them spiritual reward here on earth and earn them heaven after death. They also tend to carry around an “I’m spiritually superior to you” attitude because they believe that good works are the key to religion.

Questions You Can Ask

  • Whatā€™s your spiritual background?
  • What do you believe about God?
  • What aspect of your religious beliefs brings you the most satisfaction? What makes you the most uncomfortable?
  • What do you think happens after we die?
  • Do you believe that entrance into heaven is dependent on obeying certain rules?
  • On a scale from 0-100%, how sure are you that when you die you will go to heaven?
  • Are your beliefs based on your own spiritual choices, or have they been handed down to you by your family?
  • Who do you think Jesus was?
  • Do you think thereā€™s a difference between a ā€œreligionā€ and the ā€œrelationshipā€ with God that Jesus talked about?
  • What do you think of Jesusā€™ claim that He was God and is the way back to God?

Areas You Can Admire

  • Their commitment to going to church.
  • Their belief in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
  • Their belief that Jesus died on the cross and rose again.
  • Their desire to be a good person and do things that please God.

What A Religious Person Believes

About Religion:

Religious people believe that by believing in certain creeds or statements of beliefs and by strictly engaging in certain religious behaviors, they will be on God’s ‘nice’ list, while those who aren’t religious are on God’s ‘naughty’ list. A religious person has probably been raised with this perspective since day one, which is why religion and good works are such a key part of their life. They also believes that religion is a combination of faith and good works that will one day get them into heaven.

About God:

A religious person does believe in God.

About the Trinity:

They believe in the Trinity.

About Jesus:

They believe in Jesus.

About the Bible:

They believe that the Bible is God’s word.

About the Afterlife:

Religious people believe in an afterlife where there is a heaven and hell, and that which place you end up is determined by how religious and rule-following you were here on earth.

About Salvation:

This person believes that salvation is ‘earned’ by believing and behaving the right way. They are not 100% sure that they’ll make it into heaven, but they hope that their good deeds will outweigh the bad ones when God judges them.

What the Bible Teaches

About God:

God identified Himself as “I Am” (Exodus 20:2), meaning that He is the self-existent (never had a beginning or end) eternal Creator of the universe.

About the Trinity:

There is one God and yet three Persons (Isaiah 45:5; Deuteronomy 6:4; James 2:19).

About Jesus:

Jesus is fully God and fully man, He is the God of the universe (John 1:1, 14, 18; 8:58; 10:30. Compare Titus 2:13 and Isaiah 45:21), and His death on the cross completely paid for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). Because of Jesus’ death, there is no need for works to save us.

About the Bible:

The Bible alone is the word of God and is absolute truth. It is without error. It cannot and should not be added to or subtracted from (2 Timothy 3:16-4:4; Revelation 22:18-20), and it is also the ultimate authority on spiritual matters (i.e. no man made church teachings or traditions are equal with it).

About the Afterlife:

Those who trust in Christ alone as their only hope of salvation will spend eternity in heaven; those who reject Christ will spend an eternity in hell. (John 5:24-30; Revelation 20:11-15).

About Salvation:

Salvation is by faith in Christ ALONE on the basis of His death on the cross (John 3:16-17, 36; 6:29,47; Romans 4:1-5; Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). Good works are a natural result of our salvation, but they have nothing to do with our salvation.

Things to Remember

Your religious friend might struggle a lot with pride and self-righteousness, so focus on the 10 commandments and how all of us have broken them. One good illustration of this is to use the example of the religious person who only sinned a mere 3 times per day. While that seems good, when you add it up, it becomes very bad. Three sins a day is over a thousand sins a year, and if he lives to be in his 80’s, he will have sinned over 80,000 times!

Talk about how even one lie will keep us out of heaven (Revelation 21:8), so the standard for getting into heaven is absolute perfection. Deep down, your friend knows they are not perfect, so talk about how Jesus lived a perfect life and is the only one who could pay the price for our sins.

In Philippians 3:4-12, Paul goes into detail about how he once depended on his ‘religion’ to please God. But after he trusted Christ, he saw all those things as trash. If Paul saw religion in that light, what should that teach us? Also, talk about what Jesus meant when he said “it is finished” on the cross. That phrase actually means ‘paid in full’.

For Further Research

related articles

free youth ministry resources

Free youth ministry curriculum, books, evangelism training, ebooks, videos, and more!Ā Download your free resources now and grow your youth ministry.

Start building a Gospel Advancing ministry.

Join a community of leaders with the vision to see every teen, everywhere, hear the Gospel from a friend.