| Two weeks ago I
got into a cab to attend a lunch banquet for Christian leaders and
ministries here in Singapore. Now normally I try to find a way to
encourage the driver to open up and talk about himself in my desire
to build pre-evangelistic bridges. Normally this can be accomplished
by talking about how petrol prices are so high and asking him how he
can make any money driving a taxi when the prices for petrol keep
rising. This time however I found the taxi driver more than willing
to talk. In fact I found I had a hard time even being able to say
anything. It turns out this taxi driver was not so much of a taxi
driver but more of a salesmen....and he wanted to sell me vitamins.
He explained that these vitamins have helped him lose weight and
improve his overall health. He kept handing me catalogues containing
pictures and descriptions of many different kinds of vitamins which
he was selling. Finally when he stopped talking so much about the
vitamins I was able to ask him questions about other things.
I noticed he had something hanging over his rear view mirror so I
asked him, "Oh I am curious, I see you have something hanging over
your rear view mirror, are you a Buddhist?" Now to make a long story
short in the next few minutes I found out that though this guy
claimed to be a Buddhist, he did not really follow much of the
Buddhist beliefs and he did not even believe in being reincarnated
after this life is over. So I said to him "it seems like you are not
really a Buddhist but a free thinker." Now this must have hit a
nerve because he didn't seem to know what to say to me after I made
this statement. After a few minutes of silence I mentioned to him
that though both my Singaporean wife and I were Christians, her
parents were Buddhist and Taoist and had idols in their home. I
mentioned that it seems that there are not so many here in Singapore
that really follow strictly Buddhist beliefs. After a few more
minutes of casual conversation I raised the question, "Has anyone
ever explained to you the difference between Christianity all other
religious beliefs." He responded by indicating that he had somewhat
of an idea, so I asked him "how would your explain the difference?"
Now he paused for a few seconds and seemed to be unsure about what
to say next, so then I said to him "I can explain the difference to
you using two words "Do verses Done." I went on to explain how all
the religions in the world basically say that you must do something
to get to heaven or Nirvana, or etc. Christianity on the other hand
says there is nothing you can do. All you have to do is accept the
gift God has provided by asking Jesus to come into your life,
forgive you of your sins, and ask God to change you from the inside
out.
After I said this the first thing he said to me was "Oh we
Buddhist don't believe such things. We don't believe we should ask
someone to do something that we can do ourselves." Now his response
seems to indicate a common barrier that many Chinese have here in
Singapore.
As I was about to leave I asked him if it was possible there
could be a life after this life was over to which he seemed unsure
about what to say. So my next question to him concerned what he
seemed most concerned about when I got into the Taxi. I asked him
"why would you spend so much time and energy investing in improving
your health now in this life if this life is merely a drop in the
bucket compared to if there was an eternity in the next life?"
Because he was so strong in his beliefs and so tunnel-visioned I
realized I needed to make the point even clearer because otherwise
he would totally miss what I was trying to say to him. So I followed
up by asking "Can you tell me why would you invest so much time and
energy into something (your health & etc.) that will pay so little
dividends in eternity?" Then I followed up by asking him "Out of all
the religious leaders in the world, wouldn't you want to consider
the advice of someone who has died and come back to tell us about
what is on the other side of this life?" He understood what I was
getting at but politely said no he wasn't really interested in
looking at the evidence for Jesus or something like that. I thanked
him for his willingness to share with me his thoughts and offered to
talk to him again if he ever had a question about anything we talked
about.
In the end I did not change his core beliefs or his priorities.
Yet I know that it would be much more difficult from this point on
for him to convince himself that all that really mattered in life
was selling his vitamins. This is the heart of what pre-evangelism
attempts to do. |
