Respond to Difficult People With Unexpected Lovingkindness

Continuing the theme sharing the gospel with the heathen—those who are unbelievers and want nothing to do with God because of experience, feelings, pride, spiritual blindness, or otherwise; we need to now think about how to respond in genuine lovingkindness to those who need Him, but don’t want Him. As you are on the street you run into people who hate what you’re doing. They hate God and His message in the gospel. They hate that we as Christians want to save babies from death of infanticide. They hate the message of the gospel. They hate Jesus. They hate God. They hate you. Why sugar-coat it? As we saw from the previous post, “Empathy for the Heathen,” we explored the possible reasons why, and this should in many ways lower our defenses, have compassion on them, and know that the person in front of us is really not the enemy, but those taken captive to do the devil’s will.

But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

2 Timothy 2:23-26 NASB95

We are to “speak truth in love” unto the obedience of Christ, who is our Lord (Ephesians 4:15), but many times we like to declare the truth while neglecting the love. I’ve been guilty of that many times. But, we are also not to neglect truth for the love part either. They are in many ways the two wings of the same bird.

Empathy in application

There are very few Christians I know that apply the “truth in love” principles found in Scripture. I don’t consider myself one of them, but I do see it in people like Tony Ramsek, of “Gospel Equip” and “What Does the Scripture Say“; Jon Neifert of “Tulip Gospel Outreach“; and Ray Comfort of “Living Waters.”

Watch the video below to see how one act of kindness can help those to experience God’s love, even for those who reject Him.

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What Ray did wasn’t very heroic and didn’t necessarily go out of his way to show love. But what he did was just very simple. He gave Jaclyn a $100 gift card with a little note that said in very few words—I love you and I don’t hate you. These were just small resources Ray had at his disposal, mixed with less than five minutes of time, to produce amazing results. The following video is what transpired from the kindness shown from a Christian to an Atheist. It was an hour-long interview of them both sitting down together to discuss their beliefs in a friendly manner.

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Though some of the comments from the video result in juvenile insults, others were not. Here are a few:

• “Ray really cares about Jaclyn. It’s actually very sweet to see.”
• “…I respect you a lot to have such composure even though you two didn’t agree:)”
• “This is a very nice conversation. It doesn’t feel like I was seated for an hour watching this. That’s how good it is!!”
• “This man is so kind and amazing and warm!”
• “I’m loving this. Ray Comfort seems like a nice enough person. His ideas are simply asinine.”

As you can see from the last comment, and many more like it, they don’t agree with Ray’s message, which is God’s message; but they can’t say anything derogatory about his actions or attitude.

What about you?

Showing love in evangelism means caring enough to build relationships, listen to others, pray for their understanding, and gently lead them to the truth of Jesus Christ. Our goal is not to win arguments, but souls. We must extend grace and love while never compromising truth.

With that said, what are some small but mighty ways in which we as believers of Jesus Christ, show love and compassion to those around us? Here are some ideas:

• Approach with a sense of urgency and personal concern with a heart of love. “A soft answer turns away wrath…”(Proverbs 15:1).
• Acknowledging their feelings goes a long way. You don’t have to admit fault to validate their emotional reality. Showing people that their feelings are seen is an important step. Sometimes it just helps to say: “I see this really matters to you,” or “It sounds like you’re feeling frustrated.”
• Listen to understand, not to win an argument.
• Treat those who are argumentative to lunch and sit down to understand where they are coming from and why they believe the way they believe.
• Give them a $5 gift card to a burger place to help buy lunch.
• Look for opportunities to be helpful and lend a hand.

What are some ways in which you show lovingkindness to those who disagree with you? Please add them to the comments. We would love to read them.