Sharing Jesus with those who don't believe: an email conversation

Last week a high school student who was a part of our church in the last school year (she was an exchange student) saw on our Facebook page that we would be talking about how to discuss Jesus with those who don't believe that he was the Son of God during our Wednesday night gathering. She wanted to know about the tools we'd be discussing, and here's what I wrote to her (Note: the video I reference is from the College/Young Adult course, and can be found here):

The key is simply starting from common ground. When we’re talking to someone about Jesus, we need to know where they’re starting from. If they’re an atheist, then of course they won’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God, because they don’t believe in God! So, the discussion needs to be about, “Is there a God or isn’t there, and how can we know?” Or perhaps someone thinks the Bible’s a hoax. In the video, the speaker talks about how we can trust that—at the very least—the Bible we have today is an accurate transcription of what was originally written down. Or maybe they think Jesus was a good teacher, but not God. Well, the problem is that Jesus actually claimed to be God. That’s why he was killed and his own family thought he was crazy! So, if he was, great. But if he wasn’t, he was either a liar, or absolutely crazy.

One of the main mistakes Christians make is to assume they know what the other person is thinking or feeling, and starting in on how the Bible says Jesus is God. We need to do a better job at asking questions. For instance, we might ask:

So, what can we know about God?

What road brought you to the way you feel or believe today?

So, who do you think Jesus was?

The second step in an conversation with someone about the historical reality of Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, his death, and his resurrection (the first is to say a silent prayer that God would guide you) is to find some common ground with the person you are speaking with and go from there.