We Can’t Win Them All

And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. Acts 19:8-9

In Mark 16:15 Jesus gave the ‘great commission’ to spread the good news of the hope that we have in Him. We are to go into the world - out of the Church building and out to where the lost are - and teach others of the sinful state they are in and inform them of how to be cleansed of that sin. The people of this world need to hear of the eternal salvation that God provides through His Son, Jesus Christ!

And so we need to do what we can to further the knowledge of Jesus. Preaching to everyone, we need to ensure that we are doing what Jesus commanded. As Christians who have received the greatest gift, we need to be filled with joy and share that joy with those around us.

While we do what we can to further the spread of the gospel, we don’t have a guarantee that those who we speak to will obey. In fact, many people will laugh and scoff at us. Many will dismiss the great message without giving it much thought.

The truth is we can’t win them all. We won’t be able to bring every single person in to the fold of safety provided by God. The hearts of many people will be hardened and not open to what we have to say - or more importantly, to what God has to say through the Scriptures.

In the above passage in the book of Acts we read of a type of situation that we will often encounter. Paul was speaking to people from God’s word, “concerning the things of the kingdom of God”. And we read that “some were hardened and did not believe”. In fact these people not only turned their ears off, but they turned on their mouths and proceeded to blaspheme, speaking “evil of the Way”.

Paul departed from these people, but he did not give up. We know that Paul continued to proclaim God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ and wrote many good things for us to learn from. We realize that we can’t win over every soul, but we need to make sure that we keep on keeping on, moving on from those who don’t want the word of God and sharing it with others who just might want to listen.

                -- John Thrower Jr.