ABWE Feature Story

Why do ABWE missionaries share the gospel with people of other faiths?

By Michael G. Loftis, ABWE President

Often people ask us, "Why do your missionaries share the gospel with Buddhists, Hindus, or Muslims? Why do you think it is important to spread your faith to other people at all?" The answers lie within our faith itself.

Our Motives: Worship, Love, and Respect

  1. We love and worship God with all our hearts, and are committed followers of His Son, Jesus Christ. We desire to please Him and to obey His commands to us written in the Bible. 1
  2. The Bible commands us to love the people of all nations and to explain the truth about God to every person regardless of his or her background. 2
  3. Because we love God and the people He created, we warmly invite everyone to accept God's love and forgiveness available through Jesus Christ. 3
  4. Our missionaries are trained to share God's love with humility and respect, through words and compassionate actions. We do not bribe, trick, or coerce people into insincere belief. 4
  5. Our missionaries can never "make converts." We believe that based on the dignity and worth given by God to every human being, each individual must make a free personal choice whether to accept God's love and forgiveness. 5
  6. Our missionaries give people the opportunity to hear and either accept or reject the message of salvation which their culture, religion, or government may have denied them. We believe that no religious tradition or political power has the right to take away any person's God-given freedom either to worship or to reject God. To deny people an opportunity to hear the gospel is to deny them the human right of freedom of religion.

Our Message: Good News That Can Change the World!

  1. The Bible teaches that God created the people of all nations to worship Him and love each other. God gave each person the freedom to obey or reject Him. Humanity responded by rebelling against God and rejecting His laws. We call this rebellion sin. Sin cuts off our relationship with God and subjects us to His judgment. 6
  2. But God has given us good news. Instead of destroying mankind for our rejection of His love, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to open a way back to a relationship with God. 7
  3. Because Jesus died on the cross in our place and then rose again from the dead, He has the power to grant the free gift of forgiveness and new life. Those who ask for forgiveness and believe in Jesus Christ begin a personal relationship with God and are granted eternal life after death. 8
  4. God longs for all people to know Him but continues to give them the freedom to accept or reject this offer of forgiveness and eternal life. We call this offer the gospel message. 9
  5. The gospel is good news in a world filled with hatred, greed, and violence. When people accept the gospel, the Spirit of God transforms them from the inside out. As people grow in the character of Jesus Christ, they begin to positively influence the world because of their love for God and other people. 10

For more information on our message, email us, or telephone (717) 774-7000.
Read the Bible quotations below to further understand the support for our position.

1) 1 John 5:1-3: "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."

1 John 3:23: "And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment."

2) Matthew 28:19-20: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you."

3) 1 John 4:7-11: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

1 John 3:14-18:"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth."

4) 1 Peter 2:16-7: "As free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God."

5) Revelation 22:17: "And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!' And let him who hears say, ‘Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely."

6) Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

7) John 3:16-18: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

8) John 5:24: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."

John 14:6: "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Acts 4:12: "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

Romans 5:6-11: "For a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."

Romans 10:8-13: "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.' For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved."

9) 2 Peter 3:9: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

10) 2 Corinthians 5:17-21: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

Romans 10:15: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!"