Being a Winner

When you think of winning in apologetics, what comes to mind?

Maybe you’re focused on winning in competition. You have your eyes set on the medals and trophies at the end of the tournament, and you’re dead set on dominating the competition, one round at a time.

Or maybe you’re focused on winning the argument. Whatever ungodly worldview the other person throws out at you, you know your stuff and can shoot it down, leaving that heathen floundering for a response.

Trophies and good arguments are great, but (you guessed it) the attitudes I’ve just described are obviously wrong. Consider what the Bible says about winning:

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise. (Proverbs 11:30, NIV1984)

When we do apologetics, it’s easy to focus on the wrong type of winning. Think about it: how much effort do you put into winning souls to God? Trophies will collect dust, rankings will be forgotten, and even knowledge will pass away. Souls last forever.

Always remember, the point of speaking truth is to persuade another person—a valuable human precious to God and made in His image—not just to be right! Make the most of each opportunity to speak the truth.

Be wise: win souls, and you’ll always be a winner!

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men… For Christ’s love compels us…  So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.
 And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
 We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:11, 14, 16-20)