Jon Noyes explains how believers discussing abortion can use the question of where human value comes from to lead someone to the gospel.
Transcript
Question: You’re doing street evangelism, and someone wants to argue about abortion. How do you segue into the gospel?
Jon: I do this, actually, fairly often, believe it or not. I love street evangelism. I go to college campuses, the beach, or just on the street—wherever I won’t get kicked out—and I just try to have important, good conversations about important and good topics. Sometimes, my conversations drift toward abortion.
The first thing here, to answer your question, is that I don’t always feel the need to get to the gospel. This is controversial to some people. I just don’t always feel the need. I think sometimes it’s forced and contrived. My goal is just to put a stone in somebody’s shoe. When they walk away, I want them limping, but in a good way. I want them thinking about something that, maybe, they haven’t thought about, and if I get to the gospel, fantastic. But I trust the Lord to use my time according to his will.
I’m going to go into the conversation with an open mind and very little agenda. Sometimes I get to the gospel. Sometimes it’s a clear case. Sometimes not. But I’m certainly not going to force it. Usually, it happens naturally, and it’s pretty easy. I was just talking to an administrator at the University of California, Irvine, and we got to chatting, and the abortion issue came up. What I did was draw his attention to the fact that we think people are equal. Why do we think they’re equal? Is it because of how tall someone is? How short someone is? No. Is it because of the color of their skin? Does someone with less melanin have more value than someone with more melanin? No, of course not. Then what is it?
What makes you more valuable? He was an atheist, and he couldn’t ground that. I brought it to the image of God and said, “The reason why is because we’re made in the image of God. The image of God is on you and me. Even if you don’t believe it, you can’t get rid of it. The image of God is also on the unborn baby. Science tells us that the unborn is a unique human life. How do we assign value to human life? We just saw it’s not by the color of your skin, the color of your eyes, how much hair you have, how tall you are, how fat or skinny you are. It’s intrinsic worth, not extrinsic value.” He agreed to that. Then I said, “This is something for you to wrestle with because it seems like you’re discriminating against an entire group of people because of their size, their stage of development, the environment they’re in, or their degree of dependency.” (That’s the SLED motif.)
I didn’t get into the gospel right then, but it’s pretty easy from there. You could say, “Hey, you know what? We’re all valuable and unique, and so are you. Did you know you’re so valuable?” This is a good transition. You have the image of God stuff you’re relating in the conversation centered on abortion. We’re all made in the image of God, and that’s what gives us value. You are valuable because you’re made in the image of God. Not only are people valuable, but people are wanted. See, I don’t believe in God because it’s gained me anything or because I’ve been forced to believe. I believe in God because he’s real. He not only created me, but he loves me, and he loves me so much that he gave his only Son for me because of my sin.
You could always say, “Okay, why are people valuable? It’s because they’re made in the image of God. It’s the type of soul we have. Right? We’re all aware of our souls. Our soul is real. We’re conscious of it. Our consciousness is what we’re aware of every waking moment. But not only is the soul real; souls are special. Everybody agrees that human beings are special. Everybody knows that humans are more valuable, so to speak, than an ant. Right? We all have these categories. But why are we special? We’re special because of the type of soul we have.”
The next step would be to point out that our souls are broken. We’re all aware, in the quiet moments of night, that we’re guilty. We go to great lengths to explain away our guilt or numb our pain because of our guilt. But maybe we feel guilty because we are guilty, and we’re in need of forgiveness. We need a rescue. We’re in a pit, and we can’t get out on our own. Then you present the gospel and say, “Let me tell you about God. Christian theism offers you that rescue. His name is Jesus. God gave him—the second person of the Trinity—to take on flesh so that you can inherit eternal life and the forgiveness of sins. Not in your repentance, not in any works that you do, but solely in the work of Christ.”