...How to engage others in a conversation about Jesus

I was just wondering if we need to be careful how we engage people in an ongoing conversation about Jesus. Maybe we do it as one would engage someone in an inspiring conversation about an important topic, being careful to not hit someone over the head with doctrinal, "insider" language, assuming that they know what in the world we're talking about. Hitting over the head does not engage people the way we want. They end up hurting and the conversation is basically over. We bring Jesus into an ongoing conversation with someone like Jesus himself did. Through relationship. John does a great job of illustrating this in his gospel.

I'll start with Nicodemus. He wanted answers. Jesus filled him with more questions, but as he did so he told him who he was. "God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again" (John 3:17, MSG). You just get the feeling that this was not the last discussion that Nicodemus had about Jesus.

We move on to the woman at the well. After all the discussion about water, husband(s), worship, The Messiah, Jesus says to her, "I am he; you don't have to wait any longer or look any further" (John 4:26, MSG). What did she do? Only went and told her entire town that the Messiah had come.

Next: woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). everyone's labeled her. Jesus frees her (stops the stoning), forgives her ("neither do I condemn you"), and challenges her ("go and leave your life of sin").

One of my favorites: Healing of the man born blind (John 9). The work of God might be displayed in his life, that's what Jesus said. One of the ways it was displayed was how this man went from explaining that it was a guy named Jesus that healed him, to calling him a prophet, to saying he is a man sent from God, to admitting he was a believer. Hmmm, some transformation all by himself, don't you think? Jesus transformed him by his own story!

One last obvious example from John 11. Before raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, Jesus explains to Martha that "You don't have to wait for the end. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me , even though he or she dies, will. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all" (John 11:25-26).

OK, back to engaging with people about Jesus. You know, the only people Jesus "hit over the head" or confronted were the ones who needed to have known better, the religious leaders. The ones who did not know him. He showed them who he was, loved them, healed them, and died for them. Our job then, as Christians, is to show people Jesus IN us. That's his message, and ours too!