Literature evanglism is one of the foremost activites in evangelism. It involves the use of books to evangelise to non-christian. Besides the publication of apologetic literature, many of us are also familiar with the use of Gospel tracts.
But it is more than just giving away tracts. At the heart of literature evangelism, as in all other forms of evangelism, it is the desire to share Christ with others. This is our calling, our Lord’s Great Commission to His Church.
One night in a forest in Sicily, a bandit held up a colporteur ( A person selling/distributing bibles ) at gunpoint. He was ordered to light a bonfire and burn his books. He lit the fire and asked if he might read a little from each book before he dropped it into the flames.
He first read Psalm 23. At the end of it the bandit said “That’s a good book;we won’t burn it; give it to me.” Then he read the story of the Good Samaritan and the bandit once again said, ” That’s a good book;give it to me.” And then he read 1 Cor 13 on love and the bandit said the same thing again. In the end, not a single book was burnt and the bandit left the colporteur and went off into the darkness with the books.
Years later, the colporteur met that same bandit again. But this time, he was a Christian minister, holding a book of the Bible in his hand. He attributed his conversion to his reading of the books of the Bible, which began that night in the forest.
~A.M. Chirgwin in “The Bible in World Evangelism”
In 1949, missionaries were driven out of China after the communists came to power. At that time, there were only about 1 million believers and it was feared that the Church there would soon die out. However, during the 100 years of missionary work in CHina, the Bible was already translated into Major Chinese dialects. The missionaries had left the country, but God’s Word had not. Today there are 70-100 million christians in China!
The power of God’s Word is an undeniable and eternal truth. Why?? It is powerful because it is God’s Word and not man’s. God himself declares that His Word ‘will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose which I sent it’ Isaiah 55:11 It is ‘living and active’ and transforms lives. Hebrews 4:12 , 1 Peter 1:23
Its power is seen when God’s Word is truthfully and faithfully proclaimed and lives transformed when people hear and believe. This proclamation was the principal activity of the early churches. Acts 4:13 ; 6:7 ; 8:4 How right was Paul to declare with passion, ‘without the preacher there is no message.. for how can they believe if they have not heard, and how can they hear without someone preaching to them’ Romans 10:14
The bible is a main focus point of Literature Evangelism. However, there are other methods by which you can go about doing it, including the use of Gospel tracts. Scripture Gift Mission publishes attractive pocket-size booklets and leaflets in more then 800 languages, using only the scriptures for its text There are also many other popular Gospel tracts out there like ‘Four spiritual laws’ and ‘The Bridge’
You can use them to share Christ with your friends, neighbours, colleagues!!!
Popularity: 1% [?]