Circular Argument

Yesterday my teammate and I went out together to talk to some security guards that he had met. They are a bit of a captive audience as they have no other place to go. So they were bashing America and saying lots of other meaningless things, when I told them all of the bad things that happen in the world are because people have a heart problem. This got us on the topic of 'religion'. They immediately said the Bible has been changed. I told them no it hasn't. I showed them what Jesus said in Matt. 5:17&18. They were surprised that I had the Bible with me. So I told them if the Bible has been changed, tell me when, who, how, and why. They said they would bring their Koran tomorrow and we could bring our Bibles. It was a duel. We set up some rules where they spoke for 30 minutes and we said nothing, then we would speak for 30 minutes and they wouldn't say anything. They didn't follow the rules, but we were respectful.

So today we met. They started. They went way over their 30 minute timetable. They read a lot of different verses trying to claim that the Koran says the Bible has been changed. Actually the Koran doesn't say that. It says that Jews and Christians have distorted God's Word with their tongues. Nothing about physically changing it. Now for my partner and I the point was not to argue but get to the Gospel message. Here is what I laid out to them: First I just talk about how powerful God is. Then I said:
God cannot change.
You can't separate God's Word from God. So God's Word can't change.
The Bible hasn't been changed.
They responded that God allowed the Bible to be changed so that He could send a better book. I told them that then makes God like man. Almost as if God said, "Oh, this book is no good. I need to do a better job." I said many other things, but there's no need to list all of them. Anyway, they just kept going around and around with the same argument. It was actually very irrational at time. I just wanted to go on to what I had prepared to teach them. Actually one of my friends uses this method. I wanted to show them the principle that Jesus taught that the Law, Psalms, Prophets, and N.T. were actually one book. I then would go through the principle of why the prophets sacrificed. They took a lot of time without letting me talk. Finally I said, you have been talking for hours. It's my turn. They admitted that they had taken my right. So finally I was able to present this principle. God encouraged me because there were three guys that came and listened who were not workers. This is really the reason I shared this presentation. I was fed up with the guys I had met. I didn't want to cast my pearls to the pigs. The other men men listened. One guy kept interrupting me asking me why we don't sacrifice anyone. This was the exact point that I wanted to make. I promised him, if he would listen I would tell him. I don't know what God will do with His Word. We hope to go back regularly to let them talk to show them that they don't really have that much to talk about. At the same time, we want to communicate Christ to them. Pray that God's Word would fall on good soil. I'm so glad that as Peter said, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy..." The Holy Spirit gave me such joy as I reached the conclusion when John says, 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." I then asked them if they thought Jesus would agree with John's witness. Some said no. In Matthew 20:28 Jesus said that He came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Enough said!