Rev. Fred Klett and I joined up with some evangelist friends from NYC to do a Saturday outreach in various parts of Philadelphia last week. We went to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Art Museum on Ben Franklin Parkway (next to the "Rocky" statue), and Philadelphia's famous South Street, made even more famous by American Bandstand's 1963 hit song"South Street" by the Orlons. (Which I heard on the radio when I was 7.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6q5KM5THAs South Street's gotten a lot seedier since then!
We shared the gospel with quite a few people, and more people than I ever remember before gave us their phone numbers for follow-up conversations, especially "S", a young Jewish man (Can't give out his name.) (The person in this photo is not that person, btw.) "S" told me he was not messianic, but a traditional Jew. "S" told me he was an "anti-fascist". "You mean 'ANTIFA'? ", I asked him. He answered "Yes". He told me he had recently brawled with the "Proud Boys" in Philadelphia, if not at this VERY event, then at something similar. https://phillyantifa.org/all-out-november-17th-pushback-against-proud-boys-and-threepers-i n-philly/ (Good thing I didn't tell him I was a Trump supporter!) "S" stood still and heard me give my testimony about first believing in Jesus from reading Isaiah 53. I told him the rabbis got it wrong about Jesus. He took it all in, no objections, no arguments. Then he gave me his cell phone number for follow-up.
Also, I recently returned from the NJ shore resort of Wildwood, NJ to visit the Israeli-owned T-shirt stores and souvenir shops. I wore the "God is Love" red shirt (with the I John 4:8 phrase in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English), and passed by the various stores with a bag of CDs and tracts. Due to the time of day and the heavy Saturday crowds, the Israelis themselves were intent on only potential customers, and I could get into no conversations. However, "T" an Egyptian (merchant?) read my shirt's message aloud in Arabic "AllahHU maHAbbah!" he said. That was my cue, and we spoke for several minutes. He told me that though Muslim, he strongly believes in Jesus and is familiar with the NT. "Issa is mentioned many more times in the Qu'ran than Mohammad is," he assured me. We discussed the "problem" of Christians claiming that Jesus is divine. Apparently, "T" is a God-seeker who is not tied down ONLY to the tenets of Islam. "I'm a Muslim because I was raised a Muslim," he said. I replied with "I'm a Christian but I was raised a Jew", and my life was changed by reading Isaiah. Because I could not translate the prophet's name into Arabic, we reached an impasse here. (He didn't know who I was talking about.) "You can't show me one place in the Bible where Jesus said He was God," he said. So I quoted him John 1:1 and said, "Are you willing to continue this conversation?" He said "Yes" and gave me his cell phone number: I was finally able to get the prophet Isaiah's transliterated Arabic name for him and then sent it to him. My point with him was that Isaiah is INDEED mentioned as a prophet in Islamic tradition, and that Isaiah spoke of the divinity of Jesus.
Rev. Fred Klett and I joined up with some evangelist friends from NYC to do a Saturday outreach in various parts of Philadelphia last week. We went to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Art Museum on Ben Franklin Parkway (next to the "Rocky" statue), and Philadelphia's famous South Street, made even more famous by American Bandstand's 1963 hit song"South Street" by the Orlons. (Which I heard on the radio when I was 7.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6q5KM5THAs South Street's gotten a lot seedier since then!
We shared the gospel with quite a few people, and more people than I ever remember before gave us their phone numbers for follow-up conversations, especially "S", a young Jewish man (Can't give out his name.) (The person in this photo is not that person, btw.) "S" told me he was not messianic, but a traditional Jew. "S" told me he was an "anti-fascist". "You mean 'ANTIFA'? ", I asked him. He answered "Yes". He told me he had recently brawled with the "Proud Boys" in Philadelphia, if not at this VERY event, then at something similar. https://phillyantifa.org/all-out-november-17th-pushback-against-proud-boys-and-threepers-i n-philly/ (Good thing I didn't tell him I was a Trump supporter!) "S" stood still and heard me give my testimony about first believing in Jesus from reading Isaiah 53. I told him the rabbis got it wrong about Jesus. He took it all in, no objections, no arguments. Then he gave me his cell phone number for follow-up.
Also, I recently returned from the NJ shore resort of Wildwood, NJ to visit the Israeli-owned T-shirt stores and souvenir shops. I wore the "God is Love" red shirt (with the I John 4:8 phrase in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English), and passed by the various stores with a bag of CDs and tracts. Due to the time of day and the heavy Saturday crowds, the Israelis themselves were intent on only potential customers, and I could get into no conversations. However, "T" an Egyptian (merchant?) read my shirt's message aloud in Arabic "AllahHU maHAbbah!" he said. That was my cue, and we spoke for several minutes. He told me that though Muslim, he strongly believes in Jesus and is familiar with the NT. "Issa is mentioned many more times in the Qu'ran than Mohammad is," he assured me. We discussed the "problem" of Christians claiming that Jesus is divine. Apparently, "T" is a God-seeker who is not tied down ONLY to the tenets of Islam. "I'm a Muslim because I was raised a Muslim," he said. I replied with "I'm a Christian but I was raised a Jew", and my life was changed by reading Isaiah. Because I could not translate the prophet's name into Arabic, we reached an impasse here. (He didn't know who I was talking about.) "You can't show me one place in the Bible where Jesus said He was God," he said. So I quoted him John 1:1 and said, "Are you willing to continue this conversation?" He said "Yes" and gave me his cell phone number: I was finally able to get the prophet Isaiah's transliterated Arabic name for him and then sent it to him. My point with him was that Isaiah is INDEED mentioned as a prophet in Islamic tradition, and that Isaiah spoke of the divinity of Jesus.
