Persuasion

Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.” Acts 26:28 (NKJV).

There are many sad verses in the Bible, and this is one of them. I still remember a searing sermon on this passage, preached by one of my early pastors, David J Tarrant. The message was not lost on me even as a young teenager. On another level, we all engage in some form of persuasion through our lives. As children, we need to be persuaded to eat our greens, and now as parents we try to pass the lesson on. Later on, we do our best to persuade an employer that we are the best person to fill that position. Then of course, we spend all sorts of time, effort and money to convince a very special person that they should feel right about spending the rest of their life with you. Probably the most important piece of persuasion you will do at a human level, and with the longest lasting consequences.

Of course, the spiritual parallel is that we should be doing our best in word, lifestyle, and action to persuade others that “Christ’s way is the best way”! We are not always successful, but take heart because there was no better speaker in his day than Paul himself, and even he failed to convince Agrippa. Or to be fair on Paul, he did all he could, but faced someone with a strong will and opinion of his own, and after hearing the words of Paul, still decided against becoming a Christian. It’s a prime example of free will in operation, and is still in use today. We are not responsible for someone else’s salvation, only for presenting the gospel in a persuasive way.

To me, that is not the sad part. It is not that Agrippa didn’t accept the persuasive argument put across by Paul, it’s the ‘almost’ word. Paul was so close, and Agrippa was so very near to a life changing decision. Who knows how the course of history could have been altered if Agrippa had said yes? In the end, Paul did what he could, and the king exercised his free will, and the rest, as they say, is history. So, don’t be put off by apparently not being able to get through to friends and family. You are doing your part, and they are exercising their God given (yes, God given) right to refuse, or at least delay that all important decision. We have no record that Agrippa ever had the opportunity to consider the question again, but while we can, we should keep trying.

Somehow I don’t think Paul would ever have given up on Agrippa, so we should not give up on our prayer burdens either. As Paul also put it in another epistle: Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Philippians 2:12 (KJV)