by Ian Nagata

“Say you strike up a conversation with someone on the train who’s never heard of Jesus. How would you share the gospel with him?”

It was a great question. And like many of the other questions people asked about my missionary game plan, I hadn’t envisioned that far yet.

So I said the first thing that came to mind:

 “I’d try to find a way to get him to sit down and read the Bible with me, so He could encounter Jesus.”

Nine years later, ironically, it’s the only question that I would still answer the same way. The person of Jesus is our greatest evangelistic tool.[1]

I could share why I feel this way based on multiple conversations, Bible studies, and yes, random people I’ve met on the trains here in Tokyo. But the past three weeks I got to experience this not only in Japan, but on a global level.

For three Wednesdays, I participated in an online training on the Person of Jesus by seeJesus ministries. Participants logged in from Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan, alongside trainers from Guatemala, Jordan, Philadelphia, and So. Cal. 

Besides the personal joy of seeing Evergreeners Jon Hori and Darren Inouye, we delighted in six hours of seeing and studying Jesus’ compassion, honesty, dependency, love, and ultimately, beauty throughout Scripture. (Though Jon and Darren are also quite lovely and beautiful.)

What struck me most however, wasn’t just Jesus’ beauty. Rather, His particular beauty in each of our cultural contexts.

For example, Jesus’ washing the disciples’ feet is beautiful to those of us in America. But have you ever thought how shocking such humility would be in a hierarchical society like Taiwan?

Or take Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. Have you ever thought how the Father’s welcoming would resonate all the more in a shame culture, like Jordan? 

Or think of Jesus’ acknowledging Bartimaeus amidst a great crowd, asking what He could do for him. Can you imagine how courageous this would be in a culture like Japan, where people ignore each other on the trains in fear of disrupting the peace?

So pardon the seemingly sensational title. But I truly mean it when I say we have no greater evangelistic tool in the world. Because as the hymn says, only Jesus is our “Beautiful Savior, Lord of all the nations,” from Jordan to Japan, La Puente to the ends of the earth,

[1] Stole this phrase from Jon Hori’s teaching during the Person of Jesus online training!