How to Get Anyone to Start Talking About Eternity

Have you ever found yourself having a conversation with someone and wondered how you could switch the conversation from talking about everyday stuff to talking about God?

You know, sometimes you go out to eat with a friend or a co-worker and instead of having a conversation about the food, you want the other person to start talking or thinking about God.

Most of us have struggled in this area because we don’t know how to get someone to start talking about eternity.

We end up waiting for something to happen that triggers a conversation or we end up waiting for the other person to ask a question about God.

Unfortunately, both of those may never happen and if they do, they could take a long time.

In the mean time, that person is living without Christ and their eternal destination is set for hell.

So the solution to this problem is to be intentional about our conversation with that person and turn it from talking about everyday things to talking about eternity.

Jesus Gave Us an Example

We’re blessed that God gave us an example in His Word to follow in His footsteps when it comes to pivoting our everyday conversations from the mundane to the eternal.

Consider how Jesus initiated a conversation with the woman at the well in John 4:7-14 and then steered the conversation towards eternity:

[sws_blockquote_endquote align=”left” cite=”” quotestyle=”style02″] A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”[/sws_blockquote_endquote]

We Learn Two Lessons From Jesus’s Example

1.  Jesus initiated the conversation with the woman by talking about their surroundings.

He was at the well with the woman and so it was natural for Him to start talking about what was in front of the two of them.  Jesus did this by saying to the Samaritan woman, “Give me a drink.”

Tip #1:  You can do exactly the same thing with a friend, co-worker, or even a complete stranger. 

Just talk about anything you like, especially if it’s right in front of you.

Example:  One time I was at a bus stop and there was a man playing a game on his iPad.  I asked him politely, “That game looks like fun, what is it called?”  He answered me and it led us to having a great conversation.  After that, I moved to step 2.

2.  Next, Jesus turned the conversation to talk about eternity.

He did this by saying, “If you knew the  gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Jesus deliberately brought up the subject of God and He sparked the Samaritan woman’s curiosity by talking about “living water”.  She had no idea what that is.

Tip #2:  You can ask the person you’re talking with a question to get them to talk about God and to spark their curiosity.

Example:  In my example with the man who I met at the bus stop, after we talked about his iPad game, I gave him a gospel tract and asked, “Have you gotten one of these?”

He asked me what it was and I told him it was a gospel tract.  Then I asked him, “Do you have a Christian background?”

He responded by telling me that his wife is a Christian but that he isn’t.

When I asked him why, he said that everyone thinks they have their own version of the truth but religion just causes a lot of problems.

We were able to have a great conversation from that point on and some seeds were planted.

Bonus Question:  Another great question you can ask is, “What do you think happens to us after we pass from this life?”

This is a great question to ask both offline or online, especially if you adjust your tone to be that of someone who’s curious.

If you want additional examples of question you can ask someone to turn the conversation from talking about everyday things to talking about eternal things, then click here.

How about you, do you have any tips on how to get non-believers to talk about the things of God?

[image credit to Zach Ennis]