Jewish Christians Find Some Muslims Open to Gospel Message
by Chad Groening
August 3, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Messianic Jewish evangelist says she witnessed to a lot of Muslims in a recent outreach effort in New York City, and quite a few of them wanted to know more about Jesus.Susan Perlman, first assistant to the executive director of Jews for Jesus, was in New York City during the month of July to take part in a massive street evangelism campaign. She says while Jews for Jesus' primary focus is winning the Jewish people for Christ, the missionaries encountered a number of Muslims who expressed a desire to learn more about Jesus Christ.
Although Perlman notes that most members of the Islamic faith with whom Jews for Jesus talks reject the gospel, she says the evangelists encounter a select few who are open to the message and willing to listen.
"We actually talked to a lot of Muslims on the streets of New York during our witnessing campaign, and also on the streets of other cities," she says, "and some are quite interested to hear from our Jewish-Christian perspective who Jesus is."
But while encouraged by the response of a few Muslims to Jews for Jesus' outreach efforts, Perlman acknowledges that in witnessing to both Jews and Muslims in this way, one cannot expect to see a great many conversions.
"In the same way as we see a handful of Jewish people we see a handful of Muslims," she says. "We don't have the tens of thousands coming forward in a crusade meeting or something like that. We just know we have a lot of hand-picked fruit -- one by one -- and we find the same thing with those from a Muslim background." However, the evangelist notes, some Muslims whom God has prepared in advance turn out to be "willing to receive it and explore it further."
And since Jews for Jesus has branches in major cities around the world, such as in London and Paris -- cities with large Muslim populations, Perlman says the organization's missionaries "can't help" but encounter people of the Islamic faith, and they are always willing to share the gospel with anyone who is willing to listen.
