Series Introduction: The Way I Share the Gospel 

Contributor: Brother Setiawan

This series of blog posts is made from excerpts of a booklet, “The Way I Share the Gospel” available on the Library page in the Resource Hub. We are grateful for this contribution from our Indonesian brother and sister who have faithfully and lovingly served many years among Tibetans and for the insights they offer. 

Preface

My efforts to know my Tibetan friends come out of a heart that is longing to know what they believe. My wife and I have been living amongst the Tibetan people these past 19 years, where we have gotten to know them in the mission field. It is through this experience I have written this little book with the hope that it will be useful for finding out the right method to share the gospel with them.

Therefore, this writing is mainly about what we have experienced in the mission field; it is not a way of studying the books about Buddhism that have been written before. So, what we have seen and heard from my Tibetan friends is what I have tried to write.

This writing is also the result of conversations and interviews with some of them. During the conversations, I tried to ask them about their daily life which of course is very much related to their belief, and then compare it with books related to it. That is the reason I use their language and writing, to enable us to understand what they mean when they use certain words so that we can understand them rightly. Most of these Tibetan friends of mine are university students, and some of them practice their religion faithfully.

Introduction

The word Buddhism is obviously related to Buddha who gives “the teaching” or dharma to his followers and those who practice his philosophy.

As for Tibetan people, we seldom hear that word; what we often hear them calling themselves is nang ba cho lug. Nang ba means the inside people, and cho lug means religion. So nang ba cho lug means “the inside people’s religion” (Tibetan Buddhism). Therefore, other religions apart from Tibetan Buddhism are called “the outsider’s religion”. 

They also have another way of calling themselves: Lha cho ba. Lha means spirit or idol, cho means religion. Lha cho ba literally means “religion that believes in many spirits/idols”, in other words, it is not monotheism. It is because of this that when a person shares the Good News of Jesus to Tibetan people, they can receive it as one of the many spirits that can be worshiped. They can add the gospel we share with them to the belief they already have. Once, one of my Tibetan friends was asked by her Tibetan friend, “Who is Jesus?’ She answered, “It is the god/spirit that foreigners worship.”

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References

The Way I Share the Gospel (PDF): page 2