I am currently lecturing in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Yesterday after a panel discussion at the university, I met a man who told me that he used to be an atheist and a Marxist. While still of that persuasion, he met an American missionary who offered to teach him English if he would, in turn, teach the missionary Portuguese. Although the man was eager to learn English, there was one drawback to the missionary's proposal: he would teach him English using the Bible as a textbook.

"I hated God," he told me. "Even the name of God. Just to hear it angered me."

"You're not going to teach me using that?" he protested to the missionary, indicating the Bible.

"No Bible, no English," replied the missionary flatly.

Thus began their study of English and of the Word of God. "We studied one chapter a week," he said. "One chapter a week of the Gospel According to John."

A wise choice on the missionary's part, it was not without affect. "When we got to the fourteenth chapter and sixth verse - "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" - I felt all of the anger, all of the hatred, all of the darkness flee from my heart," he said. "I could not explain it."

Here was a man who was dedicated to a militant atheistic philosophy that was utterly opposed to Jesus Christ; a man who hated the very name of God; a man who recoiled at the thought of reading the Bible. And yet, God spoke to him, cutting through the layers of self-delusion, spite, and darkness.

Amazing Grace.