Tag: Sharing your faith

Gospel Situations

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If we are going to understand something well, we have to start with theory. There are basic things that need to be understood in any kind of a new venture. But eventually, theory has to give way to practice, or we don’t ever really learn the material very well. For the last four weeks we have stayed pretty abstract as we have talked about how to share the Gospel in post-Christian environment. Last week we took a step toward practicality, but we didn’t go far enough. Today we’re going all the way. Sharing the Gospel in a post-Christian environment will eventually require us to…you know…actually share the Gospel in a post-Christian environment. Let’s talk about how to do that as we wrap up our series.

Gospel Situations

Have you ever worked really hard to set up a perfect situation only to have it go awry on you? Maybe it was a date. You planned everything down to the smallest detail you could think of. But you didn’t account for that one thing, and it turned out to be a landmine that blew up the whole affair. Maybe it was a conversation with another person you knew was going to be difficult. You were dreading it, but you also knew it had to happen. So, you prepared the ground as carefully as you could in hopes of getting through it without too many bruises. But as soon as you started off down the path of whatever the subject was, everything fell apart on you. 

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Morning Musing: Romans 15:17-19

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“Therefore I have reason to boast in Christ Jesus regarding what pertains to God. For I would not dare say anything except what Christ has accomplished through me by word and deed for the obedience of the Gentiles, by the power of miraculous signs and wonders, and by the power of God’s Spirit. As a result, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What is it that causes the Gospel to grow and spread? If you look much into it, you’ll find all sorts of evangelism methods and programs. The most popular of them are marketed well and cost a pretty penny to get your hands on. But while these aren’t entirely without merit—and indeed, some of them are pretty helpful if implemented well—these aren’t the things that cause the Gospel to grow. Paul speaks to some of what does here. Let’s take a look.

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Morning Musing: Romans 10:14-17

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“How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.’ But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things that irks critics of Christianity more than many other things we do is our constantly trying to share our faith. Why are Christians so pushy with their beliefs? Why can’t they just leave other people to believe what they want rather than going around telling them they’re wrong all the time? What arrogance to think they know better than everybody else what’s right. What’s the big deal? What Paul says here has a lot to do with it. Let’s take a look at what he has to say.

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Digging in Deeper: Deuteronomy 6:7

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“Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Children typically wind up looking like their parents. Now, this doesn’t always happen. Sometimes the relationship between fathers and their sons, between mothers and their daughters, winds up with their becoming completely different from one another, but that’s more of an exception than a rule. In most cases, the resemblance is striking – and I don’t just mean physically. In many cases, this is intentional. Parents themselves grew up really enjoying a particular hobby or activity, and as a result, they work rather diligently to teach their kids to enjoy it as well. Sometimes this results in a total whiff (like my attempting to pass down a love for cartoons to my kids which failed rather spectacularly as I am the only one in the house with any kind of an interest in pretty much anything animated). But sometimes we manage to knock it out of the park (like I did with my passion for Kansas basketball and Kansas City sports teams). I’m thinking about all of this today because I recently (and finally!) got to watch the latest installment in the Ghostbusters franchise, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The movie itself doesn’t have much of anything to do with this, but it got me thinking about it all the same. Let’s talk about the film and I’ll explain why.

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Playing Your Part

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This week we finally wrap up our series, Tell Someone. For six weeks we have been talking about how to share our faith with another person. This last part offers a reminder: Although our work is vital, when it comes to the saving of souls, our work is not the only work that is happening. Jesus reminds us in the parable of the sower that there is someone else involved in the process and His work is pretty important too. Rather than worrying about doing the whole thing ourselves, if we will learn to play our part, things will go entirely more smoothly for us. Thanks for reading.

Playing Your Part

Have you ever watched a rowing competition? On occasion during a Summer Olympics event, I’ll manage to tune in just in time to see the rowing event. I don’t necessarily look to be able to watch it, but when it happens to be on, it’s not one of the events I’ll flip past to watch something else. While it’s not exactly one of the more popular sports in the world, rowing is one of those sports that requires both high skill and high strength. It doesn’t seem like it at a glance, but if you want to win big, they are a must. The most successful teams train rigorously until every single part of the team not only knows their part, but executes their part in perfect harmony with the rest of the team members. Every motion is coordinated. Every stroke is timed. One person who is even slightly out of sync with the squad will immediately become a drag on the rest. Oh yeah, and because they row with their backs to their destination, they are all completely dependent on the one person who can see where they are going. It’s almost like there’s a parable in there.

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