Monday June 28, 2010

Read Mark 4:1-9

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%204:1-9%20%20&version=NIV

Put yourself in the shoes (or more probably, the sandals) of the average person in Jesus time. Life was governed by the Torah and the religious leaders and elders of the day. They interpreted the law of God and taught the masses the way of God. They had the authority. They had the power. They were clearly and irrevocably in control. To question them was unthinkable.

And into the mix comes this young, uneducated man called Jesus. He teaches the Word of God and the Law of God in common language, in ordinary everyday common speech. His were not theological ramblings or wrestlings with irrelevant issues and convoluted theological conundrums. This Jesus taught about God and He taught plainly from ordinary every day life.

Unfortunately, today many people in the church have picked up on the way of the Pharisees, using theology, academia and verbosity to air their intelligence and convince others of their view point/argument.  Rather than speaking plainly from the Bible we hide our argument behind a veil of theological jargon, scientific reasoning or original language quotations. One such fellow who claimed to be a Christian argued with me vehemently about the return of Christ (or rather, the falsity of the claim of His return) from the Greek word “Parousia”. Being a new college student I was keen to engage my learned friend. After several more quotes of authors and other Greek words I decided to pull out my Greek New Testament. I handed it to this esteemed would-be theologian and simply said, ‘Prove it from the Greek New Testament’. His reply? ‘Oh I can’t read that, it’s Greek’.

The point is simple. If Jesus, the master teacher, chose to teach the people in ordinary everyday language using images and illustrations from ordinary, understandable language, you and I can do the same. We don’t need to use intellectual sounding arguments, large Greek words, theological jargon and so on to convince others about the Bible. It’s probably more helpful to use language that the other person can understand, especially if he or she is a non believer. Don’t worry about how you sound to others. If you are speaking truths from the Bible, you are on solid ground.

Prayer:-

• Continue to pray for the World Changers Group as they rework their structure, their mission and purpose statements. Pray that God would lead this team and grant them great wisdom, insight and understanding of God’s plan for our church. Pray for the new members on the task force.


• Pray for our level of giving. Ask God to raise giving to levels so that we can achieve the dreams we shared early this month - dreams of full- time children’s worker, youth worker and a part time pastoral care coordinator and mission coordinator.


• Ask God to give the Committee of Management the ability to manage our funds and to take care of our temporal affairs. Pray that these men and women would be filled with the Spirit and able to wisely use the funds granted to them.

Do It Today

Write out a simple every day explanation of

• Salvation by faith


• Repentance


• The meaning of Jesus’ work at the cross.

Pray that God would give you an opportunity to share this with a non believer.