Friday, October 28, 2005
As An Aside
“[Church work] is in no way whatever superior to the works of a farmer laboring in the field, or of a woman looking after her home.” ~Martin Luther
As an aside from the cultural mandate assertion, there is a part of me that resists this notion. We might display a beautiful home, perfect meals, fabulous gardens, excellent business ethic, superb music or art. We might even change the course of history in big ways. You might anticipate…”and have not love”…but no, even in wondrous love and service to God and man. What happens when no one asks you source of strength…or what you believe? If our profession of faith never leaves the heart and hands---through spoken words---to provide understanding of salvation, is this a witness at all? This is particularly poignant in this time of the silenced Christian. I have heard enough of real people experiences to know there is frustration…in nursing, and education, where one to one intimacy could make eternal differences, if freedom still rang. I still recall asking my baby Christian friend (we had both just been born spiritually, and I was on fire!) how she would tell the gospel if she majored in music? She said the music would speak, even if it had no words. I was a skeptic then and in all my world-view indoctrination, I can’t completely shake it. Dr. D. James Kennedy included the dilemma in a particularly convicting sermon. He condemned the silent Christian and asked, “when is the last time someone asked you, ‘What makes you different?’” I have been told I am different (to which I NEVER press for the perilous details: “You just seem a little off balance to me.” : -? ) but the inquiry of why never comes! Kennedy made no bones; words are our God-given tools for expanding God’s Kingdom. Since then, I blog, silent no more. The irony? Christian world-view of God’s sovereignty in all spheres, Total Truth, is how it all began here! It’s practically heresy to crawl into my cubbyhole and chat about getting out there, living the faith! Or so I thought before I finished Being the Body. Authors Colson and Vaughn offer answers and affirmation.
Spreading the gospel isn’t an either/or, as I suspected! St. Francis was a living example of this. He didn’t just go off to a garden and write clever ditties like, “Preach the gospel all the time; if necessary, use words.” He actually did preach boldly. “Our first calling is to be a witness (in our being, doing, occupation). That is our very nature…as people saved and made holy by God. But included within that calling is the duty to proclaim a witness of who God is and what He has done.” (p. 360) The book goes on about gifts and calling: Not all of us have a boldness for sharing our faith and obviously, we aren’t all called to be evangelists in the full sense! But there is no question God wants to use every Christian of the Church Body for the furthering of His Kingdom.
“I will give you [My Church] the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; whatsoever (evil) you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven and whatever you loose (from evil) on earth will be loosed in Heaven.” ~Jesus (Matthew 16:19)
As an aside from the cultural mandate assertion, there is a part of me that resists this notion. We might display a beautiful home, perfect meals, fabulous gardens, excellent business ethic, superb music or art. We might even change the course of history in big ways. You might anticipate…”and have not love”…but no, even in wondrous love and service to God and man. What happens when no one asks you source of strength…or what you believe? If our profession of faith never leaves the heart and hands---through spoken words---to provide understanding of salvation, is this a witness at all? This is particularly poignant in this time of the silenced Christian. I have heard enough of real people experiences to know there is frustration…in nursing, and education, where one to one intimacy could make eternal differences, if freedom still rang. I still recall asking my baby Christian friend (we had both just been born spiritually, and I was on fire!) how she would tell the gospel if she majored in music? She said the music would speak, even if it had no words. I was a skeptic then and in all my world-view indoctrination, I can’t completely shake it. Dr. D. James Kennedy included the dilemma in a particularly convicting sermon. He condemned the silent Christian and asked, “when is the last time someone asked you, ‘What makes you different?’” I have been told I am different (to which I NEVER press for the perilous details: “You just seem a little off balance to me.” : -? ) but the inquiry of why never comes! Kennedy made no bones; words are our God-given tools for expanding God’s Kingdom. Since then, I blog, silent no more. The irony? Christian world-view of God’s sovereignty in all spheres, Total Truth, is how it all began here! It’s practically heresy to crawl into my cubbyhole and chat about getting out there, living the faith! Or so I thought before I finished Being the Body. Authors Colson and Vaughn offer answers and affirmation.
Spreading the gospel isn’t an either/or, as I suspected! St. Francis was a living example of this. He didn’t just go off to a garden and write clever ditties like, “Preach the gospel all the time; if necessary, use words.” He actually did preach boldly. “Our first calling is to be a witness (in our being, doing, occupation). That is our very nature…as people saved and made holy by God. But included within that calling is the duty to proclaim a witness of who God is and what He has done.” (p. 360) The book goes on about gifts and calling: Not all of us have a boldness for sharing our faith and obviously, we aren’t all called to be evangelists in the full sense! But there is no question God wants to use every Christian of the Church Body for the furthering of His Kingdom.
“I will give you [My Church] the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; whatsoever (evil) you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven and whatever you loose (from evil) on earth will be loosed in Heaven.” ~Jesus (Matthew 16:19)
