We have established that our clever arguments and even our deeply personal stories cannot save anyone. In fact, none of us can bridge the divide between God and man. But to present the lost to the Lord, we must lead them to the Word of God. We learned that it is alive and effective, and that the best expression of the Word of God is Jesus Himself. The story of Jesus is found in the first four books of the New Testament called the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
But how do you read through Scripture with someone who knows nothing about it? How do you teach Scripture if you don't know it? I've heard people say you have to get a Bible degree to do a good job, and sure it doesn't hurt to do that. However, the Apostles were not all college material. Many were rural fishermen. If God can use them, he can use us no matter where we are. We don't have to have all the answers.
First pray before opening the Bible. I'm guilty of not doing this. It's not so much a guilt thing, but it's just ineffective to read the Bible without the Spirit of God directing. So pray, invite the Holy Spirit into the study, and let Him guide you and direct you. If you really have trouble figuring out what to read, just start with John. It's a great book.
If we have established that the Word of God is living and active, why can't it teach itself? Guess what? It CAN! You can read the Bible in short bursts and discuss it. I like to start with 10-12 verses, trying to keep in line with the chapter breaks. For example, if the paragraph or story is 17 verses, I will have us all read the whole 17 verses. It is better to read according to the story structure in the Bible rather than the verse structure. (If you think that is blasphemous, consider that chapters and verses were later added to the text to help us quote and reference it. There is nothing holy about verse/chapter structure.)
Sometimes it is best to set some questions in play, then read the passage and then review it. For instance, we might ask 4 questions: Is this confusing? (Let people know that it confuses you sometimes, too), What does this mean?, Does this hurt?, What should I do?
What this looks like afterwards is that you read through verse by verse aloud (or preferably let someone else read through) and ask if there were any thoughts on the questions asked... again verse by verse. This often gets turned into good discussion and gets derailed. This is what you are wanting. You want the structure to get slightly derailed, because people's deep soul thoughts and feelings aren't expressed in structure.
We may not have to have all the answers, and it is always better to let people go on the journey to truth themselves so they will own their conclusions themselves. If they don't own the conclusions, they will not be passionate about them. Half of getting to know God is this very struggle. If people are struggling, then they are most likely beginning to understand. It's okay if people struggle! I promise! Jesus is a challenge for everyone, even when He taught people face to face, offensive to some and amazingly refreshing to others.
Over time you will begin to see people make their decisions. Some will not accept. This is not your decision to make. Some will find a passion ignited in them for Jesus Christ, and those people will want to know Him more and will want to know what to do. We'll discuss that next.
There is much to be said about being someone who simply listens and reflects. People will also take notice when you can have a rational spiritual conversation that goes deeper than rules and regulations and touches on how you yourself have been saved.
But... spiritual conversations are not going to save anyone. Our words and our testimony are just not enough. The Word of God is effective to break through the barriers that come between man and God.
Key Scriptures tell us about the Word of God.
Isaiah 55:11 "...so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."
Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."
2 Timothy 3:16-17 "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
John 1:1-5 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
The Word of God is found in Scripture, and it will accomplish its purpose. Keep that in mind when you share Scripture - it's powerful! The Word of God is also alive and effective for teaching. But if you want to understand the Word of God, look at Jesus Christ. He is the Word of God in flesh. If you have had experience speaking the Word of God into people's lives, you understand these truths deeply.
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Hebrews 1:3a "The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word...."
Colossians 1:15a "The Son is the image of the invisible God..."
Now there is something big to note here - the true way to communicate about God is to first communicate about Jesus. In Him we can see the Father (John 14:9).
The reason I am writing about the power and effectiveness of the word of God, is because we tend to think that our own words and testimony are the ultimate tools for spreading the good news of Jesus. But it isn't enough. Jesus is enough. The power of God is what you are relying on (1 Corinthians 2), not on eloquence or human wisdom. Remember this well. You are a messenger, and you simply point to the one who saved you - Jesus.
All of this to sum up: it is very useful to start with one of the gospel books of the Bible. These are the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
People may not believe in Jesus because they have never been given that option. Maybe they have only grown up with the broader story of our culture which says, "follow your heart."
Some people see the world through a different lens than we do, and it is good for us to lend our perspective.
Now, people say not to talk to people or give them advice during their pains, and this is somewhat true. However, there is a difference between judging someone or trying to avoid painful conversations and actually having deep and meaningful conversations. There are so many people who are waiting for a brave person to just talk to them about the hard things, and having worked with uninsured patients and cancer patients for a few years now, I can tell you that for a fact people appreciate someone who will have these talks with them.
Let's say that someone has broken up with a significant other. Remember, that you already have a basis of friendship as mentioned in earlier posts. You can join with them in saying "s/he was a terrible girl/boyfriend". You can say, "you just need to get out there and find another one". You can say, "everything works to the good of those who love the Lord". But, those are probably not very helpful. The more helpful thing may be to first ask about it, how it makes them feel, and what they think the best thing to do now is. Offer perspectives through questions: "What do you think God might be trying to do/say in this situation?" "Where do you find your ultimate satisfaction?" "How do you find the right woman/man?"
These are questions that begin to open perspectives and assuage people's inner defenses. They allow people to start thinking in a bigger picture about a situation that often blinds people to other concerns. Think about it: who thinks about the big picture when something tragic happens to them? No, we think about the tragic thing and how it has effected us and our own situation. But questions take the blinders off and help people to start seeing that there is a story to their life that is being written day by day, and it's leading somewhere.
Ask to pray with them, and talk directly to Jesus with them present and about their situation. Let them see that you actually believe Jesus is alive, and let that be present in your prayer "language". Ask for Jesus to be with them, to speak to them and to give them new purpose in Him. Let them experience the presence of the living Jesus. That is enough for the moment. If they want more, let them accept him. More on that "acceptance" later.
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Religious word of the day - revival. Revival is a church culture thing, meant to be as a gathering to renew and refresh the faith of the congregation. Sometimes you might hear it called a "tent revival", meaning a revival in a big tent to accommodate larger crowds that a church building can do. Often famous or flagrant speakers are called in to preach. This is not a practice shown in New Testament Christianity, but rather is an outgrowth of a church culture phenomenon called the Great Awakening that dates back to the 1700s.
So you've talked to God. His Spirit is directing you to talk to a person about Jesus. He may or may not have given you specific instructions on how to do this. If He gives you specifics, follow them and do not follow what I'm going to write.
To begin, you might start with, "What do you think happens after we die?" "Do you think there's anyone up there?" "Weird thought, but what is life really about?" After these type of spirituality questions, ask about Jesus. Perhaps start by asking, "What do you think about Jesus?". It gets easier to ask the question after a few times, trust me, but it is nerve-wracking at first. That's normal.
In scenario #1, you may find that a person is actually interested or curious in Jesus. Ask them if they'd be interested in reading the Bible together, a gospel. A gospel is one of the four 1st books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Guess what? This is actually easy. You can simply read a chapter or maybe just 10-20 verses at a time and discuss. Ask questions and try not to provide answers. Let them go on the journey themselves, don't hand them answers easily. Questions might include: "What do you think about this statement?" "Do you think Jesus was telling the truth?" "What does this mean?". (more on that in the next set of posts "The Word")
In scenario #2, you find that a person is ambivalent. This is hard. This is often the state of our culture, and something you might feel like challenging. People like to find excuses to be apathetic, like saying "all roads lead to heaven" or "you find your way, I'll find mine". They don't want conflict, and they don't want to change. But... sometimes it is our calling to challenge such people to give up the quiet life and instead be brave and face the truth. Express that you don't want to hurt them, but instead that you do care for them and for this reason you want them to have what you have. You might have to explain you were given this good news and relationship with Jesus as a gift, and you aren't better than them.
In scenario #3, you find a person is offended or hostile. It's okay. Sometimes people get very angry with the messenger, but don't try to force the issue. Continue to love them. Continue to pray for them. The Lord can work with the passions of people, even if they are dead set against Him. The apostle Paul was a known persecutor of the early followers of Jesus and sent many to their deaths before Jesus caught up with him and entered into his life. You might think that hatred is far worse to face than apathy, but it's exactly the opposite in my opinion. If you find a person antagonistic to you, it's okay. If you can't answer their questions like "If God can do anything, can He make a rock bigger than he can carry?" or the joke from MadTV "If life is fair, why do roses have thorns?" or "Why is there evil in the world if God is real?".... if you can't answer those immediately, it's okay. You can simply say, "I don't know" or "I'll talk with God about that and see" or "I'll look into that, can I talk to you about it after I find something out?".
It's okay to not know. What's not okay is to antagonize and meet their hostility with hostility. I have done this in the past, and I regret it. It has never ended well. We don't want to act unlovingly and inoculate people against Jesus.
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Let's talk about some of these questions, but first, let me say something my missionary mentor taught me. He said that people don't really have intellectual hangups with the truth of Jesus. They just want to make excuses to sin. I believe that he is right in most cases. People don't really want to know the answer to these following questions unless they are in a crisis like going through cancer treatment, mourning the loss of a loved one, or experiencing war and murderous atrocities.
Question #1 "If God can do anything, can He make a rock bigger than he can carry?" Just for your own confidence, I'll answer this. Yes. He can. He did this in a sense by becoming a human, Jesus. He limited himself by choice, even though he is all-powerful. God can make a rock bigger than he can lift, but he can also choose in the future to make the rock carry-able. It's a stupid question that is meant to make you think you aren't a rational person for believing that there is an all-powerful God. But believing that there is a God is not the center of our faith. Rather, the center of our faith is that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.
Question #2 "Why is there evil in the world if God is real?" This is another question about God's authority and power to act in the world. What do we think as followers of Jesus? We believe that sin, which is disobedience and rebellion against God, is the reason there is evil in the world. Sin has two effects on people, direct and indirect effects.
Perhaps you find a man who was abused (sin) committing atrocities (sin) against others. He was affected by sin and formed by sin and then repeated the sin and amplified sin. This is a direct effect of sin.
Indirect effects of sin are hard to understand, and that's normal. Why do children get cancer? Because in the past, the human race rebelled against God. God let us make that choice - a life without him. And a world without Him produces death, illness, plagues, unproductive soil, evil.
Sin entered into the world because God actually loves us. Hear me out. It was not his intention for sin to enter the equation, no. However, love is always a choice, and God permitted us to have the choice to love him or not. You cannot force love. You cannot make it happen. God gave us a choice, and we, through the first man who sinned, chose to rebel against what God wanted. We didn't choose to love God. This is how sin came in.
However, someone asking this sort of question who is experiening tragedy is asking a different question, even though they use the same words. The proper response is not usually one of words, but of loving kindness... of staying with that person in the moment... of being present and representing God's presence. Sometimes the question they are asking is "Where was God when I needed him?" And you should maybe ask yourself, where were the people of God? Or perhaps, where were you?
There are harder questions asked. So so many. Comment with one and maybe we can discuss it together. But don't be afraid to say you don't know the answers. Don't ever think you know it all. You were never meant to know it all, but you were always meant to direct people back to the One who does know it all. Pray with people. Ask God the question they are asking when you pray with them. Again, I give you permission to act in this way... even though it's commonly not thought of.
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Religious word of the day - Curse. In broader culture it means an evil spell cast on someone or an evil spell that becomes active after interacting with an object that is evil or taboo. However, a different way to look at a curse in the Biblical fashion is the removal of blessing and the beginning of punishment for sins committed. This can become a cycle and affect an entire family. As an example, one man abuses his son, then his son abuses his son, so forth and so on. (I haven't been abused, by the way, so don't assume!)
Jesus didn't really do 3 point sermons (if anyone knows what those are). Do you know why? He was a master teacher, that's why. He told confusing riddles, known as parables, that got people's attention but often left them scratching their heads in confusion. But it left them wanting to know. This is really well explained in Mark 4.
Whenever Jesus spoke to crowds, he spoke in riddles and parables. Then later, those who wanted to understand the riddle would approach Jesus and ask for an explanation. I think the point of the riddle was to inspire curiosity. It got people to follow Jesus instead of following a bunch of lifeless rules.
Jesus at one point in His ministry called us to be the salt of the earth. My opinion is that we can look at being the salt of the earth as like salt in the mouth. It tastes good in small quantities, and it makes us thirsty for water.
The way we speak should make people yearn for Jesus, the One who gives Living Water.
If Jesus is truly your Lord and Savior, then He is surely integrated into your very identity and personality. You really have to start with that idea, the reality deep in your own soul. If you don't actually have this relationship, you really don't need to share the good news of Jesus, because you don't really believe it.
We must first express the yearning and great thirst we have, and let people know who quenched that thirst. We must express that we were slaves, and now we are joyously free. This is a reality no one can object to - your own story of how you came to be a child of God. (More on that later.)
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What is wrong with an expository, 3 point sermon? Nothing, it just doesn't work that well. Expository sermons were invented by the Greeks as a form of rhetoric, which is the art of public speaking. It was meant to organize thoughts and make them easy to remember. These sermons were effectively used when Christianity began to battle atheism, a time when Christianity tried to look like the more rational choice over atheism.
Although the modern era did see these types of sermons used with great effect, we no longer live in the modern era. I would say that most of America is in a postmodern mindset now, which means that science and reason are not the ultimate truths or realities of the culture.
Instead, many regard personal stories as absolute truth. These are what you see used by politicians and talk shows alike to either sell something or get you to vote for someone. They are powerful. True stories are especially amazing. True personal stories aren't everything, but they are a start in having spiritual conversations.
This post is about "teasers", though. Think about teasers as positive gossip. It's a whisper. It's a hint. It's a small taste. Think about something you were really attracted to in the past. You saw a glimmer of something interesting, but you went after it and delved deeper without anyone pressuring you. You KNOW you do this with shopping, hobbies, ideas, etc. In the same way, start to think of these spiritual conversations not as being battles, but as being ways for God to enter into the passions and curiosities of a person.
It's very hard to come up with examples of teasers, but perhaps something like, "I heard God speak to me". It's interesting, strange and yet powerful. Jesus used things like, "I am the bread of life", "I am the good shepherd", "I am the vine and you are the branches". Each of these sayings were confusing and inspired a long discussion.
This is an interesting thing to note from Mark 4, mentioned at the beginning of the passage. In Mark 4, the parable of the sower is given by Jesus to a crowd. He basically just talks about seed being sown and how the seed is either eaten, outgrown by weeds, planted in terrible soil, or planted in good soil. And that is ONLY thing the crowd heard. It wasn't until the disciples approached Jesus and asked for an explanation that they got the deeper meaning of how the seed is the word of God.
Do you see how Jesus chose to reveal himself and his teachings to people ONLY when they actually wanted to understand? If we follow Jesus, then this is the way to go.... teasers, riddles, confusing but tasty conversation.
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Religious word of the day - Amen. It's a Hebrew word meaning "truly" or "may it be so". In my opinion, it's kind of like a strong "yeah!" of agreement.
The first conversation we should have... is with God himself.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 that he didn't try to preach a message of wisdom or eloquent words when proclaiming the gospel. Instead he "resolved to know nothing... except Jesus Christ and him crucified." His message would not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.
Why is this important? By it we understand that we cannot rely on our eloquence or speaking skills. This is a relief to many of us! Instead, our presentation of the good news of Jesus relies on God's power.
Therefore, we must have conversations... constant conversations with God. We must ask Him to work on people, and listen to Him when He says to do something. For example, He may tell you to talk to a stranger, or to talk to your friend about the Lord (and we'll get to what that looks like later).
Prayer is essential only because communicating with the Lord and bending to his will is essential. Before we think our ideas and actions are potentially bringing someone to Christ, we must replace that mindset with the fact that the Lord is alive and already acting in the lives of many people. Our job is not to go where we think God is not working. It's to go where He wants us to be and join with His own work and power there.
This is hard to grasp. Our whole faith is hard to grasp. We must rely on the Lord God, not just to give us success, but to give us orders that we follow.
So, you eat a nice snack when you are with your friends. Then you have dinner, maybe dessert, a coffee. Now what? As that 90's garage band sang, "Here we are now, entertain us."
This next part is a little difficult for me to understand. How do we entertain? We are a really diverse people. I myself like to just talk about family, work, kids, hobbies, and everyone's not so favorite - spiritual and metaphysical realities. But, to break the ice, maybe a good movie? Play instruments? Watch the game or some other TV show? I think we all know how to hang out, but how to you get past that?
Actually, you never stop hanging out. People bond slowly, and you will always need to just hang out. People need to just relax. But they will also think of you as a friend when they need someone. They will also listen to you when you start expressing you actually care about them. Don't under or over-spiritualize the art of hanging out. It's wonderful and ordinary. Don't try to be extraordinary. Just love people. Without that foundation of ordinary friendship, don't expect people to just open up to you and feel like you really care about them. Time is the most expensive commodity in America, and if you spend your time with someone, you are caring for them.
Remember you aren't trying to find the shortest and most efficient way to shove some religion down someone's throat. No, the Kingdom of God expresses the good news of Jesus through actual love for the person who doesn't yet serve Jesus. Hang out with them. Be a friend. It's okay. I give you permission to not talk about the plan of salvation the very second you meet them.
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Pro Tips: If you are hosting others, remember a few things.
1. Turn your thermostat down(if it's AC weather) or up(if it's heater weather) about 15 minutes before others arrive. When people come in, they bring generally bring more heat with them, even in the winter. Be attentive to the temperature and adjust it as needed.
2. Have enough toilet paper. I think that is self explanatory.
3. Have enough ice. Ice goes quick. Some of us have automatic ice makers in the fridge, so this is a moot point. However, still make sure the fridge is full of ice.
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Religious word of the day: Holy. Holy means separate. There are different ways to think about holiness. In ancient Israel, there were common items for common use and more special items dedicated to God or temple use. Or there were ceremonially clean and unclean things. Holiness can also mean morally or spiritually excellent.
For us, I think, holiness is about being devoted solely to God. To be holy, our allegiance is to be solely to God. However, we are unable to be holy without Christ, because we have already failed to be allies of God because we have rebelled against Him. Our holiness and our devotion starts with the forgiveness and inclusion in the family of God brought by the great forgiveness Jesus has given us. We have even become children of God, if we accept Jesus.
As followers of Christ, we are different, either by faith or in reality. We cannot live the same way we once did, and we won't ever fit back in with the rest of the world again because of the salvation we have received. We will always be holy, and in that sense, we will always be strangers. Set apart. Separate.
