“Before this faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian” (Galatians 3:23-25).
Does Galatians 3:23-25 mean that in witnessing to the lost, the evangelist must use the Ten Commandments in order to faithfully proclaim the gospel? I don’t think so. Here are three reasons why:
You’ve got to admire Pope Benedict ex vee one for knowing how to quit while you’re ahead. As far as climbing the corporate ladder goes, getting the keys to the kingdom and the company Popemobile is a sign you’ve maxed out your promotability. And the responsibility of being infallible is a burden no octogenarian should have to bear for long. When you’re getting on in years, and noticing an increased frequency in “senior moments” you don’t want to have to invoke St Anthony to help locate either misplaced bunch of keys.
As for the new kid on the block, weighing in at a spritely seventy-six years young (getting the white smoke green light two years sooner than his predecessor), Pope Francis ushers in a new era of pontificating. Personally, I think the name Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a cooler name than Francis (no offense pastor Chan), but having a 1 in your name certainly scores points for originality.
My concern whenever the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) perennially makes the news, is that Evangelicals get swept up in peripheral discussions with their Catholic counterparts in water cooler debates at work. Evangelicals assume that Joe Catholic at work knows and believes what the Pope teaches.
I grew up in a loving, fun, and staunchly Catholic home. When my Evangelical schoolmates lobbed half-baked assaults on my Mariology, purgatory, indulgences, and praying to St Christopher for a safe bus ride, they accomplished no more than convince me they were ignorant of my beliefs.
My Baptistic buddies learned, from their youth pastor no doubt, that Catholics believe in odd myths like the treasury of merit, that contraception was evil, and that Mary was born sinless and was assumed into heaven without ever tasting death. It was true that the Pope and other die-hards knew, understood, and believed in all those issues, but I could dismiss most of their attacks by honestly denying that I believed any of it. This muffled their clamorous conversion attempts, and left me just as Catholic in my own mind as I would be if I actually did subscribe to the official teachings of the RCC.
I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret a nun taught me in the 1st grade when I questioned transubstantiation (it turns out trace elements of Sola Scriptura were already stashed deep in my spiritual DNA from before the foundation of the world, according to Eph 1:4). Here it is… Continue Reading…
The Lord has provided me with an opportunity to advance the gospel through frontier missions. I recently returned from a visit to a Central African nation that has 11 million people dispersed among 130 distinct ethno-linguistic groups. Many of these groups remain entirely unreached and unengaged for the gospel. I had the opportunity to study one of these languages this past year. There are roughly 50,000 people that speak this language, and there is currently no written alphabet. There are no missionaries working among this people group. There is no church. There are zero believers.
And yet the door remains open for the gospel. Even though the country has a Muslim government, they still grant missionary visas, which is almost unheard of for a Muslim country. This makes it possible to do full-time ministry without having to spend time trying to creatively stay in the country. Continue Reading…
Missionaries need your prayers. Right now, there are people laboring for the Lord in difficult parts of the world, trying to advance their gospel. The outcome of their effort is connected to the work of prayer on their behalf, by those left behind. God is of course sovereign over the advance of the gospel; but God plans the ends as well as the means, and he has chosen to see the gospel advance through the power of prayer.
This is why Paul, perhaps the most rugged missionary ever to live, repeatedly asked those who sent him to pray for him (Rom15:30; 2 Cor 1:11; 1 Thess 5:25; 2 Thess 3:1; Heb 13:18). If the pioneer of all pioneer missionaries (Acts 9:15) needed prayer, how much more do missionaries today need our prayers?
But it can be difficult to know exactly how to pray for missionaries. What are ways you can effectively intercede for those who bring the gospel to distant lands? Scripture gives us several specific items to be praying for on behalf of missionaries: Continue Reading…
I know a Swiss missionary in Egypt, an Egyptian missionary in America, and an American missionary in Switzerland. I left South Africa to study theology in America under a South African professor, who had to translocate from Germany, and was replaced by an American. Wisdom from below would point out that God could save a fortune on airfare if everyone just stayed put and ministered where they live. But our God is not that sedentary. And His sent ones are notoriously antsy to jailbreak the trappings of comfort and conformity.
There is something undeniably intriguing about receiving a message that was borne arduously from afar. Conversely, it is home cooked meals we find bland. Why else do youth suddenly get saved at camp when the visiting itinerant hipster preacher tells them the old, old story they’ve seen in flannel graph since they were knee-high? They come home and tell their persistent parents and faithful pastor that they finally heard the gospel from youth pastor Faux Hawk.
Jesus observed sardonically that, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household” (Matt 13:57). It was in Nazareth that Jesus of Nazareth’s message was summarily rebuffed by the contempt bred in a greenhouse of familiarity (Matt 13:55-56).
From time to time, I get emails from pastors and other outreach workers looking for a fresh perspective on evangelism and local outreach ministries. The questions range from what tracts we use to training materials to invitations to evaluate their ministries. One email interaction I enjoyed having was with a pastor of a small church (we’ll call him “Phil”) looking to stir a passion in his congregation for evangelism. My hope is that sharing his email and my answer (both adapted) will be helpful in motivating all of us to be faithful in speaking the Gospel to people.
