Choices and Priorities

 

Earlier this week a friend of mine here in Dulce sent me a link to a video, asking me to watch it and let him know what I thought about it. It was a bit more than 20 minutes long and was basically a woman reading a statement having to do with COVID-19, genocide and…and I’m not really sure. She seemed to be making a case about some sort of coordinated effort among various peoples but as I think about it now I’m not quite sure that her argument rose to the level of exposing a conspiracy. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. The section below in italics was the response I made to my friend. After you read that I have some final thoughts for this blog post.

“I watched a bit more than half of the video. I saw the first 10 minutes and then skipped to a bit before she drew her conclusions. There were a few points that I might agree with but I think her overall case, as I understood it, about a major world-wide conspiracy, was a bit overblown. I think when she repeatedly used the word genocide towards the end she was not really strengthening her case, as she herself pointed out several times earlier that the death rate from COVID is not particularly high. Genocide, as I understand it, is intentionally causing the deaths of a large amount of people, usually from a specific people group. I have first cousins whose other grandparents were victims of the genocide Turkey inflicted on Armenia. I think a strong case could be made that US policy towards Native Americans for many years could be classified as genocide. Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, and forced sterilization come to mind.

As a Christian pastor, particularly within the Reformed tradition of Protestant Christianity, I don’t have any illusions that our country, or the world, is generally headed towards some form of paradise through the actions of individual peoples and/or governments. The Bible paints a picture of things becoming worse, very much worse, before the time when Jesus returns in power and glory for the completion of God’s plan. What will that “worse” or “very much worse” more precisely look like? I don’t know, and I don’t think that anyone else really does either. Again, as a pastor, I think looking at the world and then trying to see if various signs from Revelation are coming true, is the wrong way to expend energy. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus told his followers that all power on heaven and earth was in his hands and that they were to go and make disciples, or followers, of him. He holds the power, come what may, and he gives his followers a task to perform right now.

I believe that God is real, that God is holy, and that God has revealed himself fully through his son Jesus. I believe that sin, at its root, is rebellion against God, and that all human sin, even my own, makes me an enemy of God, unless something is done about it. And God himself provides the solution to that problem, which is the forgiveness of my sin through having faith in his Son Jesus and what Jesus did to remove that sin. It’s a free offer that God extends to anyone who would repent of their sin and turn in faith to Jesus. But it is a limited-time offer. A person has to respond to it in this lifetime. So I don’t get very worked-up about possible world-wide conspiracies, or things going to pot here in the US. I do care about our country and the kind of society my children and grandchildren will live in. But I care a bit more about their eternal state before God, and not just them but the people God has placed us among here in Dulce. 

Kind of a long answer and perhaps not what you expected, but it is what came to mind as I watched the video and thought a bit about it. Thanks for prompting my thoughts. I hope that you are well and staying warm during the cold snap we are going through.”

Every day we are faced with choices and priorities. It is hard to go online and not be literally bombarded with information. As 2020 draws to a close there are all kinds of things that various news/information websites are throwing our way, demanding our attention, and in some case demanding that we act now, before it is too late. What is a person to do?

Speaking for myself, as I mentioned to my friend, I’m going to choose to trust God and what He has clearly made known through the words of the Bible, and set my priorities from that perspective. He has made it clear, per Matthew 28, that he holds all authority and that his followers are called teach others to follow. 

But? But? What about stopping a world-wide conspiracy before its too late? 

That question comes from point-of-view that prioritizes the present time and discounts trusting fully in God. In the first part Psalm 32:6 we get a glimpse of the bigger picture.

“Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.”

There is a time when God may be found, and known, by those who do not presently know, trust, or worship him. But that time has a limit. As I mentioned to my friend, I don’t know when that time will come to an end, nor do I feel that I should spend any time figuring it out. Rather, my priority should be to make the good news of peace with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ freely known. As 2020 closes, that is my choice and my priority. 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Are You An…Evangelical?

 

Apparently it is a bad thing for a person to be identified as an evangelical Christian. That was one of my conclusions after reading this online article, which made mention of some comments to a newspaper article that had to do with US Vice President Mike Pence. Now the newspaper article came from the Times of London, and the online article I was reading came from a pastor in Australia, so I don’t take either one of them as anything that should have any influence on voters in the US. But what was interesting was the alleged dangers associated with evangelical Christians. 

“Christian” is a label that can have a very broad meaning. At its most basic level a Christian would be a person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. But right there we can go in a number of directions as to what it means to believe in Jesus. My attaching the word “Lord” to His name would be an issue for some Christians, as would my decision in this post to capitalize pronouns referring to Him. 

When we add the word “evangelical” to Christian/s we can similarly go into a variety of directions. It does not have a single, or even generally recognized, primary definition. Some Christians would welcome it while others would cringe at any association between their faith in Jesus and the term evangelical. A number of years ago, fairly early in my journey of faith in Jesus, I had a conversation with my pastor. I was trying to understand some things that had been said at a recent class I had attended at our church. He tossed out, almost as an aside, words to this effect: “Brad, the problem is that you’re an evangelical and there aren’t very many of you here.” Two things in that sentence caught my attention. First, I was an evangelical at a church that didn’t have very many of them, and second, the pastor had said “you” rather than “us.”

I’m of the opinion that to be an evangelical as a Christian is a very good thing. You could easily make a case that being evangelical is essential to being a Christian, that you are not really maturing as a follower of Jesus if you don’t have your evangelical radar turned on.

To be an evangelical means that you are intentional about sharing the good news of Jesus with others. This is something that He told his followers to do, in what we call the Great Commission:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” 

The responsibility given to evangelicals is to engage in evangelism, of which making disciples and teaching are the core tasks.

This summer I read a short and very good book on evangelism, which gave this excellent definition: Evangelism is to teach the gospel with an aim to persuade. Here is how I understand those four key words.

Teach: To give someone instruction in something, to guide them in learning something. 

The gospel: The good news of the Lord Jesus as the only Savior of the world. Explaining the gospel means dealing directly with the problem of a holy God and human sin. It is not a simple problem but it does lead to a unique and beautiful solution.

Aim: To have a particular target in mind as you teach the gospel.

Persuade: To teach in such a way that the other person not only knows the gospel, or understands the gospel, but that they believe the gospel.

The real problem for the average person with evangelical Christians is that the gospel message is a message that no ordinary person wants to hear. It’s a message that confronts us as the lords of our own lives. It calls for us to reject the gods we serve. It doesn’t matter if we serve those gods knowingly or not. It doesn’t matter if every other person we know or respect says that the things we are worshipping are harmless. Jesus is a jealous God. He tolerates no rival gods, and that is truly a good thing.

Believing the gospel sets us apart as children of the One True God, calling us to live our lives in ways that, above all else, are pleasing to Him. All of our lives. All of the time. This is something that literally takes a lifetime to learn, often by taking two steps forward and one step back. Over and over.

Living as children of the King is challenging, but also infinitely good. In virtually every respect it is different from the ways of the culture we live in, no matter where in the world you may be living. Small wonder that evangelicals are frowned on, at best, and in other cases reviled or worse.

One of the things I ask for nearly every day is that God would grow me in evangelism. That He would teach me in what to say and give me opportunities to share His good news.

I’m an evangelical. Are you?

 

 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.