I referred to a third category of thought in my last post regarding an interesting "conversation" I had with a visitor at church. And by the way, if this post makes no sense, I now officially have no excuse (Connar, my 2 month old, has slept through the night on consecutive nights for the first time in his young career).This visiting lad spoke to me of persecution in the context of evangelism. Jesus said that we would be persecuted. So did Paul to Timothy in the third chapter of his 2nd recorded correspondence: "anyone who wishes to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."
That's a pretty darn challenging verse. If you are a true Christian (not just professing one), you want to live a godly life. And if the conditions of "A" are met, then "B" will inevitably follow.
The question is what does this look like on a daily level? In other words, how does this persecution come to us? Do we bring it on ourselves through evangelism and the persecution is their immediate response to us? Do we bring it on ourselves by living godly lives, and that inevitably offends people (i.e. not letting people cheat, confronting sin and injustice, etc...)? Or do we bring it on more through our methodology (how we share the gospel, disciple, discipline, teach, etc..) than our theology (understanding of God that we communicate with others)? And if that methodology brings about persecution, should that be subject to change?
First of all, in an attempt to make my blog entries shorter, I will just address one area of this idea of persecution and non-Christians (and unrepentant professing Christians) not liking us.
Let me give an example from my college ministry experience. Most big colleges-and UCF is a big college-have shouting evangelists in the designated "free speech" areas. They shout for people to repent. They really have no clue who they are shouting against. They have no clue of personal struggles, personal idols, or the personal beliefs that are stumbling blocks to even sitting down and talking about the gospel (and these must be addressed or people won't listen).
And they get made fun of. That's not being persecuted for Jesus' sake. That's being persecuted for not loving people where they are at. The shouting evangelist is hyperbole. You're probably not one per se. But if we fail to listen to others (which ticks people off), and simply make them listen to us, I wonder if that's really persecution. It's more likely that we're being persecuted for being a jerk and not loving others well.
So in some ways, I think we may offend people by the methodology, and not the gospel. And that's neither the kind of persecution that is promised nor is it 'good.' So if its only the methodology that's bringing persecution, that ought to be evaluated.
2 comments:
I hate to be a complete downer on that type of hollering evangelism, because people from time to time do "get saved," but I do agree that overall it really is just a complete turnoff to people. It's obnoxious to attack people and press for a conversion, and I hate it.
As a flip side to that, however, it seems like there does need to be a place for a "sell" at some point sometime, and I don't know who should be the one that has to make that call--the "Hey brother, you need Jesus." Does it need to be a random person? Or is it a person in a context of an existing relationship? We are in the relational evangelism craze, for lack of a better term, where we rightly recognize a strongly felt need for authentic relationships with people, but there's never any sharing of Christ. Maybe it's too much of the previous 16 years of Baptist upbringing kicking in, and maybe it's just more of a slow process than I realize...
Rebekah,
I'm glad you feel the tension. I hope its always there. Patience is needed, but so is the actual sharing of the message. Our pendulum's need to be swung in the opposite direction that they swing by themselves. For the gentleman I talked to, his might need to be swung a bit more relationally.
Currently, I need to be more intentional in bringing it up in conversations. That's where my pendulum needs to swing.
Some may need to be more patient. But I would say that for many, including myself, my lack of sharing (with some exceptions) is due more to fear of feeling awkward than actual legitimate patience.
In summary, the one who's built relationships, listened well, does eventually need to step out in faith and give a reason for the hope that they have (I Peter 3).
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