Sharing Your Faith Under Pressure

In my youth I knew an evangelist whose enthusiasm for the good news about Jesus was truly infectious. If you spent time with him, his excitement would rub off on you and you would be inspired to go off and do some crazy things in the name of the gospel. We certainly did some silly things - but they worked. They got people's attention and enabled him to share his message in a meaningful way without downplaying its importance or trivialising what becoming a Christian was about.

His training methods may have been unorthodox at times - but they got us thinking. One evening he produced a box of matches and gave us the scenario. "You have just met someone at a railway station and you don't have very long at all before their train leaves. You might never see them again, and you want to share something important with them. Maybe your testimony or a few scriptures to show them who Jesus is and why they need Him."

Then we found out what the box of matches was for. Our 'short' message would last only as long as the time it took for us to strike a match and hold it for as long as we felt comfortable. Some individuals' fingers got slightly warm that night.

He made his point though. Paul told Timothy to be prepred - in season and out of season. In other words, both when it's convenient and when it's not convenient. If we are prepared, then, we can be more effective when there are other pressures that might distract us from achieving our purpose.

Apologetics under pressure

When I was younger, I met an evangelist with a wicked sense of humour. He had an infectious enthusiasm for the gospel and it rubbed off on you the more time you spent with him. Some of the things he did were silly. But they got the message across plainly without playing down its importance. Perhaps that's why I went off to do some odd things to get the message of Jesus over in different ways...

One bizarre exercise still stands in my mind.

He would challenge us with different roleplays. One day, he said, "You have about 30 seconds to tell someone about Jesus. They are about to get on a train and you will never see them again. You could give you testimony, share the basics of the Christian faith, share a few scriptures. It's up to you."

But to time us and concentrate our efforts, he gave each of us a match to hold. We could only talk when we lit the match, and only had until the match stopped burning to share our faith. Some people's fingers got rather hot.

Paul told Timothy to be prepared - in season and out of season. The key for us was to be prepared in advance, in order to make the most of a short opportunity where we have to operate quickly and under pressure, and not to let ourselves be distracted.

Gifts from Wise Men

No-one knows how man wise men there were. Some traditions say three. There were, after all, three gifts. But it may have been a larger party that rolled in - first at Herod's palace in Jerusalem; then at an unassuming hme in Bethlehem.

The gifts had great significance. Gold - for a king, frankincense for a god, myrrh for a funeral. At Christmas, we celebrate Christ's birth, but even at that time, it was evident that His purpose in dwelling amongst us was to be a sacrifice in our place - a lamb without spot or blemish.

Experience Christ at Christmas

"You see that lady over there? Do you know when she was born?"

"No! Of course not!"

"So by your reasoning, she doesn't exist then!" It was a simple way to expose sloppy thinking - but it makes the point succinctly around Christmas time. So, early Christians hijacked a pagan festival to make a clear point about redemptive analogies. So what! It's plainly obvious that Jesus was not born on December 25th. But that doesn't change the reality that He was born - and that His life had a profound impact on human history.

To deny the reality of His life because of uncertainty on matters that are of no consequence is to turn your back on the opportunity to experience His life-transforming power for yourself.

Apologetics at Christmas

Luke had the right idea. He saw what Peter had written - that the Apostles had not followed cleverly made-up stories, but that the experiences they had related to their followers were rooted in reality. He had encountered John, who made it clear that the conviction he held was due entirely to the fact that the spiritual truth he described had been irrevocably etched in his mind as a result of spending three years with the Word made flesh.

He worked with Paul. as present when the Apostle reminded his captors that the events he related had not taken place in a corner, but were common knowledge to the entire community and could be easily verified by independent sources.

And so, he went out of his way to track down first-hand witnesses, to carefully document his sources and give a specific timeframe to events.

At Christmas, we are vividly reminded of this as we read of the circumstances of Jesus' birth. We are not dealing with a vague fantasy here, but a documentary of how the supernatural burst into our world to bring about the total transformation of humanity.

The same God who shaped history then is the One who calls to us now in order to break through into our individual lives - to establish His rule in every sphere of our individual universe.

Thoughts on delusion...

It is a bizarre idea - but it's fun to consider. What if the Christian faith was merely a delusion? It's bizarre, because it's a pointless debate. The characteristic purpose of delusion is that the dupe does not actually realise that they are in the wrong. They just go on their merry way until reality and illusion no longer match. For them to consider, "Am I deluded?" would have no effect on their actual state for they would have no way of evaluating the truth one way or another.

As I said. It's silly.

And if it was, would it matter? If there was no point to the universe, then no philosophy outside of hedonism makes any sense. But to point this out to anyone would not be logical, unless you got a kick out of baiting deluded people. But does hedonism have to be rational? And if it doesn't, then decrying another belief system for irrationality is bizarre...

Such is life.

For me, my criteria are simple. I have experienced the life tranforming power of an Almighty God, who for reasons best known to Him, out of grace, chose me and communicated His love to me. For me to deny this would be to ignore what I have experienced. To validate my experience, there is the Bible. My experiences dovetail into its teachings - they match. There are external evidences in the world that validate the Bible's authenticity as a record of human communication with the same Divine Being I call Father.

Mobile Apologetics and Hermeneutics

Long words - just a couple of fun projects really:

• xtn.mobi - intended to beome a directory of Christian resources optimised for use with mobile devices.
• preach.mobi - Preach! a devotional weblog

Faulty Logic

When I was much younger, I came across the following bit of reasoning...

God is all-powerful and all-loving

A God who is all-loving will not want people to suffer.

A God who is all-powerful will be able to prevent people from suffering.

People suffer.

Therefore God is either not all-powerful or not all-loving.

Therefore God (as defined above) does not exist.

Which is all fine and well if your god will fit into a nice neat box (preferably a wooden one).

Unfortunately, mine refuses to play by those rules and tells me I'm barking up the wrong tree if I have the arrogance to assume that He's some kind of slot machine.

But why bother with theological point scoring, life's too short for that, or fruitlessly trying to earn divine brownie points?

Faith is a gift - it cannot be earned by any amount of good deeds or good arguments.