We are of earth. We are but hollow. Heads filled with straw, hearts made of stone. We are but weak. Our strengths betray us. Feet with no might, minds full of rust.
Shall we not enter the shadow of truth? Shall we not enter the shadow of life?
He breaks our strength, our minds, So we can have true life. He melts the hearts of stone, So they can burn with Holy Fire! He made the tears that fall from our eyes, Through which we see His great bountiful grace. Shall we not enter the shadow of God?
We are of men. We are not worthy. Hands stained with blood, words filled with daggers. We are but true. We are but shifty. Backs weighted by grief, burdened with sin.
We set our eyes on things above, not on things of this world! Let us fix our eyes on the Lord. We will run in the shadow of His wings!
We are of dust. We're temporary. The things of our hands, they'll pass away. We love what's worldly. We turn from heaven. We say we've no time for things above.
I'm not changing xangas again. It's just that I had a thought, but I updated my main one not long ago.
Ryan Shyu and I share a frustration at how "traditional" evangelism works. Let me give you an example. Suppose I am a Muslim, and I wish to convert you the right way (i.e. with no violence involved). I approach you and say, "Dear friend, you should believe in Allah because it says in chapter 8 of the Koran that there is only one God..." Did it work? Did my citing of the Koran make my case more convincing? Of course not-- you're not Muslim, and you don't even believe the Koran is the word of Allah. Citing it is useless.
The same goes when we go up to a non-believer and go, "Hey, it says in John 3:16..." The non-believer doesn't believe in Christianity, which also includes its holy book, the Bible. What's the use of citing John 3:16? The best way to evangelize, I maintain, is always to have a good witness. Church witness and evangelism are bed-fellows. The world sees that the protestant Christian is hawkish in backing the War in Iraq-- little wonder Catholicism is making headway there (they just got a new cardinal). But if you want to do it the "old fashioned way", you should find common ground among humanity. Imperfection (a la sin) is one way. You start on common ground. The Bible, unfortunately, is not common ground.
I don't know what evangelist bewitched the Christian world with such thoughtless evangelism. Even in the Billy Graham crusades when he cited the Bible, you bet the people coming to faith weren't really zoning in on John 3:16. Rather, they zoned in on the Gospel he presented. Once again, the Bible is a tool. That's why it is compared to a sword. You don't worship your sword, or swing it willy-nilly. You use it at the right time the right way.
Here's an illustration:
Picture an epic battlefield with Good vs. Evil. The Good, let's say, is the Church (Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox), and the Evil is Satan's hellfire angels. Here's how evangelism works right now. When the charge is ordered by Jesus, the Catholics look to the Pope to confirm that it's actually Jesus. The Orthodox Christians look to their patriarchs to do the same thing. The Protestants? They start swinging their swords... when the enemy is about 10 miles away. Some people are swinging it broadsides (so, you don't end up slicing people, but rather you end up slapping people). Here's what you do-- you charge (no sword swinging), and when you're near the Enemy, start by sparring and then swinging blade-side.
So, when you share your faith, you don't start quoting the Bible. I always say that you can say something bogus and yet have Biblical support for it. But if you say something true, citing the Bible is rather not necessary because what you say is Truth, just as the Bible is Truth. If I say that this world is far from perfection, do I need to cite the Bible to buttress my case? No-- just look! If I say that Jews are worthy of death (not true), I could possibly cite dozens of cases where Jews nailed Jesus to the cross. But what if I'm wondering about the attributes of God... what He's like. There... open your Bible and search.
God wouldn't mind covering up for people who did things that were inappropriate.
God wouldn't mind introducing fear and uncertainty into the lives of non-American people.
God would think the United States is the great Promised Land, the Bringer of all that is free.
God would not mind reinterpreting international laws to suit our own needs.
Hmmm... the last I read, God wasn't quite like that.
Btw, God is not Democrat at all either. In fact, if Jesus was around, I wonder if his biggest temptation would be to hasten his own coming faster than originally planned.
Thanks Dorcas for sending this to me! It was hilarious!! The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen:
"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."
One student replied: "You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the
ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."
This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed.
The student
appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and
the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The
arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but
it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in
which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal
familiarity with the basic principles of physics.
For
five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought.
The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the
student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but
couldn't make up his mind which to use. On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:
"Firstly,
you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it
over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The
height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g
x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."
"Or if the sun is
shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on
end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length
of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of
proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."
"But
if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short
piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at
ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is
worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2
pi sqroot (l / g)."
"Or if the skyscraper has an outside
emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the
height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."
"If
you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you
could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the
skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars
into feet to give the height of the building." <this is the answer they were looking for>
"But since we are
constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply
scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the
janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer,
I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this
skyscraper'."
The student was Niels Bohr, the only person from Denmark to win the Nobel prize for Physics. Students today study Bohr's model in their introductory chemistry classes.
