ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION

As I listened to the panel of Christian experts on the radio today talking about "Is Christ the only way to God?", my mind went back to Sunday afternoon when some friends and I were visiting with some muslims who were open and interested in talking about spiritual things and some of whom had visited Christian churches. The radio people quoted the words of Jesus (from John 13 or 14?), "Whoever comes to the Father must come through me." The radio experts pulled up the reasoning that whoever does not believe in Jesus as the way to God, must think of Jesus as either liar, lunatic.

As these radio people were talking, I could not reconcile the strong words of distinguishing believer from unbeliever with the open-ness of the muslims I had met. I believe Christ is the way. I know that I will eventually have to tell these muslims that that is what I believe. But, I did not think that was the way to draw them to Christ initially.

My reaction to the radio experts' discussion became : That is the wrong question when believers and unbelievers meet. The question is : Is the Church and are individual Christians representing Christ and the Gospel adequately to where these unbelievers can be said to have HEARD the Gospel? I believe that the answer is often no. Let me tell you why. If a person or organization explains the Gospel and the evidence for Jesus' claims out of the Bible and does a perfect job of it, but does not show forth love to the hearer, the hearer may not be able to receive the message because of the lack of the love of the speaker. The message may not seem authentic because the speaker doesn't show love.( I do believe Jesus and others spoke about this.) For example, the Spanish conquerors who tried to convert the natives of South America did not show forth love- they gave the conquered ones the choice of death or "conversion". Some of the conquered ones were able, I think, to receive the message, though it was harshly given, but I believe God, in His mercy, judges those who reject the message under such circumstances accordingly. (Also, I believe that God doth judge those who offend the "little ones" -that is, anyone who does not yet know God, and has the possibility of receiving Him.)

The answer to above question is further complicated in that the hearers have made an evaluation of Christianity and therefore on the Gospel based on the expresssion of love or otherwise of perhaps many individuals or organizations whom these unbelievers have encountered before you came along.

So, a FIRST TASK in talking to unbelievers is, I believe to help the hearer to separate the message of God, the Gospel, from the messangers that have spoken the Gospel down through time in imperfect manner.

This reminds me of Phillip Yancey's book, SOUL SURVIVORS, about individuals who could be said to be "open" and "seekers" and some of whom had troubled relationships with organized Christianity due the less-than-stellar lives and attitudes of the nominal christians that they had encountered.
(Gandhi's observations of Christians is one example.)

A second topic for discussion that might be helpful with seekers is: Did Jesus indicate that He knew that the Church and the telling of Gospel were going to imperfect things or did all this (mess) take Him by surprise?

I know that for myself, when I learned that Jesus did prophesy that the Church was going to be an imperfect thing, filled with people with clay feet as well as people who have no interest in God and Jesus at all and as well as some people led astray by unscriptural doctrine some more some less, I felt much more sure of Jesus being all-knowing. The place that I first learned about Jesus' prophecy was MATTHEW 13, which I wrote about earlier.