Self-Preservation?

If the people around Jesus, including His family, thought He was crazy; and if Paul understood that others would think him a fool for Christ – why are we reluctant to identify with the foolish Paul and the crazy Jesus? The Gospel is foolishness to men (1Cor 1:20ff); yet we want the Gospel to be respectable so that we will be respectable. So we clean the Gospel up and remove sin and repentance from it so as not to give offense. It is only as we love others enough to appear foolish in their eyes that we will be broken enough to allow the light of the Gospel to shine through our earthen vessels (2 Cor. 5). When we seek to preserve ourselves we cannot save others. 

Who Are We Kidding?

When I was young it was generally understood that faithful Christian witness would, at times, lead to rejection and difficulty. Now our thinking seems to be that we do everything possible to avoid rejection. We say it’s because we don’t want to be misunderstood – but it’s really because we don’t want to suffer – who are we kidding?

Who Can I Ask Today?

Easter season brings me back to the spring of 1966. Early that year an older coworker, Howard Wall, asked me if I was a Christian, to which I replied something like, “Of course.” After all, I was an American and had been christened in a church – to me Christianity and America were inseparable.

Howard’s question motivated me to read the Bible; in reading the Bible and talking to Howard and others I came to know Jesus Christ. I asked my mother to please give me a pocket New Testament for Easter, which she did. I carried that New Testament and Psalms with me every day, reading it at school whenever I could.

If Howard hadn’t asked me about Jesus I wouldn’t have known. I thought I knew but I didn’t. If he hadn’t had asked, I wouldn’t have known. Who can I ask today? Who can you ask? 

Here's an old post I did about Howard Wall:

http://bobwithers.blogspot.com/2010/02/profile-howard-wall.html