Rico asked me a couple of questions from his yesterdays blog on sin...
I began typing out all the answers... and then I stopped in my tracks thinking, 'what am I doing?!'
You say, what could possibly be wrong with answering a question asked of you...
but I began thinking about Jesus, and the way He ministered.
Jesus was asked 100's of questions... do you know how many He actually answered? (you'll be absolutely amazed by this answer!)
In fact, Jesus was really great at teaching with parables... parables that left his audience really stumped alot of the time! In fact... even His disciples often didn't get it. Jesus had to explain these parables to them after He had taught them to the crowds!
Check out these verses:
Mat 13:3, 9-11 ESV
(3) And he told them many things in parables, saying: ...
(9) He who has ears, let him hear."
(10) Then the disciples came and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?"
(11) And he answered them, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
Why do you think that I haven't shown you the full scripture?
Why do you think that Jesus taught like this?
Should this still be a valid way 'teaching'?
Why do you think that we always feel like we need to give 'answers'?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts (& questions) : )
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i think it is our modern culture, in older days people thought about things, like ive heard story's of evangelists not 'converting' people at alter calls but telling them to go and think about it... and they do for ages weeks, months, years.
i think Jesus wanted people to think, like you when you commented my blog, you didn't give me answers but more questions, and just now i looked at them again and i was like ohhhhhh too much work, we are taught to find easy answers, but jesus didn't roll like that, i think he understood that faith is not given, it is laboured for, struggled for, researched for. we live in a quick answer society, no one actually cares about truth they just want an answer now.
i think it is still valid, but will it work, like if someone comes up tonight and say Ps Clive "i want to be a christian" and if you don't pray 'the salvation prayer'(not in the bible by the way) with them straight away they most probably leave digrunteled and annoyed and probably never come back?
The Correct thing to say(although I might not even do it) would be, get a bible, read it, investigate it and tell them to come back and talk to you next week...
Thats the Evangelist comin out.
Why did Christ never use 'the prayer'?
Good points Rick!!!
Pat answers are easy come easy go. When it comes to questions of theological importance its way way to easy to just accept someone else's thoughts than to labour to give birth to your own. I once heard this great analogy when I was a kid and it's both stayed with me and changed me:
Imagine you are at a buffet dinner and the buffet table is piled with food - roast meat of all varieties, roast veges, butter chicken, curries, sushi, mounds of salads - everything that is both delicious and nutritious. But everyone seems to be ignoring all the food on the tables and going straight to a big bowl at the end. Every ten or so people the bowl has to be replenished because the people are going through it so quickly. As you approach you realise that its a big bowl of slops, food that has already been chewed thoroughly and then spat out again. It looks terrible and smells even worse and yet everyone is tucking in and declaring how wonderful it is. YUK!
This is how many people receive their spiritual food though. They rely on Pastors, Preachers, Authors, Spiritual Advisors, Lecturers, anyone who they can find, to chew through the scriptures and feast on relationship with God and then eat their slops. Most of the nourishment and nutirtional value is gone but its easy - all they have to do is open their mouths and swallow. They bypass the buffet for the slops week after week.
What sort of food are you eating? Do you read the bible? Do you study it and come up with your own thoughts and questions and get nourishment or do you just go to church every Sunday and rely on the speaker to serve you up your spirtual food for the week?
(This is not to say your sermons are slop-py Clive =P)
luv
Cat
hey dog, yay exams are over.
hey i was just thinking... you know how Jesus made people think, well i was just thinking... are our w3's to easy for the leaders, like if your in w3 all you do is print it out and read from it.
If the leaders had to right there own questions or even the whole w3 then would they not learn more...
i know that is alot more work but they would benifit no doubt...
since you stressed to me why we do the w3's(cos we beleive in the preachers and think what they have to say is good) ive began doing my own summarry of my notes from sunday night... its awesome as.
what do ya think... good idea, it would seperate the milk from the solids as such!
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