Skip to main content

Christianity Isn't for Everybody

The title of this post is deliberately provocative. Of course I'm not saying that God doesn't want all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). In that sense, of course, Christianity is for everybody. What I'm referring to is the fact that not everybody will express an interest in Christian faith, and we should accept this fact.

We should accept it because Jesus himself said this would be the case. In a recent reading from the Sunday gospel (July 8th) Jesus told his disciples that there would be those who would not receive the message. They were then to shake the dust off their feet and move on (Mark 6:1-13). In other places Jesus said many are called but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14) and broad is the way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14). Belief is the exception, not the norm.

We should also accept it because it will affect the way we do ministry. I believe it will cause us to act in a way more in line with the early church, and it will help us avoid unnecessary frustration while at the same time increasing our effectiveness. We will spend our time on the interested people (the thirsty of John 7:37). We will recognize the miracle of those who do believe and spend time nurturing and expanding their faith.

I'm not saying we shouldn't share our faith with those outside the church or that we should abandon praying for unbelievers, simply that we recognize that not everybody will be interested and that's okay. In fact, I believe that as we focus our efforts on the interested and the believing their lives of increasing faith will awaken interest in the unbelieving. They will act as the salt and light of which Jesus spoke and will make people thirsty.

I'm also convinced an awareness that Christianity isn't for everybody is key to the church's health. So much of the watering down of the faith takes place in the false belief that somehow everyone should be interested and if they're not it's our fault. This leads to an emphasis on generating excitement through various techniques and giving only messages which are of interest to a wide audience. Christian distinctiveness gets lost and the salt is no longer salty. Ironically, Christianity is made uninteresting in the very attempt to make it so.

The future belongs to those churches and church bodies which recognize that what they have is not for everybody, and they shouldn't expect everyone to want what they have to give. Yet strangely as they do just that they will continue to become stronger and more interesting to those around them and will grow. Jesus said this would be the case (if I be lifted up--me in my contradiction with the world expressed by the cross--I will draw all people), and we don't have to look far to see that it is so.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why We Need Lent - March 2020 Newsletter Article

No one expected it. There was no one, to my knowledge, who believed God would become human and identify with us in our misery. That, however, is the message of Lent. God entered our world to stand with us not against us. Lent is forty days because Jesus was forty days in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. This trial is a picture of his whole mission, shouldering the human condition, standing with us, not apart from us. At that time there was a community, where the Dead Sea scrolls were later found, that separated itself from the rest of the world. It saw the world as "us and them". The religious leaders who lived among the people still stood apart from the people and also thought in terms of "us and them". Jesus came and turned everything upside down. He said he came to set the world on fire. He was going to burn down all that set itself against God's true purpose. God is love, one of his disciples would later write. Another would say, Love bears a

JUNE 2020 Newsletter Article

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness (Romans 2:15a NIV). Our souls are “constituted and formed”, as Luther says, to know God, in this case God in his law. I say God because there is no law outside and separate from God. This is a confession that human beings are fitted for their environment and so we can trust our sense that there is an oughtness to existence, a sense of an intentional order, a way we are meant to act. Intention, of course, implies an intender, a personal will behind the things we sense we ought to do. Everyone knows this, Luther says, and this knowledge “is aroused by the preaching of the Word, so that the heart cannot help confessing that we must, as the Commandments read, honor, love, and serve God, for He alone is good and does good not only to the pious, but also to the wicked” (St.L. III:1053). The great good news we have to proclaim, the thing people could not know except in this

The true power of Compounded Returns (June 2019 Newsletter Article)

Somebody told me once, half in jest, that while the big houses are in MCCUTCHANVILLE the real money is in DARMSTADT. Now like I say, there was an element of jesting in what they were saying. No doubt there are people in Darmstadt who are overextended when it comes to their lifestyle and there are people in McCutchanville who are savers. They were alluding, however, to the long-standing German heritage of Darmstadt with its culture of debt avoidance and frugal living. I found that this remains the culture in Germany today. While preparing for our trip to Germany we were told cash is king over there because Germans generally avoid debt. There is an old word for living within one’s means and saving for the future, prudence. It is related to the word “wise”. It has to do with living in such a way that your actions lead to a better life. Now that my kids are grown and preparing for life on their own I’ve told them that if they begin saving now, investing while they’re young, they can have