Dear friends,
Paul, Peter, John never talked about or celebrated their personal challenges, families, experiences, how they overcame some emotional trauma or any mention of hobbies, pet peeves, etc. They talked about Jesus—all the time. In fact clearly remarked that this was all he was interested in knowing and sharing.
It’s the theme of the entire NT. The apostles rarely mentioned the merits or strengths of the other apostles or the importance of the faithful—-again, it was nearly always about Jesus and the power of His resurrection.
Many of us spend far too much time talking about ourselves and precious little time talking about Him—-at least that’s my take on it. We talk about the Christian life, about Christian saints and heroes, and we go on and on about Christian causes (good causes) and about church buildings, fund raising, youth retreats, and, yes, Christian summer camp for kids—like mine. But do we talk, with the single-minded devotion, as all the authors of the New Testament did, about Jesus?
The ones that knew Him intimately and wrote about Him passionately and testified fearlessly were not interested in having folks walk away saying, “Wow, he’s a great speaker”, or “Didn’t her dedication inspire you”, etc. The folks came to the apostles “seeking” something that was missing in their lives and left having “found” the fullness of Jesus Christ—-and Paul, Peter, John and the others could have cared less if they were remembered or not.
To be blunt, sometimes the things I read or hear from Christian speakers/authors make me wonder if they really know Him? It seems that a lot of that is written addresses our curiosity about Biblical geography, history, language and alternate meanings of scripture, et al, but do we speak out of a genuine love-relationship with Him! Is what we are doing communicating the gospel and does it cause others to not seek Him…or us?
The atheists, agnostics and other non-believers typically base that lack of belief on things they have read about God that they disagree with, or some examples in history where Christians did not act very Christ-like, et al. But the power of the good news of Jesus Christ can cause ears to hear and eyes to see, e.g. Saul’s conversion, 3000 souls being saved after hearing Peter present the gospel right after Pentecost.
Paul argued passionately and persuasively till the day I died—and many came to Christ. But it’s also true that many refused to turn to Jesus and perished. I do not have an answer as to why some respond and some don’t, but our focus must be to preach Jesus Christ and not get discouraged over those that reject God’s Son, but to faithfully tell the story. He’ll handle the rest.
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