The Legacy’s web page is here: http://www.legacyministry.org/, and if any of you are artistically inclined, we need teachers/helpers for 2008 camps. I believe we (my family & some local friends) will be going to the Colorado camp next summer (probably late June – don’t have dates yet)…

Joe

I think another point to make is that acceptance of the gospel cannot be a condition of help, either (which sometimes gets forgotten).

A friend of mine, Rich Mullins (a Christian singer/songwriter) worked on Reservations in the American West for years, teaching music to the children there. He had a saying – “I’m going to teach you how to play the guitar. While we’re doing it, I will tell you about Jesus. Whether or not you choose to accept what I tell you about Jesus, I’m still going to teach you how to play the guitar.”

I am involved in the ministry set up after his death in 1997, teaching art and music on the rez. The Legacy (this ministry) partners with churches on the rez (which preach the gospel year-round) and offers summer camps where we teach art and music (along with having teaching, worship and small group discussion). While we are very open with who we serve, we do not make it a specific point to try to lay out the Roman Road, as the kids we are working with receive that from members of the church working with us – before we arrived, while we are there, and after we have left. These churches are there, year round, and have credibility that I will never have (partly because I am anglo, and partly because I don’t live in their culture). Have I shared the gospel when the conversation has been right? Certainly. Have I considered it a failure when I (specifically) did not have the right opportunity? No – because I know that others did/do/will have that opportunity there.

1) No
2) No
3) Yes

I agree with what you’re saying. I just wanted to get it out there that when we can, we should share the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for our sins and reconciliation to God with the people we’re helping. Thanks brother.

Joe

Clearly, I don’t think ANYONE here was bad-mouthing Biblical education at all. I think someone was making the point that knowledge without deeds is useless (or at least that’s how I understood it) but that’s about it. I for one would LOVE to know Greek, and Hebrew as well. But anyway, Bible education or not, God will use anyone he chooses, and if one’s heart is in the right place, that’s all that matters.

I definitely hear you, and I agree that neither works nor words need be mutually exclusive. However, and maybe I’ve not been really clear on this, sometimes combining the two is not possible and/or practical, but that should not stop us.

If we use the AIDS crisis in Africa as an example:

1) Much of the aid coming in is being assisted/organized in some fashion by churches/missionaries who have been on the ground for years. Should these churches/missionaries refuse offers of money/goods/supplies/labor – which they do not have – simply because they do not come from within the church?

2) One.org has become a collection-point for much of the aid and manpower going into Africa. Should Christians refuse to work with one.org, because it is not religiously affiliated, and create seperate agencies to work through? Or – is it OK for a church or individual church members to volunteer labor through one.org to provide relief, and to share their faith, which will primarily be with other workers, unless they can speak the local language (which is doubtful).

3) If you have the skills to help in the situation (medical, civil engineering, etc.), can you only do so after you’ve taken courses in learning Masai/Swahili/etc. (without which, you can’t verbally share the gospel with 90%+ of the people you serve in Africa), or is it acceptable to serve well and diligently, wearing clothing that identifies you as a Christian?

I’m trying to be as practical, rather than theoretical, as possible here.

That doesn’t mean if someone doesn’t share the Gospel by word, they’re sinning. Actions can speak louder than words.

However, I think they should go together, and it shouldn’t be “Hey, I gave food to this guy, I did my job”. Or conversely “Hey, I shared the Word about Jesus with this guy, he can keep sitting on the street starving as a hobo now, I did my job”. Neither person did their job, I think. Sorry.

Since every Christian should be able to give an answer for the hope in them, since every Christian is commanded to make disciples, I would hope we wouldn’t use “I’ll just be the hands” as an excuse not to share the Gospel by words. Because last time I checked…God doesn’t boom His voice down very often to tell us “Hey, with this guy, I want you to preach Christ Crucified, but with this guy, just feed him because another brother will come later.” You just don’t know. Sorry, it doesn’t happen like that guys. Wish it did. It doesn’t hurt to share Jesus with someone as you feed them, they’ll see your good deed and glorify God. That’s why God gave us His Word, so we don’t have to wait for Him to boom His voice from Mount Sinai. We know what we have to do, so let’s do it.

Joe

God is the basis for the kingdom, and the gospel is a key to it. However, when you say that the gospel is the basis of the kingdom, is it the sharing of the verbal gospel or the living of the gospel by those in the kingdom that is this ‘basis’? Or – to put it differently – must every Christian be the eyes, hands, feet and mouth of Christ, or can one Christian be an eye, another be a hand, another be a foot and another be the mouth? Or – can a Christian be Christ’s hands and trust the God will bring the Christ’s mouth in when the time is right?

To take Phil’s comment from another thread:

If there’s one thing we have an abundance of in the Church, it’s preaching. It’s about time that some of the preachers shut up and get moving.

It just seems to me that much of the griping here is that the hands can’t work if they don’t have lips…

Julie, in answer to your accusatory post — which, as an aside, I feel no need to defend my ministry to you. However, you have never met me (as far as I know) and never seen me minister. You have never seen me care for African children — you have never seen me feed a poor homeless man while we sit over the Bible and talk about how God loves him — you have never seen me share the true Gospel of Jesus Christ with a homosexual and plead with him to be reconciled to God. That’s because you would rather call me unloving and arrogant — and paint me to be some fundamentalist who sits in a monestary all day, reading the ancient Greek.

EXCURSES: For all the bad-mouthing that formal Bible education gets, did it ever occur to anyone that it may be important to know Greek in case we ever decided to take LIVING WATER to the unreached people groups of this world? It may be good to know in case we want to accurately translate the Bible into their venacular. END EXCURSES

Chris, you are right…for almost three years, the disciples didn’t have a complete understand of the kingdom. During that transitional time, they did not understand the before kingdom could be actualized in a physical way, “it was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer…” (Luke 9:22-23). Or as Paul put it (because Julie, I love literature about Paul, even if Luke wrote it), “Christ must needs have suffered and be risen again…” (Acts 17:3). There is no glorification without the cross of suffering….both for Christ and for disciples.

A Kingdom without suffering was the offer of the devil…