Political Leaders
Were Like Mafia Dons

Three Gospels report an incident in which a young man approaches Jesus and asks specifically how he could inherit eternal life. Jesus’ response is a bit confusing and makes it difficult – not impossible – to achieve a clear interpretation. Because of the confusion this passage is often ignored or misrepresented.

This post is an attempt to bring sense to an otherwise perplexing situation.

The young man, who happened to be of the ruling class and therefore wealthy, approaches Jesus (Mark says he ran to Jesus and knelt) asking how he might inherit eternal life.

It’s a good question. We have to give him high marks just for asking.

The interesting thing is, Jesus did not convulsively respond with the standard “confess your sinfulness and trust in me” answer.

Instead, in this situation, He attempted to explore the heart of this young man and in the conversation that followed, Jesus said three things that cause us to raise our eyebrows:

• One, He asked “why do you call me good,” making the point that only God was good, seemingly insinuating that He was neither good nor God.
• Two, He told the man eternal life could be entered by keeping the commandments.
• Three, He directed the man to sell everything he owned and give the proceeds to the poor.

Obviously, these remarks don’t gel with our understanding of truth. They really make us wonder: [Read more…] about Did The Rich Young Ruler Miss Heaven?

We Don’t Easily Get It

We study the Gospel of John digging out the useful bits of evangelistic information and then refer to it as the Gospel of “Belief” rather than the Gospel of “Evangelism.” We fall short of the right conclusion and then fail to follow through on any meaningful application.

And we do this because we are more content just studying the Bible than we are doing what it says. We scour John’s Gospel locating all the powerful evangelistic verses, making other pertinent observations as well and then, instead of evangelizing, we study it some more.

That is one reason I think Bible study has become an insidious and pervasive evil. It is now the cover up for inaction and ineffectiveness. All over the world, in churches everywhere, spiritual action has been constipated by the idea that once you have studied your Bible you have done your due. [Read more…] about Evangelize Intentionally

If Jesus was modeling evangelism in the Gospel of John He was emphasizing the art of communication in chapter 9. He heals a man born blind in the chapter and demonstrates a very novel approach to evangelism when He did.

Culturally, those with disabilities were considered pariahs.
We know better today but in Bible times disabilities were considered evidence of God’s judgment. That’s been the attitude through most of history. It is only recently that things have changed.

But, in New Testament days, and for a long time since, if a person was blind, lame, deaf, dumb, leprous or inflicted with any other malady they were looked down on spiritually not too mention abused. They received no education. Braille wasn’t even developed until 1821 and, incidentally, was developed by a blind man. The disabled were born to beg and in most cases were blamed by close relatives for bringing a bad name on the family. [Read more…] about “Communication” Key To Evangelism