Every day I get an e-newsletter from Sojourners called Verse and Voice. It’s a basic newsletter that gives a few verses to consider, a quote and a prayer. I’ve only been getting it for a little while but have already found it to be a profound way to start my working day.
As a blogger, it’s very tempting to take the quote or prayer from each day and comment on it here as they are all so rich in depth and connected to the ethos of what I do at TEAR Fund and what this blog is about, but it would probably be worthwhile for you to sign up for the newsletter, get it and have it speak to you in whatever way it should rather than having me shape that for you.
That said, I thought I would comment on the quote in today’s newsletter:
The message of salvation is more than our verbal proclamation of the gospel. We must redefine evangelism to include how we live and interact with people — what it means for us to call them into God’s family to become members of God’s household. This is as important as our ability to accurately quote scriptures.
- Brenda Salter McNeil, from her book A Credible Witness: Reflections on Power, Evangelism and Race
The point made by Brenda is a good one and needs to be taken on board by all people who call themselves “Christian”.
Too often we reduce the gospel (good news) to a message of words when it is so much more than that. If we wish people to understand what it means to follow Jesus, then they must be able to see it in how we live and interact with them and with all other people in our world.
Jesus’ words echoing the greatest commandments to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbour as ourselves are both internal and external pursuits of the Christian life. These commandments are carried out in both word and action and they act as the very invitation to follow Jesus, though our love and action are never conditional on their movement towards or away from that invitation, love is simply the life that we live in relation to all.
The pursuit of caring for the poor, oppressed and marginalized in our world is not simply an additional call that we can take or leave as Christians but is the very heart of this active demonstration of Jesus. It is easy to love those who love us. It is easy to love those who give us social standing, but this does not demonstrate anything different. To step outside the boundaries of the comfortable into places that involve us engaging service and sacrifice, living a life that could cost us and does not necessarily serve our social standing, to be willing to empty ourselves of any form of glory we may have to walk with those our world steps on and pushes down – it is in this pursuit that Jesus is shown; his life and his Kingdom, a Kingdom that shuns the pomp of this world and lifts up those who are trodden on and it is our words that explain the story of the Kingdom seen in our actions.
As someone who falls well short of this pursuit, I say for both you and I – may we continue to be conformed to the image of the sacrificial Saviour and may the world be blessed by our actions and our words. The Gospel we profess is an active one with a great story to be told.
Related posts:
Amen!
Can I get a witness!?
Sorry… that just had to burst out.