In Luke 14, Jesus tells a parable about a Lord who has planned a celebration, a feast, and has invited many people to attend. Apparently, these people all seemed pleased at the prospect when they were invited, but, for various reasons, begged off of attending the actual event. Seems awfully strange to me: usually you don’t any trouble getting people to show up for a free meal (heck, if a dinner is being held as a fund-raiser for something that most people think is a good cause, you can get people to line up to pay $100 a plate for overcooked chicken). In any case, this Lord finds himself with a big dinner prepared, and no guests. He tells his servants to go out into the streets and the hedges and take the halt and the blind and compel them to come to his dinner. Clearly, this is directed at us. We, as God’s servants, have been commanded to compel people into the Kingdom of God.
Now, many people have taken this to mean that we should browbeat and Bible thump people into accepting Jesus as Lord. They will tell you that it is not enough for us make sure that those around us know that we are Christians, we must make sure that they understand that they are going to Hell if they don’t accept Christ, and just how severe the torment in Hell will be. I respectfully disagree. It seems to me that, in this day and age especially, people know what Hell is, and, although I suspect that most people underestimate Hell, they do generally understand that they don’t want to wind up there. I think that it is much more important to get across to people how much God loves them, and that He really wants people to come to Him, and that He is prepared to reward those that diligently seek Him. In other words, the carrot usually works better than the stick (don’t misunderstand me, though, not everyone will respond to God’s love initially, and you may need to talk about Hell—allow yourself to be led of God, and it will all work out).
Think about Paul and Silas in the Thessalonian jail. They didn’t preach Hellfire and brimstone to the jailer, or to the other prisoners, they just praised God. One might wonder how they were able to praise God in that circumstance, but they had an understanding that God didn’t torture them, the enemies of God did, and, even if they didn’t understand why God allowed them to be tortured, they knew that God had a plan, and that they didn’t have to understand His plan; they just had to play their part. As they praised God, though, the jailer fell asleep; there was an earthquake, the chains fell off their arms and legs, and the jail doors opened up. The jailer woke up, and seeing the doors open, assumed that his prisoners had escaped. I’m not sure what would have happened if his superiors would have come in the next morning and found him asleep with an empty jail, but I’m sure it would not have been pleasant. He pulled out his sword and started to kill himself, but Paul stopped him. When the jailer realized that none of the prisoners had escaped, he knew that he was not dealing with ordinary men. In the first place, he had never seen doors and shackles just spontaneously open before, and, in the second place, not only did they not escape when given the opportunity, they cared enough about him to not let him take his own life. Why should these prisoners care about him? The answer is that they cared about him because God cared about him. Paul and Silas recognized that Jesus died for the Thessalonian jailer’s sins, too.
My point is, they didn’t tell him that he was going to Hell for throwing them in jail; instead, they followed God’s demonstration of power with a personal demonstration of God’s love. That’s what the Thessalonian jailer really needed to know, and that’s what most people today really need to know.
Now, many people have taken this to mean that we should browbeat and Bible thump people into accepting Jesus as Lord. They will tell you that it is not enough for us make sure that those around us know that we are Christians, we must make sure that they understand that they are going to Hell if they don’t accept Christ, and just how severe the torment in Hell will be. I respectfully disagree. It seems to me that, in this day and age especially, people know what Hell is, and, although I suspect that most people underestimate Hell, they do generally understand that they don’t want to wind up there. I think that it is much more important to get across to people how much God loves them, and that He really wants people to come to Him, and that He is prepared to reward those that diligently seek Him. In other words, the carrot usually works better than the stick (don’t misunderstand me, though, not everyone will respond to God’s love initially, and you may need to talk about Hell—allow yourself to be led of God, and it will all work out).
Think about Paul and Silas in the Thessalonian jail. They didn’t preach Hellfire and brimstone to the jailer, or to the other prisoners, they just praised God. One might wonder how they were able to praise God in that circumstance, but they had an understanding that God didn’t torture them, the enemies of God did, and, even if they didn’t understand why God allowed them to be tortured, they knew that God had a plan, and that they didn’t have to understand His plan; they just had to play their part. As they praised God, though, the jailer fell asleep; there was an earthquake, the chains fell off their arms and legs, and the jail doors opened up. The jailer woke up, and seeing the doors open, assumed that his prisoners had escaped. I’m not sure what would have happened if his superiors would have come in the next morning and found him asleep with an empty jail, but I’m sure it would not have been pleasant. He pulled out his sword and started to kill himself, but Paul stopped him. When the jailer realized that none of the prisoners had escaped, he knew that he was not dealing with ordinary men. In the first place, he had never seen doors and shackles just spontaneously open before, and, in the second place, not only did they not escape when given the opportunity, they cared enough about him to not let him take his own life. Why should these prisoners care about him? The answer is that they cared about him because God cared about him. Paul and Silas recognized that Jesus died for the Thessalonian jailer’s sins, too.
My point is, they didn’t tell him that he was going to Hell for throwing them in jail; instead, they followed God’s demonstration of power with a personal demonstration of God’s love. That’s what the Thessalonian jailer really needed to know, and that’s what most people today really need to know.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment