|
On my way home from a Sunday´s service in a small village church yesterday I paused with an Iranian family in a neighbor village. They have been in this country for 5 years, i.e. a married couple and their two little boys (8 and 4). Now I got their story - told by the mother.
They came to Denmark via Greece. They came as Moslems to Greece, but in the providence of God they came under the hearing of the gospel in a Christian church, and God used an American itinerant preacher in their lives. They turned to Christ, were baptized , and thus their Moslem life and its ways were buried too.
I´ve known that family for a short time. I´m their children´s buddy and with them I have a certain "singing program" which we´ll again thrust ourselves into when, God willing, we´ll have a potluck rally in our home with more Iranians, Afghans, Tamils, and of course a few of my own people. Our small sitting room will house Christians, Moslems, religious churchgoers and those without any religious background at all.
Now coming back to that Iranian family. As I listened to their testimony in their broken Danish, I was awed and felt very little. They had no polished theology, no profound Bible knowledge, and yet on their way to Denmark they had been in tough situations where they experienced the power of invoking the name of Jesus and be miraculously helped through.
I felt low and humbled. What do I have to offer the Oriental people? If I cannot be a channel of the gospel power (and not only its doctrines) anointed with Christ´s Spirit, it will be useless. Really, I start from scratch and must be willing to bury my prejudices and occidental spiritual pride.
I think you know what I mean, if you are faced with similar barrier-breaking situations. The gospel itself is always barrier-breaking and demands new thinking, i.e. the thinking of the Holy Spirit and His aim at glorifying up Christ on gospel the grounds, however humbling it is to our established prestige, as we anew break up our fallow ground (Jer. 4:3)
March 14, 2016 - jn
|
