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ancient, christian, christianity, church, cloud of witness, coat of many colors, devotion, faith, God, holy, hope, inspiration, Jesus, keening, new way, prayer, religion, seeker, thoughts, writings
Today we started our Apologetics course from Biola University. Right out of the gate begins The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Excellent testimony and practical advise on relational evangelism based in truth. Loved it. He made a statement at the end that has riveted me to my chair. He spoke of the different evangelistic methods used in scripture and how important it is to train teams of apologists in local churches with “DIFFERENT STYLES” to be available to the congregation.
Evangelical Intellectuals-Paul
Confrontationals-Peter
Servers-Dorcas
Relational-Mathew
Testimonial-Blind Bartimeaus and the others
Invitationals-the woman at the well
How important it is to teach all Christians how to discern truth from error and to defend their faith. He goes on to use an allegory of us someday being in heaven, and it will be “our” day. He will show us how he used us in the lives of many people that we never even knew we impacted. That we are a chain in so many lives that lead to their saving faith. I am discovering that there is no ONE RIGHT expression. People hear, and receive differently.
What really hit me was that to deny someone the opportunity to share their faith, testimony, teaching skill, mentoring ability, or other God given gift, just because you don’t like their style is horribly wrong. You are denying them the opportunity to be a link in someone’s chain to saving faith. Wow. Who wants that session with the Savior? This is how you “kept” people from Me. Ouch!
Lord. Help me love the fact that you embody diversity. That you are true unity in diversity. Three in One. Three distinct personas in one essence. Help me celebrate your many colored coat.