Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, special ones.

I’m going to take the risk of sending this…even though Becki is not here to help me edit and find the typos. She’s off on another run to fetch the two little boys, Kaden and Nicholas.

I’m loaded up and ready to haul my mill to a private property where my main objective is to cut up a bunch of board and bat from a deck of logs…sufficient to re-cover the walls of an old barn that the owner wants to preserve. I already hauled my track hoe there last evening so it will be ready to serve the job.

Blessings on whatever you have cooking today. Speaking of which, Becki cooked up a nice blackberry strawberry rhubarb cobbler last night. I stole some for breakfast this morning. Good stuff. I’m ready to take on the day.

Becki just rolled in with the little boys. I’ll greet them and take off.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Romans 6:23 is a statement of Gospel truth—“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” But here’s a question to consider: What if I were to paint that wonderful message on three sides of my vehicle as a strategy to share and communicate it with fellow travelers who can read it from the sides and rear of my car? After all, most who read it would be in desperate need of freedom from sin’s addiction and God’s gift of eternal life. Could I expect anyone to properly compute that message and be positively touched and attracted to the Gospel? As I try to imagine beholding that message through the mindset filter of a typical worldling, quite honestly I would anticipate a response closer to antagonism rather than attraction. I might even expect some unbecoming gestures. Perhaps a more general question could be raised in this regard: How effective is Gospel advertising?

I would be interested to know how effective was the symbolic demonstration of Isaiah where he was instructed to go about in public half naked and barefoot for three years—maybe even with his buns showing. How many in Israel would have been impacted by Isaiah’s appearance and respond, “Wow! Whenever I see Isaiah, I’m reminded to not trust any alliance with Egypt or Cush as a protection against the conquest of Assyria. I’m reminded that we need to trust in the LORD alone.”

Let’s consider another angle—a bumper-sticker message, like, “COEXIST”—with the symbols of various world religions displayed. The implication is that humans should get over their divisive religious differences and get along—and be united with the common good of whatever that driver judges is the common good. How effective is that message? I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it doesn’t inspire me to COEXIST. Instead it raises in me a critical wonder—I wonder how well that driver coexists with his or her spouse, children, in-laws, neighbors, school board, and town council. What hope does that message offer for establishing peace on earth? My Biblical cynicism says NONE.

Well, the world has a lot of reason to wonder about us and our Gospel messages too. All I know is that Jesus has given us a mandate to “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15-16). But He doesn’t tell us exactly how to do that preaching. How we engage in this “Great Commission” is largely up to our own choices and sensitivities to the Spirit’s leading. In any case, I judge that people are not going to be positively impacted by the Gospel as a result of in-their-face confrontations, arguments, and Bible quotations. I return to a fundamental conclusion: The whole equation of salvation begins and ends with a HEART AFTER GOD. If people are not honest seekers of God at heart level, they will never be finders. Perhaps the faithful demonstration of your HEART AFTER GOD is your most effective mode of preaching. To be sure, we can’t expect to sell something that we don’t display as attractive or worth having.