Of Christians and Others
If you are a Christian are you sitting with sinners? If not you should be.
Matthews gospel records
“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.
When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners?”
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:10-13.
Question, as a Christian would you be as Jesus was asked to sit with those outside your faith? Would people who know you disagree with their lifestyle of faith ask you to sit down with them for an open discussion?
Quite often I have heard Christians being called judgmental and closed minded. People not willing to listen to the opinions and beliefs of others. This I know to be true. Yet in order to be true to the teachings of Jesus we need to be known as people who are open to talk to others.
We can talk to others of different faiths and lifestyles without compromising our faith. The apostle Paul while in Athens did just that.
Paul upon entering Athens would have been surrounded with pagan temples. People who’s lifestyle was far different from that of his own. Yet he was asked by the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers to come and speak to them. The book of Acts records,
“So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill.
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”
At that, Paul left the Council.
A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others” Acts 17:17-34.
Paul set the example for all generations of Christians as to how to witness.
Paul did not judge them. He did not criticize their gods. He simply told them what he believed and let them decide for themselves.
The result was some believed, some scoffed, but more importantly some wanted to hear more about what he said.
This is how we living in the twenty-first century need to present the gospel. If we do so it will open far more doors for us than anything else we can do.
Please think about it.
If you are a Christian are you sitting with sinners? If not you should be.
Matthews gospel records
“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.
When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners?”
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:10-13.
Question, as a Christian would you be as Jesus was asked to sit with those outside your faith? Would people who know you disagree with their lifestyle of faith ask you to sit down with them for an open discussion?
Quite often I have heard Christians being called judgmental and closed minded. People not willing to listen to the opinions and beliefs of others. This I know to be true. Yet in order to be true to the teachings of Jesus we need to be known as people who are open to talk to others.
We can talk to others of different faiths and lifestyles without compromising our faith. The apostle Paul while in Athens did just that.
Paul upon entering Athens would have been surrounded with pagan temples. People who’s lifestyle was far different from that of his own. Yet he was asked by the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers to come and speak to them. The book of Acts records,
“So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill.
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”
At that, Paul left the Council.
A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others” Acts 17:17-34.
Paul set the example for all generations of Christians as to how to witness.
Paul did not judge them. He did not criticize their gods. He simply told them what he believed and let them decide for themselves.
The result was some believed, some scoffed, but more importantly some wanted to hear more about what he said.
This is how we living in the twenty-first century need to present the gospel. If we do so it will open far more doors for us than anything else we can do.
Please think about it.
