Friday, February 11, 2011

How to Hate in Love (part 2)

Well, Ole promised me that our next post will be entirely silly. But first we want to follow up that last post with part 2. We showed a picture of Christians protecting a group of Muslims as they prayed and asked about the actions of those Christians. You can read the discussion below. I'd like to give you this interesting video of Penn from "Penn and Teller." He is an outspoken athiest talking about his meeting with a Christan evangelist.

How might we bring this into our discussion below? Here's another thought: This quote is from a missionary to Muslim people in Iran- "God's affectionate nature is denied in Islam and God's promise-keeping nature is denied in Islam. I do not mean to judge myself better than others, but as Daniel T. Niles says 'Christianity is just one beggar telling another where to find bread.'"

What do you think??? We have Muslim friends that we hope will chime in on this as well!

2 comments:

  1. Wow, that's a great video. Puts things into perspective. Makes me feel slightly guilty, which it should. I don't think it's that you hate someone enough not to tell them, but we don't realize the importance of what it is we believe.
    This may be read the wrong way, so bear with me please.
    At least speaking from personal experience, I think it gets really easy to lose the sense of gravity that comes with being a Christian and understanding the implications of that. 'You might be going to hell'- that just doesn't register like it should. But then again, I personally don't believe that sharing your faith should come from a standpoint of fear (believe or be damned to hell), but of sharing the greatest gift out there. Maybe this is because I have this weird agnostic mentality, if you will- how can we know what comes after death if we have not died and experienced it firsthand? Nothing is certain. That's why faith is so important.
    God gave me an example of what my passion for telling others about Him should look like a few months ago. I like to call it the "Jesus is like cake" analogy.
    You know when you eat a dessert that's really good, but you don't want to share it with other people, you want to keep it all to yourself? You'll tell other people about, you suggest they get their own, however, you don't share. Well, sometimes, you get a dessert that is just so incredibly good that you MUST have other people try it. You can tell them how good it is, say they should get some, and even though it's one of the greatest things you've tasted, you're more than willing to share what you've found, because you want them to experience this thing that is so incredibly good. That's what knowing Jesus should be like, except that there's an unending supply and it's totally free, and you know, it's way better than cake.
    If I can be passionate about having a friend try a really good dessert, then I can and SHOULD be all the more passionate about sharing the greatest gift on earth- a relationship with God.
    So why don't we do it? Why don't I do it?
    I'm still working on an answer for that. The only two things I think of is fear and not having Christianity feel more 'real' in my life, if that makes sense.
    It's unfortunate that something so wonderful is so easily taken for granted.

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  2. What is the link to that youtube video? I want to steal it! Sad when an atheist gets the importance of the Gospel (kinda) better than we do... humbling yet very, very convicting.

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