“and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” (1Cor 10:4)
The word “rock” is often used metaphorically in the Bible to speak of God and Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, it often uses rock to prefigure the Messiah – Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, Christ is the spiritual Rock from whom the water of life flows.
And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. (Matthew 8:2-3)
During Biblical times, leprosy was a very fearful thing. Anyone suspected of contracting leprosy would first have to go to the priest for an examination. If leprosy was confirmed, that person was then required to leave his family and community. Ostracized from society, the leper would have to suffer further indignity of showing people he had the disease by wearing torn clothes, keeping his hair unkempt, covering the lower part of his face and crying out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as he had the disease, he remained unclean and had to live alone, away from others. (Lev 13:45-46).
I’ve known Megan since 7th grade. She knew I went to True Jesus Church and that services were on Saturday, but that was all I ever shared with her. Evangelizing to her never crossed my mind because religion rarely crept into our conversations. It wasn’t until my dad asked if I wanted to bring her to a Friday hymnal praise night that I actually did. We learned in RE class that arguably the most effective type of evangelizing is personal evangelism; from friend to friend, family to family. I realized I was very lukewarm in my faith and easily forgot Jesus’ Great Commission in the calm rhythm of daily life.
Went to Indiana this weekend to visit a family in our church who runs a Chinese buffet restaurant. This visit was different from past visits because there were a few truthseekers. When we arrived, we were surprised to find that the truthseekers were an elderly American Mennonite couple who had lived in Indiana since the 1960s. How did this American couple come to be sitting in the dining room of a Chinese family that barely spoke any English, waiting to hear a sermon from a Korean pastor?
Thank God that He recently gave me the opportunity to bring a Christian co-worker to bible study. This co-worker, let’s call her Ann, was on my team, so I worked closely with her for a month. The topic of religion had come up several times in our conversations, so I knew that she was a practicing Christian.
After a month of service, the tradition at our work place is that team members will go out for an “off service dinner.” We similarly planned to do an off service dinner and set a date, which happened to be the date of a mid-week bible study I had forgotten about until the day before. I was on the verge of canceling our dinner, but since I had been reading this blog and thinking about evangelism, God reminded me that I should try to bring her to church. I was a little surprised when Ann actually agreed to come. This was a lesson for me that there are probably opportunities for evangelism all around me; I just often don’t see them because I don’t think about evangelism enough.