CONTAGIOUS CHRISTIANS

"If someone carries holy meat... and touches... bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priests answered 'No....' If someone who is unclean... touches any of these, does it become unclean? The priests answered... 'It does....' So it is with this people" (Hag 2.12-13).

Have you ever thrown a raunchy pair of sweat-stained underwear into a basket of clean clothes? Would you, or your significant other, still consider those clothes "clean?" If we reverse that and throw a clean sock into a pile of freshly used jockstraps, will the dirty clothes absorb the clean sock's purity?

"With respect to [living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, and drinking parties] they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery; and they malign you" (1Pet 4.3,4). Sin is contagious, righteousness is not. We Christians might influence our surroundings but we cannot transfuse our holiness into their bloodstream. However, their fleshly desires, covetnousness, gossip, and hatred are so akin to ours that we could easily find ourselves becoming just like them in our behaviors and our mindset. We cannot infect righteousness into others but we can help them get the "virus."

As disciple makers, we should realize that we are more apt to pass along our sins than we are our righteous deeds. People will mimic what they can see and hear: our righteous deeds, speech, and interactions. But mimicing holiness will not make one holy. "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who has called you is holy so be holy in all your conduct.... Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth... love one another earnestly from a pure heart" (1Pt 1.15, 22).

Righteousness (holiness) requires training (2Tim 3.16), but not the external kind that leads to mimicry, but the internal devotion of a heart that touches the holy fold of the Father's robe. We cannot merely pass on this holiness by our presence but we can lovingly provide the training they need to learn to be obedient to the truth.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Three Bible Study Methods

"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" Acts 17.11.

All those who want to study God's Word hear it with great eagerness but how many of us actually study it? My own studies have led me to identify three types of Bible students: the Thessalonians, the Berean, and the Timothians. The differences may seem obvious, and I hope, very distinct.

The Thessalonians listen to the Word of God like people watching a SITCOM: it's entertaining, you remember some "lesson" from it, and you make assumptions that everyone acts or believes exactly as they do. Thessalonians say "amen," have their favorite preachers, and then live the rest of the week as if the Word was just "a word," because they heard it from a person rather than their God.

The Bereans were more noble than the others because they went back to the Word to examine the validity of what they heard. They are like high schoolers who attend class, take notes, study their teacher's commentary in order to pass the test, and retain only as much as is taught again. Everything they learn originates from someone else. As Paul said of these types: "By this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone else to teach you the elementary truths of God's Word" (Heb 5.12).

Timothians "study to show [themselves] approved...workmen... [who] rightly handle the Word of Truth" (2Tim 2.15). Jesus said that the problem with the Pharisees wasn't that they didn't diligently study the Scriptures, but that they did not study it for the right purpose: to know Him (John 5.39,40). Timothians are better than the Thessalonians and Bereans not simply because they hear the word from God and put it into practice, but because they study for the right reason: to know He who identifies Himself with His Word.

All who follow Christ are disciples of Jesus, that's not the issue. The question is: what kind of disciple will I be? All of us will hear the Word of God. The question is: what type of Bible student will we be?

Posted with Blogsy