God wants us to spread the gospel to everyone from any different culture or ethnicity. He also wants us to love each other and respect each other. In Jesus' time period, there was a very huge gap between the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews, believing to be the only God's children, and the Gentiles, basically the non-Jewish people. I don't specifically know all of the cultural differences between the Jews and the Gentiles, but clearly there was a major gap between the two because it was almost considered a disgrace for a Jewish person to even talk to a Gentile. However, Jesus throughout his ministry emphasizes the importance of spreading God's words to everyone living on earth.
"He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." Mark 16: 15 (New International Version, 2010)''
He emphasizes to love everyone not only Jews, but also Gentiles. He wants us to love and repsect each other although the barrier society put upon us might separate us. Jesus showed everyone that we should love not only ourselves, but also our neighbors, and this includes everyone around us. This is the main reason why, not only Don Richardson from the book Peace Child went to the Sawi, but other missionaries leave their "comfort zones" and go to places where they might have to risk everything. Don Richardson, although the Sawi's culture was a very distinct and harsh one, he boldly decided to live among them and spread God's words. Although he faced many difficulties, because he showed them his true sincere respect and love, he was able to gain trust and respect thus enabling him to spread God's words among the Sawi.
This might sound somewhat disturbing to others but, I think with other faiths, God wants us to be more firm on our stance of saying no to other faiths and religions. Although I believe we should not try to force Christianity upon other people, we still should not be so indulgent about other religions. Ultimately, God wants to be known as not even the best God, but the one and only true God. To achieve this, he uses us as his tools to spread his love and his majesty to other people. He especially wants those who believe in other gods to find him as the true light of the world. As Christians, and as God's tools, we should try to show others God's love and grace so that they would be able to find the true God.
I agree that we should not compromise the Gospel when introducing it to other faiths, but I think we should be gentle in expressing it. As the bible says, we need to speak the truth gently and in love. So I would agree, yes, we should be firm, but I think we need to be as firmly gentle as possible, until their trust is earned.
ReplyDeleteNice insight on this question, Daniel. In this post, you state that we should not be too indulgent about other cultures. After reading that statement, I began to wonder if other cultures, like Confucians in Asia and tribal people of the Sawi tribe, feel the same about accepting other cultures and religions, like our own. Although they might desire to spread their beliefs and faiths with people from different cultures, they might be hesitant about listening to religions that are not their own. I, personally, found this a dilemma that could easily result into conflicts between different cultures. However, your next point addressed a reasonable solution for this issue: showing others God's love and grace so they can find the true light of the world. I also believe that what you said about being respectful when we confront different cultures is another way to slowly diminish the stance that cultures hold amongst each other. I appreciate your thoughts, great job. :)
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