Christianity…Self-Seeking or God-Glorifying

I was recently involved in an online discussion. Below is an excerpt from that discussion between me and another participant. This is actually found in a response to a few statements on my part:

Hello Jason:

You wrote:

I don’t worship/serve God because I’m looking for “fire insurance” or because I want to in some way better myself. I worship God because, simply, God has commanded me to.

But the spirit of the New Testament seems to propound the very “fire insurance” and self-benefit that you criticize. If you read the NT, the followers of Jesus appealed to people to accept their Gospel so as to be saved. Just take a look at the Acts of the Apostles: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (4:12), “He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’” (11:14), “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved.” (15:11), They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” (16:31). All these and many other references is evidence that the Christian acceptance of God is strongly motivated by the desire for salvation – in other words, self-benefit.

Filed under: Apologetics, Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Evangelism, Ministry, Philosophy, Theology

What the Dutchajo People Taught me About Ministry

First, the question on everyone’s mind: “What the heck are the ‘Dutchajo people’?” Dutchajo is a term used in certain parts of the American SW (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada) that designates someone who is half Dutch and half Navajo. The person I’m referencing here has a Dutch mother who married an Navajo man while working as a missionary nurse on a Navajo indian reservation in New Mexico. As the term implies, this “flavor” of ethnicity is not unheard in this part of the US.

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Leadership, Ministry

Thoughts on Christian Leadership #4

At this point, I’ve made it a little over half way through Exodus on my “trip” through the Bible in a year and a half. I’m finding myself to resonate more and more with Moses. I know that’s lofty, but I can’t help but I can’t help but to see a number of similarities between my own leadership style and his.

In many of the leadership books and classes I’ve read, Moses is a key personality. They say, “Look at what Moses did here” or “See what Moses is doing at that moment…” The story of the Exodus is by no means new to me – I’ve heard since my earliest days; I’ve read it a number of times too. That is to say, I’m very familiar with his story and the context of the Isaeli exodus from Egypt.

Filed under: Bible Study, Church, Leadership, Ministry