A friend posted this blog on facebook today. I had to respond.
Read the blog & respond with your thoughts as well. The Romanian American Church Problem
My response:
The big issue presented in this article is the Romanian language. If we are talking about church, the biggest issue should be how to best communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many people are worried about their culture/language rather than the true problem of the church: how to present the gospel in a relevant way.
We should be solely concerned about how to best display the gospel to the current culture & not be so worried about maintaining that specific culture. I have no problem with maintaining culture but, if you're worried about language & culture, go start a Romanian country club or something.
If you are worried about the gospel of Jesus Christ, then do everything you can to be relevant to the people of the day, present it in the language of the country & in the culture of the country.
Language & culture should not be placed on the same level as the problem of getting the gospel of Jesus Christ out. Jesus Christ should be our sole aim, drive & passion. Everything else is secondary.
Like Paul says compared with Jesus, everything else is dung, literally crap. "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." -Philippians 3:8
Honey, I could not have said it better!!!! totally agree!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you too. Even when Jesus and the disciples preached or used parables, they used examples from their time period and the culture they were living in. Such as the parables "The Pharisee and Tax Collecter", "The Barren Fig Tree", "The Dragnet", "The Lost Sheep", "New Wine in Old Wineskins", or "Workers in the Vineyard". These are examples of things people did in that time period. They didn't use examples relevant to pagan cultures. Even God's metaphors, such as threshing, pruning, shephard feeding his flock, are relevant to the culture thousands of years ago.
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