With Christmas nearing, just wanted to wish all you beautiful people a Merry Christmas in advance. While we prepare for the celebrations this Holy month, lets also remind ourselves what it means to be the student of the Bible and our commitment to Jesus.
Jesus's last Words are meant to be lasting Words. When he commissioned His followers to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you"(Matt. 28:19-20), he commissioned us too.
Every student of the WORD needs to consider their role in seeing this commission fulfilled. God's heart is that people from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue will one day worship him forever (Reve. 7.9).
The big mistake of missionaries is in thinking that they have the ONLY way of worshipping God in spirit and in truth. A way built only upon their own understanding of various words and doctrines.
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
(Thomas Merton)
Many missionaries (often self appointed rather than actually commissioned by the Living Word) have not even grasped the "beginning of love".
It puzzles me how missionaries spreading God's word often brought European diseases along with them, which completely decimated indigenous peoples. How did God not see that happening...? 🤔
@Max312 Yes, it is terrible what people feel justified in doing when they think they have "all truth" and that there is no other way to the Father but their own particular understanding of a few Bible verses.
