When you go to conventions it’s not unusual to wind up on someone’s mailing list. Maybe you sign up for their newsletter, put your name in a hat for a drawing, or you give them a business card. For over 20 years I’ve been getting a quarterly newsletter from a ministry in which I have no investment or interest. At one time I tried to stop the newsletter, but it continues to arrive in my mailbox. Sometimes in ministry we can become so focused on outreach that we don’t realize when we are wasting time, energy and resources. When the twelve were sent out they were given clear direction on when their ministry efforts should cease. Jesus said, “And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” (Mark 6:11 NIV)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I don’t think the common Christian viewpoint understands the autonomy God gives to His creatures. Some acknowledge the concept of free will, yet envision God as some controlling force moving people around like pawns in both thought and deed, especially His own people. Others do not even acknowledge free will. Therefore, making decisions becomes a thing of looking at God’s set of standards, principles, and objectives and simply accepting them as conclusions. Certainly God sets standards, makes principles, and has objectives that are necessary for our decisions, but they should not succinctly be our decisions. So the mere principle of outreach should not be the conclusion to roll the presses hard and liberally apply the postage.
-----When God placed Adam in the Garden, He left him there to till it and to subdue the earth. Of course Adam accepted and applied God’s standards and principles, applying himself to God’s objectives. But he made his own rational decisions as he engaged the details of his own work. We can specifically see this in the objective given him to name the animals. He called forth names from his own mind, while God merely observed to see what he would call them. Since God was pleased by His whole creation, including Adam, we must surmise he tilled the Garden and subdued the earth in the same manner, acting upon his responsibilities by autonomous decisions made within God’s parameters. So also the angel sent to guard the Garden’s entrance must have had the responsibility of making autonomous decisions in order to distinguish those who merely passed by with no intention of entering from those who would be weaseling their way back into it. In the first chapter of Job we see God assembling His angels to hear of what they were doing, a clear indication of autonomous decisions and actions within His parameters. Again, in II Chronicles 18:19-22 God requested an angel to go forth and entice Ahab, instead of assigning one to do it. And Peter acknowledged to Ananias and Sapphira that while they yet had the proceeds of their house sale, what to do with it was their decision. Even though God might put bread upon the table in person, it remains for us to put the morsel to our own mouths by our own hands.
-----Standards and principles replacing autonomous decisions can put God’s chosen objectives into the peril of being thwarted. He did give the twelve instructions about when to shake the dust from their feet and leave, or when to stay. But He left it for them to determine these actions according to the circumstances they found. For what might be the response of the town whose dust was shaken from sandals? Some of those hearts may have been hardened, but others may have been softened upon realizing something had come against them. God gets His objective for each. So also might be His needed effects of economizing outreach (and everything else we must do) according to our own principled, autonomous decisions.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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