Jesus in the sermon on the mount raises the troublesome question, "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" (Luke 14:34). The same predicament exists with words in today's world. "Words are good, but when words have lost their power, how can they be empowered again?"
Some Christians live with the disposition that being a Christian is a matter of saying the right words. Their Bible teaches, "Well said, good and faithful servant . . . Come and share your master's happiness."
Others with different orientation emphasize the importance of understanding God's truth and embracing right doctrine. Their Bible teaches, "Well understood, good and faithful servant. . . Come and share your master's happiness."
In the parable of the talents, Jesus assesses the record of the five-talent and two-talent men and announces, "Well done, good and faithful servant. . . Come and share your master's happiness" (Matt. 25:21). When deeds are wedded to our words, our preaching and witness are more believable. It is like the salt that makes good food taste even better. It brings out the flavor. Salt also makes a person thirsty. Seeing the Christian life lived out in a servant style will not only make people thirsty for the "water of life," but also our words will be empowered again.
Pastor Frank Tillapaugh, in his book Unleashing Your Potential, comments on the church that understands this principle and on the one that doesn't. "If a church retains an average atmosphere where people are expected to pray, read the Bible and live holy lives . . . not much is likely to happen." On the other hand, when the gospel is understood as both words and deeds, and God's people are stimulated to dream, then the gospel streams into life. Over the years our pioneers have been used by God to conceive, establish and run a host of ministries. In that freewheeling climate, schools and universities, medical clinic boats in the Amazon and other places, health food factories, and so on, were established. Christian ministries like stopsmoking programs, prison ministry, van ministry for street refugees, single adults, senior adults, physically disabled, alcoholics and more have been developed.
As an example the Toronto Portuguese Seventhday Adventist Church ministered to a multicultural community and understood that the way to empower words was to combine them with acts of service. While respecting and accepting what others teach, the people of God who had fruitful ministries among immigrants specialized in hospitality.
They began by meeting their new foreign friends at the airport and helping with the heavy suitcases.
They helped to find apartments, gave city tours, stood in registration lines, interpreted what is meant by strange sayings and generally cultivated the art of helping people feel comfortable in a foreign land. Their acts of love and service were not a set-up for Bible study, retreats and prayer meetings. They were acts of unconditional love for the sake of lifting the level of life in the name of Christ for people who had specific needs. Later some asked who are these people? And an opportunity to introduce them to the Advent message was created.
Multicultural evangelism has its own challenges. For example, penetrating the Muslim world with the gospel has been a tough task of the Christian church. Much has been said about the 10-40 window as a challenge for the Christian mission today. Ray Bakke details the experience of a businessman who became a missionary in Indonesia. After moving his family into a slum area in Surabaya and building his home out of crates like everyone else, he figured out that deeds had to precede words.
Surrounded by devout Muslims, the businessman began asking his well-off friends for donations and then he called the men of the community together. "My Christian friends want you to have this money to build your mosque" was his surprise offer. He then spent the next six months helping them to build the mosque. He began a Bible study with the people with whom he worked, and eventually thirty adult believers had been baptize with thirty teenagers coming to afternoon classes.
Doing the will of God in today's world will seed the possibility that God exists in ways that really matter. Members of the church who not only talk the faith but walk the faith will be perceived as plausible people.
They will be a threat to the conventional conclusions in the modem world that God is unnecessary. Without making verbal announcements, the way they live will make people around them wonder why they are different. When people see tangible evidence of the influence of God in those who make religious faith claims, some who see the fruit of faith will be compelled to search for God themselves.
Telling God's truth and doing God's truth are meant to be two parts of a whole. And when they do stand together, the church of Christ is not only built up, it has credibility in the eyes of the world.
This is what we must see happening in our churches all over the world if we want to make this year of emphasis on evangelism a success. Let us work together to restore the power of the words.
