Jesus For Jews – and Gentiles, Too!

           I was blessed to visit New York City in 1977 with my wife and a number of men and women who were fellow and sister students in a Bible college in West Virginia. We were involved in a door-knocking campaign with the Riverhead church of Christ 80 miles east of New York City. We spent several days in Riverhead going door to door and talking to anyone we could about our faith in Jesus Christ and about His church. One highlight of that trip was when I, with my wife Donna’s assistance, was blessed to teach and baptize into Christ a young woman who was pregnant with twins! One day Brother Jerry Hill and his lovely wife Fern took us to New York City on a sight-seeing tour. At one point, on a busy street corner among the hustling, bustling throngs of people, our little group was suddenly face to face with another group of young people who were handing out copies of a simple little tract / pamphlet. I took one of the tracts and the title instantly caught my eye and riveted my attention. Printed in bold letters on the upper front cover of the tract were these words: "Everything you always wanted to know about Jesus." Then in smaller but clear letters just under halfway down the page – *BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK* – then an inch further down and off to the right *Your rabbi*" The back of the tract identified the group as simply "JEWS and others FOR JESUS" and then an address and phone number. We were elated! There we were – several of us in our group from small, rural towns in Tennessee, and all of us Gentiles – talking face to face with a group of Jewish young people who were out, loud, proud and "taking it to the street" that Jesus was the long awaited Jewish Messiah! I will quote verbatim one paragraph from the tract before space runs out – "We say that the main thing you ought to know about Jesus is that you can and should believe in Him. He is the promised Jewish Messiah. He is the ultimate sacrifice by which men can be justified and through whom Jews and Gentiles can return to God." The encounter soon ended, but not before we left them with copies of a tract entitled "Steps to Heaven" that explained gospel obedience in terms of hearing, believing, repenting, confessing (Christ), and being baptized for forgiveness of sins.

I often think of that incident when I read words written by a man who was perhaps the ultimate Jew for Jesus – the apostle Paul! Long before my group encountered those Jews for Jesus in New York City, Paul lamented the fact many Jews were not for Jesus. He said in Romans 10:1-3 – "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Paul was indeed a Jew for Jesus. But his appeal for Jews to be for Jesus sprang from the gospel’s good news that Jesus was for Jews! And not only for Jews, for Gentiles, too! The gospel is "the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek" (Romans 1:16). Here’s the take home point – the cross where Jesus died proves Jesus is for you. The only issue that remains to be settled is, are you for Jesus, too? Think about it.

By: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Are You In The Way of God?

Acts 18:26 records that when Aquila and Priscilla heard the eloquent and learned preacher Apollos preaching at Ephesus, "...they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately." Those words doen’t sit well with many in our postmodern, plural- istic age which insists there are many paths to God. According to Acts 18, Apollos was already a very religious man – "a Jew . . . mighty in the Scriptures . . . instructed in the way of the Lord . . . fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord" (Acts 18:24-25a). Then what was the problem? Verse 25b says "he knew only the baptism of John." The popular idea is that all religious roads lead to God, regardless of their accuracy or inaccuracy according to the Bible. The entertainer Madonna said she had her daughter Lola baptized as a Roman Catholic, even though she herself renounced that church. She told Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes II, "I can disagree with doctrines and dogmas and still celebrate them. I go to synagogue, I study Hinduism. In the end, all paths lead to God" (USA TODAY, 5/21/99). Aquila and Priscila apparently disagreed with Madonna’s religious philosophy or practice. Even though Apollos "spoke and taught acacurately the things of the Lord" (vs 25), there was more he needed to know. So it is we read in verse 26, "When Aquila and Priscila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately."

Madonna and millions of others who believe in a plurality of paths to God find themselves at oods with the Lord. In John 14:6 He declared words that to this day rub most of our world the wrong way – "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." There simply is no way to soften this statement if we accept Jesus as God’s Son and the New Testament as His inspired word. If the question is how one comes to God, His way and His truth and His life are the only means available. Jesus is asserting that there is a way to God, but that there is only one way – His way. New Testament writers never stopped insisting there was a way to God – a way that will save anyone in the world who accepts and obeys it (Mark 16:15-16) – but only one way. Inspired teaching is summarized by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:4-6, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all . . ." The church of Christ is under increasing pressure these days to change these verses. From outside the church the atheist would have us say, "There is no body, no Spirit, no hope, no Lord, no faith, no baptism, and no God." We dare not yield to that pressure. But pressure is increasing from inside to change the message of these verses to say, "There are many bodies . . . many faiths . . . many baptisms" – in short, many different paths and ways to please God, so long as you believe in Jesus. Many are ready to accept that Jesus is a way, a truth, a life, a light, a door to God. The problem is that is not what Jesus said. A Slovenian proverb says, "Speak the truth, but leave immediately after" (RD, February 2018, p 65). The truth is God has only one way. I’m leaving now. Are you accurately in the way of God? 

           By: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Do Lost People Bother You?

The thought of people being lost in hell bothered Jesus Christ. It bothered Him enough, in the words of Luke 19:10, to "come to seek and to save that which was lost." J. M. McCaleb recognized people are lost without Christ. That bothered Him enough to go to Japan as a missionary in 1892. In 1921 he penned the beautiful but challenging words of the song, "The Gospel Is For All." It includes these lyrics: "Say not the heathen are at home, Beyond we have no call; For why should we be blessed alone? The Gospel is for all." I read a story about a church deacon helping with a special collection for mission work. A member refused to give and hissed, "I don’t believe in mission work." The deacon pushed the collection plate at the man and said, "Then take some. It’s for the heathen." A church member and / or congregation that is not mission-minded is a mission field.

The apostle Paul was bothered that people are lost without Christ. He knew the gospel was God’s sole power to save souls, and so he said,"as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel . . ." (Romans 1:14-16). Paul spent himself trying to make the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ available to every lost sinner this side of heaven or hell. In 1 Corinthians 9:16 he expressed a sentiment no longer present in many pulpits and pews in churches of Christ – "necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel." His specific goal cannot be missed in the verses that follow – "that I might win the more ... win Jews ... win those who are under the law ... win those who are without law ... win the weak ... that I might by all means save some" (1 Corinthians 9:19-22). Now, the point of this is not to shame us for not being an apostle Paul. He played a unique role for Christ as a "chosen vessel" in spreading the gospel (Acts 9:16). The point is to shame us when we are not bothered that people around us are lost. And for not being bothered enough to do more to save them. Preachers and church members who care about being like Jesus will minister to the physical and emotional and social needs of people around us. We cannot do less than that and be like Jesus. But we must do more. Feeding the body, while good and necessary, is not the same thing as feeding the soul (cf. Matthew 4:4; John 6:27). Praying and spending resources to save people from being cold and hungry and sick is not the same thing as saving their souls from the ravages of sin. Those unsought and untaught and not yet won to Christ are, whatever else they have or don’t have, "without Christ ... having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). The apostle Paul loved Christ and he loved lost people. Just how much he loved them can be seen in these startling words in Romans 9:2-3: "I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh." Paul knew he couldn’t go to hell in somebody else’s place, any more than he could go to heaven for them. But he deeply cared people were lost in sin. He was bothered enough to do what he could to bring them to Christ. Does it bother you that people you know and love are lost? How much does it bother you? What are you trying to do about it? Just asking.

  By: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Don’t Wait – Make Hay While the Sun Shines!

Make hay while the sun shines – words needing no explanation to those who grew up on a farm! Even with modern techniques and equipment, it’s too late to "make hay" if you don’t get to it before the rain sets in. To "make hay while the sun shines" is to make the most of an opportunity, to take advantage of favorable conditions. Bale hay too soon (before it dries) and it will rot even in a barn. But wait too long to bale and you run the risk of rain ruining it in the field. When it comes to baling hay, there is a definite "window of opportunity." Wait too long and it closes.

The concept of "making hay while the sun shines" has an urgent spiritual application for all of us, whether you grew up on a farm or not. Our time on Planet Earth is temporary, bookended by two events common to all – birth and death. Though life itself doesn’t really begin at birth (think about it), our life on Earth begins the moment we are "born," the time recorded on the birth certificate. From that moment a timer begins to tick and winds down to the moment we call "death" – the moment physical life on Earth ends. For some people the timer ticks for a hundred years or more after birth. Sadly, for some it never begins ("stillborn"). The Biblical declaration about an "average" lifespan is found in the words of Psalm 90:10 – "The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow." Seventy years seems a long enough time for the clock of life to tick – plenty of time and sunshine to "make hay," especially to someone who is two or ten or twenty or maybe even thirty. But Moses was quick to add, "For it is soon cut off, and we fly away." Time never really "speeds up" – but at some point it definitely feels like it does (can I get a witness?!). Moses was right. That’s why learning and obeying God’s will is important no matter what stage of life you are in, whether young, middle-aged, or well into the sunset stage of life. Even Jesus Christ was gripped by a sense of the temporary and fleeting span of time He had to do God’s work on earth. On one occasion He declared, "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work" (John 9:4). Concerning God’s will and work, Jesus made hay while the sun shined. Though His earthly life was only about 33 years, the night before He died He said to His Father in John 17:4, "I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do." Compare that statement and the priority it highlights with these sad words describing God’s people some 600 to 650 years before Christ came – "The harvest is past, The summer is ended, And we are not saved" (Jeremiah 8:20). Time to get right with God was rapidly running out in Jeremiah’s time. How about you? Do you need to repent and be baptized into Christ for forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38)? Do you need to pray more; read the Bible more; love and forgive more; come back to the church or get more involved in it; reach out to someone with the gospel; or otherwise adjust priorities in your life? Do it now! "Why do you wait dear brother/sister?" For your soul’s sake, make hay while the sun shines!

                "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" - 2 Corinthians 6:2

      By: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN