What Was I Thinking?

Today I had the opportunity to go and witness to a fellow umpire that I work with out here in St. Louis. For those of you who don’t know, I work as a baseball umpire part time while I take classes at the Seminary. But I was struggling with something today. Part of me wanted to go online and do theology on this blog instead of go out and meet this guy to do evangelism! Of course, I made the right decision and went out and talked with him and shared my faith—but the fact that I even thought about it at all internally raised some red flags for me. What was I even thinking? Reformation Scholar Dr. Robert Kolb reminded me:

“The church exists for the sake of the unredeemed who are outside it. This is its raison d’etre. If instead it exists only for the sake of its members, it will be in continual conflict with its indwelling Lord. For Christ is the ‘life of the world.’ The Church is therefore to stand open to all mankind, her light is to be the light of the world, and the salt in her is to be the salt of the earth” (Wingren, Gospel and Church, 10-11; quoted in Kolb, Speaking the Gospel Today, 251-252).

What are some things that can occur when we are too focused on ourselves? Or what kind of things can happen when we obsess with discursive/academic theology? First, we can forget what our purpose is as disciples of Jesus Christ. Second, we can begin to critique everyone else on how they do mission, and yet we don’t even do mission ourselves. Further, we can set ourselves above people who are different than us and tailor our evangelism programs to people that are like us. Dr. Kolb also points out:

“But if a congregation make its natural collective predisposition into an exclusive program and so tailors its evangelism and outreach to avoid those who do not fit into ‘Our Savior’s congregation,’ they are shutting up the power of God which the Holy Spirit has poured into them….The judgment of God hangs over those Christians who have preferred to ‘save our kind’ rather than the Savior’s kind, the poor, the imprisoned, the lonely, those not able to contribute most to the congregation of God’s people but whose lives He nonetheless regards as precious” (Speaking the Gospel Today, St. Louis: 1995, 257).

Dr. Kolb challenges us to make disciples of ALL people. Not just people of our race, language, or our social status. As a Lutheran who believes in objective justification, universal grace, and that salvation is through Christ alone, I should not have even had those thoughts today. Are objective justification and universal grace simply theological concepts that never resonate in our hearts? Professor William Utech at Concordia Seminary warned us in our Pastoral Ministry class not to love the theology more then we love people. We must remember that theology is for proclamation, and while studying the Scriptures and Reformation writings is good, Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Can we get so caught up in our academics that we fail to sacrificially love people? Can we go out and get our PhDs and argue with people about church practice, but never seek out ways to actively share our faith? Does our pride set ourselves above other people? Do we think that since we are conservative Christian Americans there is no need to spend time with the poor, the lame, the sick, the minority, or the hurting?

Since we have been redeemed by the Son of God who has given His life for us on the cross we have a message to proclaim! Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, and that is our reason and motivation to share the good news with others! It was the reason for the first Christians who shared the good news in Judea, Samaria and the rest of Eastern and Western Europe. And the redemptive power that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ is our reason as well.

“The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him” (Luke 8:38-39).