An Intolerable Inequity

I was struck by John Piper's words in his article: A Passion for Missions in the Men Who Stay.  On November 14, 1983, Piper wrote:

I cannot get over the fact that there are more churches in the Twin Cities than there are Protestant North American missionaries to 1,930,000,000 Muslim, Hindu, Han Chinese and Buddhist people who have not been reached by the gospel. “To whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48). Surely this implies that churches and denominations with many members and many ministers should be giving many of these people to cultures which have virtually no gospel witness. I cannot see how we can go on with business as usual while this intolerable inequity exists: 650 Protestant North American missionaries minister to 1,930 million unreached people, while 1,000,000 Christian workers in America minister to 200 million people, most of whom are already reached. How will the church give an account of itself to the Lord?!

For the rest of John Piper's article click here.

That means that within America the ratio of Christian laborers to nonbelievers is 1:200.  Simultaneous, the ratio of laborers to unreached overseas is 1:2,969,230.  Do we not see the injustice we impose on the world through our selfishness?!  Our comforts and blessings have made us lazy and indifferent, yet Luke 12:48 is still true.  "To who much is given, from him much will be required."  And, really, why wouldn't we want to?  Do we not truly love others?  We are commanded to love God and love others... but true love is shown through deed and in truth.

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18)

Our nation is growing obese with not only fast food, but also with Christianity.  We have more churches and Bibles than we know what to do with, yet we become complacent when we should be compelled forward in deed and truth.   Will we dare pray that God will send laborers into the harvest, and that we might be part of God's answer to that very prayer???

One Great Reason

“Every government, every war, every plague, every bit of persecution, everything that has ever occurred in every corner of the world exists for one reason alone – God’s great gospel. It pushes and drives everything. Do you know how the gospel left Jerusalem? Stephen was martyred. Do you know how Christianity got here? The Puritans were being persecuted. So they hopped on a boat and came over. Everything is about what God is doing. This is what you’re caught up in. This is what’s happening. We’re right in the thick of it. This is the story of creation. There is no other story. Every other story is a footnote in this story. And if you go back and look at it historically, you can find how it pushed, played and exalted this story.”

– Matt Chandler, Pastor, The Village Church

At our core: Worldview

I have been enjoying CrossTalk Where Life & Scripture Meet by Michael R. Emlet, and I was particularly struck by Emlet's insights into the centrality of man's worldview.  Emlet writes, "Each person (or community) asks and answers foundational questions about the nature of life, consciously or subconsciously. The answers we give to these questions characterize our “worldview,” our “take” on the nature of reality” (p 67).  The most revealing approach to understanding a person is understanding their worldview.  A worldview describes a consistent (to a varying degree) and integral sense of existence and provides a framework for generating, sustaining, and applying knowledge.  However, just as a man's worldview takes a lifetime to develop, it will take thought and consideration to seek it out.

Brain Walse and J. Richard Middlton propose four basic worldview questions:
1. Where are we? That is, what is the nature of the world in which we live?
2. Who are we? Or, what is the essential nature of human beings?
3. What’s wrong? That is, why is the world (and my life) in such a mess?
4. What’s the remedy? Or, how can these problems be solved?

As I serve in full-time student ministry these questions are not overt, but concealed within each conversation.  They are the questions I ask myself; therefore prompting many of the questions I verbalize.  They are important, not so that I can learn the worldview of each student as an end in itself, but because only through understanding their worldview can I minister to them.  I step into their world by understanding how they see the world, by getting behind the lens they wear each day.

On pages 67-68, Emlet states:

These questions – and how we answer them – form the narrative backbone of our lives. They shape the way we interpret life events, from the mundane (no milk in the refrigerator for the breakfast cereal) to the horrific (loss of children in a car accident). They shape our view of ourselves and others. They shape our vision of what constitutes a meaningful life, even a meaningful moment. They shape our beliefs, emotions, and decisions every day. Everybody has an overarching story he or she lives by, moment by moment. Everybody is a meaning marker with categories for making sense of life. Reality does not come to us unfiltered by always through the lens of our perception. The real question is, What lens will we use? What story, what narrative will we use to see the world and interpret our lives?*

Not only must worldviews be investigated and understood, but often they must be challenged and changed.  Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III, Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson contrasted the biblical worldview with 10 “isms” that are at odds with Christianity. His list reveals some of the dangerous beliefs wrongly incorporated into today's worldviews:

1. Life does not revolve around self.
Individualism: The self is the prime reality.
2. Truth exists and matters.
Relativism: there is no such thing as absolutes or morality.
3. What you believe informs everything you do, and what you do shows what you really believe.
Secularism: Religion must be kept out of all public spheres.
4. Real tolerance is not (and cannot be) based on relativism. All roads do not lead up the mountain!
Pluralism: All views, values, and lifestyles must be accorded equal standing.
5. Not everything that works is right.
Pragmatism: Whatever works is right.
6. Not all change is good.
Progressivism: Change is always good and progress is inevitable.
7. Our technology does not give us the ability to solve every human problem.
Rationalization (or Technophilia) Technology can solve all our problems
8. This material world is not all that there is.
Naturalism: Reality is material.
9. Freedom does not mean doing what I want to do.
Antinomianism: Freedom is right and it means I can do whatevery I want to do.
10. You are worse than you think you are. You are what you are alone, when no one sees you.
Privatism: Private life and public life have no necessary connection.

We could all benefit from asking ourselves Walse & Middlton's four questions... and considering where we fit with Duncan's comments.  Perhaps we have grown too accustom to our own lens and fail to question our worldviews stringently enough...

*Joe B. Green, “The (Re-)Turn to Narrative” in Narrative Reading, Narrative Preaching: Reuniting New Testament Interpretation and Proclamation