Thinking-Christianly

News over this past weekend included reports of the capture of Colton Harris-Moore, who was dubbed the “Barefoot Bandit”. He had been on the run since escaping from a Washington state halfway house in 2008. In the interim, he is accused and suspected of multiple crimes, often restoring to burglary and theft of transportation—including cars and a plane.

One of the news outlets captured a clip from Colton’s mother. She was bragging about his intelligence, comparing his IQ to Einstein. Even in the wake of his criminal record, flight, and capture, she seemed oddly proud of his intellect.

Intelligence is a wonderful thing. But without character, intelligence counts for nothing. There are many who have fallen victim to the intelligence of self-centered, unscrupulous individuals who have used their natural abilities to deceive, outsmart, and manipulate others. Intelligence is a tool men and women can use to seduce partners of the opposite sex, take what they want from them, and toss them away when they are finished. Intelligent business, religious, academic and political leaders can fool followers into giving them money and power to fulfill promises they have no intention of keeping. Though the con-artist with the smile, featured in Catch Me If You Can or The Music Man makes good entertainment, the reality is different for those victimized by another’s sharp thinking.

It takes intellectual ability to create programs that can exploit security weakness in personal computers and steal the identity of unsuspecting people. It requires thought to con a retiree out of their life savings. Bernard Madoff used careful thought to develop a Ponzi scheme that would sidestep regulators and take $65 billion from investors.

God speaks of the value of righteousness in the hearts of leaders. In 2 Samuel 23:3-4 he says, “When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.” But as Psalm 143:2 laments, no one is righteous by nature. Though each of us can do morally good things, we are universally plagued with a moral brokenness that can corrupt us in small and large ways.

The training of the intellect of a nation is useless unless there is growth in virtue—and an empowerment to want to be good. Christianity teaches that the desire to use our intelligence for righteous ends and the ability to do so is best found in a dynamic relationship with Christ. We are so prone to deception that we cannot consistently overcome our inner moral failure apart from that relationship with Christ.

A world of relativism and values clarification is unduly optimistic about our human potential. Both history and the daily news remind us that there has to be more to progress than knowledge and IQ. Without a transcendent perspective and loyalty to a higher purpose, those abilities that we can take pride in can be used for great evil as well as great good. And without God’s help we have no sure way of even determining which is which.

There is increasing pressure in government circles to silence those who would utter the name “Jesus” in a governmental setting. This excludes the occasional epithet that uses his name.

One odd dimension to this trend is that the pressure to silence any reference to Jesus is sometimes applied to those who supposedly have devoted their careers to declare to others what Jesus did and said. A FOX news story from July 9^th offers a recent example.

The North Carolina state house of representatives invited Pastor Ron Baity to serve as honorary chaplain of that body for a week. The House clerk asked to see the prayer, which included prayers for the military, state lawmakers, and a petition that God would bless North Carolina. The clerk objected to the fact that the name Jesus appeared in the prayer, arguing that someone might be offended. Pastor Baity did not want to remove the reference to Christ. The clerk contacted the Speaker of the House, who did not want Jesus name included. Pastor Baity was relieved of his honorary role.

The article reported the clerk’s rational that the name “Jesus” be deleted as, “We have some people here that can be offended.” Such an argument defies all logic. If the potential that someone might take offense at the mentioning of a name, then there can be no rational debate in legislative bodies. Avoiding the possibility of offense would stifle the entire process. Yet such forums are routinely filled with intense disagreements about taxes, spending, the role of government and the rights of the governed. Controversy and conflict over ideas, values, priorities, and agendas fill the records of legislative sessions. How is it that the politicians who constantly engage in the rough and tumble of debate that often looks more like war than deliberation must somehow be protected from hearing the word “Jesus” from the lips of a minister? Would it inflict some kind if irreparable trauma to their fragile egos?

The real conflict is not in the name, but in the claims that Jesus made about his authority. Jesus used the third person to speak of the authority the Father gave him in John 5:27 “And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.” Jesus claims that all are accountable to him. Some may hear that claim and reject it. Others don’t want to hear it at all. If it is true, then we can’t shape the world after our own image. And that is simply a challenge some don’t want to face.

Different world views handle the contrast between good and bad in different ways.

In Chinese philosophy the polar and contrary forces that are interconnected and interdependent are pictured as the yin and the yang. This is part of the Taoist world view that views all that exists as natural and complementary.

Buddhism, for example, is world-denying in relation to evil. This approach was imperfectly popularized in George Lucas’ Star Wars movies as a force that had a good side and a dark side. To accommodate Western values, the good side was supposed to win in the end. Victory of good over evil is not essential to classical Buddhism, however.

In Buddhist thought, both evil and good are inherently part of reality. Both are ultimately of little importance. Attaining a personal state of perfection supersedes them both. The personal goal is not to fight for any kind of moral good, but to shed all desire and attain a state of Nirvana, where even the self eventually disappears like a droplet in an ocean.

Christians sometimes unwittingly incorporate bits and pieces of Eastern thought into their understanding of good and evil. We can question whether the words themselves are artificial and unnecessary. We might be tempted to discount the use of the word evil. We may even view attempts to fight evil as foolish. If evil as an essential part of reality, perhaps opposing it is as foolish as attempting to fight gravity or declaring war on the color blue. How dare we criticize anyone’s moral choices? Maybe genocide and the degradation of women is right for another culture.

Some in our culture seek to hold to a difference between good and evil, but reduce the conflicts to a small of a scope as possible. Some of the zeal to redefine most behavior as legitimate follows this line of thinking. If there are few things that are truly wrong or immoral, then the conflict between good and evil is less of an issue. Legalizing drugs, removing speed limits, lowering the drinking age, legitimizing all kinds of sexual relationships, and erasing as may restrictions on personal choice as possible becomes attractive. The battle with evil is easier because there is now less to fight. And the island of non-compromise loses more and more real estate to the waves of relativism with each passing day.

The Bible insists that evil is not a natural part of the world. It is a consequence of the historic fall and a broken relationship between God and man. Human rebellion not only impacted the personal relationship between God and the human race that was created in his image, but it also changed the order of the created universe. Romans 8:22 states, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth together until now.” The fall thus brought mankind and the physical world into an unnatural state.

From a biblical perspective, evil is not an essential part of reality, but an intruder. Therefore we have good reasons to resist it, combat it, and deal with those who would perpetuate it. And because of the revelation of God we can understand the trans-cultural principles that define God’s prescriptive moral decrees. We are not to accommodate evil as one would adapt to less oxygen in a city 6,000 feet above sea level. We have a mandate and an obligation to fight the flawed ideas, values and practices that devalue and damage the human race and the world in which we live.

Sometimes enthusiasm can cloud good judgment. It’s wonderful to celebrate the ways in which God encourages, affirms, and empowers those who dare to walk with him. But if we’re not careful that celebration can distort the way we read scripture. We can turn a clear promise of God into an extreme triumphalism that the text does not warrant.

For example, take the statement of Paul to the Philippians when he writes, “I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me.” (See Philippians 4:13.) Christ-followers occasionally use this statement as “You CAN do it” mantra. Are you experiencing a difficult time in your marriage? Remember Philippians 4:13. Is money tight? Remember Philippians 4:13. Did you fall from your bike and break your forearm? Remember Philippians 4:13.

The words of scripture were not designed to function as a magic elixir to deal with the challenges of life. The prescription is not to swallow a phrase and feel better in the morning.

What does this verse state in context? The word everything is not unqualified. It’s not a promise that we can reverse the body damage in an auto accident, grow a missing finger, or change the outcome of an election after the votes have been counted. Paul is not arguing that we have the capacity as children of God to reorder the universe or erase all the consequences of evil moral choices. When you look at verses 10-12, you discover that Paul has been discussing living in various states of poverty and affluence. He is talking about how he has found contentment with God despite the circumstances that God has sovereignly surrounded him with. The do
everything in this context is the same as “be content in every kind of circumstance.” He is confessing that God will strengthen him to face any kind of circumstance with an attitude that is God-honoring and strengthened by God himself.

In a similar way, God does not promise to give us supernatural power to achieve the goals we strive for. He does give us strength to face whatever circumstances come our way and find contentment in him and his guidance. He is sufficient for every circumstance because he is sovereign over all of them and loving toward his children.

Every discipline and specialization has its own particular language. Back when I was cutting meat we would break beef. That was slang for taking a half of a carcass that had been delivered to the locker area, placing it on a cutting block, and transforming it into steaks, roasts, and ground beef. Soccer coaches have a specialized vocabulary, as do plumbers, finish carpenters, software developers, flooring salesmen, and nurses.

When you find yourself in the middle of a conversation with two people talking about their specialty, it can be difficult to understand what they are saying. Some of the special terms, slang, and abbreviations, can be like Swahili to the uninitiated. Unfortunately, Christians sometimes slip into code language when talking with other people. Without thinking, Christ followers can use terms that they hear constantly, but mean little to others.

If our goal is to communicate clearly, we must consider what we are saying. This is not a call to politically correct language, which is an attempt to filter out ideas that others may find offensive. It is not self-censorship. It is a call to think about how we can communicate the key messages of scripture without dropping into the language of an evangelical subculture that is not tied to scripture nor to the world around us.

For example, there are common evangelical terms that we use in presenting the invitation in the gospel to embrace Jesus’ claim to be our Lord and savior. Modern Christianese often uses the metaphor of “asking Jesus into our heart.” It’s difficult to know where this particular phrase came from, but it’s relatively new. The phrase doesn’t occur in scripture. Some would link it to Jesus’ words to the church in Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3. But the metaphor there is a door, not a heart. In 2 Corinthians 6:22 and 13, Paul uses the metaphor of an open heart to describe a welcome attitude, a transparency, a sense of favor that he feels toward the Corinthians and wishes them to reciprocate. In Colossians 1:27 Paul describes the mystery of redemption as “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” In Romans 8:9 Paul reminds the believers that one of the consequences of their relationship is the indwelling presence of the Spirit. He speaks of the “Spirit of God” in the first part of the verse, and equates that with the “Spirit of Christ” in the second half of the verse.

None of these realities demand that we describe the process of salvation as “asking Jesus into your heart.” In the right context—with the proper explanation of the metaphor—it may be useful. But it some cases it has become a modern shibboleth—a sign of authentic evangelical belief rather than an effective communication tool of the good news of Jesus.

There is a subtle pride in enforcing Christianese within evangelical circles. It presumes that the language of scripture is inadequate to communicate the gospel today. It pushes Jesus message of the kingdom of God into a mold that fits our preferences. There is no ambiguity in the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ in the New Testament. There is an absence of “canned” or stilted language—the kind of-verbiage we refer to when we want to reduce the message of life in Christ to a one-size-fits-all formula.

If Christ followers are going to communicate in a way that is effective in our modern culture, we must present the challenging truth of the New Testament without apology. But that also requires the kind of clarity that comes from avoiding insider language that is more a product of evangelical conformity than careful thought.

Injustice tends to perpetuate itself. We sadly consider the lingering animosity at the end of the last century between militant groups in Northern Ireland. A murder triggers a reprisal which gives birth to another killing. It’s reflected in the gang wars that claim victims in the underbelly of many large cities worldwide.

Or we think of the legendary feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. (Over what I have no clue.)

On a personal level, it’s the bundle of unsettled grievances that crop up in a troubled marriage and produce a cold war of suspicion, mistrust, denial, silence, and mutual distain. One injustice sparks another in retaliation. And as the clouds of unfairness and wrong block out the light from the sun, the relationship creeps into deeper and deeper darkness.

The astounding record of Acts 16 reminds us that there is an escape from the downward spiral of injustice, hatred, and revenge that claims innumerable victims daily.

Paul and Silas lie in an inner prison cell, aching from a brutal beating and immobilized by having their feet secured in stocks. In the dark, filthy, dismal confines of this prison day flowed into night. It was the time of day when despair grew and there was nothing to do but brood about the injustice that put you there in the first place and wonder why God abandoned you to evil and abased men.

But in this valley of death song burst forth. Acts 16:25 records that Paul and Silas were “praying and singing hymns to God.” Somewhere in that dark place of suffering and death they found a hope that evil could not crush.

Paul and Silas focused on the God who made them and the Christ who redeemed them, who walked his own road of injustice and suffering on their behalf. They did not have a final answer for the personal evil that put them in this grim place. They could not unravel all the mysteries of why a sovereign, loving God allowed the evils of others to wound them so. But they could focus on the character of God and the wonder of Jesus Christ.

What did they pray? Did they look for answers through the dark? Did they pray for healing for their battered bodies? Did they, like Jesus, as for divine compassion on those who afflicted them? Did they pray for courage and boldness as the early church did when the apostles were beaten by the Sanhedrin and told to muzzle the message of Christ? We don’t know. But they spoke with their creator and redeemer. They shared their experience with him and somewhere in that exchange they realized that hope had not died.

And then they sang. Undoubtedly it was a style of music unlike any we would hear on the radio or an iPod today. But it was music to, about, and for the glory of the God who shares their suffering and who will be their eternal joy when life is over. Who had the better voice? Could either of them carry a tune? What shape did their words take as they lifted their voices to God? Again, we don’t know. But we do know that their song and their prayers took their hearts to a place far different from their immediate surroundings.

Some have called this generation of Americans the crybaby generation. We tend to focus on the smallest inconveniences and rail at the injustice that forces us to wait several days to have our car air-conditioning fixed. It leaves us woefully unprepared when we face serious evil and suffering. And for those who live under the rule of an absent or absentee God, there is nothing to give strength beyond yourself. You are left with your own ability to think or reason your way out of the pain and evil that surrounds you.

The record of Acts 16 reminds the Christ-follower that a living relationship with Christ invades the darkest of moments with a reality that suffering and death cannot overcome. It also provides a ground from which we can be a major influence to those around us. The jailer’s reaction was in response to the earthquake, but also to their song. There was something in their praise and worship that held an answer for this man whose life was more successful and secure than theirs—on the outside. They were not crushed by the injustice that put them in this place, because they were not alone. And the jailer had to find out what gave them resilience and hope in a place like this.

The God who walks in this dark and bruised world is able to help those who know him to find strength through the injustice, pain, and tears. And in that discovery everything changes.

Our natural response to personal injustice often includes anger, rage, or bitterness. We can become very vocal, enraged, and combative when our rights have been violated and we have suffered personally at the hands of others. This may take the form of road rage on the highway, yelling at a clerk at a ticket counter at American Airlines, or dissuading everyone you know from doing business with a local retailer.

The bible reminds us that those who love the Lord hate evil. (See Psalm 97:10.) But it reminds us that the evil we are to hate includes the evil inside our own hearts. (See Matthew 15:19.) And it reminds us that vengeance belongs to God and not to us. (See Romans 12:19.)

Scripture calls for a clear and decisive civil response to evil. Deuteronomy 17:11-12 states, “Act according to the law they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left. The man who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the Lord your God must be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel.”

Our tendency is to be lenient on civil law but aggressive on a personal level. Our society abhors clear and certain punishments on a civil level while it condones greater levels of meanness on a personal level.

We can take matters into our own hands and use proof texts from the Bible to justify words and actions that we can respond with. Scripture, on the other hand, challenges the vehement language, threats, and lawless actions we are prone to embrace. When we are the victims, it calls us to reject the animosity, bitterness, and revenge that we see modeled on a personal level across our culture.

In Acts 16 Paul and Silas find themselves in an inner cell in a Roman prison. They have been beaten and their feet are bound in stocks. There was no trial, no attempt to ascertain the facts behind the allegations that were leveled against them. Paul exorcised an evil spirit form a slave girl. Her owners were incensed that she would now earn them no money prophesying the future. So they manhandled Paul and Silas, putting them into the marketplace, where the magistrates uncritically accepted their vague accusations and ordered they be beaten and imprisoned.

Imagine yourself that night in the cell with Paul and Silas. You would expect to find them bitter, sullen, and angry. Their rights had been violated—especially Paul’s since he was a Roman citizen. They were in physical pain because of lies and misrepresentation. They had been stripped of their liberty on trumped-up charges. The Roman system of ‘justice’ had unraveled before their eyes and exposed itself as a fraud and a sham.

Chained and beaten in this filthy environment, you discover Paul and Silas do the most amazing thing. “About midnight,” Luke writes in Acts 16:25, “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.” My mind sticks on this verse because it is so opposed to any kind of response that I would naturally have in that situation. To the modern way of thinking it seems ludicrous, absurd, and illogical.

The tremendous reality that surfaces in this text is that Christ-followers are free to respond to personal injustice in ways the world would never consider. Because of Christ they are not bound to participate in the ever intensifying rancor and rage that fill the hearts of so many who experience injustice in our world today. They can make a different choice.

You and I don’t have to allow personal injustice to lead us into a downward spiral that submerges our soul in darkness and malice. There is another way. (More thoughts on this in the next blog.)

It is wise for growing Christians to use many of the excellent English language tools we have to better understand the Bible. With the help of concordances and dictionaries you can dig into the meaning of Hebrew and Greek words and learn more about what the language meant to the original readers of the scripture.

We can have fun pulling words apart and digging for their original meanings, but what may seem an obvious conclusion can be wrong. The Greek language endured over a long time, and changed through the centuries, as has English. And there were differences between the way words were used in classical and Koine (common) Greek.

One caution we must observe is jumping to conclusions about how a word derives its meaning from earlier words. Even scholars can do this. D.A. Carson notes that the word for servant in 1 Corinthians 4:1 was mistakenly associated with a root meaning “a rower” by many notable scholars. The connection was suggested by one scholar, and uncritically accepted and enlarged upon by others. It became part of the understanding of the word without any corroborating support. (See Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies, p. 29.)

Being dogmatic about words by examining their presumed roots may lead to flawed conclusions. In English, for example, consider a fruit fly. The “fly” accurately describes it as an insect with wings. But what about “fruit”? Does it eat fruit? Does it look like fruit? Is it attracted to fruit? The connection is not clear in the phrase itself. You have to monitor the behavior of the insect to get your answer. The letters in the words do not give a clear answer by themselves—especially if you are looking at them centuries later.

What do you do with the word butterfly? Is it attracted to butter? Does it look like butter? And why is a zipper in a pair of slacks called a fly? A horseshoe goes on a horse, but a shoehorn does not go on a horn. And a gumshoe is a common slang phrase for a detective or an investigator. Confusing, isn’t it?

The point is that looking at the roots of words must be done with care because the development of language is not a scientific endeavor. It’s risky to break compound words into their parts and draw sharp conclusions about meaning.

The best clues to the meaning of the word are (1) the immediate context; (2) the use of the word elsewhere by the same author—like Mark’s 41 uses of the word translated immediately, which occurs only 17 other times in the entire New Testament; and (3) the use of the word in similar documents—like “grace and peace” in the New Testament letters. Of all these principles, context offers the best guide for the use of a word.

If you’re a growing student of the Bible, by all means use the tools that are available. But be careful about putting lots of weight on the possible root meaning of a word and attaching too much significance to what it origin might have been. In the absence of clear evidence, silence is always wiser than speculative conclusions.

We live in an age of psychological analysis. That reality has given us legions of psychologists and psychiatrists. Another consequence is that it has changed the way those of us who are not clinically trained think. We may not have advanced degrees, but we think in psychological categories. We hear of someone’s behavior and in an offhand remark state that in our opinion they are “mental” or “schizophrenic”, or acting in “passive-aggressive” manor. The language of psychology colors our vocabulary.

Another result of the impact of viewing life through the lens of pop psychology is that it changes the way we read narratives—especially biblical narratives. It’s easy to read into the actions of characters in the Bible and draw iron-clad conclusions about the motivation behind their actions. This is very tempting for those of us who teach and preach from the biblical text. It’s also an approach the casual reader of the Bible can unwittingly drift into. If a student of the Bible is not careful, this psychological grid can become a mainstay of the way they interpret the biblical text.

Is it always wrong to tentatively speculate about what might have motivated someone to engage in a certain act or respond to events in a certain way? No. But we must be very careful. It is too easy to declare that a biblical character made a certain choice because of the motivation we assign to him or her.

For example, in Luke 17 the gospel writer tells the story of Jesus cleansing ten men who had leprosy. (See Luke 17:11-19.) He directed all of them to go and show themselves to the priests. As they did so, they were miraculously healed. One of them came back to Jesus and thanked him in person. The others did not. Why? Were they too busy? Were they basically ungrateful? Did they become caught up with celebration and forget? Were they eager to be restored to friends and family?

We are not told exactly what their motives were or what prompted them not to return to Jesus. We are told that the single leper came back was a Samaritan and that he was grateful. We can use this text to show the importance of gratitude and how Jesus blessed the one who remembered who his healer was. But to assign motives to the others and teach about busyness, pride, or loving family more than loving Jesus is to go beyond the bounds of the text. Unless the text provides sufficient and unambiguous evidence, we are not warranted in assigning reasons for behavior and teaching principles built on our speculation.

If a motivation is clear in scripture, then we are on firmer ground. For example, Acts 17:5 states that the Jews in Thessalonica were jealous of the popularity of Paul and Silas. Because of this jealousy, they “rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city.” This historical incident demonstrates the length to which jealousy can take someone.

As a teacher, I find it easy to slip into the motivational fallacy. Part of the thought patterns of our day urges us to ask the question, “What made them do that?” Feeling like we must answer that question can cause us to teach speculation as truth and inadvertently mislead others.

A wiser approach is to say, “I don’t know” when the text is silent. Sometimes we might say, “It could be that…” or “It’s possible that…” But we must be clear to advertise our speculations. Otherwise we will create a generation that will take our presumptions as truth and move farther beyond them in their own study and reading. We must remember that the Bible is valuable for what it does say and what it does not say.

Students of the Bible are not required to answer all the questions that might be asked of a text—only those that the text itself answers. That’s especially true of the motivations of people whose actions are recorded in the historical narrative.

Some of us are born into circumstances that are less than ideal. For some it was growing up without a father or the loss of a mother at an early age. For others it was a family torn apart by divorce, addictions, conflict, or poverty. We may look back at some of the realities that shaped our developmental years and conclude that we are irreparably damaged. We might hunger for a different past with less stress, conflict, or dysfunction. We can long for a different environment, a different set of circumstances, or a healthier kind of relationships in our family of origin.

It’s easy for the real and perceived deficits in our past to become roadblocks to the future. We reason that the presence of these things in our lives must permanently cripple our usability to God and his purposes for our lives. But to draw that conclusion is to underestimate the power of God to leverage our past for his glory.

Acts 16 presents an example of God’s ability to take an imperfect past and use it for his purposes. In the city of Lystra there was a man who was a half-breed. He grew up in a family split by two very different world views. His father was a Gentile. His dad lived in the Hellenistic world of the first century and stood in the heritage of Greek thought and life. It was a world that blended polytheism, a reliance on reason, and what we might consider a secular view of life. This man’s mother was a Jew. Her background was the monotheism of ancient Israel. She thought in terms of the covenant and the Mosaic Law.

We don’t know how these two came to be married, but their children were put in a difficult position. For his Gentile peers, Timothy had an oddball mother. She represented a culture that was either alien to them or one that was a strange subculture. It featured strange dietary rules and stories of a God who interacted with people in an almost unknown part of the empire. For the Jewish subculture, Timothy was a spiritual outcast to some degree. Like the Samaritans in Israel, he was an unholy mix of Jew and non-Jew. His bloodline was not pure. His home was not fully kosher, and therefore off limits. There may have been some who accepted Timothy for who he was, but the stigma of being the product of two civilizations was a black mark in the minds of many in his day.

We know that Timothy was heavily influenced by the faith of his mother and grandmother. (See 2 Timothy 1:5.) Their teaching prepared his heart to accept the work of Christ on his behalf. When Paul came to Lystra, Timothy is described as a disciple. (See Acts 16:1.) We also learn that the believers in both Lystra and Iconium thought well of him. (See Acts 16:2.) We sometimes assume that before Timothy met Paul, he was a clueless young man looking for guidance. But Luke suggests that Timothy was already a man of influence and respect before Paul recruited him to engage in a wider ministry with him.

Instead of being a liability, Timothy’s background became an asset. Who better to partner with Paul in ministry than someone who grew up in two cultures? Timothy had a rare understanding of the world through two sets of eyes. And as the gospel went out to both Jew and Gentile, Timothy could bridge the message to both communities because of his background. He could understand the tensions that existed in both cultures and present the message of Christ in ways that others might not be aware of.

God has the amazing ability to take the unpleasant, broken, and unholy parts of our past and redeem them so that we can speak the words of life to some who share some of our brokenness. Each of us has the opportunity to see life through a lens that can help another grasp the implications of the gospel and the message of Christ. Instead of using our background as an excuse for disengagement and inaction, God invites us to walk by faith so he can leverage our personal history to convey a unique message to some who share similar experiences with us. The account of Timothy suggests that God has prepared each Christ-follower for a specific audience that we can speak to in ways others cannot. God will use our past if we engage with him in the present. What a great opportunity to make a big difference in the lives of others!