Under Pressure!

Have you ever felt pressured by others to share your faith? I'm not talking about the positive pressure of encouragement, like two teammates spurring each other on to run faster, jump higher, or hit harder. I'm talking about harsh pressure, like you're being forced to eat your vegetables, and if you don't, you're a bad person. Have you ever felt that? (And I am fully aware that there may have been times when I have unintentionally been the one to apply that pressure.)

Those negative, even guilt, feelings we have about this are compounded when we remember that we actually have something wonderful to share. Now, I feel twice as bad - not only am I not doing what I ought, but it's not like I'm withholding bad news. Good news should be easy to share, right? If I really believed this was wonderful news, then why am I such the horrible person who doesn't share it?

Why do we feel this pressure? Surprisingly, this pressure most often does not come from the encouragement to share our faith. That's not the real issue in most cases, I believe. But because we think it's the issue, then we suffer the twin devils of pressure and guilt.

The actual issue, in my opinion, is that we feel pressured to share our faith in a particular way - a way that's foreign, unnatural, mysterious, awkward, uncomfortable, manipulative, or completely contrary to our personal makeup. We (mistakenly) think, or have been (mistakenly) told, that not only should we share our faith, but that it must be done in a particular way - that sharing your faith is synonymous with a particular method. And if that way doesn't match your personality, then your personality is deficient, stubborn, or even sinful. Pressure applied, thank you very much.

The underlying error is worse: a mentality that has reduced the Gospel to something like "Three Steps to Avoid Hell." We take the fullness of the Gospel, squeeze it down into "fire insurance," and then are left with nothing but pressured-filled ways that it must be shared.

Search the Gospels - you'll never find Jesus reducing the Gospel like that. Rather, He consistently speaks of the nearness, the nature, and the accessibility of the Kingdom of God. He never reduces the Gospel to getting your ticket punched. There's far too little space in the blog to fully discuss the significance of this observation.

Instead of saying, "Share your faith in a prescribed way or else you're a bad Christian," let me offer a different kind of encouragement: Leave Kingdom fingerprints everywhere. As you live, as you work, as you play, as you have family time, leave "evidence" of the Kingdom of God. Demonstrate the nearness of the Kingdom by living as a representative in the midst of others. Bring the nature of the Kingdom into your work and activities by infusing its attributes into everything you do, attributes such as integrity, compassion, and justice. Make the accessibility of the Kingdom obvious by being authentic and transparent, and as appropriate, but letting others know how accessible it is. How can I exit every scene of the story of my life with some evidence of the Kingdom left behind?

Sharing how someone can become a member of God's Kingdom (the redux of the rich Gospel) still has a prominent place, but is now set in the larger frame of seeing our life's task as leaving Kingdom fingerprints everywhere. My "job" is to leave as much evidence as possible. That doesn't seem very pressure-filled to me.

No formula. No recipe. Just a lifestyle of leaving evidence of the Kingdom everywhere you go, from the gym to the grocery store to neighborhood association meeting. Some of the evidence is the example you give, some of the evidence is by adding Kingdom values to a situation that needs it, some of the evidence is verbal testimony. I don't want to limit your imagination on ways to do this. Acts of mercy and compassion, being there with someone in sorrow, offering truth without necessarily quoting chapter and verse, all kinds of ways to leave Kingdom fingerprints. Artists and bridge builders can leave evidence; teachers and truck drivers can leave evidence; students and retirees can leave evidence. Everywhere.

By the word "fingerprints," I don't necessarily mean something subtle, hard to detect, and insignificant. I mean evidence that can be obvious and traceable - evidence that any observer would easily trace back to the Kingdom of God, and in fact make it hard to ignore the Kingdom of God. Leave enough evidence to be convicted of being a citizen of God's Kingdom.

How Do We Know We Have the Original Gospel?

A comment question I hear among skeptics (and among believers!) is, "How do we know that we have the original Gospel?" Often, that question is not worded in such open, kind, inquisitive terms - and more often it is a negative statement instead of a question. But the question is still there.

The answer to the question requires at least a book-length answer, but let me give you a few things to consider in response:

1. We have extremely early evidence that the Gospel we preach is what the apostles preached. For example, 1 Cor 15:1-5 explains the same basic core of what the Gospel is as what we believe - atonement for sin in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. 1 Corinthians is easily shown to be one of the earliest Christian documents, evidence that what we believe to be the core of the Gospel has been the core since very early in church history (before A.D. 50). But also consider that 1 Cor 15:1-5 appears to be quoting a common saying. If that's true, then the core of the Gospel shows up even earlier than 1 Corinthians. It takes a while for common sayings to become common!
2. There is terrific evidence that every book of the New Testament was written in the 1st Century, and they all agree on what the Gospel is. The book of Acts is particular good about boiling the Gospel down to it's primary content.
3. There is no other 1st Century evidence of any other gospel. (There are "other gospels" that appear in the 3rd Century, but nothing from the first.) So, the only evidence we have from the 1st Century is consistent on what the core of the Gospel is. Anyone who believes we don't have the original Gospel has to explain why all the 1st Century evidence points only in one direction. I've heard theories, but they require more faith and speculation than what we're accused of.
4. There are Roman and Jewish documents from the 1st Century that are hostile against Christianity, and yet they confirm that the main doctrine of Christians is that they believe in the resurrection of Christ. They don't agree with that belief, but they affirm that this is what Christians believed. These documents by no means want to promote Christianity - even hostile primary sources affirm the content of the Gospel!
5. The apostles preferred death over denying the resurrection of Christ. That's how core this belief has been from the beginning. 
6. Jesus wasn't killed for being a controversial religious figure, or for being a controversial teacher, or for being a political activist. He was killed for claiming to be equal to God. The very reason for killing Him (from the human perspective) affirms that His claims to divinity were core to His message. If He didn't claim to be equal to God, He likely would have lived to a ripe, old age.

The list goes on, but this gives you a taste of why we have a strong defense against any charge that we do not possess the original Gospel. Be emboldened by the facts - they are always on the side of Truth. In my experience, the more we dig, the more reasons we have to believe, not less.