How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" --Romans 10:14-15
The body of Christ has never relied on you more than it does right now, and not because it needs your tithe. In fact, rarely in American history has the work of the church been more reliant on the workplaces of its members. And not for dollars, either.
The need is so great, it may finally be time to consider commissioning mechanics the way we once commissioned missionaries headed overseas.
Why?
More and more people are actively distancing themselves from the places where they're likely to hear about God. An increasing number of people are choosing NOT to attend worship services, and even those who do attend Sunday services aren't likely to find themselves in Sunday School or Bible studies, where a deeper Word is taught and heard. Entire generations are being raised without encountering the Bible. Even among the faithful, Biblical illiteracy is reaching epidemic levels.
So, while the local church remains the most important human institution in the body of Christ, people are more likely to see and hear about God in our working lives than in our church lives. While our jobs have always mattered to God, there's a heightened urgency to the mission of our working selves in this culture. People who have no faith look to us to break down what they call the "impenetrable language of faith".
Just as missionaries once carried the Gospel to other lands, and translated the truths of Scripture into those foreign languages; now, we too must be missionaries to our workplaces, where we find growing numbers of people intellectually distant from God. In the vernacular of historic Christianity, we must "Wycliffe the workplace."
This is in stark contrast to
Once faith was embedded in our culture[2], and pastors' voices echoed into every corner of life because the people who populated those corners were sitting in their pews. While the pastors' role remains as important as ever, now it is the workday Christian whose voice must ring out first in places where the pastor's voice will never reach.
So, Paul's words beckon to us with special significance in this hour, charging us as mechanics and doctors and programmers and truck drivers and politicians and stay-at-home Moms to be the "beautiful feet" that answers the query "How can they know?"
Do not be found lacking when the King asks "Who will bear my message." His commission rests on you. And me.
--Randy Kilgore
[1]In fact, in the hundred plus years before the American Civil War, the body of Christ in general, and the clergy in particular, controlled the educational institutions of the
[2]Benjamin Franklin could write about an obscure Old Testament character, and everyone in
Visitor Comments (0)