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Strategy of Evangelism in the context of Bangladesh

THE STRATEGY OF EVANGELISM IN THE CONTEXT OF BANGLADESH Rev. John Mark (Wahab)
A single drop of rain or even a single shower can't make a stream or creek. To make a flowing river continuous rain is absolutely necessary. Our country is like a desert in the area of the knowledge in the Gospel, the God's word. Though all people were created in the image of God through the same line of Adam, the first man, yet they have turned away from Him, ignoring the God-given, principles required to be believed in the Holy One. Sometimes many people with different attitudes are found in the society. These people flatly deny the fact that the people of the whole world were created to love one another and bring glory to Him alone.People of the world are somehow acquainted to someone called the Supreme Being who, at the remote, pivots the mechanism of the cosmos. But they have no clear conception of Him. It is as if, some blind people have observed an elephant and thought different ideas about it touching it as a blindfolded man.God had started sharing His identity to His wayward but beloved children bit by bit. Finally He has revealed himself to the lost people, through His Son Jesus Christ, Who are the source of grace, power and holiness. He is the pinnacle of Love and perfection. Anyone can really trust in Him without any argument or doubt. He manifested himself to be trustworthy to His disciples at the cost of his own life on shedding His blood. He is the living love expressed and incarnated God. In any country, among any group of people there are several doors or windows to enter into people's lives. For example, you can make contact to any person using your five sense organs. In the cultural context of Bangladesh to manifest the undefiled unique love of God before the unreached people you would have a lot of wide-open opportunities. In the city of Athens, the apostle Paul could find out such a contact point in the area about the idols and one to an unknown god to manifest the love of our Lord Jesus Christ even among the hordes of godless people. Apostle Paul was touched and led by the Holy Spirit. Are you being urged by the same Spirit to evangelize and saturate the world with the saving message of the Lord Jesus Christ? Think yourself, as if you were in a room without any source of light, you wouldn't be able to see anything around you. Please try to light up a lamp, anywhere in the society, whatever feeble it is, immediately it would start illuminating the area resulting in amazing possibilities. So without light you are as if dead in a so beautiful world that God made and said "it is good". People are the best of God's creation. Please try to understand them and behave accordingly in a manner that honors the Lord Jesus Christ. Only the accursed Satan makes them ugly whispering heinous plots in their minds. It is God alone who takes all the steps to make them free from their sinful and deteriorated state. Jesus Christ is the only answer to all of these problems. The dealers of any commodity try to introduce the products to the consumers. They manifest it, explain its utility, longevity, versatility, durability etc. to make the consumers understand and convince of the same. The evangelists and the truly committed believers of the only Redeemer of the sinners, Jesus Christ, should leave no stone unturned to make him acquainted to the unreached people. They should help people to come to the Lord and to be united with one another. He came to gather whatever was lost and scattered away. The dim impact of the age-long evangelical ventures proved the process pessimistic, discouraging, illogical and unreasonable.

But the message of the Gospel and the life of Jesus Christ is unique. His love is unique at the stage of his pinnacle, his holiness is incomparable; his compassion is unbound by the framework of human knowledge and perception. His entire life is the vivid picture of the invisible God.

It is the way of the presentation of His message that matters. The foreign missionaries should also endeavor to introduce the Message apart from the culture, as the gospel itself represents the Living Lord Jesus Christ, the unique Redeemer. He had translated the love of God and manifested His plan to save the world at the cost of His holy and unblemished life. If someone tries his best to introduce his own culture instead of the living Lord, of course, there would be an ulcer in that society.One could by the Grace of God carefully study the words of God and may come to a living faith. God speaks to the believers and unbelievers through His Living Words & also inspires and guides them by the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about conversion and sanctification. It is not the social structure of the society but the attitude of the people that is to be changed into that of the compassionate Lord which may then affect the attitudes and actions of a society. He died not for the Christians alone, but also for the sinners of the whole world to make them Christ's own. His path may be smooth and even, but some pastors, for their selfish end, made that sometimes uneven and complicated. The Lord asked every believer to worship the heavenly Father in the Spirit & truth. The Spirit means contrary to the physical being & truth means contrary to the falsehood. There is no need to delight the nostril of the Living Lord by burning incense, because He sees the hearts and prefers its purity of the devotees. He demands our hearts should be holy as that of the Father in heaven. We may like and plant many kinds of different trees because we have tasted the fruits of those trees. We dislike some of those because neither they are good for wood nor for fruits. So it is true to say that the trees are known by its fruits. We prefer someone responsible, faithful & hardworking than other lazy people who are of no use. We would say in the context of Bangladesh, that if we sincerely want to evangelize our people, we must not harm them but love & help them. We must be impartial in our attitude, as the Lord did love all the people impartially. Our goal should not be tearing the individual apart from the society or family, but help him to be adjusted with them. The believer is to be a light to remove darkness. So that it is kept and set in the midst of darkness. The believers in the Living Lord Jesus Christ are called the Light of the world, as He Himself is the Unique light of the world. They are His emissaries - so it is obvious - they must be put in the heart of the society, so that the whole society may receive light & be illuminated. We must understand the strategy of battle. No single shower can make a creek or stream of water in the desert or even in an oasis. To make any flowing creek or river constant & continuous heavy showers are needed. In the knowledge of the saving message countries like Bangladesh are as deserts. Some of them have ideas about the living Lord but those are erroneous, partial & imperfect. We can follow the strategy that Apostle Paul did use in the city of Athens when he preached about the statue to the unknown god. He did not criticize them bitterly rather with love & respect opened his mouth and explained the truths about the living God.Islamic people know something about Jesus Christ. In the Koran many truths about Him are told including his, virgin birth, his holiness, power over disease, death and Satan and truths to do with the last or final Day of Judgment when they recognize that Christ will return. Careful study will help the believers to point out the contradictory & erroneous statements are found in the same book always with grace and humility. If someone knows Jesus Christ perfectly in the Holy Bible, he would be able to detect the wrong teachings being professed about Him and the Truth in other books. It is like that type of detection of the currency; you must know the legal tender to distinguish the forged tender. Jesus Christ is the incarnate love of God for the fallen human being. He came to redeem the sinners, not to condemn them. He is here to set up peace in the hearts of the people that the world has no capacity to offer. He is the only way back to the Father in heaven.We must saturate our country by the teachings of the Living Lord Jesus Christ - the saving message - the only Gospel. The gospel is not only a book but also the living and walking inspiration of God's mind and heart. When people are changed into His likeness then the goal of the evangelism would be successful. We may come in contact with the notorious persons not to enhance their devilish activities but to see them transformed into the attitude and character of the living and loving Lord Jesus Christ. We should not introduce any culture or social environment that would maroon them from the larger existing society. God doesn't demand any social, physical or cultural activities to worship Him. His demand is that He must be worshipped in Spirit & Truth. Both are immaterial. Spirit is the Holy Spirit that convinces a person to have a new attitude that our Lord does possess.And Truth is God's absolute truth & revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ- we can't attain these qualifications from any institutions in the world or buy them at any cost from the whole materialistic world. The power of the Holy Spirit is a gift of God available to the people who do repent as a depraved sinner.The Word of God is good for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.We must wait for the harvest to be given in God's time. It is good optimistic scene in Bangladesh. But if someone waits even a thousand years without cultivation or sowing seeds in the field, that waiting would be foolishness for him. For last 25 years we have been cultivating the land and sowing the seeds, and now is the time to enjoy and have a bumper harvest.

By: John Mark
Category: My Blog

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IS THE BIBLE GODS WORD?

WHAT THEY SAY

CHRISTIANS CONFESS

Dr. W. Graham Scroggie of the MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE, Chicago, one of the most prestigious Christian Evangelical Mission in the world, answering the question — "Is the Bible the Word of God?" (also the title of his book), under the heading: IT IS HUMAN, YET DIVINE. He says on page 17:

"Yes, the Bible is human, though some, out of zeal which is not according to knowledge, 1 have denied this. Those books2 have passed through the minds of men, are written in the language of men, were penned by the hands of men, and bear in their style the characteristics of men." (Emphasis added).

Another erudite Christian scholar, Kenneth Cragg, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, says on page 277 of his book, "The Call of the Minaret":

"Not so the New Testament3 . . . There is condensation and editing; 4 there is choice, reproduction and witness. The Gospels have come through the mind of the Church behind the authors. They represent experience and history." 5

If words have any meaning, do we need to add another word of comment to prove our case? No! But the professional propagandists, after letting the cat out of the bag, still have the face to try to make their readers believe that they have proved beyond the shadow of any doubt that the Bible is the "irrefragable 6 Word of God." Their semantic gymnastics — equivocating, and playing with words — is amazing!

1. Out of ignorance.

2. The Bible is not Just a Book. It is a selection and compilation of many books.

3. As opposed to the Qur’ân.

4. Another word for Interpolating.

5. Emphasis are mine.

6. Indisputable.

Both these Doctors of Religion are telling us in the clearest language humanly possible that the Bible is the handiwork of man, all the while pretending that the are proving to the contrary. An old Arab saying goes: "IF SUCH ARE THE PRIESTS, GOD BLESS THE CONGREGATION."

With this sort of drivel, the hot-gospeller and the Bible-thumper is "inspired" to harry the "heathen." 1 A theological student — a not-yet-qualified young evangelist — from the University of Witwatersrand, became a frequent visitor to the Newtown Mosque in Johannesburg, with the "noble" thought of "witnessing"2 to the members of its congregation. When I was introduced to him, (and having learnt his purpose), I invited him to lunch at my brother's residence — a stone's-throw from the Mosque. While discussing the authenticity of the Bible over the dinner table and sensing his stubborn dogmatism, I put out a feeler: "Your Professor Geyser, (The Head of the Department of Theology) does not believe the Bible to be the Word of God." Without the slightest surprise he answered, "I know." Now I personally had no knowledge of the Professor's conviction about the Bible. I had only assumed so from a controversy which raged around him about the "Divinity of Christ." 3 He had taken issue with the orthodox believers on this point some years ago. I continued further, saying, "Your lecturer does not believe the Bible as being God's Word." The young evangelist, responded again, "I know" but he continued this time-with the words, "but I believe that it is the Word of God!" There is no real remedy for such people. Even Jesus bewailed this sickness:

"... seeing they see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." (Matthew 13:13)

Al-Qur'an, the Holy Book of God, also condemns this mulish mentality:

Al-Qur'an 2:18
"DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND, THEY WILL NOT RETURN (TO THE TRUE PATH)

These pages are now addressed to those sincerely humble souls, who are genuinely interested in seeking the Light of God, and who wish to be guided by it. As for the other, with a sickness in their souls, the facts presented herein can only increase the disease of their hearts. 1. See "How Lost are the Heathen?" by the same MOODY PRESS of Dr. Scroggie. 2. When the Christian talks of "witnessing" he means propagating, proselytizng, converting.

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MORE COMING SOON....

By: BILAL KHAN AFRIDI
Category: My Blog
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What is the significance of Jesus` crucifixion?

It is love of God to the people and he wanted to safe us from the evil works.

By: Esak Rai
Category: My Blog

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