Who should we speak with?
Think about the people that you’ve talked to over the last month or so. Specifically, think about those people with whom you have had spiritual conversations. How many times were you speaking with individuals? How many times were you speaking with groups? How many times were you speaking with people who were already followers of Jesus? How many times were you speaking with people who were not followers of Jesus?
I started asking myself these questions after reading the post “The Open Communication Model of Jesus Christ” written by Art at “The Itinerants.”
Look through the charts and graphs in Art’s post (Art loves charts and graphs), and compare your own communication patterns to those of Jesus.
How do you compare? Do you, like me, recognize that you need to look for more opportunities to speak to different kinds of people, both individually and in groups?
I was thinking about the same thing this week at ETS. Great minds think alike. Or, maybe some other proverb more humble.
I always recommend jobs in the service industry, like becoming a substitute teacher, a barista, table waiter, or taxi cab driver. This facilitates lots of friendships. Also, tutor people in difficult subjects for lower cost than the math department at the local university, or tutor them in biblical languages for free (those always end up being Christians though).
This strategy has helped me make lots of non-Christian friends with whom I have had opportunity to share the gospel. My pastor drives a cab and has learned better how to share the gospel to others through that and it shows in his sermons and one on one counseling.
I looked back over that chart and I decided that it is bunk. Those are the episodes of Jesus’ speech that were considered most pertinent to the apostles to include for the work of taking the gospel to the nations, not a time for time tabulation of Jesus’ choice of conversation partners.
If we did that with Jesus’ manner of prayer, we’d have more instances of Jesus praying out loud than we would of him praying in secret. And Jesus explicitly tells us to pray in secret as the norm.
I think a better thing to do would be to say, “Who is my neighbor?” “who do I know that is “without” that I might walk toward in wisdom?” “who do I know in need of encouragement?” “what loner needs somebody to play video games with just so that they’ll open up in conversation?” “to whom (not the everybody answer) am I immediately most responsible to train in Jesus’ ways?” etc. Then it is based on commands of scripture to care for the weak, the lonely, our neighbors, etc.
Geoff,
I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t know if I would go as far as calling it “bunk.” I would think there’s a good reason that those particular encounters (and prayers) by Jesus are included in Scripture while others are not.
-Alan
Okay, bunk was too far.