1/13/17 Daniel aabout 30
It's cold in Chicago, and I had worked late so
it was dark out on my way home. I
usually stop somewhere on my way to reach out with the Gospel, and the cold
weather forces me to get creative and find people to talk with indoors. I had stopped at a laundromat near my church,
but its lone customer hadn't wanted to talk much. But back out on the sidewalk I bumped into
Daniel, here from Brazil to learn English.
I couldn't speak Portugese and his English needs a lot of work, so we
settled on Spanish. Daniel is a Seventh-Day
Adventist, and though we had many beliefs in common we had an interesting discussion
about our differences toward the doctrine of hell. Later he commented about the importance of
loving acts of kindness over theology.
Really, why were out there on the cold, dark sidewalk talking theology
when we could be at, say, a soup kitchen helping the poor? Aren't people's immediate needs more
important than the hereafter?
The problem, I told him, is that the hereafter
is just as real but infinitely longer in comparison to our relatively short
existence in this life. Where we spend
eternity is important, and when people become believers with a godly
perspective on eternity and a right relationship with God, it provides a
genuine and heartfelt motivation to love others and do good works of service
here on earth. It is meant to be the
result of good theology. James 1 says
" Religion that God our Father accepts as
pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." "Talking theology" then, doesn't
just affect where we spend eternity, it should affect our actions here and
now. It can inspire people to good
works, even when it happens on a cold, dark sidewalk.
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