Dale
June 28, 2023, 3:14am
24
JerryN:
In the Great Commission, Jesus asks us, if we truly love Him, to help others have a good relationship with God, or to improve their relationships with God.
It is more than that – it is not just a request to help nor a suggestion to improve a relationship that is beyond broken. Jesus asks us to be obedient, and the Great Commission is a command. Peace Child 1 and End of the Spear 2 are good books about missions to people who have more than lost their way and would not have found God otherwise.
That is corroborated by an account I have alluded to before, and I wish I could cite attribution for it, because I don’t think it was apocryphal…
I remember reading decades ago an account of an aboriginal tribesman in Africa who knew that the animism of his tribe was wrong. So he set out on his own, leaving the tribe, seeking. And he was found of Christ, because in his travels he ‘just happened upon’ some Christian missionaries laboring in or among another tribe or tribes.
I wonder if it was in this, by the same author as Peace Child , which I’ve mentioned before: Eternity in Their Hearts
1 Peace Child
From Cannibals to Christ-Followers–A True Story
In 1962, Don and Carol Richardson risked their lives to share the gospel with the Sawi people of New Guinea. Peace Child tells their unforgettable story of living among these headhunters and cannibals, who valued treachery through fattening victims with friendship before the slaughter. God gave Don and Carol the key to the Sawi hearts via a redemptive analogy from their own mythology. The “peace child” became the secret to unlocking a value system that had existed through generations. This analogy became a stepping-stone by which the gospel came into the Sawi culture and started both a spiritual and a social revolution from within. With an epilogue updating how the gospel has impacted the Sawi people, this missionary classic will inspire a new generation of readers who need to hear this remarkable story and the lessons it teaches us about communicating Christ in a meaningful way to those around us.
2 End of the Spear
Steve Saint was five years old when his father, missionary pilot Nate Saint, was speared to death by a primitive Ecuadorian tribe. In adulthood, Steve, having left Ecuador for a successful business career in the United States, never imagined making the jungle his home again. But when that same tribe asks him to help them, Steve, his wife, and their teenage children move back to the jungle. There, Steve learns long-buried secrets about his father’s murder, confronts difficult choices, and finds himself caught between two worlds. Soon to be a major motion picture (January 2006), End of the Spear brilliantly chronicles the continuing story that first captured the world’s attention in the bestselling book, Through Gates of Splendor .