In this week’s edition, I want to answer an insightful question that Dave Pitt posed after reading my piece about small groups and one-another edifying speech. Hi Tony, Thanks for this great article. It provides some really helpful language around the difference between the preached word and the one-anothering the NT speaks of. You’re focussing on the way the word grows Christians.
John Lavender here again, thanks for this "episode". I especially found helpful your thoughts on "outsider speech" from Acts, Colossians and 1 Peter where those verses gave specific pointers to the type of speech in which Christians could/should engage with their non-christian neighbours, friends and contacts. I wanted to add though something which we see in the gospels where there are not specific verses identifying types of speech but rather a consistent pattern where we see people who have been impacted by Jesus speaking about him and sharing the news of what he has done with those around them, so much to the point that whole crowds flock to Jesus. An interesting example is John 4:39 but we also see it in places like Mark 1:28 or 1:45. As you mentioned in this week's talk, I don't want to get into the debate about is everybody an evangelist, but I think that we have lost something in our relationships with our non-christian world that our outsider speech so often does not reflect these patterns that we see so readily in the gospels and people meet and are impacted by Jesus. Keep up the good work! John
Hi Tony,
John Lavender here again, thanks for this "episode". I especially found helpful your thoughts on "outsider speech" from Acts, Colossians and 1 Peter where those verses gave specific pointers to the type of speech in which Christians could/should engage with their non-christian neighbours, friends and contacts. I wanted to add though something which we see in the gospels where there are not specific verses identifying types of speech but rather a consistent pattern where we see people who have been impacted by Jesus speaking about him and sharing the news of what he has done with those around them, so much to the point that whole crowds flock to Jesus. An interesting example is John 4:39 but we also see it in places like Mark 1:28 or 1:45. As you mentioned in this week's talk, I don't want to get into the debate about is everybody an evangelist, but I think that we have lost something in our relationships with our non-christian world that our outsider speech so often does not reflect these patterns that we see so readily in the gospels and people meet and are impacted by Jesus. Keep up the good work! John
Thanks for that . . . maybe we should think of 'gospelling' as a coin with two sides: the 'event' side and the 'personal' side. Leigh W.