Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals
Thursday, October 1
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Daniel 12:3-Those who are wise shall shine Like the brightness of the firmament, And those who turn many to righteousness Like the stars forever and ever.
The Prophet Daniel described a time during the church age when God’s people would shine like the brightness of the firmament in turning sinners to the Messiah.
Are we fulfilling this desire of the Lord today?
One of the greatest works that the church needs to focus on is sharing the Word of God with our non-Christian family, friends, and neighbors. It is primarily for the winning of souls that God has left the church in the world until His Son returns.
Matthew 28:19-20-Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
The church of the first century was strongly evangelistic. They shared the Word of God with anyone and everyone, as they had opportunity (Galatians 6:10; Colossians 4:5-6). We can learn much from our brothers and sisters in the New Testament (and especially from the Book of Acts).
One of the most striking features in evangelism in the early days was the people who engaged in it. Communicating the faith was not regarded as the preserve of the very zealous or of the officially designated evangelist. Evangelism was the prerogative and the duty of every church member. We have seen apostles and wandering prophets, nobles and paupers, intellectuals and fishermen all taking part enthusiastically in this the primary task committed by Christ to his Church. The ordinary people of the Church saw it as their job: Christianity was supremely a lay movement, spread by informal missionaries. The clergy of the Church saw it as their responsibility, too: bishops and presbyters, together with doctors of the Church like Origen and Clement, and philosophers like Justin and Tatian, saw the propagation of the gospel as their prime concern. They seem not to have allowed the tasks of teaching, caring and administering to make them too busy to bring individuals and groups from unbelief to faith. The spontaneous outreach of the total Christian community gave immense impetus to the movement from the very outset. What is more, this infectious enthusiasm on the part of such diverse people of differing ages, backgrounds, sex and cultures was backed up by the quality of their lives. Their love, their joy, their changed habits and progressively transformed characters gave great weight to what they had to say. Their community life, though far from perfect, as Christian writers were constantly complaining, was nevertheless sufficiently different and impressive to attract notice, to invite curiosity and to inspire discipleship in an age that was as pleasure-conscious, as materialistic and as devoid of serious purpose as our own. Paganism saw in early Christianity a quality of living, and supremely of dying, which could not be found elsewhere. Unless there is a transformation of contemporary church life so that once again the task of evangelism is something which is seen as incumbent on every baptized Christian, and is backed up by a quality of living which outshines the best that unbelief can muster, we are unlikely to make much headway through techniques of evangelism. (Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church: Lessons from the First Christians for the Church Today, 380-381 (Kindle Edition): Grand Rapids, MI: Williams B. Eerdmans Publishing Company)
May God kindle a fire within each of us to share His Word as widely, and as effectively, as we can.
Help us, Lord. Amen.
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