The results are depressing.
First and foremost, the secular Wikipedia article on Jesus. It reads, "Jesus is the central figure of Christianity..." yada yada.
Second...a Jesus dress-up game.
Third is the C. S. Lewis based argument, "Who is Jesus? Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?"
Fourth, Jesus Christ on Twitter. Go figure.
Fifth is a site about how you can have a personal relationship today with Jesus.
Following these is a motley collection of Catholic sites, Answers.com, a celebrity called Jesus, and even a result about a guy who wrote a secular book about Jesus. "Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment." He also wrote a book on Buddha.
If someone, desperate for something, anything, to push away the black darkness of their soul, searches the name of Jesus on Google, what will they find? Wikipedia. Jesus dress-up. Secular books. And intellectually-based arguments on why you should trust Jesus as your Lord.
Something has to change. The passion of first-century Christianity has been sucked out of modern Christians. The treasure of Jesus has somehow been lost in our materialistic zeal. We have it in our heads, and not our hearts.
Now, there were several sites that looked promising. Like 'Jesus Freaks'. But how many sites is a person searching for Christ going to look at before he quits?
Today I searched Gospel Tracts. Look at what I came up with.
Gospeltract.com:
"Are you a Christian? If so, what are YOU doing to reach the lost? YOU DO understand that the Lord Jesus Christ has given us a Great Commission, right? Are YOU obeying Christ's commands to reach the lost? Jesus said that YOU show YOUR love for Him by obeying Him (John 14:15). Do YOU really believe in an eternal place of torment called Hell? Do YOU really believe that YOUR non-Christian family members, YOUR friends, YOUR co-workers and complete strangers will go there? What are YOU doing about it? If YOU love them, YOU WILL do/say something! One of the easiest ways to start is handing out Gospel Tracts."
Wow, what a great idea. Lots of cheap Gospel tracts on that website. Take a look at some of the following from Google images:
As I look through these, I encounter a problem...What about the rest of Jesus' life? Is it true that, perhaps, Christianity has been reduced to a sin-management Gospel? Jesus is your one way ticket to heaven. Pray a prayer and you're good. Fire insurance.
Now, I'm not trying to put down Gospel tracts. They can do a lot of good. But the truth is, Jesus didn't say, "Go and give Gospel tracts to all nations." He said, "Go and make disciples of all nations." This requires more than just a few words on a scrap of paper.
The problem I have with some Gospel tracts (note the 'some') is the lack of zeal for Christ. The words spoken of our Treasure have become text in a tract. You hand tracts out at an intellectual level and never reach the heart. Sometimes you don't even see the face of someone you may be giving a tract to. Like Millard said (though this was in an entirely different context), "With all these substitutive options you'd think online and textual conversations would be as rich as real ones. Maybe even more so with all these demonstrative expressions! I'm here to say--it's not. Nothing can replace the real life face time with people."
So what will we do, as the Body of Christ? Will we let intellectual pursuit of Christ overwhelm the real passion for the greatest Treasure there is? Will we content ourselves with giving Gospel-tracts that summarize the greatest epic there ever was to sin management?
What Treasure did the disciples and apostles of Jesus Christ have that they were willing to die a martyr's death? What passion drove them to cross the sea to tell of their 'Good News'?
And why would they drop everything they had for this man from Nazereth and follow Him even before He died?
There is something more to this then salvation from hell.
--
Jake
