Evangelism Through Facebook

Brothers, please pray earnestly for a friend from high school who recently contacted me through FaceBook. She saw that I had Christian stuff on my FaceBook page and asked me a question about something she heard from a pastor on TV. She wondered what this pastor meant by saying we could become wise by reading Proverbs. Pray that she will read my reply which immediately follows and be converted. Please pray, Brothers! Here was my reply:

So, Proverbs and wisdom, eh? Here’s my best explanation for you. All of the Bible (Proverbs included) is revealing God to us. In the Old Testament (where Proverbs is found in about the middle of it), all of the books are pointing toward the one who would come and reveal God perfectly to us and be able to do what we could not. So for example, Proverbs is what's known as “wisdom literature” which means it is things that are generally true. It has things like "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is grown he will not depart from it" or "Don't judge a situation before you hear both sides." Things like that. The problem is that we screw all of these wise things up. For example, I judge people's motives all the time before hearing all the facts.

What I mean about it pointing to someone is, of course, pointing to Jesus Christ. Jesus lived with perfect wisdom in a way we cannot. In fact, Colossians 2:3 describes Jesus this way, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The gist is that there is the world's wisdom that is apart from Christ, and God's wisdom that is only found through Christ. If you wanted to see the way the Bible says it, you could read 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 on this topic.

You see, I became a Christian in 1997. It was at that time that I heard the true story about who Jesus is and what he did. Of course, I thought I knew it already, but it wasn't until someone showed me in the Bible for myself that I truly came to understand. That truth is this: God has always existed, is always good, and is worthy of our worship. God is so holy, for example, that his law sees wishing you had someone else's things as stealing, lusting as adultery, and saying a hateful word about someone as murder. God created us and we choose to ignore him and live our lives chasing after whatever we think will make us happy, breaking God's laws all the while. Because of our sin, we simply are not capable of pleasing him. One sin, makes us sinners and unholy. As a result, we deserve (and unless something changes can expect) God's judgment and anger for our sin to be poured out on us through eternal punishment and suffering. I KNOW...I KNOW…this is terrible and frightening…but keep reading…

HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS THAT I CAME TO SEE. Jesus, although being himself God and Creator, humiliated himself by putting on skin and being one of us. Can you imagine the God who spoke and the worlds leapt into existence, made himself to be a helpless baby. As I said, he lived a perfect life, never breaking God's law. In other words, he had goodness or righteousness. Even though he didn't deserve punishment of any kind, he permitted himself to be beaten and murdered for other people's sin. Because he is God, the grave could not hold him and he resurrected from the dead. When sinners (like me or you) repent of our sin, turning to him, God forgives us because Jesus’ righteousness is then credited to the sinner while the punishment for his sins (which he would've had to pay for himself) get transferred to Jesus' cross. The Bible says that a person who hears this message, believes it, and trust only in Jesus' righteousness (not anything they did themselves) and his suffering and death for their sins...is born again, becoming a new man (or woman). At that moment, they are a Christian with the blessed hope of a resurrection from the dead themselves to go and live forever with the one who died in their place, who bought them back from sin and death.

It is only after this wisdom (in Christ) is found that Proverbs can be truly useful. Keep in mind that when I say "this wisdom" I don't mean my wisdom. I mean this wise gift from God that He gives us freely at no cost to us but at great cost to his son, Jesus. Without Christ, it is just a book of wise sayings that sinners like you and me will never be able to follow. Hope that helps.

As you can see I love to talk about God and spiritual things. We should get our families together and talk some more. What do you think?

Jeff