Must Get Some of That Berean Spirit

I am abandoned! It is the school half-term holiday and Susan and Kate have gone up north to the holy land of Scotland to see relatives and recharge their accents.

So, anyone want to offer me dinner? I'll practice some jokes specially...

While you think about that, I'll tell you about the day I had. Main events of the day:

1. Helped S & K get out the door this morning.


2. Installed OS 10.4 on both my Macs


3. Did some door-to-door work with David in Belper.


4. Derwent Bible Study (led by Gareth Crossley) and Prayer meeting.

During the d-to-d I had a particularly long conversation with a JW. The funny thing was, I recognised her from a visit she made to me while "doing ministry" with her husband last year in Little Eaton! She claimed not to remember me, though. In all the debates we had over various passages and bits of theology, I realised how rusty I was in dealing with JWs. Note to self: memorise some Bible references for future use!

The sad thing was, this woman used to be a member of the CofE some years ago. Her testimony was that at a time in her life when she was searching for answers to big questions, no-one was able or willing to give her answers. The tragedy is that she never heard the gospel in all her time in the CofE.

It just happened to be the CofE in this case, but it could have been any of many other denominations. Liberals in the churches have a lot to answer for in this kind of situation since they have effectively disarmed the church of their greatest weapon: the sword of truth, the Bible.

Evangelicals like me are not without blame either. We are simply lazy. We have lost the Berean spirit where we are willing to make a priority the diligent searching of the Scriptures. And even if we do, we seem to have no desire to think carefully how to clearly and simply explain it should the need arise. We are too busy sloganeering, or trying to be 'relevent' (IMHO, the best way to become eternally irrelevent), or trying to sound clever and knowledgeable without really knowing much at all. To the people who need to know something of eternal worth, we seem to be all "sound and fury, signifying nothing".

This woman, humanly speaking, is now almost impossible to reach. She has well constructed fortifications behind which she hides. It could have been so different if a Christian could have been able at the appropriate moment simply to open the Bible with her. It's a sobering reminder to me.