By T.C. Lo (盧天賜); February 25, 2013
The Irish evangelist Gypsy Smith once said, “There are five Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, and some people will never read the first four.” In other words, Christians most likely are the only Gospel to be “read” by the unbelievers, at least initially. Smith echoed well what Apostle Paul had said to the church of Corinthians:
“You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians. 3:3).
During the Crimean war (1853-1856), the wounded soldiers gazed at Florence Nightingale as she tenderly bound up their wounds and said to her, “I see Christ in you.” I think Nightingale delivered the Letter from Christ very well.
The Church of Christ is the hospital for sinners—the spiritual sick. A balanced church should have a two pronged effort to deliver the life-saving good news to the lost world: Personal evangelism and Mission teamwork. On the personal front, we ought to personally live out the message to individuals, especially to those who are lonely and blue, destitute, and devoid of purposefulness in their lives. On the mission front, we ought to learn to yoke with fellow Christians. This was why Jesus commanded His disciples to go out two-by-two to learn about teamwork as a way to demonstrate to the world that we should and can love one another because Christ loves us first. Good teamwork can accomplish the letter-sending process more effectively.
The Gospels, including the fifth one, are not just giving comfort to people who are living in this mundane and suffering world; the Gospels offer mankind an eternal hope. An evangelist must not only have the urgency to rescue people from the fierce fire of hell but also present the hope that lies ahead to the hopeless. For those who read the letters and receive the message therein will be quenched with the living water flowing from the throne of God through His church set upon the rock and atop the holy mountain of the Most High. The lost paradise is found and the tree of life comes back for the nourishment of the redeemed.
Engaging in this soul-rescue mission (SOS: save-our-soul) letter is a spiritual warfare. The Evil One depicted as ravens would attempt by all means to frustrate God’s redemptive plan. These carnivorous angry ravens are powerful but not all-powerful. Christ encourages us, “fear not, for I have put the dark force in chain,” so even though we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it is nonetheless a mere shadow, and we shall come through safely and cross over from death to life.
