If Scripture is true in its story of the redemption of human beings in the provision of God through Jesus Christ, and its application to the human experience, it becomes a matter of primary importance that a person determine to follow that challenge for faith. There is no middle ground in that there is offered no middle ground. Christianity demands a verdict. In this, God appears to make clear that his own freedom for decision and action is a part of the image of God given to us. That freedom is illustrated in many ways in the context of mankind, but none as formidable and important as the decision to limit one’s self to the plan of God that changes the biographies of persons who accept the plan of God. That plan is activated for persons, who in penitence, acknowledge their own insufficiency to meet God’s standard for relationship with him. This is joined with an act of faith that the offering of Jesus Christ is accepted as a substitute for penitent persons as the certificate of spiritual birth to God. It is proved to those persons in changes related to beliefs, conduct, conscience, objectives, motivations, and just about everything that touches believing persons in this redemptive experience. The decision of individuals to follow the redemptive plan of God seems both simple and difficult – and it is both. The simplicity is found in faith which may be gained by the most limited person or the most gifted who senses the mercy of God covering even the ignorance and complex contexts of human beings. Difficulty rests in the context of human pride that mankind is somehow self-contained; in the understanding of natural life that gets on without spiritual interference; in the ongoing of general society in a neutral or distorted human context relating to religion; and, in the ignorance that may occur in never having an encounter with the matter of spiritual life in a natural world. This last factor is a major reason for the establishment of the institutional church – so to carry on the Christian mission enterprise to the world. The energetic application of that enterprise made the Apostles famous in history, and caused dramatic and rapid growth of Christian churches in the world. It is also taken as so important that nations make laws that aid or deny the freedom to carry through the mission. The negative treatment seems incomprehensible in that Christianity serves well the humanistic community as it does for those who worship God as revealed in Scripture. History bears out the scenario, when the gospel is made the point of the first meaning of the church in the ongoing of a free ministry to society.
The last words of Jesus, before his ascension, were provided to us by Matthew in his Gospel, in the two verses that close the treatise: Matthew 28:19-20. It is logical to believe that Jesus would provide to his followers in his final words what meant the most to God for them in the natural context of their lives. So it is that missions and evangelism so took the early Christians that within two generations following the ministry of Jesus the movement of the faith had become known in the farthest reaches of what we call the known world. So stern have many governments been in applying pagan thought to their existence that they have executed thousands of men and women witnessing to the plan of God for the good of mankind. Some men and women of that sacred band of martyrs were my classmates and friends. I pause for a moment in my writing taken by the realization that the citizens and governments would deny themselves the benefits of the aid the missionary offers to the people, not only with the hope of immortality, but with practical patterns for improved daily natural life. All this was offered by the church at no cost to the local community to which they were missionaries. In point of fact they contributed to the local economy, offered education, advanced the concepts of peace and love, gave medical aid and improved child care. The story goes on and on. That they would be treated less than heroes for the good of any society is for me, mind-blowing. God’s redeeming plan turns persons to life (hope), not death. It offers service, so to give for the Christian is better than to receive. It offers peace, love, cooperation, equality, and the like. It offers methodology for families, health, welfare and order. It identifies problems and means for solutions. It offers morals and values. It supports personal freedom, and other benefits even in an oppressive society. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020